[Feedback needed] Atlas, the next version of Neowin


Recommended Posts

That is some crazy good design. I really like it a lot. Needs some dash of colors here and there, but overall really good. I think Neowin is one of the best designed sites out there. And the best thing you guys always try to improve yourself despite having a killer design.

I like it a lot :). The ad placement is a lot better than the current site layout IMO.

Yeah, I originally said I disliked the ad. placement, but I have since changed my mind; after having used it for a bit and got used to it, I seem to automatically skim over the advert.

Going to address this now, than later.

Safari, Chrome, Firefox (3+) will get nice rounded corners and drop shadows.

IE, Opera (crap) will get a squared looking site (which still looks nice, but a bit more "lite" like).

post-1912-1253302455_thumb.png

Yeah, I originally said I disliked the ad. placement, but I have since changed my mind; after having used it for a bit and got used to it, I seem to automatically skim over the advert.

but aren't the ads hidden for mods like they are for subscribers^2?

Going to address this now, than later.

Safari, Chrome, Firefox (3+) will get nice rounded corners and drop shadows.

IE, Opera (crap) will get a squared looking site (which still looks nice, but a bit more "lite" like).

I noticed that too.

Going to address this now, than later.

Safari, Chrome, Firefox (3+) will get nice rounded corners and drop shadows.

IE, Opera (crap) will get a squared looking site (which still looks nice, but a bit more "lite" like).

The squared version looks utter crap :/

True you are but even a 24" screen is merely 300 euros nowadays and even on that it must be extremely small - I prefer to have the wide version, that's a matter of opinion of course. Naturally a fluid dynamic webpage would be even better - that way everyone would win, too bad it's so hard to implement.

I'd agree, I prefer content that stretches to fit

Going to address this now, than later.

Safari, Chrome, Firefox (3+) will get nice rounded corners and drop shadows.

IE, Opera (crap) will get a squared looking site (which still looks nice, but a bit more "lite" like).

So you are deliberately designing a more crappy version for opera users? what the hell :/

It's not on purpose. We are using the border-radius CSS property, rather than having a bunch of images sent to you. It cuts down on the amount of HTML sent, too.

Opera is set to include border-radius in Opera 10.1, if I remember correctly. Hopefully Internet Explorer 9 will include some early CSS support, too, so IE users get a cleaner style too.

We did not make the decision quickly, and we didn't want to cut some members out. So we designed around it. The site looks a bit squared in Internet Explorer and Opera, yes. But it doesn't look that bad. And the bandwidth and load savings for you and for us make it worth it.

We're trying to move web standards forward that should have been in place long ago. I know someone will come in and say "CSS3 isn't finalized yet" - and we know it isn't. But it's been too long, and the benefits to using border-radius and drop-shadow are too great for the majority of our users to not use them.

I hope that clears it up a bit. We're not picking on certain groups of people; if we were, we'd put ads for Firefox, Chrome and Safari all over the site. Instead, we degraded the experience gracefully. It does not impact the usability of the site in any way.

One note about our use of border radius and drop shadows: by using them, Neowin downloads more than twice as fast as before. During heavy load, this will be a huge advantage for everyone, but even under regular load, you won't be waiting for images and extra HTML to be downloaded.

One note about our use of border radius and drop shadows: by using them, Neowin downloads more than twice as fast as before. During heavy load, this will be a huge advantage for everyone, but even under regular load, you won't be waiting for images and extra HTML to be downloaded.

Combine that with a FAR more efficient back end too (recoded from the ground up), pages render faster on the server, are delivered to you faster, and will display in your browser faster :)

It's not on purpose. We are using the border-radius CSS property, rather than having a bunch of images sent to you. It cuts down on the amount of HTML sent, too.

The HTML difference will be tiny per page, you'd save more space by removing all the whitespace in the HTML! As for images, shouldn't they be cached?

Opera is set to include border-radius in Opera 10.1, if I remember correctly. Hopefully Internet Explorer 9 will include some early CSS support, too, so IE users get a cleaner style too.

Opera 10.1 is basically Opera 10 with Unite included. The border-radius won't be added until Presto 2.3 which won't be very soon. As for IE9 when will that get released?

We did not make the decision quickly, and we didn't want to cut some members out. So we designed around it. The site looks a bit squared in Internet Explorer and Opera, yes. But it doesn't look that bad. And the bandwidth and load savings for you and for us make it worth it.

How did you design around it? You did nothing! It also looks very squared (not a "bit") and the tiny amount of data saved hardly makes up for the crappy look of it.

The HTML difference will be tiny per page, you'd save more space by removing all the whitespace in the HTML! As for images, shouldn't they be cached?

Opera 10.1 is basically Opera 10 with Unite included. The border-radius won't be added until Presto 2.3 which won't be very soon. As for IE9 when will that get released?

How did you design around it? You did nothing! It also looks very squared (not a "bit") and the tiny amount of data saved hardly makes up for the crappy look of it.

To be honest, we had it square on our dev sites for a very long time, and it looked fine. Once you see it and use it live, you'll see it really doesn't look worse.

It's not on purpose. We are using the border-radius CSS property, rather than having a bunch of images sent to you. It cuts down on the amount of HTML sent, too.

Opera is set to include border-radius in Opera 10.1, if I remember correctly. Hopefully Internet Explorer 9 will include some early CSS support, too, so IE users get a cleaner style too.

We did not make the decision quickly, and we didn't want to cut some members out. So we designed around it. The site looks a bit squared in Internet Explorer and Opera, yes. But it doesn't look that bad. And the bandwidth and load savings for you and for us make it worth it.

We're trying to move web standards forward that should have been in place long ago. I know someone will come in and say "CSS3 isn't finalized yet" - and we know it isn't. But it's been too long, and the benefits to using border-radius and drop-shadow are too great for the majority of our users to not use them.

I hope that clears it up a bit. We're not picking on certain groups of people; if we were, we'd put ads for Firefox, Chrome and Safari all over the site. Instead, we degraded the experience gracefully. It does not impact the usability of the site in any way.

I completely disagree that different browsers get a different version of the site.

Every browser should get the same experience.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Less powerful than a PS5 at twice the price! I wonder if they use that for marketing? Totally DoA.
    • Astra 0.6.1 Beta by Razvan Serea Astra is an audiophile music player designed for local music libraries, supporting MP3, FLAC, WAV, AAC, OGG, M4A, OPUS, WMA, AIFF, and more via FFmpeg. It offers gapless playback with pre-buffering, multichannel audio remapping, and Dolby Atmos decoding, ensuring albums play seamlessly while maintaining high-fidelity sound. Astra features real-time DSP visualizers powered by a native C++ engine, including an oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, and vectorscope. A fully parametric 10-band EQ with live frequency response, built-in presets, and AutoEQ headphone calibration import lets you precisely shape your sound. Playback controls include shuffle, repeat, and drag-and-drop queue management, while the library automatically extracts metadata, album artwork, and supports global search, favorites, and recently played tracking. Additional features include output device selection, delay calibration, customizable themes, fullscreen and mini-player modes, Discord Rich Presence, optional Last.fm scrobbling, and an opt-in local API for integrations. Astra delivers a complete, high-quality desktop audio experience with no telemetry, accounts, or streaming. Astra 0.6.1 Beta changelog: Lyrics Initial XLRC support via @boof2015/xlrc 0.2.0 (#131) XLRC sidecar scanning, manual import, and renderer support Word timing, furigana, translations, voice labels, and translation-priority controls for XLRC Fullscreen lyrics overhaul with additional layout polish Manual lyrics editor with LRC, XLRC, and plain-text modes Drag-and-drop lyrics import plus sync offset controls Clickable synced lyrics for seeking, with popout and transport lyrics updates (#138) Fixed lyrics info sidebar scrolling (#138) Added a workaround for LRCLIB instability Metadata & Library Metadata editor rebuilt as a side panel Virtual DB metadata overrides and optional direct file tag writing Bulk metadata editing for title, artist, album, album artist, genre, year, track/disc numbers, and artwork Undo/redo support for virtual metadata edits Clear overrides action and default save-mode preference Artist page grid view added, with later design and sizing refinements Improved Jump to Playing with smart source, queue, album, artist, and library track targets Fixed smart source jump behavior Playlists Fixed VLC-style M3U import failures (#127) Added playlist export to M3U/M3U8 (#118) Improved imported playlist path resolution and missing-entry preservation Shuffle added to playlist pages (#121) Remove tracks directly from playlist views (#128) Fixed create-playlist-from-track modal closing when clicking inside it (#137) Multi-select quality-of-life fixes Right-click context menus no longer clear multiselections UI & Navigation Fixed UI scaling regressions in sidebar and home surfaces (#122, #123) Fixed transport bar regression (#126) Fixed horizontal scrolling on Home and Library rails Fixed artist grid sizing while searching Updated playlist action buttons and related layout polish Additional fullscreen lyrics visual adjustments Visualization Scopes and visualizers now respect UI scaling settings (#155) Added shared canvas sizing logic for correct DPR/backing-store behavior Canvas sizing tests added for visualizer scaling regressions Discord RPC Discord Rich Presence activity structure refactored Compact status can prioritize title or artist Profile info line can show file info or album Title and artist links can target YouTube Music, Last.fm, or be disabled Optional small Astra badge for cover-art presence Configurable “clear when paused” timing Added Discord activity tests Scrobbling Fixed custom Last.fm2 API profiles being accidentally blocked Expanded scrobbler profile protocol handling coverage Stability & Tests Added/expanded tests for XLRC parsing, lyrics presentation, metadata editor state, playlist import/export path handling, artist grid layout, horizontal scrolling, canvas sizing, and Discord RPC activity building Download: Astra 0.6.1 Beta | 138.0 MB (Open Source) View: Astra Home Page | Github | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • How does it compare to the "SeeStar S30 Pro" and the "Vespera PRO 2"?
    • Indeed. And note that those units are MUCH cheaper than this new Steam Machine...ahem.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      Almohandis earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Rookie
      dorf went up a rank
      Rookie
    • First Post
      mike_rumble earned a badge
      First Post
    • Dedicated
      tuben earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Week One Done
      mnsgroup earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      501
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      209
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      100
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      85
    5. 5
      neufuse
      69
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!