Our blog’s being redesigned
Wednesday, January 10th, 2007 at 6:39 PM by: Torley[6:46 PM PST] Sidebar content looks better — some polish to go.
Hi! If you’ve been here before, you may have noticed the look of the Official Linden Blog changed a few minutes ago. We’re currently in the process of updating our theme, and we know there are some wrinkles with it, like too many Recent Posts in the right sidebar.
Please pardon us while we continue transitioning over to the new design! Thanks for your patience.
January 10th, 2007 at 6:43 PM
Fancy Looking and much easier to navigate in case I miss a few blog entries Good Job LL!
January 10th, 2007 at 6:47 PM
Thanx Brock!
January 10th, 2007 at 6:47 PM
Excellent. Nice work LL
January 10th, 2007 at 6:49 PM
How about spending time working on fixing bugs. I can do without cosmetics to cover up the ugly pit that SL is becoming.
January 10th, 2007 at 6:53 PM
Nice template…
January 10th, 2007 at 6:53 PM
looks good so far
wootage 
needs the watermelon color i think
January 10th, 2007 at 6:53 PM
great now fix the tp problem
January 10th, 2007 at 6:54 PM
I knew somthing looked diffrent!
I love it!
*stares at sam and slaps him*
There are diffrent teams that do diffrent stuff
January 10th, 2007 at 6:54 PM
The way posts are encapsulated and shaded makes them a lot easier to browse.
January 10th, 2007 at 6:54 PM
Thank you, Samuel, I was worried we might not hear from the incessant, overly negative bitchy community. Thanks for representin.
January 10th, 2007 at 6:54 PM
Thanx also, Keala.
Samuel: That always comes up. (Maybe I need a FAQ?) Indeed, web bugs are bugs too, and if our blog’s broken or garbled, that impedes us from effectively communicating with you. Infact, posts chronicling what we’re doing to fix them, like Joshua’s earlier one today.
and many others — happens to be a foremost usage of this blog. So yup, it’s definitely important.
Also have a look at the Bugs & Fixes category:
http://blog.secondlife.com/tag/bugs-fixes/
January 10th, 2007 at 6:56 PM
it looks really nice….i do like the newer design
PS….i can’t log into SL, i get the Despite our best efforts, something has gone wrong message
January 10th, 2007 at 6:57 PM
yay there it goes!
January 10th, 2007 at 7:00 PM
I like the new look. Much more professional and clean.
January 10th, 2007 at 7:00 PM
haha….i had to relog and there it goes again with the message…..but at least the blog looks nice hehehe
January 10th, 2007 at 7:00 PM
How about a little less work on worthless cosmetics and more on technical fixes? I’m not usually a complainer, but I got nine sims that are hosed right now, nobody can tp to them, and if you fly or walk into them, you just sail on through.
January 10th, 2007 at 7:01 PM
I really preferred having one sidebar to the right. Having one left and right squishes too much of the actual useful content (the posts).
I do like the look better, but not the actual layout.
January 10th, 2007 at 7:04 PM
The “why did you do this, that other thing needs to be done!” complaint is all too common.
Really, if we are going to take it to it’s logical extreme, one must wonder why any of us are commenting on or complaining about issues in SL instead of being out there helping to feed the hungry….
Just because somebody is working on one thing– e.g. the appearance of the blog– does not mean that others aren’t working on other problems. And, indeed, the other problems may be thornier or harder to deal with. The world is full of people, so the world is always multitasking. Don’t take an improvement in one place as evidence that work isn’t happening somewhere else!
In other words, give ‘em a rest, and stop moaning and groaning every time something hapens that’s different from what you want to have happen….
January 10th, 2007 at 7:06 PM
[18:55] George Linden: Hi folks! Seems to be some global teleporting issues at the moment. Best not to teleport for the time being while this gets checked out. Thank you for your patience
Can we have the next blog topic called “More things that you knew hours ago that we thought we’d officially bother mentioning now”?
Seriously, the way the website looks has never been an issue, it’s the lack of communications, especially timely ones that gets on most peoples nerves. This site could be brown with pea green lettering and I’d be happy with it as long as it was actually informative. 99.9% of things that we get notified of in game are usually globally known hours before you guys decide to comment. How many complaints does it take before we get those responses…. 10k?
January 10th, 2007 at 7:06 PM
I like the new layout, and the more information available right over there
January 10th, 2007 at 7:06 PM
Good to know now fix the damn game so i dont crash on every teleport
January 10th, 2007 at 7:06 PM
Yukiko: Yeah I’d like more melons too, heh, but that’s what I have a personal blog (also about Second Life, gosh it’s my work AND play) for. I love diversity!
Also related to bugs… be sure to check:
* Known Issues page. (We’re also got a link to it under Hot Notices in the upper-left.)
* Knowledge Base — we’re going to be adding workarounds and the like for bugs that haven’t been squashed yet.
I definitely notice my logins right now are feeling SLOW, there are problems with teleporting too. :\ It sucks for me like it does for you. Our CommMonkey Chadrick’s been alerted and our engineers are aware. Stay tuned for… more news on the blog.
January 10th, 2007 at 7:11 PM
Jeez people, wtf is wrong with you? Obviously Torley isn’t a gridmonkey. When will you all get it through your thick skulls that not every Linden can hammer away at fixing grid problems?
BTW Torley, looks great.
January 10th, 2007 at 7:12 PM
Well it is nice to have a shiny new blog to read while we wait for an explaination, in that very blog, why we got logged out for just trying to TP. lol
Blog looks nice. Now get to using it.
January 10th, 2007 at 7:12 PM
I just posted about the grid problems.
Thx.
January 10th, 2007 at 7:18 PM
One thing I still cannot seem to find is a link to our account page? Is it there and I cannot find it or do we have to go to the main SL homepage everytime?
January 10th, 2007 at 7:24 PM
Can we get a grid alert security notice similar to what Homeland Security has on the right side of this blog? While it the idea seems kind of silly for the United States, I think it would be perfect for SL! Just move the alert level whenever common grid complications occur
Like the blog nonetheless
January 10th, 2007 at 7:26 PM
Everything on the far right hand side of the main column is cut off. Torley’s watermelon-y SL logo is missing a finger!!!!!!!!
January 10th, 2007 at 7:31 PM
Everything fits very well on my screen in IE7 and Mozilla FireFox at 1024×768. Even room to spare on each side of the screen.
January 10th, 2007 at 7:32 PM
More things I don’t like about the new blog:
Harder to find the link that takes you to the comments!!! That little thought-bubble icon is not very intuitive.
There used to be a seperate link at the top left of the page, that took you back to the main blog page. It was easier to use than the little menu bar icon.
I’m not a complainer, really, but this is strikes me as an “if-it-ain’t-broke…” situation
Was there anything wrong with the old blog format? This one has two clear problems (truncated text on the right side, hard-to-find comments icon)
Max
January 10th, 2007 at 7:33 PM
Scratch that the official Linden posts (yellow) are slightly cut off on the right side in IE7. In Mozilla FireFox it looks perfect.
January 10th, 2007 at 7:45 PM
[GRAPHICS] Blog’s becoming more visual, so in general, we’re open to having grid status graphics. After our famous “bang on things” splash made by Bub and Cornelius, anything’s possible.
[YOUR ACCOUNT] I don’t think there was ever a link for that here before. It’s http://secondlife.com/account so feel free to bookmark it like I have.
[IE7 PROBLEMS] We’ll investigate. Thx!
[COMMENTS] We intentionally made them more compact and simple — again, a graphical touch in the form of the dialogue bubble. And yeah, I did hear a lot of suggestions about making our blog theme “better balanced”.
January 10th, 2007 at 7:58 PM
some cutting off from the main blog page as well as the comment column. using ie7 here.
i have circled the parts:
http://ringweekly.googlepages.com/cutoff1.png
http://ringweekly.googlepages.com/cutoff2.png
January 10th, 2007 at 8:05 PM
love the look i knew there was something different
January 10th, 2007 at 8:17 PM
@Torley:
IE7 issues confirmed. Here’s a screenshot (about 130KB): http://www.sdwolf.net/screenshot.jpg
Take care!
- SDW ^..^
January 10th, 2007 at 8:49 PM
I have to say that I don’t like the new design. I’m visually impaired — you know … big, thick, coke-bottle-bottom glasses, were it not for the miracle of modern high-density plastics. Even with correction, though, I have to crank the size of fonts, way up Now with two side bars, everything is squished into a narrow area with relatively few words per line. I can deal with it, and it isn’t an issue for most of the readers, so I won’t really complain about it — just a head’s up that you forgot the lowest common denominator, here (those of us who can’t read small type easily).
I suppose it would be asking too much to have the ability to toggle side bars on and off, so I won’t.
OK, I did … sort of. 
January 10th, 2007 at 8:58 PM
Amada Ascot Says:
[snip]
I suppose it would be asking too much to have the ability to toggle side bars on and off, so I won’t. OK, I did … sort of.
Actually, I think that’s an awesome idea. The text for replies is rather small, and once you’re down past the sidebars, everything is kinda squished down the middle of the screen.
Would it be possible to /only/ show the sidebars on the main blog page, and not when reading an individual entry and replies? The sidebars make sense on the main page, but they seem to be in the way otherwise.
Take care!
- SDW ^..^
January 10th, 2007 at 9:16 PM
Muy Fabu;oso! How about a dropdown menu so we can navigate back into the rest of the site after we have blogged away?
January 10th, 2007 at 10:04 PM
I’m glad that recent posts thing wasnt a “feature”
It’s starting to come together now. Nice work
January 10th, 2007 at 10:17 PM
The writing appears smaller now and harder to read and each side is blank anyway down here any way, only 1/3 of the page is used and will need to scroll furthert down than before on longer comments
So in short I prefer the old.
January 10th, 2007 at 10:35 PM
I agree with the following 2 posts:
1. Vanessa Says:January 10th, 2007 at 7:01 PM PST
-looks like text was puts in a vise
2. Kath W Says: January 10th, 2007 at 10:17 PM PST
-it id hard to read, and u do have to do a lot more scrolling
P.S.
-now that you are making changes to the format of the blog, can u number each blog entry. Something like “[24] Rex Cronon says[01/10/2007 @ 10:18p.m.]:”
January 10th, 2007 at 10:48 PM
Yep, Kath, I agree completely. While it might look nicer, it’s not as usable anymore (at least for me). I run my desktop at 1600×1200 and it looks quite silly that way, now. Comments, e.g. are 470 pixels wide; that’s not even 30% of my screen width. And the smaller font-size doesn’t help reading at that resolution at all.
Is there any way to get the blog using my screen width? Maybe an option I missed? Or a setting in my profile? Or is there still a link to the old blog-view?
January 10th, 2007 at 11:08 PM
Its called politics… stop the cosmetic changes for now and make it LOOK like every single Linden, past and present, is working 24 hr shifts to resolve the problems.
Adding widgets and bells and whistles while SL is essentially broken, only serves to make LL look foolish.
January 10th, 2007 at 11:20 PM
However much ’shiny’ stuff you do to the blog, it still doesn’t change the fact that a forum, where anyone can discuss any subject they wish at any time, is much more community-friendly and much more professional. Are you aware of any other online games that use a blog instead of an official forum? No, didn’t think so. Ever wondered why?
Broccoli
January 11th, 2007 at 12:01 AM
I’d far rather see a larger font size. It’s really hard to read at this default size you’ve set. I normally expect to see tiny font sizes on legalese and emo-goth blogs. I want to believe LL has more dignity than that.
January 11th, 2007 at 12:21 AM
Super small fonts, guys. I don’t have trouble with my sight but this is pushing it for me.
January 11th, 2007 at 12:39 AM
Bigger. Fonts. Needed. (/me presses Ctrl and ‘+’ compulsively to get readable fonts)
Another change to consider: Javascript script to display date/time, with a global dropdown box to choose the timezone.
January 11th, 2007 at 1:08 AM
Looks nice, with more information.
I do have one small request: Could you do a “current SL time” indication in the sidebar for all us non-US users. That way we can find out the offset between our local time and PST time and calculate when exactly events will happen. Would also be nice if you made it a 24-hour clock, since that is the system most of the world uses.
January 11th, 2007 at 1:27 AM
I’ll say it again here in the relevant post.
Blog seems pretty - totally irrelevant though, without threaded and taggable comments. So a resounding ‘meh’ on that score from this resident who appreciates functionality over glitter
January 11th, 2007 at 1:44 AM
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE put a clock with SL time on your web pages, especially any that mention forthcoming events.
or add the GMT time to events announcements…
just anything that acknowledges the international nature of the SL community.
There are SOOOOOO many of us who are not in America, and even though most Americans find it hard to remember this fact, please could SL lead the way in acknowledging the existence of life outside the USA?
January 11th, 2007 at 1:46 AM
Lovin’ the new look around here!
Nice work Torley and any other Linden that did this.
It is a much cleaner, brighter and easier to search interface. Thanks for the improved blog!
January 11th, 2007 at 3:01 AM
asking again….
please TURN OFF pingbacks or trackbacks - its becoming a REAL pain to have to scroll though endless […]LL wrote something i already read[…] one liners in a post that already has hundreds of replies.
We don’t need this and I’m sure LL don’t need it either.
January 11th, 2007 at 3:04 AM
ps, i agree with quite a few others that the font is WAY TOO small.
You are giving me RSI because i have to click 25 times in-world to apply a texture to a group - don’t break my eyes too.
January 11th, 2007 at 3:10 AM
Please read:
http://www.baekdal.com/articles/Usability/minimumfontsizes/
smallest usable fonts according to Apple and Microsoft:
* Microsoft: 11px Tahoma
* Apple: 11px Lucida Grande Regular
January 11th, 2007 at 3:29 AM
Looks far too cluttered now for my tastes, I preferred the cleaner look it had before.
January 11th, 2007 at 3:58 AM
I hate it …takes away from SL time , and another thing if you have to design then you better make a section for us to make open disscussions as to what you LIndens are doing to fix the the MISSING IMAGES BUG AND THE POSE BALL INTERACTION ….. Its fraustrating when you can’t interact with your friends and have to relog to see your friends right *interaction isnt that what SL is all about* or NOT!!!!!!! Fix SL Please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
January 11th, 2007 at 4:57 AM
As an american polak, I’m happy to finally see some polish on the page. Dziękuję!
January 11th, 2007 at 6:19 AM
Well. I don’t like the new blog image. sorry. The central column is smaller than before and I don’t like to jump from line to line so reducing the font but keeping the width would be a better improvement to me.
Regards.
January 11th, 2007 at 6:19 AM
Well. I don’t like the new blog image. sorry. The central column is smaller than before and I don’t like to jump from line to line so reducing the font but keeping the width would be a better improvement to me.
Regards.
January 11th, 2007 at 7:27 AM
Prospero Frobozz:: The “why did you do this, that other thing needs to be done!” complaint is all too common.
When I saw the title of the post, I thought to myself (jokingly) “I bet some idiots will complain about this too”. Sadly, it happened.
People, you have hit a new low. Do you honestly think that all Lindens are chained together and whatever one of them does, the other hundred must do as well? I can just imagine the stampede when the phone rings. Stop being such foolish jerks. A new blog post does not mean you HAVE to come up with a new gripe.
January 11th, 2007 at 8:17 AM
looking good
January 11th, 2007 at 9:19 AM
I use a widescreen monitor, and yet it seems to be contrained to narrow colomns in the middle of the screen. Can it be adjusted to take up percentages of the screen instead of a fixed width?
January 11th, 2007 at 9:35 AM
I’ve already pointed out that it would be useful for us poor europeans to have SecondLife hour being shown on the blog. This would help us in calculating quickly if need be hours related problematics. Furthermore on every item you show the hour when posted, but if SL hour is not shown, (as it is on the logging in screen) one has to go back somewhere to see how it corresponds to current time.
Thanks
January 11th, 2007 at 9:48 AM
And let me second the font size!! I’m not going to mess around with my browser just so I can read the tiny fonts of the SL blog!! This is just waaaaaay too small!!!!
January 11th, 2007 at 9:49 AM
I much prefer the two-column layout and agree that the font size is a couple of px too small for the actual blog content. The “offical SL time” JS clock is a good idea for an addition too.
January 11th, 2007 at 10:06 AM
I would like to see it take advantage of my resolution. There’s a huge gulf of unused whitespace on each side and it leaves me having to do more scrolling to read longer articles. Perhaps a preferencdes cookie for the type of layout we’d like to use.
January 11th, 2007 at 11:12 AM
At 11:00 am SLT the whole secondlife.com website is very slow (for me), much slower than usual, with some pages taking longer to load than human patience can endure, for what little that info is worth.
Hey, maybe they should open source the website so we can add SLT to the blog and stuff like that!
January 11th, 2007 at 11:16 AM
Oh, it might be useful for some people to use the word comment to indicate the comments link instead of expecting them to correctly interpret an tiny icon.
January 11th, 2007 at 11:17 AM
Is there a way to change the theme? These fixed width layouts are awful. The middle column with the blog text is now 470 pixels wide, which is ridiculous. Why can’t you use a theme that allows people to use the screen estate they have (e.g. have the outer columns fixed and the middle one expand to use the whole browser window)?
January 11th, 2007 at 11:23 AM
This is a request to change to a theme with a larger center colum or one that scales as I have two big white borders down the side and a too narrow column of writing.
January 11th, 2007 at 12:01 PM
What happened?
Now the blog is presented as a tiny narrow column of text in the centre of my browser window (perhaps 20% of the width) - instead of expanding to fill the entire width.
Any chance you could put it back to auto-expand to full width so that 80% of my screen isn’t white-space?
Otherwise, looks like a nice improvement.
Thanks.
-Cenji.
January 11th, 2007 at 12:03 PM
Wow!!! Looking Real Good! Congratulations Lindens! Way to go! Keep up the good work and improvements!
January 11th, 2007 at 1:42 PM
Can we please, please please stop building a narrower and narrower column down the middle my large screen? looks really really silly on a 1920×1200 display set to large fonts to have the narrow line of text just a few words across down the center of the page display.
January 11th, 2007 at 5:31 PM
[LINE LENGTHS] Usability-wise, I know there are varied schools of thought on the fixed-width vs. variable-width thing. You can certainly read our blog in a customized form in an RSS reader like Bloglines or Google Reader. If anyone knows an even easier way, point me to it. Those in favor of fixed-width also point to the width of books and characters-per-line readability. We’re at about ~70 CPP which is comfortable per:
http://webstyleguide.com/type/lines.html
Understandably, that can take time to get used to. I also know some of the font sizes are appearing too large in IE7. Apologies, that’ll be fixed soon. Oh,
[FONT SIZE] It’s consistent with the rest of our website now. Granted, I feel it’s generally too small for me too, personally. You can resize that in most browsers; in Firefox it’s View menu > Text Size. Or I use Ctrl-mouse wheel. We’re going to keep adjusting this, per your feedback.
[CLOCKS & CONVERTERS] This has come up time and time again (no pun intended). Agree that we should have a better way to convert time, both on here and in Second Life — maybe a project for you Open Source contributors? Occasionally, I’ve linked to:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/
[SAYING THANK-YOU] I intend to post another update about improving the blog soon: as it’s changed before, it’s open to future change. If the narrow columns continue to prove broadly troublesome, we’re open to change. This isn’t a final form — thank you for taking the time to comment thoughtfully, every time I learn something new it helps me do my job better because of you.
[LINDENS WORKING ON WHAT?] As this always comes up, please know: there are a lot of varied Lindens working on a lot of different things. No devs working on crucial things like sucky simulator performance were pulled away to work on the blog — for that is the responsibility of a handful, myself included, who admin this Official Linden Blog. As a Community Developer of Communications, I also write & edit Knowledge Base articles like the revised Preferences guide:
http://secondlife.com/knowledgebase/article.php?id=335
and forums, user experience, etc.
If you’d like to know more about me *hi and waves* please see my profile inworld.
[THE FUTURE] Over time, I’ve been pleased to see more Lindens post, and share about their work with you. Second Life is unique in its multitudes. Since we realize no one approach will make everyone happy, esp. since we have such a broad spectrum of Residents, that’s why I hope you’ll be seeing a broader spectrum of Lindens, both here and inworld.
January 11th, 2007 at 8:17 PM
Torley, while I can appreciate your desire to improve the blog, it should be obvious by the comments, here, that the current “improvement” regarding the three column design isn’t an improvement at all. It’s such a total PITA for me, that I’ll probably quit reading the blogs unless a more acceptable layout is adopted. I simply cannot read it with the current text size and three column design (which leaves just one column and acres of whitespace after only a few posts), and boosting the text size up to a readable point (for me) simply results in too few words across the tiny center column you give to display the content of the blog.
Try it so that you have about twenty five or thirty characters across and you’ll know what I mean. Yes, it’s readable, but stretched out in a straight line this current blog would probably reach the first floor of my house and I’m sitting in the attic loft! OK, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but there are some blog threads that would.
Please change it back or give us the option to eliminate the left sidebar. Once you’ve looked at that all it does is define whitespace to the left of the text that we came here to read. In fact, it would be nice to be able to toggle off the right side-bar, too. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I seldom use it. I check on a blog entry because of the material that’s posted in that particular thread. I’d be happy with just links to the material in the sidebars.
January 11th, 2007 at 9:24 PM
> Samuel Geiger Says:
> January 10th, 2007 at 6:49 PM PST
>
> How about spending time working on fixing bugs.
> I can do without cosmetics to cover up the ugly pit that SL is becoming.
Samuel, why don’t you just STFU. You speak to the website design staff as if they controlled the SL server code. Get a clue. When you’ve designed, built, and coded, you can have a voice. Until then, you don’t get a say in how things are run around here.
That is all. Resume your normal duties, people. I’m done ranting.
– Pai Pai
January 11th, 2007 at 10:05 PM
> Amada Ascot Says:
> January 11th, 2007 at 8:17 PM PST
>
> Torley, while I can appreciate your desire to improve the blog,
> it should be obvious by the comments, here, that the current
> “improvement” regarding the three column design isn’t an
> improvement at all. It’s such a total PITA for me.
Amanda, What web browser are you using to create this ‘pinched’ view? It sure doesn’t do that in any of my 6 testing browsers.
January 11th, 2007 at 10:17 PM
Some people posting on this blog in general, really need some attention.
http://webstyleguide.com/type/lines.html
Text on the computer screen is hard to read not only because of the low resolution of computer screens but also because the layout of most Web pages violates a fundamental rule of book and magazine typography: the lines of text on most Web pages are far too long for easy reading. Magazine and book columns are narrow for physiological reasons: at normal reading distances the eye’s span of acute focus is only about three inches wide, so designers try to keep dense passages of text in columns not much wider than that comfortable eye span. Wider lines of text require readers to move their heads slightly or strain their eye muscles to track over the long lines of text. Readability suffers because on the long trip back to the left margin the reader may lose track of the next line.
January 11th, 2007 at 11:36 PM
“People, you have hit a new low. Do you honestly think that all Lindens are chained together and whatever one of them does, the other hundred must do as well? I can just imagine the stampede when the phone rings. Stop being such foolish jerks. A new blog post does not mean you HAVE to come up with a new gripe.”
Hey, we’re griping because we can, we have 2/3 of a monitor in wasted space now and are scrolling twice as much & squinting to read. If your favorite magazines, books or newsaper started printing in font size 4 tommorrow I suppose you wouldn’t do anything because that would be griping.
And then we get told by people “yes it looks squashed a bit but you will get used to it”
Then again maybe the spare space is being made for advertising, is that ok too?
ANyway I ‘m sure intentions to make it look better wee genuine, but some of uss have poorer eyes than others I’m afraid or are trying to read this on a side monitor whilst playing the game on the main
January 11th, 2007 at 11:44 PM
Torley wrote: “[FONT SIZE] It’s consistent with the rest of our website now. Granted, I feel it’s generally too small for me too, personally. You can resize that in most browsers; in Firefox it’s View menu > Text Size. Or I use Ctrl-mouse wheel. We’re going to keep adjusting this, per your feedback.”
Surely then, the sensible solution would have been to enlarge teh font size to teh rest of the site, instead of shrinkling teh font size on teh one area that was close to being readable. Excuse the spelling mistakes here - the font size in this edit box is LIETERALLY too small for me to read what Im typing!
January 12th, 2007 at 2:54 AM
@ Chronic
Depends whether you’re coming up with a perfectly reasonable, relevant gripe, doesn’t it. You saying that all these people with eyesight problems who now can’t READ the blog are just whining? Go you, so tolerant of other people’s needs
/sarcasm
January 12th, 2007 at 3:29 AM
The type is too small. The column is too narrow. What a huge waste of screen space. Maybe your graphic designers should take some courses in visual COMMUNICATION.
January 12th, 2007 at 3:31 AM
I’m the owner of an ad agency. This is much too small of a font size for people to read comfortably. Especially people over 65, like myself.
January 12th, 2007 at 7:30 AM
Fledhyris, the griping I was talking about was the ridiculous notion that the website designers should be fixing bugs with the coders instead of working on the website. No matter what the post is about, someone is sure to come along and start screeching like a harpy about teleport problems.
January 12th, 2007 at 8:29 AM
Who keeps stinkering with the things that work? This new type size is just plain stupid. Does the LL web art director have ANY experience with monitors and how things look on a screen?
So as not to be branded a whiner, I do think all this white space on either side is terrific for those of us who like to write notes in the margins.
January 12th, 2007 at 11:21 AM
[LOOK AND FEEL] MichaelFrancis Linden just let me know of a WordPress plugin called Theme Switcher:
http://386a.net/blog/wordpress/theme-switcher/
Basically, you can change between themes to your own liking with the click of a button.
We can’t currently install our own plugins on the WordPress VIP service — undesirable, we know, but at least we know this exists. I’d be happy to try it out; in the meantime, the options I mentioned above exist.
Also, keeping the broader aesthetic of Second Life in mind: remember that the blog now closer resembles the rest of SecondLife.com.
If you were to make suggestions to improve the general website as a whole, what would they be?
January 12th, 2007 at 12:52 PM
I know this is a loaded question, but what does one do with the Theme Switcher? Do I need to download WordPress too? And why is it my responsibility to fix YOUR mistake?
Which brings me to my off-topic rant: LL continues to drop the crap in our laps. Its mistakes are our to-dos. Griefers are our responsibility. Casinos in our sims sucking all the living and value out of our land are our responsibility. Any in-world disputes are our responsibility. Copybot was our responsibility. Thanks to open source, fixing the viewer is now our responsibility. When a new update adds the newest bug, we have to do the workaround. (When WILL my water show up without me hitting Estate?). The Land Management Forum has been removed, so we’ll end up going to the Resident Forum for answers, especially since email help is a black hole.
And now lousy art direction is our responsibility too.
I guess when you flood SL with thousands of population-plumping non-verified accounts, you have to make up for the service bandwidth they devour. Kinda like illegal immigrants overwhelming schools, healthcare, and welfare systems.
January 12th, 2007 at 2:35 PM
Totley wrote: “If you were to make suggestions to improve the general website as a whole, what would they be?”
Bigger fonts, first of all. This mslaller font may have harmonised things, but it took teh worst aspect to standardiose on.
Blog width for teh main text columbn should be wider. Theres too much wasted screen space once youve gone past those sidebars. It makes me feel like I bought a high end monitoor for notjhing.
Avoid tyoo many flashy widgets in the site generally. I usually have SL running at teh same time I am looking at the site, and anything that can help boost SL performance (by not sucking cpu cycles off in the web browser) is a bonus.
Rdecnt posts list in teh sidebar on teh right of teh blog.
free pony for all premium accounts.
January 12th, 2007 at 7:24 PM
Oh, and a spellchecker would be nice, seeing as how the font is too small for me to do an eyeball check on my spelling
January 13th, 2007 at 2:42 AM
Can we have a way to stop people from bible like replies on the blog? frankly as i wrote on the linden forum ( please refer my remarks ( blog). Maybe limit the number of words one can wite in a single reply? I really really hate people posting their email messages and or main forum quotes onthe blog!I ask this torley because some people just can`t SUMUP their views in short sweet reply. Even Myself being a non english speaker can sumup and or reply to a message without writing a bible or 2000 page book as a reply.
Thanks for reading
Usagi
January 14th, 2007 at 4:58 AM
Hello, I was wondering why my comment never made it through to the blog like everyone else’s have been. It was to the point, did not single anyone out, was not a flaming complaint, and had helpful suggestions in it. It also had some advice on what I found confusing about the Second Life website in general. Was it because I used my in world name (Gaybot Foxley) as my name? Is this not allowed? I have read the rules and standards for blog posting and I don’t understand. Am I not allowed to use the word gay in my name because it might offend people? Please let me know. I would like to post comments in the blog. I have been reading the blog for some time now and I would be as professional as possible when making comments. (You can email me with the email I provided above the comment body section) Thank you.
January 15th, 2007 at 7:15 PM
[...] not necessarily an extreme one, but’as mentioned previously,’we’ve rolled out a new design for the Official Linden Blog that we hope will make it [...]
January 17th, 2007 at 7:34 PM
I have the browser on IE6 set for “largest”. The font’s here are still too small to read comfortably. Perhaps if the fonts were changed to always be BOLD there would also be a little contrast in the text so it can be read without squinting and fiddling with the monitor’s contrast settings. I can not urge strongly enough to roll back to the previous rendition of this blog, or I might upset the preferred decorum.
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September 20th, 2007 at 2:35 PM
[...] 15th, 2007 at 5:31 PM PDT by: Torley Linden … not necessarily an extreme one, but as mentioned previously, we’ve rolled out a new design for the Official Linden Blog that we hope will make it [...]
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