[Feedback needed] Atlas, the next version of Neowin

By Steven P.
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Grand Master

+Frank B. Subscriber²

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No! It's somewhat tiring to be called "wasteful" simply because we prefer to focus on a maximised browser on a big screen.

I like the current "choice" system that was put in place after a ton of users complained last time, I don't think it should be removed. :(

I respectfully disagree. Learn to work in a windowed environment. Maximising your web browser on a widescreen monitor when most websites are optimised for a width of 1024 pixels = wasting screen estate.

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Grand Master

The_Decryptor Veteran

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I want to use my screen fully, I don't want to make windows small just because the window manager supports it.

If I'm actually multi-tasking between apps then I'll have them as small windows, but otherwise they're going to be maximised.

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Grand Master

DaveLegg Developer

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No! It's somewhat tiring to be called "wasteful" simply because we prefer to focus on a maximised browser on a big screen.

I like the current "choice" system that was put in place after a ton of users complained last time, I don't think it should be removed. :(

The simple fact of the matter is, the front page will be fixed width, the forums will be fluid. There's no way for the server to know the width of your browser window and load enough content into the page to fill that additional width. This doesn't make such a difference on the forum where you're seeing an entire post, but with the way we display summaries on the front page, if we allow the page to get wider, we end up with a lot of whitespace that looks ugly, whereas we want to present a consistent look to all our users.

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Grand Master

DrCheese

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I respectfully disagree. Learn to work in a windowed environment. Maximising your web browser on a widescreen monitor when most websites are optimised for a width of 1024 pixels = wasting screen estate.

Why? I don't see the need to focus on 50 different windows at once or be able to see my lovely desktop picture and I don't see how maximising a window to get the most information on screen from that website without scrolling is "wasting screen estate"

It seems silly given that monitors are getting wider nowadays to have websites get slimmer.

In response to Davelegg, I understand the reasoning behind it but you got a shed load of bad feedback about it last time and it was changed, so it seems silly to try to force it through again.

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Grand Master

+Frank B. Subscriber²

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Why? I don't see the need to focus on 50 different windows at once or be able to see my lovely desktop picture and I don't see how maximising a window to get the most information on screen from that website without scrolling is "wasting screen estate"

It seems silly given that monitors are getting wider nowadays to have websites get slimmer.

In response to Davelegg, I understand the reasoning behind it but you got a shed load of bad feedback about it last time and it was changed, so it seems silly to try to force it through again.

I guess it's a question of how you use your computer. I prefer to be able to see stuff like IRC, IM buddy list, (on Windows) some gadgets at all times. Also I use the desktop as clipboard replacement - if I want to keep a picture ro om a website or a scrap of text I drag it from the browser window to the desktop first and put it where it belongs later on.

Question to the developers: Are the forums also going to use Ignition as backend or are they going to remain on IPB (upgraded to version 3) with an Atlas-like skin?

Edited by Mephistopheles
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Grand Master

mad_onion

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It's not launching yet! Just a screenshot to get feedback

oh sorry neobond's post confused me lol

Now released to our paying Subscribers, interested to hear your feedback guys!

And YES NoAd Tier 2 subscribers won't have any ads on the main page! before you ask ;)

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Grand Master

Andrew Lyle Global Moderator

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oh sorry neobond's post confused me lol

Before he only released the preview to the MVC's and the Staff. He just means he is now releasing the preview to the subscribers ;)

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Grand Master

Rob Veteran

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Question to the developers: Are the forums also going to use Ignition as backend or are they going to remain on IPB (upgraded to version 3) with an Atlas-like skin?

It'll be an Atlas skin on top of IPB3 for the time being. There's discussions about perhaps writing our own forum at some point but it's not a priority just now.

The good thing about Ignition is that its inherent support for extensibility cuts down on development effort significantly for changes to the front page, or writing plugins to support the forum etc. The current codebase of Neowin's news system is a product of its long history - bits bolted on here and there. Ignition's written from the ground up, quite literally. Exciting stuff :)

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Grand Master

Smigit

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Suggestions and comments.

post-145229-1252853454_thumb.png

I agree with almost everything here besides the "bad colors" which didn't bother me. Some of the icons are a bit ambiguous or potentially superfluousness near the top but their use may become more apparent once we can use it.

I don't like how the tags are handled here an awful lot given you just have to look at the facebook one to see how easy it is for them to start forcing the accompanying text off to the side. Also I presume you would want to be able to give a topic multiple tabs, thus making that area cluttered fast. To be honest do you even need the tags on the front page? It should be obvious by reading the title what the article is about and given you aren't showing much of any article 75% of the time you have to expand it to see the rest so if the user is interested they will follow the link and can thus click on the tags in the article page itself.

Edited by Smigit
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Grand Master

Berserk87

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i have to say if i had my choise of the current page and the 'mock up' i would go with the current page =\

my biggest issue with the 'mock up' is the baby blue color instead of the dark blue.

also right now there is a google ad integrated into the header, which i think looks better than putting it between the header and the articles.

on a side note, i with the page had a dynamic width or similar, i have a 22" monitor so the page is no where close to filling the screen.

it looks nice not filling the screen, but it should take up a bit more.

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Grand Master

Calum Veteran

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I agree with almost everything here besides the "bad colors" which didn't bother me.

I don't know why so many people seem to dislike the lighter blue colour :/ I think it helps give the site a more professional look and feel. Maybe it's one of those 'you have to try it to see for yourself' things, I don't know, but I really do like it.

I don't like how the tags are handled here an awful lot given you just have to look at the facebook one to see how easy it is for them to start forcing the accompanying text off to the side. Also I presume you would want to be able to give a topic multiple tabs, thus making that area cluttered fast. To be honest do you even need the tags on the front page? It should be obvious by reading the title what the article is about and given you aren't showing much of any article 75% of the time you have to expand it to see the rest so if the user is interested they will follow the link and can thus click on the tags in the article page itself.

You are a tad mistaken, understandably, when you say "I presume you would want to be able to give a topic multiple tags, thus making that area cluttered fast," but to prevent confusion or misinformation, it'd be best if we wait for a developer to explain what is happening with that. I really love their idea for this and the way they have thought it through means the user will be able to realise what company, product etc the news is about without reading any of the article or title. As I say though, it's best if a developer explains what's going down with that. As for the Facebook tag, I'm more than confident it should not be that long - it was most likely a mistake made by the person who input the tags for the article (forgetting to seperate them with commas).

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Grand Master

NienorGT

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Awesome, iWant!

Now released to our paying Subscribers, interested to hear your feedback guys!

And YES NoAd Tier 2 subscribers won't have any ads on the main page! before you ask ;)

What? Where? Edited by NienorGT
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Grand Master

Smigit

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You are a tad mistaken, understandably, when you say "I presume you would want to be able to give a topic multiple tags, thus making that area cluttered fast,"

Yeah wait and see, but surely if they are going to have an implementation of tags it makes sense to support multiple tags per an article. Look at any news site and usually multiple tags apply per an article. If you ignore that over sized facebook one and instead concentrate on something like "PS3". What if the article was one for a PS conference? In all likelyhood you would have PS3, PSP and PSN (Playstation Network) news all in the one article (maybe even "E3" or whatever for the conference itself). Yes you could label it "Sony" but you begin getting quite generic there and will be pulling up MP3 players and TV's if you search on it. Hell "Gaming" would probably be a more applicable tag than "Sony" in that case. Ultimatly a single tab, as the image depicts, seems a tad useless to me.

Now I'm only guessing (and they could be regarded as baseless guesses, don't get me wrong) and all there so maybe I'm way off and maybe thats not a tag in the same sense that I am used to them being used. We'll see I guess. I'd certainly like to know whats happening in that area but.

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Grand Master

Steven P. Administrators

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I think Dave would need to explain how the tag system will work, because in all honesty I don't quite understand it yet. AFAIK posters still need to manually add keywords to a news post, but I may be wrong here.

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Grand Master

Calum Veteran

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Yeah wait and see, but surely if they are going to have an implementation of tags it makes sense to support multiple tags per an article. Look at any news site and usually multiple tags apply per an article. If you ignore that over sized facebook one and instead concentrate on something like "PS3". What if the article was one for a PS conference? In all likelyhood you would have PS3, PSP and PSN (Playstation Network) news all in the one article (maybe even "E3" or whatever for the conference itself). Yes you could label it "Sony" but you begin getting quite generic there and will be pulling up MP3 players and TV's if you search on it. Hell "Gaming" would probably be a more applicable tag than "Sony" in that case. Ultimatly a single tab, as the image depicts, seems a tad useless to me.

Now I'm only guessing (and they could be regarded as baseless guesses, don't get me wrong) and all there so maybe I'm way off and maybe thats not a tag in the same sense that I am used to them being used. We'll see I guess. I'd certainly like to know whats happening in that area but.

I never said there was only going to be one tag per article :D I did say it's best to wait for a developer to explain the tagging system ;)

My post wasn't an attempt at an explanation of the system, it was merely just to let you know it's not going to be as bad as you think :happy: I really like the new system, but once a developer has explained everything about it, I'm sure anyone would welcome constructive criticism/suggestions :)

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Grand Master

Corris Veteran

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Essentially the tags are like they are now, but a article will have one main tag as you can see, Say "Apple", "Microsoft" or "Sony" which will be shown, but each article will still be tagged with a good few more.

So say "Sony", "Playstation", "PS3" etc etc. and from my knowledge its highly customizable on your end for viewing and mixing tags too.

No doubt I've over simplified it and DaveLegg will come in and tell me off for not being correct or telling you about the awesome planet destroying power behind the new system. :p

But it is very cool.

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Grand Master

Smigit

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My post wasn't an attempt at an explanation of the system, it was merely just to let you know it's not going to be as bad as you think :happy: I really like the new system, but once a developer has explained everything about it, I'm sure anyone would welcome constructive criticism/suggestions :)

Heh no worries

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Grand Master

DaveLegg Developer

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I don't like how the tags are handled here an awful lot given you just have to look at the facebook one to see how easy it is for them to start forcing the accompanying text off to the side. Also I presume you would want to be able to give a topic multiple tabs, thus making that area cluttered fast. To be honest do you even need the tags on the front page? It should be obvious by reading the title what the article is about and given you aren't showing much of any article 75% of the time you have to expand it to see the rest so if the user is interested they will follow the link and can thus click on the tags in the article page itself.

Each article will be given multiple tags, separated by commas, but only the first one entered will show on the front pager. The others will be displayed below the story on the page where you view the full article. If you look earlier in the thread, you'll find a post where I explained about how you can customise the news you see on the front page by choosing a list of tags of the news you wish to view. You can also get an RSS feed for this custom view.

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