TR Forums

So the forums are borked too. Every action I take, e.g. marking forums read, returns an AJAX error.

I gotta say, I'm not in love with the new front page also. It needs work. For me maybe its the stark white background, it's hard on the eyes. While "dark Theme's" are the in thing now I'd love to see the TR Blue background on the front page.

I'm going to edit my first post with a list of tweaks that I've suggested so far. Please report BUGS and REQUESTS clearly from here on to help me out.

My reaction is "Crap, Tech Report also fell victim to the enbiggening of the Web".

At 1920 x 1080, full screen, I see a total of 36 words on the first screen, including the logo and "Build your own PC with the Tech Report System Guide".

Dare I hope that the change will simply be abandoned?

Probably not. They ran a custom CMS. That's hard to do, even for a larger company. TR isn't big enough to responsibly run their own in-house CMS. It's difficult keeping up with bugs, security fixes, regression testing, etc.

low information density is my biggest peeve.

I loved the way it used to be for shortbread just scroll through the post and click on what was interesting.
now I have to click the news post.

Yeah, I think the best we can hope for at this point is the return of most of the original functionality via tweaks to the new CMS. Given that the site is operating on a shoestring currently, expecting them to maintain a custom CMS was unrealistic.

And in spite of the issues with this redesign, I do find it impressive that they were able to import the article comments from the old CMS. Pulling data out of a bespoke application is typically not a trivial thing.

Also curious about the switch from Linode to EC2. Was this a cost thing, or an ease-of-maintenance thing? (Linode is pretty much "here's the root password to a VPS, you're on your own... have fun!").

I'll reserve judgement until it's finished, because it's clearly not all active yet.

I like the modern look, info density looks more suited to a smartphone than a PC - if the intention is to unify the experience between mobile and desktop variants of the site, then it has worked with the obvious downgrade to desktop and upgrade to mobile reading experience you'd expect. I used the old site on both mobile and desktop so it's a downgrade from the device-specific variants of each overall but at the same time I appreciate this design is probably a lot simpler for TR staff to manage than two seperate layouts.

If there's a way coming to allow us to widen the page for those of us not browsing on a 6" portrait screen, that'd be welcome.
Likewise, I feel the right column could do with some kind of graphical split - something to separate it from the main content on the left, maybe a light grey background behind the right side recent posts list?

Finally, After whitelisting the new URL for adblockers, I'm not seeing sidebar ads. Is that intentional? Nobody likes ads but it's necessary revenue to keep the site going.

Aranarth wrote:

low information density is my biggest peeve.

I loved the way it used to be for shortbread just scroll through the post and click on what was interesting.
now I have to click the news post.

Yeah, this one is a heart breaker for me. RIP techreport.com/news.x - I'm sure that's not coming back.

I'll start writing Shortbreads with a couple sentence intro of highlights so the summary text isn't just headlines and links.

I agree with the information density - perhaps a little bit more content in the desktop version of the site would be good, but on my phone it is great!
Also, I've noticed that there are no ads in the site, and the forums have this "GZIP: On" message at the bottom

TR looked old, but I considered that a good thing. Modern design trends are awful for usability and information density. And now it looks like every other site on the internet.

barich wrote:

TR looked old, but I considered that a good thing.

I'd tweak a few elements in the classic design, but otherwise, yeah, it was "old" in all the good senses.

Redocbew wrote:

I will say that moving away from a custom CMS is almost certainly a good idea. That's a lot of overhead that doesn't really need to be there.

Perhaps. But there are also downsides. Going from a lean bespoke system, to a big, complex, heavy one (both back and front ends). And by default, with modern front-end ideas that may be in conflict with how you actually want it to work (well, one can hope; at least there's still pagination rather than infinite scroll, and the scrollbar is visible, and not even thin-skinned, and no forced smooth-scrolling!).

So at least someone asks: is there any way to just revert back to the old design and put the new one in a beta test? I see a lot of potential in the new design, but it needs to get back a lot of the stuff from the old, and tweaking that in a closed, opt-in environment would probably ease the transition. Plus, getting both versions side-by-side would be good.

But like I said, I do think there's potential with the new design. Obviously--with all the white space I'm seeing--there's room to get fan gerbil favorites back. Specifically, top comments and hot forum threads. I'd really like to see the top banner scroll with the page for easy access to different sections. That would also be a good place for things like forum login and view customization (dark and dense themes, plz).

Do we have an ETA on forum-to-front-comments-to-forum-account linking yet?

Cuhulin wrote:

I would like to be supportive. The people working here do a great job and deserve the right to have the site look good to them. However, I can’t help but think “If it ain’t broke...”

The “At a glance” of the home page was so much more informative.

I sincerely hope after all this time and all the changes at TR that people understand that this isn't true. Viewers of the site might have liked it, but CLEARLY TR wasn't making enough money to survive how things were. It quite literally was broke. I hate the new design too, but I think everyone should realize it's all being done so that you have anything to read at http://www.techreport.com at all. Just be patient. Report detailed bugs, detailed feature requests etc. Do your part and maybe it'll end up in a place we can all agree is better than before.

To be a little more clear, and maybe some won't and that's fine, but by detail I mean things like what browser and version are you on? What OS and update are you on? What resolution are you using? Are you signed in? Are you using mobile? etc etc etc. Let's all help as much as possible so we can get to a better place quicker.

People hating on the custom CMS like it's a universally bad thing...

IMO the best thing about the custom CMS is that no module is suddenly going to get an update that turns vulnerable or breaks functionality. If it was using a proper database abstraction layer that handles and sanitizes inputs, **** would have been very hard to break. Going Wordpress increases the surface area and now the site would be vulnerable to the hundreds of attacks made on WP modules, all so the layout could be made uglier and less well integrated.

superjawes wrote:

So at least someone asks: is there any way to just revert back to the old design and put the new one in a beta test? I see a lot of potential in the new design, but it needs to get back a lot of the stuff from the old, and tweaking that in a closed, opt-in environment would probably ease the transition. Plus, getting both versions side-by-side would be good.

But like I said, I do think there's potential with the new design. Obviously--with all the white space I'm seeing--there's room to get fan gerbil favorites back. Specifically, top comments and hot forum threads. I'd really like to see the top banner scroll with the page for easy access to different sections. That would also be a good place for things like forum login and view customization (dark and dense themes, plz).

Do we have an ETA on forum-to-front-comments-to-forum-account linking yet?

I can practically guarantee this change is a one-way trip. We're less than 24 hours into it, though, and just starting to dig in. Regarding the front page comments, as far as I can tell, if you use the same email address as you use on the forums it will link to your old account already. Once I logged it I could see that all my old front page posts inherited my swanky avatar that I can finally use here.

DancinJack wrote:

Cuhulin wrote:

I would like to be supportive. The people working here do a great job and deserve the right to have the site look good to them. However, I can’t help but think “If it ain’t broke...”

The “At a glance” of the home page was so much more informative.

I sincerely hope after all this time and all the changes at TR that people understand that this isn't true. Viewers of the site might have liked it, but CLEARLY TR wasn't making enough money to survive how things were. It quite literally was broke. I hate the new design too, but I think everyone should realize it's all being done so that you have anything to read at http://www.techreport.com at all. Just be patient. Report detailed bugs, detailed feature requests etc. Do your part and maybe it'll end up in a place we can all agree is better than before.

To be a little more clear, and maybe some won't and that's fine, but by detail I mean things like what browser and version are you on? What OS and update are you on? What resolution are you using? Are you signed in? Are you using mobile? etc etc etc. Let's all help as much as possible so we can get to a better place quicker.

Thank you for this, it means a lot and is dead on.

drfish wrote:

superjawes wrote:

So at least someone asks: is there any way to just revert back to the old design and put the new one in a beta test? I see a lot of potential in the new design, but it needs to get back a lot of the stuff from the old, and tweaking that in a closed, opt-in environment would probably ease the transition. Plus, getting both versions side-by-side would be good.

But like I said, I do think there's potential with the new design. Obviously--with all the white space I'm seeing--there's room to get fan gerbil favorites back. Specifically, top comments and hot forum threads. I'd really like to see the top banner scroll with the page for easy access to different sections. That would also be a good place for things like forum login and view customization (dark and dense themes, plz).

Do we have an ETA on forum-to-front-comments-to-forum-account linking yet?

I can practically guarantee this change is a one-way trip. We're less than 24 hours into it, though, and just starting to dig in. Regarding the front page comments, as far as I can tell, if you use the same email address as you use on the forums it will link to your old account already. Once I logged it I could see that all my old front page posts inherited my swanky avatar that I can finally use here.

Roger that. Just thought it was worth asking. I do like the avatar addition on comments. I'll have to dig up one of my own later.

As another observation, the subscribe links seem to be missing from the front page. If that income is keeping lights on, it might be worth restoring soon...

Sub clarification is on my list. ATM your sub isn't really doing much without the ability to upvote, etc. Among many other things, I was not expecting that to be left unaddressed.

curtisb wrote:

No sir, I don't like it. I've hated the recent (read: last several years) trend of dumbifying designs. I don't want to see "16 hours ago." I don't want to do date/time math in my head. Actual dates and times, please. This was one of my biggest gripes with the latest Windows 10 Insider releases defaulting to "Use friendly dates" view in Windows Explorer...that got turned off immediately.

Sorry, I could not help recalling Mr. Horse from the Ren and Stimpy show. It was my first impression as well when I was surprised by the switch over the weekend. I'm confident the site layout will improve and find a good balance of what TR members enjoy. This has been for many years my go-to site for computer knowledge and reviews. I always appreciate the helpful members here. I'll continue subscribing and supporting anyway I can.

I'm happy to report that a couple items on the request list have already been implemented.

drfish wrote:

I'm happy to report that a couple items on the request list have already been implemented.

:thumbsup:

I won't pile onto the don't like it pile, except to say in a very general sense (in my old "get off my lawn" voice) that I don't like the overall trend towards low information density and no borders and overly large pictures... but I get that it's intended to make the site work on smaller devices without having to maintain multiple looks, etc. So whatever. I come here for the community and the content, in that order, and as long as they're both here the site is still great...

Couple of "like to see" things... a dark theme would be awesome. The white expanse is hard on the eyes. Especially when - at least on my monitor - there is a whole lot of nothing on both sides of the page.

If you could tweak the images to be slightly smaller, at least on the main page... sure, hardware can be pretty but it would allow more than half a paragraph for the article summaries.

Dates would be better than the "days ago..." thing for articles.

Finally... and this may seem silly... but even a *tiny* border or color variance between items and the background would be a huge improvement in my opinion. For example, here on the forums the actual reading area is grey and the sides of the page are blue. I can't really explain why but for me that is so much more attractive and readable than if the entire page were all the same color.

Anyway... keep your heads up high guys, you're still the best tech site on the web. Even if you are a bit uglier

drfish wrote:

I'm happy to report that a couple items on the request list have already been implemented.

Just another vote to say I think y'all are doing a good job with the transition/switch. I'm all for the new look, and I appreciate that there is an effort to potentially incorporate a dark blue theme in.

I'm not sure what the typical hardware enthusiasts reading/viewing patterns are like when new products are released, but I'm a little dismayed to not see TR's Zen 2 review stickied in the hardware subreddit megathread: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comme ... egathread/. Currently it can only be found on a comment halfway down the post. I shot a message to the mods already asking if it can be listed.

For those of you wanting a dark theme workaround for the time being, you can just edit the CSS upon visit to make it bearable for the time being. It's made things relatively OK for me, for now.

DancinJack wrote:

CLEARLY TR wasn't making enough money to survive how things were. It quite literally was broke.

That's true, but I don't think this is the solution. I talked to Scott about this back when he still owned the site. He wasn't making money. Ad revenue has gone down substantially. Most of the money these sites make these days is from companies paying money to review and bring attention to their products. Being honest and critical in those reviews doesn't grant you a good relationship with them, and not only did they stop returning his emails, but they also stopped sending him hardware to review.

He had to buy it himself and crunch to get the review done late, and the traffic that was generated was occurring less and less over time because PC hardware just isn't as progressive and interesting as it used to be. There are only like 4 major releases per year now for consumer CPUs and GPUs. Then to top it all off, it felt like a thankless job getting attacked for every review. It's no wonder these site owners are moving on to better things.

So why is this site still here? Well, because the community has been trying to keep it alive. We don't keep it alive because it's keeping up with what every other website is doing. We keep it alive because it's different. If we all just up and left, I think this site would be more doomed than if it just caved to the pressure of doing what's profitable, because other sites are already doing it. I think it's too late for TR to get on that bandwagon. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I hope I'm right. I think we all want it to continue to be what it has been, even if it's a bit of a niche.

However, I do recognize that change is important. That's one other thing that I talked about with Scott. He had full time staff that the business really couldn't afford, but he recognized that as part of what the community liked. A few writers they could trust, rather than a bunch of random freelance content. They were resistant to change, and didn't recognize the importance of interaction and having a big social media presence. He had to push them to do anything out of their comfort zone. So yeah, it is bad to be complacent, but TR needs to retain its identity.

DeadOfKnight wrote:

everything you said

I don't really, and have never, disagree with any of that. But like I said above, if you guys want to keep reading ANYTHING on TR, they are going to have to make changes. Period. End of Story. I'll say again, just try everything you can to help out to shape the future of the site. I'm sure most of us could get over the design BS if the content was still there. And maybe it will be. But throwing our hands in the air because we hate the new front page isn't the answer.

drfish wrote:

Stream of consciousness time. Yesterday was a huge day for the site, long before the redesign surprised us. Zak had just produced the best piece of content that site has seen in half a year. While we were all celebrating though, our figurative dog ran out into the street and got hit by a truck, that's how it felt for me anyway. Here's the thing, I think good intentions are at work here, but there's clearly a disconnect between the redesign and the culture of the site that we know and love. I'll do my best to get things on track. Here's the other thing, of ALL the Sundays that have ever happened, yesterday was without a doubt the worst possible timing to launch the new site. Obviously, there was a communication breakdown, or rather, a lack of a communication build up. I'm trying to sort that out and produce the details you all deserve to hear.

Yeah, Zak definitely knocked it out of the park with that review! Even with the CMS changeover, I think you should all feel proud- that's the kind of awesome content I come to the TR for.

Layout issues can be fixed in a few days or weeks, but great content lives on forever. I still find myself going back and digging out certain gems and details from old Techreport reviews, and I'm sure this one will be no different.

Gah

My retinas

Roll back
Roll back

anotherengineer wrote:

Gah

My retinas

Roll back
Roll back

Helpful!

Suggestion: for reviews, news posts, etc. make more of a distinction between article text and the ‘you may also like’ stuff that follows it. Have the background be a different color, make the text and graphics smaller, etc. so it’s clear that information is extra. Also, page navigation for articles should be more than just a string of numbers. The previous version where it was a page number with a subheading is nice, especially for articles that have huge numbers of pages where it’s easy to be overwhelmed by all the numbers.

I’ll post more suggestions as I have them. Thanks for listening.

Couple of extra suggestions:

• The article's text is way too big for 1080p imho, perhaps a couple points smaller would be better
• The article navigation now only shows numbers. I appreciated the previous navigation format with drop down lists and description of the pages