February 27, 2010

Finally succumbing to Blogger's "Layout" format.

I've updated the blog to "layout." If anything looks worse now, let me know. One thing that's clearly better is that if you click on a tag, you'll be able to see all the old posts with that tag. Also...
Now, I can do this!

And check the sidebar. The blogroll is spiffier, and there's a list of tags — not all 3000+ tags, but 700+ of the most significant/interesting tags. It might be fun to click on them. Some of them anyway.  The archive is displayed differently now, and actually, before, for some reason, when you clicked on an old month, you only got a small part of that month. That's what pushed me over the line and got me to update.

ADDED: Another really cool thing is that the blogroll is in order of most recent post. 

63 comments:

Anonymous said...

Almost nothing is more irritating than the "Read More" textbutton. If it's important enough for you to say, don't make me work for it or hide it.

Hate it.

With a passion.

(Might just be a pet peeve of mine, others may like it.)

Anonymous said...

(PS: I realize you're just testing it out in this post.)

Christopher - Conservative Perspective said...

OK by me

Basil said...

I likes teh Blogger formats.

I moved my little blog back to teh Blogger a few months back, after I saw all the improvements teh Google had made.

The downside? You'll find those gadgets make it really easy to junk things up.

Bender said...

nyet

Ann Althouse said...

@New Ham I dislike it too, but it has an important use for me. I like to keep posts short, and sometimes I need to go unusually long, and it's especially a problem when I know it's a post that is technical for some reason, like the post the other day about Language Log and Hendrik Hertzberg. I had to detail an argument and it broke up the flow of morning posts.

Another use would be for a spoiler alert or some kind of surprise.

I won't be indulgent about relying on it instead of being concise. I hate that.

Anonymous said...

"Another use would be for a spoiler alert or some kind of surprise."

That's actually a really good use for it, and I like those sorts of posts and will click thru.

And the housekeeping posts ... yeah, that's another good use.

Some blogs (notably The Atlantic) have switched to two or three-line posts and the meat of the post is underneath these (see Megan McArdle's new blog design unveiled this week).

Absolutely hate it. They're doing it to save bandwidth and to increase pageviews (in a devious way) but they're short-shortsightedly ruining readability in the process and I think it will probably lose readership.

Joan said...

Count me a voice against a random-order blogroll. I use your blogroll to visit, from time to time, a number of people I'm too lazy to blogroll myself. I liked the old, alphabetical one -- I could always find who I was looking for.

Hector Owen said...

I am so happy to see the pager! (The "Older Posts / Newer Posts" links at the bottom of the page.) Since a label search would stop at the number of posts set for display, it used to be impossible to get at all of the posts with a given label, if there were more than that number with that label. You have it set at 50 posts, now?

wv= stents -- hope I never need them, you either.

Alex said...

Hate the blogger format. Look into what Atlantic web site did. Now comments are blazing fast and far more functional.

Basil said...

@Joan Actually, teh Blogger's blogroll sort doesn't include a "random" option. It's either alphabetically, or by date last updated. That is, blogs with newer content are at the top, and older content is at the bottom.

But, I agree: alphabetically is easier on the end-user.

Greybeard said...

Put me in the "No" column.

LoafingOaf said...

NewHam: Almost nothing is more irritating than the "Read More" textbutton. If it's important enough for you to say, don't make me work for it or hide it.

Yeah, that stuff annoys me over at Andrew Sullivan's blog. On some blogs, when you click to read more, the rest of the post appears without taking you away from the page you're. I'm okay with that. (See, for example, the blog Ace of Spades.)

But the way it is on Sullivan's blog is obnoxious. It makes me wonder if he's just trying to boost some "number of page views" stat or something.

Peano said...

Almost nothing is more irritating than the "Read More" textbutton.

+1

If it's worth posting, then post all of it.

If it's too long to post, then don't post it.

Robt C said...

Welll, everything seems OK but the font got Reeeely tiny on the iMac I'm using.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I like the tags listed like that..
The search never went far back.

I would like the blog-roll alphabetized again though.

Overall I think its nicer.

Unknown said...

Like the blog and label lists. Appreciate what you mean about the longer posts. The page could take a while to load.

We'll all get used to it.

Nichevo said...

I like the Read More. Althouse is obnoxious with the photos and videos and it chews up bandwidth something huge, which is a problem on my Treo. If she'd make a mobile version I wouldn't care. Anyway Wretchard does it and Althouse could learn a lot from him. (After all, he went to Harvard!)

I would suggest you be interesting before the jump because I'm happy to skip if it's not.

Joan said...

I would suggest you be interesting before the jump because I'm happy to skip if it's not.

No apologies offered, and I'm on my second glass of wine this evening, but this totally cracked me up -- the various ways that people choose to dis the hostess and/or tell her how to manage her blog. Seriously, people: if it's so bad, what are you doing reading here? And why bother to comment?

Ann Althouse said...

I could put the blogroll in alphabetical order....

Anonymous said...
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Peano said...

Absolutely hate it because of the miserable comment page format.

+1 on this. Why did you change the format???

Anonymous said...
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Ann Althouse said...

I don't understand what Theo is talking about.

The post page with comments looks much better. What element of it is bothering you? The profile pics? I can change things.

I'm really glad that when the posts go over 200 now, it's easy to see how to get to them.

Anonymous said...
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Ann Althouse said...

I put the blogroll in alphabetical order as requested, and I added the time info, so you don't bother clicking on things that aren't updated.

Anonymous said...
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Ann Althouse said...

Oh, I see. Click on the post title and you'll get what you want.

Anonymous said...
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Ann Althouse said...

Try it now!

Anonymous said...
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Ann Althouse said...

This embedded window form is something that I'd tried once before and it didn't work for some reason. Maybe because I hadn't switched to layout. I hop the old problem -- whatever it was -- doesn't recur.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Chennaul said...

Oh crap I see what Theo means.

Chennaul said...

Hmmmm, I think the margin for the sidebar is taking up too much space now...

Chennaul said...

Plus now people will have to do preview to get the "publish code" to show up.

That could be a good thing and slow down comments-or bad -don't know.

Chennaul said...

Ugh good luck Ann-off to watch bobsled.

Mark O said...

Can't you tell from my comments that I don't actually read the blog?

It looks tidy. I don't trust lawyers whose desks are tidy. What does it mean?

Christy said...

My 4th attempt to comment.

Expletives! Many expletives!

I don't like having to go elsewhere to sign in. That's how I lost my first comment. It took me a minute to figure out I had to sign in separately. I didn't figure out how on another site recently and gave up trying to comment. Will that happen with new commenters here?

I prefer the blogroll in order of most recent update. (Sorry, Theo.) You've some who blog irregularly and they fall out of my rotation. Seeing them at the top is more likely to garner a visit from me.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...
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Ralph L said...

this miserable comments page, with its narrow columns, ugly colors, and boring sans-serif type.
That's what I was getting before the changes. And IE would throw up a stupid warning popup.

Is it still possible to delete one of our own comments?

People at JOM complain about Typepad, too.

Surprising that McCain has more tags than Bush.

AllenS said...

After I leave a comment, I then click the back button to return to the main part of the blog. I'm unable to return, and then am forced to click "home", which puts me back to the main blog, but at the top of the blog, not where I was a couple of posts down. I'm about ready to start crying.

Moose said...

Too low contrast...

AllenS said...

Here's another problem. This new look is making my CPU run at 100% for a while. It's the iexplore.exe that is going nuts. I have Internet Explorer.

bagoh20 said...

I like it. I do a lot less scrolling up and down.

bagoh20 said...

Also, like most stuff, it works great for me in firefox.

Randy said...

Other than having to enable acceptance of third-party cookies in order to post a comment, I have no complaints. Once I discover who the "third party" operating comments is, I'll create an exception for them, as I've done for others, and go back to disabled for all others. No big deal.

Perhaps Althouse has changed the format since Theo's comments, but I can't replicate what he is reporting. I'm seeing comments as they normally appear whether I click on the "Comments" tag or click on the post to display it only.

FWIW, I am one who appreciates the judicious use of the "Read More" feature for extraordinarily long posts.

Bender said...

The text of the ENTIRE blog is now way too faint. It is more difficult to read.

I didn't think the original version was broke, and if it ain't broke . . .

Ann Althouse said...

"Too low contrast..."

Thanks for the reminder to blacken the print! I will (and had done it before).

Ann Althouse said...

I'm trying to figure out how well this post page works. I like the way it looks, but if it's causing computers to run slowly or crash, I'll go back to the special comments page.

If you like seeing comments in this format, don't click "comments" from the front page. Click the post title. You'll see the comments like this.

paul a'barge said...

Make the freakin' fonts bigger ... oh wait, maybe I can do that for myself?

Anonymous said...

I thought things were OK yesterday but this latest change to the comment system is atrocious. I had to go through about five screens to post one comment. We'll see if it's any better now that I'm signed in.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

I don't mind the read more feature as long as the text before the jump is interesting enough it contains a generous hint of what the post is to be about.

I hate it when the rest of the post is nothing like or to do with what I thought you/the blogger was writing. It's like a teaser trail for a movie that they presented as being a comedy and when you see the actual movie it isn't funny at all.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

And Paul is right the post a comment, oops couldn't complete the action screen post the comment screen, post a comment, sign in, post a comment type in the secret word, screens are a pain in the ass,

Plus you have to scroll to the end of all the comments....to click on the post the comment button. Not a problem in a regular thread but if we have a Palin or AGW thread.......watch out.

Not that these issues with the comment screen are anything that the blogger can do anything about. It is a Google programer problem.

I DO VERY MUCH like the edit option so that you can correct the egregious spelling errors or add another thought that may have occured to you during the 'post a comment' screens. Like this addition.

:-D

AllenS said...

The CPU usage that I talked about earlier went away. What I liked about the old comments format was when the comments became numerous, I could click End on my keyboard, instead of scrolling down which is slow. If I then wanted to see the original post, I could click Home on the keyboard, and be right back up at the top. Now, not so much.

AllenS said...

I should have said:

I could click End on my keyboard and I would go to the end of the comments. Now I go to the end of the page. Way, way down there ↓

Bender said...

Thanks for the reminder to blacken the print!

It's better now.

James Wigderson said...

Looks good. Of course, I should always be on the top of the blogroll.

Joe said...

I'd say it pretty much sucks. The two stage posting process is silly and the blog is less readable (get rid of the fucking pictures for one--I really don't give a shit what posters look like and it just chews up space.)

Hector Owen said...

A particularly nice thing about this new format is that it makes it possible to link to an individual comment on a thread that has run over 200 comments. That was not possible before. For instance, dick's comment 392 in "Who will watch …"

I recall trying this inline comment form when it first was made available. There was something wrong with it then, but now I can't remember what that was. It seems to be working much better now.

wv = triall. Appropriate for the venue.

Beldar said...

Can't make the blogroll. But I made the list of tags with (19) -- same as Jonathan Chait, cocaine, dreaming, the Democratic Party (!), and masturbation, but well behind Britney Spears, Batman, or pie.

It's very hard to compete against pie.

(WV: influat, which I apparently largely lack.)

Ann Althouse said...

@Beldar I just put you on the blogroll. Sorry about before.

Beldar said...

I'm touched, Prof. A! (And no, that's not another reference to my number of tags being tied with "masturbation.")

Blogrolls were genuinely handy in the early days of the blogosphere, but I'm not sure they still are. They don't hurt anything either, I suppose, although from the blogger's point of view they can be a bit of a pain to keep up to date.