There was some database mounting and database shifting and some cursing but the new site is built and ready to rock. Taa daa!
I hope you like it. My goals with the redesign were to make content easier to find, from features to book reviews to really active discussions, and to make participating in the site easier, with more options and fewer obstacles to joining the conversations. I've said many times when asked about the website that the content up here is maybe half of the reason people come to the site – the other half is all of you and your conversations.
(Squidgy moment: holy crap I missed y'all).
Some of the new features include:
- Subscribing to comment threads by RSS or Email (by request)
- A new comments system that lets you log in via Facebook, Twitter, OpenID, Disqus, and possibly your driver's license number
- Summaries on the main page, with full entries on their own pages
- A calendar of events on the main page
- A special area for the podcasts on the main page
- The ability to like, share, tweet, flirt with, simmer, dogear, question, and shake your groove thang in the vicinity of the comments. Well, some of those, anyway.
- All sorts of upgrades that aren't visible but should make the Bitchery more speedy and lithe, like a Regency heroine dressed in boy's clothing.
There is still little bits of work to be done, but if you notice anything truly and utterly out of whack, please let me know, either in the comments or via email at sarahATsmartbitchestrashybooksDOTcom.
Comments are welcome, too! I hope you like the new design — and that you read something awesome while the work was in progress!
oh, and it’s hard having threaded comments be numbered, because anytime someone enters something upstream, all the numbers change, so you can’t even make reference to a post by the number.
Sorry, I’ve used threaded comments enough to know this isn’t true. I think they are death for convoluted conversations. Yes, you can see when someone responds to you—but it’s not easy to tell when someone else is responding on some other thread that you’ve already read. You skim right past it, and miss someone’s answer to something else.
The only time I’ve seen threaded comments work as a discussion forum is when there is some easy way to tell that a comment is new since last you visited. As it is, I’m going to have to read the ENTIRE thread to figure out if someone has commented on something new that I’m watching, instead of just going to the end and finding the comments I haven’t read. I can watch *my own* comments, but even I am not solipsistic enough to think that those are the only comments worth watching!
Threaded comments make it very, very difficult to avidly lurk on a conversation.
And this would all be okay if the dropdown trumped threading, but it doesn’t. If I sort by “oldest first” it’s still bringing things up threaded, and not in the order they were posted.
Also: the numbering now is going to be more confusing than helpful. If I refer to comment #38, it won’t be the same number if someone has sorted by “newest first.” If someone comments to a comment above that, #38 becomes #39.
Yes, this is exactly the issue. Threaded comments only work for avid discussions, where you’re not participating in the whole, but are interested in everything being said, if you can tell what’s new and unread through some easy way.
Ok, I’m going to unthread the comments. That means this discussion will make crazy sense. Like madlibs only without random references to peens or Ionic columns or both.
I like pink and all, but the new design is too bright for me. Bright pink background against another white bg. I wish there was some balance between the two…
@ I Can’t Remember
I’m not using the old comments module any more, as it gave too many people problems with the captcha, and there was a big ol’ mess of spammers creating accounts then attempting to send messages to people. It was ridiculous. So with this system, there’s less spam, but also a lot more options to log in from user/pass combos you already employ. @ Laura
I am sorry the RSS for that isn’t working – I’ll look into it!
SB Sarah Yay! Thank you! Is there any way you can make it so that when you click “reply” it automatically says who you’re replying to? Now that I’m being greedy. 🙂
The sb-tb.com redirect is working for me now. All is in order!
I must admit I only come to your site when I want to read the comments. Otherwise I read it in Google Reader.
OK I can’t get the feed going properly now in Google Reader. Several posts are not showing up.
I *think* that if I click reply and type an “at-sign ” and then your name, it attempts to reply to you. Am testing it now.
Keziah – I know the feed is being persnickety, as Google seems to think the site is still down. Which, it’s not!
@17cb270851698d4456de89ba461d0a95 Hm. Let me see if I can make that so.
RSS Feed is not working right. You click subscribe and it just goes to the feed page but does not give you a choice to subscribe to the blog’s feed. 🙁
I’m liking the new design quite a bit. Like the colors, the layout, the nice clean look to it. I’ve poked around some of the menus and was able to get where I wanted with no problems.
My only problem is this: The scrolling banner on the main page? Too fast. I know you guys have slowed it down considerably, but it literally makes my eyes cross. I’m the third generation in my family to get kicked out of a speed reading class for reading too fast, and I couldn’t get through the entire snippet on this post before it moved to the next one. And I didn’t see anything to get me back to it so I could either finish reading or click on it. I sat and waited for it to cycle through again so I could get to it and click and every time it changed, my eyes would cross. LOL. Something about the images/timing/text combination that I just can’t handle.
Maybe the solution isn’t slowing it down more, but maybe having less text show up?
Thanks for unthreading the comments. 🙂
Fishwithsticks: if you move your mouse over the slider, it should stop moving. Does that help?
Char: I know the RSS feed is all bonky. Google thinks the site is still down, but we’re working on it. I’m sorry!
RSS feed is back in business.
Yay!
Okay… All my other RSS feeds are something called LiveFeed. Any suggestions on what to pick from this mass?
I love it! After all the changes, all the suggestions, as of Sunday night, I think the hot pink palace is looking really good. The banner works for me and I like that it lets me know what’s new or what I might have missed, without having to scroll all over the place. It’s great to be home!
Hey Ladies! Very pretty in pink here. (Just have to remember to dim my screen a little 🙂 )
Three things:
1. When I click on a comment link from the blog page, for example the 98 comments on this blog, instead of opening up the full blog post and jumping me to the comments, it just opens the page. Once I am on the page and click 98 comments, it sends me to the comments like I would expect from the first one. Not sure if this is working as designed or not.
2. Is there an easier way to find all the HABO then the “More Topics” drop down? I am assuming those are the catch all tags from the other site so there are quite a few of them. Not too big of a deal, but if there is an easier way, like a link somewhere, i’d love to know.
3. Now it is pretty prominent on the home page that newbies can “Check Out the Best of SBTB” but it looks like we have been pretty lax in the past two years. If I were new i would think that .. well that it was lame that nothing awesome has happened in two years.
Overall though, nice job! I think I will really grow to like it!
Also, side bar: I am running this on Safari and it looks good. Don’t know if you checked that browser (as sometimes websites woefully forget it…)
In the weird but true category, my comment initially appeared as #81, right after one of Courtney Milan’s comments from four hours prior. When I chose “more comments” or whatever the button is, my comment moved to 98, which is where it should be. That could be confusing, especially when comments are coming in fast and furious. Shouldn’t the most newest comments automatically appear at the end, regardless of where I’m looking in the comment stream?
Also, will we have an edit button?
“Most newest.” *sigh* Seriously though, now I’m replying to my new comment, something like #101, and I am again numbered 81.
I wonder if this is happening because they only autoload 80 comments initially. I am doing a test (since i have 101 open and am signed in to boot) to see if it mis-numbers me. (Also would love an edit 🙂 )
Sorry for the double post. But I just noticed two more things.
1) After I posted my reply comment above, it a) appeared nested until i refreshed b) at the top of the comments it listed showing nan of nan comments. As i am typing this it says nan of 102… does this mean i am 102 in line for nan? Delicious!
2) I have no idea if this was my shady connection but when i went to type the first comment i had a never ending ellipses looping and i couldn’t type a comment at all (couldn’t get focus in the box) until i refreshed.
Hope these are helpful and not just pains in the butt things 🙂
I can’t read the numbers of the posts, and I using this post to figure out post using the new system.
I liked that you had Expand buttons that didn’t lead to a new page. It made it easier to read everything—I didn’t have to have a lot of open tabs, I could just scroll down when I was done. But I seem to be alone in this preference.
Comments are showing up oddly for me. In “oldest first” mode, the comments don’t seem threaded. Many comments have a “hide x replies” tag below, but when I select it, nothing changes, except that it says “show x replies” instead. Mind you, I’m on the iPad; it might look different on a computer.
I also don’t see any comment numbers.
Le Test… so pretty! Posting as Google profile eats my picture. So sad.
Test again! Huzzah.
The load time is very nice. Love the colors and setup. Much cleaner and neater.
Beautiful. Congratulations!
A smart site for the Smart Bitches. It takes a while to load but that’s only b/c my PC isn’t as smart as y’all.
Congrats!
I have to add to the number that I don’t like the threaded comments. I’d much rather be able to scroll to, say, number 79, then go off about my business and come back later and pick up at comment 80. I realize some of the linked comments would not be connected that way, but it’s much easier for folks who have to come and go to read rather than starting at the top of the messages each time to see what’s been added – and then not being sure what’s new and what’s been read before.
Not much to say except I like the new design, but I do miss the man titty.
It’s just before 9 am Eastern Mon 11/21.
I usually use Chrome as my browser but apparently Chrome doesn’t like your new design. The slideshow on the home page doesn’t appear at all – there’s just a big blank space where it should be. Also, when I tried to click on the comments link for this post, nothing would happen. It wouldn’t show me the comments.
Both of these problems disappeared when I used IE instead, so I assume it’s some kind of interface problem with Chrome. Just thought you should know.
@Milena Benini – what man titty do you miss? The title of the site, “…stay for the man titty?”
@Kelly – I’m using Chrome too and noticed the same thing, though it’s picked up in speed now. I’m looking into it. It’s weird – but thanks for letting me know!
Also, fear not, everyone. I’m going to be adding the autoplay music and the streaming cursor of Fabio’s hair trailing across the screen later on today. WOOO!
Love the new design. It’s fresh and easy to navigate. Joelle you did a fabulous job!!!
@Becca – I’m not having any issue with viewing it in Chrome. Are you on the latest version?
Liking it! Congrats on the successful update!