stunningly eye-appealing!

Thank you two for all the hard work that you put into DU to give us a great discussion board.

Three cheers!

Thank you so much for all your DECADES of hard work on DU. I don't know what the hell I'd have done without it all these years. LOVE & RESPECT to you and all others who run and maintain DU.

1) You get a new DU mail message
2) Someone replies to one of your posts
3) Someone starts a new thread in a forum you're subscribed to, or someone you're subscribed to starts a new thread

In the first instance, the Inbox button will light up. In the second instance, the Posts button will light up, and in the third instance, the Subscriptions button will light up.

now, after you replied. But when I checked the first time, I hadn't seen any buttons lit up.

I did just make the very happy discovery that Advanced Search is now working properly for me again when I'm using my tablet, for the first time since late May:

https://du4.democraticunderground.com/125621857

I hadn't been able to make any changes to the tablet that fixed it, but DU4 fixed whatever interaction with the tablet had caused that problem (search had still worked fine with my laptops).

That blinking drives me nuts, and if I want to know what’s happening in a forum, I’ll visit it. 🫤 In reality, it won’t change my site usage if I unsubscribe, just thought you should know how it affects me.

You can bypass the new version:

“… If you decide you prefer DU the way it was before, you can select "Skinner Mode" for a retro DU3 look…”

and keep the subscriptions off the blinker notification if you like. I also see you can just pick a little text note or solid color change instead of the blink - check it out in your account settings.

I’ll be sure to look for that. Thanks!

Try My Stuff > Account Settings and scroll down to the "My Stuff' notifications section.

There's a dropdown there which allows you to change the style of the My Stuff notification. There are six for now but I imagine we'll have more in future.

Also, there are options beneath that so that you can decide what you want the My Stuff button to light up for. If you don't want it to light up for Subscriptions, you can do that. (Although with the caveat that this functionality is a little buggy at the moment, but we're working on it.)

that might also shut off the non-blinking notification on DU3. Not sure...

For example, the My Stuff notifications or the different modes like Night Mode and Skinner Mode. You're free to experiment with those without affecting anything on DU3.

But settings which *already exist* on DU3 will transfer over. For example, if you're on DU4 and you change your willingness to serve on a Jury, the setting will also change on DU3.

My Stuff is fancy now.

I like how all the smiley options show up at once. Thank you!

DU as of now works fine on a 10.6.8 mac os running firefox 48.0.2 over DSL

this new version 4 - nothing, just a blank screen.

Thats a relief!

This is going to be an outstanding upgrade!

Thank you, to you and Elad, for all the hard work.

This is a good time to thank the unknown DU-er who gifted to me the opportunity this new site to see.

Thank you, one and two and all

i am bad person

I've looked at the same DU pages for years. It is going to be hard to adjust to any changes. The new page is like a whole new site. I've got a vision disability and it'll take me a lot of time to see where everything is. I don't feel like a bad person, just a crabby one :/

On the upside, I guess we are entering a new chapter of politics, where we might see traitors get punished, fined and jailed. Maybe changing DU is like leaving the traitor years behind.

Thanks for making the DU page and keeping it up-to-date.

However have you tried to change to dark mode/night mode? Black background with white lettering. Go to My Stuff then click on Account Settings.

It is easy on the eyes.

Which cuts down on migraines. I lost central vision in one eye after cataract surgery, and I won't willingly have the other eye done. So I can see, but it can be confusing and take me time to see what I'm looking at :/ I spent time on DU4 yesterday, and as I use it more, I'll get used to it.

When I was young, everything lasted forever. Now, things can change in the blink of an eye, so to speak.

TY for the suggestion

Trust me, try the dark mode. I have been using it on other sites, it really is an eye saver.

Won't tonight, but I'll try it soon thanks!

I suspected some people would prefer the old site. If it helps, I created an entirely separate "skin" for DU4 that makes it look as close to the old site as possible. You can get to it like this:

1) Click the My Stuff button in the top right corner, then click Account Settings.
2) Scroll down to the Visual appearance section.
3) Select Skinner Mode and then click one of the Save all settings buttons.

You'll get DU4 but hopefully with a more comfortable appearance.

It looked OK until I went to reply to this thread...and I got a garbage page of the names of possible clickable links...not this reply box. When I refreshed that page, I did get to the reply box. I hope this does not continue once there is a complete change over.

I do like that audio threads can be found in one place. I usually do not like them because I am hearing impaired and even with CC, audio links are a PITA. So, for me, this is much appreciated.

I like the navigation box because everything was in one place.

Thank you for all the hard work.

Also, my avatar does not show and when I sent to post above your post, I got another garbage page. My photos on the signature line were full sized and so was my avatar. Again, I had to refresh to get back to anything that looked reasonable.

The "garbage page" you're describing sounds like the stylesheet (which controls the page layout) is failing to load when the main page loads, although the fact that a refresh fixes it means that the problem is hopefully temporary. I'm not experiencing it myself but will keep an eye out for it.

Meanwhile, if you prefer the original look of DU, try this:

1) Go to My Stuff > Account Settings
2) Scroll down to the "Visual appearance" section
3) Select "Skinner Mode" and hit the "Save all settings" button.

That will give you a version of DU4 that looks very similar to DU3

and how many choose the new look.

Is the Skinner Mode and Earl G Mode going to be seamlessly compatible?

What you're seeing is the exact same underlying code, but with a different "skin" on top. The site and all its functions are identical no matter which layout you choose, it's just the layout that looks different. You can switch between them at will.

This is something we could not have done with DU3 -- or at least it would have been extremely difficult -- because it used some very old fashioned methods to lay out its pages.

Try this:

1) Go to My Stuff > Account Settings
2) Scroll down to the "Visual appearance" section
3) Select "Skinner Mode" and hit the "Save all settings" button.

If the pages in the new mode keep appearing in odd forms, I will use the "Skinner mode."

to My Stuff>Account Settings>Visual Appearance to click that, then click the Save All Settings button below.

Having avatars show up on phones in Default and Night Mode is a new thing. Avatars don't show up on phones on DU3, so I designed DU4's Skinner Mode the same way to keep it as close as possible to the original.

If you're not on a phone though, that sounds like it might be a bug.

problem with Advanced Search that I started having with this tablet in late May and could never fix with DU3.

Avatars should show up on tablets using Skinner Mode. Is it all avatars or just some of them?

Holding a tablet vertically gives you the mobile version of the site. (If I tried to fit the desktop version on a vertical tablet, I think the text would be uncomfortably small.)

On the mobile version of Skinner Mode, avatars are not included (as they are not included on DU3 mobile version). So that might be why you're not seeing them.

If you normally hold your tablet vertically, you can see what I mean by turning it horizontally -- do the avatars pop in?

mode and made sure I was holding the tablet horizontally when I clicked on Skinner Mode, in case that would make a difference, but it didn't.

Maybe you could post an OP asking others using tablets if they can see avatars when using Skinner Mode?

Or did you test it yourself with a tablet?

On my iPad the avatars are appearing correctly.

Can you tell me exactly what kind of tablet you're using?

the avatars are missing using Skinner Mode.

I can't see any reason why the avatars aren't showing up. I do know that the Fire browser has some of its own particular quirks which can occasionally cause things to render differently than they do on other browsers, but I'm afraid I've not yet been able to track down what's going on here...

the other modes. It'd odd that the signatures show up, though, and the avatars don't when I use Skinner Mode.

vanish after a split-second delay when it's vertical.

It might take me a bit to get used to it, but it feels reaaaallllly good so far!!!

Hadn't noticed that in the screenshots you posted earlier.

EDITING to add that I just checked and found out that disappears with Skinner Mode.

easier? If so, how much faster would it have taken? Asking because I know nothing about coding so trying to judge the impact of AI for coders.

caught and corrected.

DU4's front end code is very personal -- I don't use any pre-written frameworks, I just write the code directly into a blank text document. So, I kinda know where everything is and how it all works, and what to adjust to get certain results. AI wouldn't really have helped with that.

I could see how it could maybe save some time if I was working on Javascript, which I'm not as familiar with -- but when I did create some Javascript for DU I actually rather enjoyed the challenge of trying to figure it out for myself. On the other hand, since I run the site I don't have a boss breathing down my neck telling me to hurry up...

AI assistance could speed things along I suppose. On the other hand, it might produce results that I didn't want, and then I'd have to spend time troubleshooting it. I guess I don't know, is the answer

dedication to create and administer a site like this.

Looking forward to playing with it.
Thanks EarlG and Elad.

I clicked on that link and nothing happened. Yes, I did participate in the Summer Fund Drive.

I haven't checked the P.O. Box yet but I'm on my way to do so shortly. I'll get back to you.

It’s certainly easier to read than the current version which I always have to enlarge. 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼 on readability!

Love the My Notes addition, that’s much more helpful to me than bookmarking. 🙌🏼

Also love I can sort political and nonpolitical posts on the GP, along with other sorting options! Sometimes I’m only in the mood for animal videos, other times they annoy me among the political news I’m primarily here for. So again, 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼!

What absolutely doesn’t work for me is having to go to a separate navigation page each time I just want to go back to the prior page, mostly the GP which is page I consult the most. Even if I’ve just rec’d the OP, I get a pop up that asks me if I want to resubmit; if I hit cancel it brought me back to the homepage, so I had to go to the Nav button and retrace my steps. Instead of a navigation buttons, could you do drop-down menus? That way I can get where I’m going faster. (Not that I need to tell you two, but it’s well-established that excess navigation can drive users away.)

it's because you just submitted some form data to the database on the previous page.

So for example, if you changed the sort options on the Greatest page, then clicked through to a thread, then tried to back up, you'll get the resubmit notice. But it should not do that under normal circumstances -- if you go directly to the Greatest page via the Navigate link, then click a thread, then back up, you should not get the resubmit notice.

It's possible that it's happening to you a lot at the moment because you're experimenting with the sort options. Under normal circumstances, you should find that you don't run into the resubmit notice very often.

I supposed the server is overloaded with people trying it out.

I got a little sample of this last year when I was on the MIRT team. We only got to use it for a week but I really liked it.
It's even better now!

Thanks so much EarlG and Elad. You guys are the BEST!

Not a fan of change for change sake, will take some getting used to, but it appears to have everything there. The layout seems to provide a somewhat better ability to find stuff, maybe.

The large "recs" number wastes space, I don't think I've ever cared about that number, nor ever will, if you want to show it to stroke authors' egos or to be transparent about why something is there, then make it small and immediately after the authors name. It's not really important enough to consume that much prime real estate. Also, too much space between articles in the "Trending" and "Greatest" threads, I'd prefer more than 5 articles and less empty space. My biggest personal complaint about DU is how rapidly things disappear on the "Trending" and "Greatest" threads, especially "trending", which just seems like a device for modern short attention spans, haha (I tend to ignore "trending" stuff on all social media for that reason, just because a lot of people are looking at something *right now* doesn't make it important or useful ... it might be ... but usually not so much). Anyway, I'd make both of those 8-10 items long, and somehow try to make those a little less dynamic, especially the "greatest" thread. Maybe hold the greatest for 12-24 hours or something. I've been called away from the site, only to lose something I was interested in, many times. Also, making a column for stuff of personal interest, such as the excellent rescued cats threads, rather than intermixing them in the "Trending" with things like coups and hurricanes, would be nice. Get rid of the recs number and use that space to add in something like that, and I'd be a happier camper.

I can definitely understand the complaints about white space, in the Light Mode it's just way too much. I like the option for Dark Mode and have turned it on. I would frankly have preferred dark mode as the default, not white, it's just too blinding, and bad for the eyes. But glad to have have that setting.

Also, the font selection, while more "modern", the lines on the letters themselves are narrower and the font size overall quite a bit smaller, so it's harder to read, especially in light mode. Doesn't really scale well when I adjust the scale on my keyboard, it feels like it readjusts the font sizes within the articles to fit a certain size, rather than allow them to size up, so the headlines grow and the pictures grow, but still keeps the fonts too small for my eyes, and the change from four columns to three when scaling up is both jarring and hard to follow, without the benefit of being able to read the articles better. And the amount of white space as one scales gets really bad.

My guess is, young readers will like it more, because their eyes can tolerate it. Older readers (which are probably most of us) are going to have a harder time with it. Again, I'd default to dark mode, and let those who like their pupils shrunken to a pinprick make the change, lol.

The Feed page is interesting, not sure how much I would personally use it, but only time will tell on that.

Left Column and Latest Breaking News are not vertically aligned, and that disturbs my COPD, haha. The Forums section in the middle needs an equivalent header name, like "Left Column" and "Latest Breaking News", to state what the column is being used for.

So, in summary, overall, layout changes are pretty good, but not really necessary. The "Trending now" and "Greatest Threads" are visually, steps in the wrong direction, even if the location is better. The visuals are definitely not an improvement in light mode. The font and font size selection allows more stuff on the screen, but the narrowness of the fonts, coupled with all the whitespace, makes reading the page quite a bit harder. Dark mode helps a lot, but fonts are still too small and way too much dead space in the top half of the screen.

Thanks for woking on it and for giving a wide audience the opportunity to chime in. I know this is difficult work, and impossible to make everyone happy. I do have to say, I don't get why people feel such a need to change things that basically work quite well already.

any other page. Navigate. Help & Search. Announcements.

That old sidebar menu was really convenient for navigating DU, and even Skinner Mode in DU4 doesn't have it.

Try subscribing to Announcements and you’ll see it there.

like to be able to reach with just one click.

Especially a blinking notification. Can the blinking be changed to just having the My Stuff button change color?

Actually, a different color for different types of notifications - Inbox, Posts, Subscriptions - would be nice. I've liked the separate notifications for those visible on every page of DU3. The cross-page banner for email is impossible to miss.

was no reason for it. Didn't see any buttons there lit up when I clicked. Just as when I first checked DU4 hours ago.

...the enhanced reply KEYBOARD is frikkin awesome!

see. Is there a setting for this? The font is now much smaller for GD topics for example. I have older eyes

It's lovely! Thank you so much!


sage

I’m one of the early whiners for this, as it’s helpful for evening viewing before bed 😌

Thank you EarlG and Elad!

Thanks for including Star members in the sneak peek!

if fact, its so clean that I have a completely white screen...like a blank whiteboard.

This is using Chrome, Firefox, Edge (I shutter!), and Opera....All have that amazingly clean look.

Sorry to tease, I know its beta and there are issues always with beta releases....but I was expecting just a little bit more.

I feel fancy!

Love the new features and the typography......

I think this looks pretty damn good.

well done!!!!!

IMPLEMENT NOW!!!

That said....

Thi interface is rather good. I like the contextual interface components. well designed,, keep up the great work!!!

I've checked it out with my Iphone and Windows laptop, both look very nice at first glance.

Thanks for the great work you guys do.

Looks very streamlined and professional!!!

uninterrupted white space, that using it for a while, testing earlier today, caused eyestrain and the beginning of a headache.

I almost never use Dark Mode online, had never needed it with DU3.

I can’t find anything about them under profile?

This was a design decision...

Signature lines are not displayed on the mobile version of the site (they would take up too much space) -- it's always been this way on DU3 and will continue on DU4. When I was working on the Profile page I realized that if you can't see any sig lines while you're on your phone, there's not really any need to let you set or change a sig line when you're on your phone either.

You can still change your sig line on a tablet or desktop device, and sig lines show up on those devices.

is great. Plus I'm looking at these new symbols. I'm thinking about this little m. What, I wonder, does it do?

Let's try it...

…that shows 5 each of the Latest and Greatest?

Apologies if this has been addressed elsewhere already.

just clicking the site logo at the top of the page. It's a little different than the DU3 home page but it has the Trending and Greatest sections you're looking for.

I like and appreciate many of the new features that have been added - e.g. subscribe to user, rec replies, customize alert.

Sadly, I must say I am finding the reading experience on my laptop to be cumbersome in that there is so much extra vertical space consumed by the following, that I am scrolling like crazy to read as rapidly/efficiently as I am accustomed to, since very little info is viewable on a page at once. these items are:

• super large post title and username fonts when you open an OP,


• excessive vertical line and paragraph spacing in OP text


• Site header and breadcrumb trail font quite (unnecessarily, IMO) large and does not scroll away (understandable)


• much larger vertical space being taken by each post reply's header (nearly double DU3 size) , footer (more than double DU3 size), and excessive spacing between text lines of the replies and posts.

seems to be my preference at this time. Seems like I still get all the great new functionality features, and retain the similar DU3 reading experience that takes a lot less scrolling.
I will say, that I do miss the page number navigation that DU3 has at both top and bottom of latest discussions, now it is only at the bottom.
I appreciate (in Skinner mode) the little blue arrows on left of certain posts - helps me realized those are ones floated up the list due to having milestone numbers of replies (not sure how that is indicated in default mode).

Always on

Have to keep ZOOM at 150%.

What sort of device are you using? Are you on a tablet or laptop, or desktop with a larger monitor?

I've seen a few people mention that they think the font is too small. I just took a screenshot of your post on DU4 and then another of the same post on DU3 and put them next to each other. I use a standard 1920x1080 size desktop monitor. Here's what I'm seeing -- DU4 is on the left, DU3 is on the right:



As you can see, the DU4 font is actually a little larger than the old DU3 font...

If you're using a smaller device let me know and I'll do another comparison.

I'm viewing it on an ACER laptop at the recommended display resolution of 1920 x 1080.

Thanks for looking into this.

I'm viewing it on an ACER laptop at the recommended display resolution of 1920 x 1080.

Thanks for looking into this.

Does DU4 eliminate the current Home Page that shows the daily number of members?

If so, what happens to the current Left Column?

Thanks
GP

The new home page has pretty much all the same stuff on it that the old one did, although some of it has been moved around a little.

I decided the total registration count wasn't so important these days... I dunno, back in the old, old pre-blog, pre-social media days, when the Internet was a much smaller place, we thought that showing off that count was pretty cool. But while DU certainly isn't a small site by any means, these days the really big sites have hundreds of millions of members, so it doesn't feel like much of a brag. What's important is that DU is a great community full of great people who enjoy hanging out together. Quality over quantity, right

I still think 89 million posts (and counting) is pretty cool though

Found the Home Page...thanks!

I'll personally miss the daily registration count...just something I've gotten used to over the years.

Thanks Again!!

GP

Last edited Sat Aug 26, 2023, 07:29 AM - Edit history (1)

DU4 is literally too all over the screen for me. Thanks for not automatically kicking it the curb simply because you could.


Rocknation

yes!

Thanks, admins!

Awesome............I love the look and feel!

Your hard and amazing work is very much appreciated

Good work!

EarlG, you have been a saint in this thread with your replies. Gold ⭐️

Two mentions so far for me.

Missing the options at bottom of page to go
Home
Greatest
Latest
Forums
Subscriptions
Posts

Was available on all pages and handy! Especially handy from a thread. Maybe not so much on front page because I usually didn’t scroll to the bottom there.

Also. Regarding rec’s
We’re able to poke the little window above # of recs and see some stats. Am I missing that somehow?

Thanks again
🥂

Don’t think it’s a bug so didn’t report there

Old mode clipped links automatically I think
Just saw a link I posted earlier show like this on du4

9. NPR reported 1000 as of March this yr
12:39 PM
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/25/1165022885/1000-defendants-january-6-capitol-riot#:~:text=Nick%20McMillan-,1%2C000%20people%20have%20been%20charged%20for%20the%20Capitol,Here's%20where%20their%20cases%20stand&text=Department%20of%20Justice-,A%20selection%20of%20the%201000%20people%20who%20have%20been%20charged,the%20U.S.%20Capitol%20in%202021.



Looks like this in du3

9. NPR reported 1000 as of March this yr
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/…


Much cleaner and takes less space in the text box…

I figured the nav links at the bottom of the page were no longer necessary on DU4 because the new page header, which includes the navigation menus, is pinned to the top of the page at all times, so you can simply click that and get to where you want to go.

HOWEVER... I think there's an oversight on my part here, because if you're using Skinner Mode the nav bar *isn't* pinned to the top of the page. I'll have a think about this and see what I can do.

As for the long links, this was a deliberate choice. On the mobile version of DU3 links are shortened, which works well when someone just posts a link as you did above. The reason we did this is because back when DU3 was created 12 or so years ago, I don't think there was an easy way to break a long link across multiple lines. This resulted in a situation where very long links would force themselves out of the right side of the page. This was obviously a particular problem on mobile. So we used a trick to shorten the links instead.

However, if someone makes a bunch of text in the middle of their post into a hyperlink, the shortener would still kick in. So on DU3 mobile, you'd get this:

The new format seems very workable. I have two requests/suggestions...
1. Place a click box at the top of the page that sends you to the bottom of the page...
..... (I see the one at the bottom to go to the top.)
2. Some Images from other sites come up to be huge on the display. Could there be an option to selectively resize the image to 400, 500, 600, 800 pixels wide? (or no resizing)

Pretty but it requires too much scrolling to get through due to excess space.

Loss of energy by text being too small and spaced too much.

I wouldn't do this layout because it's too much like other sites and lacks the energy of old DU.

I think between this and the old style layout would be preferable. Especially the text.

You don't want to make it look so cleaned up. It's less fun that way!

and that is that group videos not be lumped in with "latest videos."

Political and news videos are getting very lost among other videos, especially those for "music appreciation," a forum I love to visit and have occasionally posted in but which does cause the political stuff to disappear as things are now.

Thanks.

The filter can be set to show:
Category - Main Forums and/or
Relevance - Political

Be sure to hit GO.

First, on my phone the "DU" is not centered, but starts at the screen center.
Next, quite often, the style sheet doesn't arrive, and the unadorned html is ugly. A refresh fixes it.
Overall, this looks clean. I'm liking it.