Sooo how is everyone liking the new ENWorld?
- Thread starter iwarrior-poet
- Start date
Olaf the Stout
Hero
I like most of the new stuff on ENW2. I do look forward to the return of a Stealth skin though. I'm sure that will happen eventually.
One thing I don't like compared to ENW1 is the front page. I used to read the front page all the time on ENW1, even though I had the forums bookmarked in my favourites. Since the change to ENW2 I rarely look at the front page now.
I'm on IE at work so I still get the scroll bars. However, even without them I still definitely prefer the old, text-based setup. It was just a lot easier to read the stories that I was interested in. It also allowed a lot more stories to sit on the one page compared to the current set-up. Is it possible to set things up so that individual users can choose to view the front page using the ENW1 display maybe?
Good stuff overall though.
Olaf the Stout
One thing I don't like compared to ENW1 is the front page. I used to read the front page all the time on ENW1, even though I had the forums bookmarked in my favourites. Since the change to ENW2 I rarely look at the front page now.
I'm on IE at work so I still get the scroll bars. However, even without them I still definitely prefer the old, text-based setup. It was just a lot easier to read the stories that I was interested in. It also allowed a lot more stories to sit on the one page compared to the current set-up. Is it possible to set things up so that individual users can choose to view the front page using the ENW1 display maybe?
Good stuff overall though.
Olaf the Stout
Sparky
Registered User
+1 to all the loves.
My single favorite feature:
Hot keys when formatting text... ctrl-b now makes bold tags! (etc, etc) Woot!
My single biggest complaint:
Non-white default text. The contrast between the default post text and the background is too sharp for my liking.
A color somwhere between white and the yellow link text would do the trick.
Maybe a skin that is identical in every way, except that the default text less contrasty. That'd be nice.
My single favorite feature:
Hot keys when formatting text... ctrl-b now makes bold tags! (etc, etc) Woot!
My single biggest complaint:
Non-white default text. The contrast between the default post text and the background is too sharp for my liking.
A color somwhere between white and the yellow link text would do the trick.
Maybe a skin that is identical in every way, except that the default text less contrasty. That'd be nice.
HellHound
ENnies winner and NOT Scrappy Doo
Hells yes.
it bugs me on other sites where those hot keys don't work. The one I've really noticed is eBay where whenever I want to bold something I end up pulling up the bookmarks doohickey.
I have to be honest. I love the content of ENWorld. But this new version is just as horrible as the last one to use. Using vBulletin as a backend for a whole website just doesn't make sense to me. I think you would be much better off using a real content management system for news. Certainly you could continue to use vBulletin for the message boards I suppose.
The whole thing is just highly cluttered, slow, and missing everything I would want in a modern news and comment based website.
I'd scrap the whole thing and start working on some MySQL scripts to convert the whole blasted thing to Drupal or something. At least then your news pages can be cached and throttled better.
RSS feeds are built in. Tons of great modules for blogging and adding in some great "Web 2.0" (man I hate that buzz phrase, but what else do you call it?) stuff to integrate into twitter, messaging, digg, delicious, pounce, etc... You would have much better media support as well.
Seems like you are already familiar with PHP. Take the jump!
Let me remind you that I am still totally loving the content of this site. This is not meant to be desparaging. I'm just speaking my mind. I could be on crack you know!
The whole thing is just highly cluttered, slow, and missing everything I would want in a modern news and comment based website.
I'd scrap the whole thing and start working on some MySQL scripts to convert the whole blasted thing to Drupal or something. At least then your news pages can be cached and throttled better.
RSS feeds are built in. Tons of great modules for blogging and adding in some great "Web 2.0" (man I hate that buzz phrase, but what else do you call it?) stuff to integrate into twitter, messaging, digg, delicious, pounce, etc... You would have much better media support as well.
Seems like you are already familiar with PHP. Take the jump!
Let me remind you that I am still totally loving the content of this site. This is not meant to be desparaging. I'm just speaking my mind. I could be on crack you know!
ki11erDM
Explorer
I could not agree with this more. But thanks for fixing the scroll bars, for the most part.
And I am really unhappy with the front page content now, almost none at all. How did the news go from dozens of interesting links and stories to maybe one a day? You have honestly gone from one of my favorite sites on the web to a site I dread visiting. *shrug* (oh and why the heck does the font not default to a viewable color when you cut and past into the message box?)
The old site used VBulletin as a news backend. This version doesn't, though.
AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
You know what, I was so concerned with the funny scroll bars within boxes that when those were fixed (for non-IE users) I was satisfied enough that I didn't pay attention to the serious reduction of real news on the front page. You just got me to take an inventory of how I use the front page and what I miss. I really miss the dozens and dozens of small links to industry and community news and happenings on the front page as well sorted nicely by category.
Now the front page is simply a place I find the link to go to the forums. It feels like very little is going on at all in the hobby.
Lazybones
Adventurer
I miss the skins (I am glad they are on the list of future adds), and the ability to download threads to a text file. I am also still getting occasional hangs when I access the site, but it's much better than it was a few weeks back. Threads here seem to take about two to three times as long to open as on other sites (5-8 seconds as opposed to 2-3 at other sites, in a random test from my favs folder).
I haven't really noticed any improvements in terms of functionality, but then again I don't really need to fork threads or visit the front page very often.
If it keeps ENWorld more stable and functional in the long run, I'm all for it. But from an outsider's perspective (i.e. someone who doesn't know the inner workings of the site), the transition has degraded my ENWorld experience somewhat. Still a great site, just my 2c.
EDIT: It just took six minutes for this post to register, and another 30 seconds to bring open the edit dialog.
I haven't really noticed any improvements in terms of functionality, but then again I don't really need to fork threads or visit the front page very often.
If it keeps ENWorld more stable and functional in the long run, I'm all for it. But from an outsider's perspective (i.e. someone who doesn't know the inner workings of the site), the transition has degraded my ENWorld experience somewhat. Still a great site, just my 2c.
EDIT: It just took six minutes for this post to register, and another 30 seconds to bring open the edit dialog.
Last edited:
You know what, I was so concerned with the funny scroll bars within boxes that when those were fixed (for non-IE users) I was satisfied enough that I didn't pay attention to the serious reduction of real news on the front page. You just got me to take an inventory of how I use the front page and what I miss. I really miss the dozens and dozens of small links to industry and community news and happenings on the front page as well sorted nicely by category.
Now the front page is simply a place I find the link to go to the forums. It feels like very little is going on at all in the hobby.
To be fair, the amount of news isn't even remotely linked to the format.
Similar Threads
