Neowin New Theme : Review & Bug Report (August 2014)

[Robot Emas]

NEOWIN NEW THEME : REVIEW (August 2014)

(Open spoiler to see screenshot images)
After using a little while and experimenting here and there, here is my short review and bug report :
 
What i really like:
+ Responsive, no need to build neowin apps. open in mobile is much cleaner, faster, and feels native like an apps
+ Flat Design, following the trend
+ Darkmode and Automode (really liked it!)
+ Big boxed featured post, and i really like the hover animation
+ Top menu bar autohide while scrolling down, and showing again while scrolling up (like a google apps)
+ Open Sans font
+ More post are shown
+ Ability to change theme, no more load
+ Rounded avatar!
+ embedded Gif support in comment section! (best feature)
+ Pop-up author profile!

 
What i think can be improved:
- The font is just feels too big

- The featured-boxed post only show 4 post
- So many things that have been changed and disappear,
- no more forum sub menu hover (like showing spy, mini spy, latest forum post etc (old theme love))

- Not showing a HOT! text in the hot post, just showing red colored comment count. For first timer, HOT! post is eye catching.
- For default theme, feels to many white, and by seeing for far away, doesn't look like a Neowin. the relaxed blue is gone.
- So many button, link, text, feels hidden because of the color and fade animation. Example : i didn't notice a like/quote button showing up when hovering a comment in post, and so many things feel hidden. maybe because of the font is too thin, and the color, and fade animation. no animation feels snappier and i can notice a change instantly. just look  "Want to make Windows 8 feel faster? Shut-off these animations" post, killing off animation feels snappier and faster.
 
BUG REPORT #1:
I don't know if this is a bug or its intended to be like this, but i can't click submenu in News header menu. For example, in the old theme, i'm always click the 'software' button to see all post about software, or 'editorial' button to see editorial only post. But now, its just hovering and show only latest post.

 
BUG REPORT #2:
This is really a bug. when clicking the picture/image in post, its open up a new tab rather than a pop-up gallery. But after i close the tab, previous tab finally showing the popup gallery slideshow.

 

 
BUG REPORT #3:
The post image is pixelated, looks like its the size/resolution doesn't support the new theme yet.

BUG REPORT #4:
In the search result, in the Darskide theme, the font color in header menu (showing news, forum, or comment) is false, unreadable. The page color too in the bottom.

 
BUG REPORT #5:
In about us page, the there is link colored text, and the read color is unreadable/uncomfortable to read.

 

BUG REPORT #6:
Review header image looks gorgeous in white theme, but not in darkside. Maybe you can change it by using some tag code or css, not using an image. Just a newbie opinion.

 
FEATURE REQUEST #1:
- New post notification
- New theme in forum (of course)
 
 
This is just my opinion, feel free to comment and critic! Feel free to add my point, add a bug report, or any opinion would be great!

[Gaara sama]

Nice way better!! but this is very similar to  (techspot) i was wondering if this is techspot. web site.,

[Robot Emas]

Nice way better!! but this is very similar to  (techspot) i was wondering if this is techspot. web site.,

Yeah i think so. Here is my comparison, Neowin compared to other tech site :

 

Winbeta.org

 

WPCentral

 

TechSpot

 

TechCrunch

 

TechnoBuffalo

 

Engadget

[Timan Veteran]

BUG REPORT #1:
Fixed

 
BUG REPORT #2:

This is due to old content

 

 
BUG REPORT #3:

This is due to old content

 

 

BUG REPORT #4:

Fixed - Tab is supposed to have an active state, but can't fix that at the moment.

 
BUG REPORT #5:
Fixed

 

 

BUG REPORT #6:

This is due to old content

[Robot Emas]

BUG REPORT #1:

Fixed

 

BUG REPORT #2:

This is due to old content

 

 

BUG REPORT #3:

This is due to old content

 

 

BUG REPORT #4:

Fixed - Tab is supposed to have an active state, but can't fix that at the moment.

 

BUG REPORT #5:

Fixed

 

 

BUG REPORT #6:

This is due to old content

Woooow thank you, super fast response!

Thank you for the hard work, really like the new theme overall, but could be better :)

This is exciting time for Neowin i think

[Sekyal]

It really shocked me with the change. It would have been better to prep visitors that changes were coming. I don't recall seeing any article mentioning this. I happened to see this thread on the right side, guess you don't really want feedback on it.

Anyway only thing I noticed that bothers me is all the text on the front page of each article is grey. It is impossible to read it against the dark blue background. This is what I got by default after signing in. So the main page just looks like pictures with titles and that's it.

 

 

In the article the text is more readable but still not ideal. It is the blue background that makes the not fully black text easy to see.

 

 

I am using Chrome on Windows 8.1 (desktop version). It looks much better on IE and just as crappy in Firefox.

[Neyht Member]

Yeah, i'm getting that too...

[Timan Veteran]

Those getting the blue background. Two things needed.

 

Is there an ad with Clouds on it.

 

If so, PLEASE get me the source of that ad if possible. 

[kazgor]

Personally i just HATE this new design.. i mean like to thepoint i would now move this to the bottom of my list of sites i would go to on a daily basis. 

 

so BUG REPORT: the whole site is the bug... sorry. guess you can't please everyone

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

FEATURE REQUEST #1:

- New post notification

 

 

 

Yeah this is something that I request as well. If I am in the forums I can see how many notifications i have however, if i am on the news site i cannot see any notifications of any kind. its rather annoying as it used to be there and i relied on it rather heavily.

[ATLien_0]

 

Hard to read fonts with the blue background / grey text. Black box at the bottoms seems odd 

[Eric Veteran]

Those getting the blue background. Two things needed.

 

Is there an ad with Clouds on it.

 

If so, PLEASE get me the source of that ad if possible.

 

 http://ad5.netshelter.net/ad/ns.neowin.net/homepage;ppos=atf;kw=;tile=1;sz=728x90,970x90,970x250;ord=123456789? is the only ad url I see in the page source when the clouds are there.

 

Personally i just HATE this new design.. i mean like to thepoint i would now move this to the bottom of my list of sites i would go to on a daily basis. 

 

so BUG REPORT: the whole site is the bug... sorry. guess you can't please everyone

It would be helpful if you could actually provide some feedback. "Blah" isn't very specific.

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

Looks like you might need to clear your cache its not loading properly for you.

[Eric Veteran]

Screen Shot 2014-08-24 at 6.36.06 PM.png

 

Hard to read fonts with the blue background / grey text. Black box at the bottoms seems odd

The footer is supposed to be black/charcoal AFAIK. This might be related to the bad ad Timan was asking for.

[George P Global Moderator]

Well if you guys want to know about bugs, in my case, the notification links lead to blank pages, whenever I click on "replied" from the top right notification list I don't get taken to the link in question but just to a blank page.   IE11 on Windows 8.1, also, and maybe because I'm just a mod and not staff, I can't post anything into the staff messenger, I hit enter but nothing happens.

[Evelyn Harthbrooke]

No bug reports for me, everything looks fine for me in Chrome 38. I really like the new design, except it would be nice if you applied the same theme to the forum as well, it would make things look unified. Now the forum looks ugly because it doesn't have the same, awesome, flat design that the website has. :)

[Stokkolm]

When clicking on notifications that link to news articles I am sent to a blank white page. Notifications linking to forum posts continue to work as expected.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

No bug reports for me, everything looks fine for me in Chrome 38. I really like the new design, except it would be nice if you applied the same theme to the forum as well, it would make things look unified. Now the forum looks ugly because it doesn't have the same, awesome, flat design that the website has.

it'll come. they said they're gonna work out all the bugs on the front page first then they'll update the forum wrapper

[Hussam Al-tayeb]

https://www.neowin.net/news/age-of-empires-castle-siege-headed-to-windows-phone-81-and-windows-81-for-free

fonts are a bit too big and there is too much 'white'. I understand it is a matter of taste but the old website was easier on the eyes for me in this area.

[Mr. Gibs]

Looks like you can't reply to a comment on the front page with the mobile theme. Nothing shows up for me except for the main reply box

[George P Global Moderator]

When clicking on notifications that link to news articles I am sent to a blank white page. Notifications linking to forum posts continue to work as expected.

 

This is exactly what is happening to me.

[Sszecret Veteran]

 

I'm getting this under the article about @evleaks. Using Chrome 36 on Windows 8.1. 

[Timan Veteran]

 

I'm getting this under the article about @evleaks. Using Chrome 36 on Windows 8.1. 

 

 

Ah thats rather annoying, its due to the sidebar length + ads. Will look into a way around this.

[lt8480]

Clicking a username in the comments of a news story gives "Error received: The profile you were looking for could not be found"

[GreatMarkO]

The new design also appears to have broken a number of site RSS feeds, for example: https://www.neowin.net/news/rss/software/ - shows just a single article from 19th Aug