Hey tropers, the day has arrived. If you were one of our Kickstarter donators last year you've probably seen us tinkering with a new design for months. Within the next couple hours (depending on how fast your DNS updates you'll start hitting our new servers with the updated version of TV Tropes). A huge thanks to those of you who have been monitoring it and giving us feedback throughout the development process. Some of the new features include:
- Updated design throughout for a cleaner browsing experience
- One click sign in with Facebook
- Random Shuffle button to stay on a namespace (hit Random Media then the Shuffle button to randomize that namespace)
- Browse Watchlist in an image view
- History page now highlights sentences that were deleted/added to make it easier to review changes
- New image uploader with built in crop function
- New About Us page so you can see who we are.
- Contact Us form
- Trope Depictions on the home page (artists can submit their own comic to go with a trope)
- Bug List page Query Bugs (and Query Wishlist for tech wishes) to organize and track bugs on the site.
Ok. Let the feedback begin. (See Anxiety Tropes for my current feelings)
Notes:
- Please do not bother asking for the old design to come back. The lease of the old servers did expire at the day of the changeover, the new ones cannot run the old design.
- You can move the sidebar to the left by going into your profile and selecting Lefthand Sidebar.
edited 14th Feb '16 12:48:07 PM by SeptimusHeap
The sidebar is way too big for it's own good and everything seems to be taking a lot longer to load or move, at least for me. This redesign feels really haphazard. It doesn't look or feel like anything new has been added. The previous design was a lot better; I didn't love it but at least it was easy to get used to. This design just feels like an ugly mess.
There are two wiki side fora here for wishes
and here for bugs
.
Please avoid duplicates and multi-issue queries, thanks!
Replies don't appear to be working right now.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanWell this came out of the left field.
Straight to the point it bad. The side bar is way to big, the gray white color scheme is awful, and the layout looks way to clinical and dead. Additionally sticky header is just annoying and the lack of forum buttons on the bottom of a page is huge decrease in convenience.
That's all I noticed from five minute browsing but there's probably more. I really, really would rather go back to the previous layout.
As a whole, it's not bad. However there are a few things that need to be ironed out:
- The sidebar really is too wide, leaving a lot of pointless empty space and squashing the site.
- There are a few things that I really don't think need to be monkeyed with. The text in the main page has always been the same since the birth of the site and is kind of a staple, I don't think it needs to be changed. The classic TV Tropes teal blue color would look better than the current black, which makes the site look dreary. I also don't feel the need to change the logo.
- The new "The All-Devouring Pop Culture Wiki" tagline is awful. It sounds pretentious and feeds the stereotype that tropers are a bunch of neckbeards. Zap it.
- The site looks odd on mobile, although it might be an issue on my end.
edited 8th Feb '16 2:15:10 PM by WackyPancake
"I like girls, but now, it's about justice."Night Vision still has certain readability issues.
The 'send' button is hard to read in it, unless I tilt back my screen. The same problem probably exists on other buttons.
This is a signature.While I generally like the new look of Tv Tropes, the new watchlist design is just... not sufficient, to put it very mildly. As others have mentioned, it's really a bother that it's not possible to see namespaces, and especially it annoys me that the red light that shows you a page has received a new edit is also gone, so you cannot see which pages have been edited since you last checked the watchlist.
"Ok. Let the feedback begin."
It's...Interesting...
[[Youtube:PBEUQ Sp Rv SI]]
edited 8th Feb '16 2:20:13 PM by Joesolo
I'm baaaaaaackI like the new look, but I really miss having an easier access to the Discussion page, but what I miss the most is that I can't tell if any of the Trope pages and shows that were in my watchlist got updated. I really miss seeing the red icon on your watchlist to tell that a trope page just got updated. This new design is going to take alot of time for me to getting used to.
Just going around in the mobile site I can name a few issues right off the bat.
- mobile sidebar is too big. It takes up the entire screen rather than just the side. A minor thing though, one I can likely get used to.
- the old version had the page number buttons in a thread in such a way that the page you were currently on could be identified by the fact it wasn't a link. New version all buttons are identical, I was just going through the US politics thread and wasn't sure if/when I had a new page to go to. A definite issue on fast moving threads like that one.
- The forum avatars are aligned to the left rather than above the posts, which scrunches up the text on the right, making for less spread out reading.
edited 8th Feb '16 2:21:32 PM by sgamer82
I really like the highlighting of changes in history - makes life much easier, rather than having to play "spot the difference" only to find that someone' has just taken umbrage with "colour" having a "u" in it. The new layout also makes the ads less intrusive, which is really nice.
That said, I can't say I enjoy the colour scheme. The tropes themselves look really generic, and it's difficult for the eye to differentiate between different parts of the trope page. Switching to Wide Load does makes pages slightly easier to read, but I think if I was to come across the wiki for the first time today, I wouldn't get the sense that this was a fun place to be and stick around - I'd just look up what I came for. I think it's going for a "professional" look, but it just looks incredibly neutral..
It might simply be the shock of the new, but it looks a bit more like the "preview changes" format than the main wiki. I also don't see anything on the Watchlist to indicate changes made since my last visit to the Watchlist page - am I missing something?
These are only initial thoughts - I imagine I, like most tropers, will adapt - but I do think using colour to break up the pages a little would be really helpful.
Okay, this legit makes me frown. I just switched from desktop to my phone, and the site looks fantastic here. Everything is nice and compact, which makes the white not overwhelming at all; the header actually has a little space at the edges, making it look balanced. I approve!
...and on desktop you get the exact same elements, only with however much white filler it takes to bloat the page until it fills the screen.
Now I'm not sure how I feel about the desktop experience being sacrificed to the gods of mobile viewing/editing.
I've just deleted one duplicate query (by ~Boxen) and one wishlist item that belongs here (by ~Midna - about the slogan on the main page). Please check whether something has been reported already before filing a new report, thanks!
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanOK, I'm really not fond of the huge empty space below the sidebar, which is way too wide in my opinion. Further, the text in the 'refresh', 'watched threads list' buttons and the 'you've seen all the latest posts, desdendelle' bit in the thread watchlist page is waaaay too small.
EDIT: the lack of bar (the place where you have the 'thread watchlist', 'mark as read', etc buttons) at the bottom of the page is annoying.
edited 8th Feb '16 2:22:12 PM by desdendelle
On empty crossroads, seek the eclipse -- for when Sol and Lua align, the lost shall find their way home.I was just starting to understand the ins and outs of the previous design. And now, there's a new one. Well, I gotta say, I've been on the new design for only 10 minutes, so the only complaint I have right now is that the "Random Trope" and "Random Media" buttons are incredibly ugly. They're very out of place, they look like they should be on the "TV Tropes Kidz" site, if that existed, and I'm frustrated by how you have to press the seperate button itself and can't press the larger word parts of it that make up 70% of the image! Also, where is Administrivia? I'm kinda new to having an account anyways, so where can I find Administrivia to figure out how to link to tropes in forum posts?
The TV Tropes logo on the header is nice though, I have to admit.
Fun Fact: I came up with the "Unlurking Sentinel" name because I was intending to stop being a Lurker. I don't think it worked.

I don't like the tape and button look of the random trope/media buttons.