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Site layout updates

Today the announced change to center the page for people with large monitors took place.

Most bugs are fixed now. Please post if you notice things looking especially strange, and I'll try and take a look. Thanks to everyone for your support, and lets get back to poetry
If your beautiful userpage is horribly messed up and you don't have a gold membership to update it anymore, I might be talked into gifting you a few days so you can get it working

Lots of painful updates were made throughout the day today. I apologize if you were already trying to fix things, and my ever-few-hours site updates made that a struggle (though I did warn you here...)

Another change was made to the text for the casual vs. critical featured box. That's the next thing to be changed, but not for another month or so.


If one of your pages had an image that used to go across the full page, but is now showing a *white* or *grey* border edge, this is a bug - please leave a comment with a link to the page and I'll take a look!

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Comments

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  • Dienush
    September 25, 2008
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    So, um... is this why the border of my author page background looked particularly huge today, or is it just the way it always was and I'm not used to it anymore? I know it sounds silly, but I'm *that* bad with computers.


  • Meroza
    September 25, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    So on my 1440x900 screen I can't ever read the sideborder on the right, its always into the background border, or its outside the box.

    I thought these changes would be big/small screen friendly but it aint at all.


    Any tips for me so that I can view the sideborder for once?


  • Zahhar gold member
    September 21, 2008
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    Well I've been fussing with the images I updated to be compatible with Kevin's grand new design. The following three use three different background images with a centered content space. The left border is actually no longer a left border. In fact, in order to get the content space of the background image to center with the displayed content, I had to provide a negative horizontal offset of -17 pixels from the edge of the left border and then set the text offset of the image as saved here in AP to 1. Setting it to 0 causes all sorts of strange behavior--something Kevin doesn't seem to have accounted for.

    So here are the three background images. I'm hoping Kevin will start taking these backgrounds and adding them to a new background category called "AP Compatible"--since not a one of the sidebars currently used as AP defaults are compatible with his bizarre changes:

    This first one is created from a photograph of a piece of kamacite--an ore that contains iron and nickel. Beautiful stuff:

    http://allpoetry.com/poem/4478959

    This second is created from a photograph of a piece of elgin marble of a variety called "blue star". Beautiful specimen, and I was able to mask the seams fairly well by carefully selecting the crop area:

    http://allpoetry.com/poem/4302779

    This third is also created from a photograph of elgin marble, but of a variety dramatically different in appearance called "siena brocatelle":

    http://allpoetry.com/poem/4234573

    I find I'm worried about spending all this time updating my custom background images and finding a way to make them work here at AP because Kevin is prone to make some dramatic new change obsoleting another wave of hard work.

    Frustrating either way.

    I still wish my old sidebars could have left justified content. Kev is being unreasonable on this matter.


  • Zahhar gold member
    September 20, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    And here's another edit. This is going to take forever: http://allpoetry.com/poem/4302779

  • Zahhar gold member
    September 19, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    Alright so I updated one of my background images to have a low contrast area only where the content would be viewed, with both left and right side margin borders. The effect is somewhat pleasing:

    http://allpoetry.com/poem/4478959

    BUT, I'd still like for my existing left margin sidebar backgrounds to be viewed with left justified content. I'll go through and update my images that can be updated (it won't be possible with the narrower images) to this left/right sidebar format as time and energy permit.

    Mind you, I'm still not happy about your springing this on us without making it possible to maintain the look and feel our posts and profiles originally had.

  • Zahhar gold member
    September 19, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    I see you have a fixed width content space now that accepts no compromise (not good for shape poetry or poetry with long lines).

    How far apart in pixels are the content margins?

    I'm going to try creating a version of one of my background images that has left and right borders and a low contrast area in the center for the content. But I'd want the left and right margins of the content space created to look right so I need to know the pixel area of your content space.

    These images are going to take a lot of time and energy to create. And they'll be larger than past background sidebar images because there will be a lot more higher contrast area present. What made it possible to create such large images that were less than 200kb is the fact that most of the area of those images were low contrast--everything right of the sidebar--which compresses beautifully.

    With your new design I wouldn't do it this way, and so the images will use upwards of 500kb. I'd like you to add another 300k to the accepted image size so I can create such backgrounds as best utilize your new design. Considering the tremendous speed of the average user's internet access now, this a very reasonable request.


  • Random Goldfish gold member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    Well, there is an open space to the far left of my border...it sort of looks like the whole page is just shoved over with a big block of colour to compensate for it...not a fan.


  • amaranthine lover gold member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    I don't like this.


  • Manda Kathryn Greeters member
    September 18, 2008
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    I have a question Kevin:

    What happened to being able to use any font we liked?

    I used to pick a font from Word Doc. while I wrote a poem but when I copy and paste them now into AP the font goes default

    I liked being able to have a variety of choices now I don't


    • Kevin Moderators member
      September 19, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      Hmm, that hasn't changed at all..

      Gold members have a choice of a few fonts...

      Unfortunately, the way fonts work on the web, if the person viewing it doesn't have the same font as you, it doesn't work at all. Thus we're stuck with the list of 6 or whatever ones that everyone has installed.

  • Zahhar gold member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    Left indented text from Kevin. Offset text my response.

    Given that the rest of allpoetry is staying centered, I see too options:

    1) Live with them being similar but not exactly as designed. Left edge -> ribbons isn't a huge transition for most backgrounds.
    It is. Because you have to go back to the original image and do everything over again, from scratch. This is extremely time consuming, and there's no guarantee you won't pull something like this again down the road that will undo all that work.

    2) Give people an option of having the image stay on the left edge, even though the poem content is still in the center (I'd be ok with this, though probably wouldn't make it an obvious option for new poems/users)
    This will work for the background images that are exceptionally wide (most of my custom backgrounds are twice as wide as my display resolution), but this won't work for your native sidebar backgrounds, which I have made heavy use of in the past. So many of my older posts and some of my newer ones will become unreadable since the text of the poem will overlap the sidebar itself when the image tiles to the right under the centered text. This is a bad option where narrower sidebar images are concerned.

    AllPoetry is a sort of anthology of world poetry in English and some other languages. As the site gets older people die off and leave their mark on the site, or they move on and forget about their contributions. But those contributions remain, a record of poetic expression and thought. Making it impossible to read older posts should be avoided so as to help maintain this record.

    3) For some specific left-edge poems, have them show up as squished back on the left. (not sure if I'm really willing to consider this)
    This is the best of the three options. Let your paying users, your goldies at the very least, specify that poems using a particular background are to be left justified. Offer a disclaimer saying that this will throw off the feel of the site for some users who may then become discouraged to revisit their work at AllPoetry, but leave the decision in the hands of the users, since we've paid for the ability to customize our posts and profile.

    Meanwhile, with the new site design, users including myself will begin designing side ribbon backgrounds and slowly, as time and energy permit, go through past backgrounds and update them to the new site design.

    In a way I'm happy to keep up with the site's changes, but if those changes happen so fast that I can't keep up then I'm going to give up. Let our sidebars remain sidebars with the intended left side offset. Let us go through and manually set this option for our sidebar images and give us time to begin the process of converting to or creating new side ribbon backgrounds.


  • catz Moderators member
    September 17, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    The plot thickens...

  • dillpickle62
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply

    Messages

    Kevin. Under the name side. Who from. I have a large blank open area. The actual message itself is far off to the right side of the screen in only about an inch of viewing. I'm not able to read entire messages.
    Thanks Dill -


  • Meroza
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    http://allpoetry.com/poem/4591761

    This page also have the comments under rewarding and commenting box

  • Zahhar gold member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    Email came first. I got home from a trip that was relaxing and clarifying to my thoughts and emotions and logged on to find my profile and pages wildly adjusted in a way I can't do anything about (i.e., put back to the way I had it).

    I sent you an email telling you that my left indents were off and that I couldn't fix them. I don't maximize my windows to the full width of the screen, so I didn't see the left edge of my sidebars pull away yet. When I widened my browser window to find out what people were talking about I about lost my mind. Adjusting the text size has a similar effect.

    And yes, I'm upset about the left edge sidebars now no longer being left edge sidebars. You've taken tens of hundreds of left edge sidebars that people have spent a great deal of time creating and turned them into left edge ribbon bars. If I wanted ribbon bars I would have designed the sidebars that way in the first place. It's something I'd consider doing now with your new design, in fact.

    But it's not something I'd change with my existing sidebars because that's work already done and posts already designed.

    I'd even consider creating outer and inter texture designs as you've proposed in your response. But this is not how those posts and those existing sidebar images were designed. You've undone a lot of hard work and carefully thought out design that you charged your customers to be able to create.

    And no, the two poems you've noted do not look fine. They look fine to you because you want to believe that everything at AllPoetry looks fine with your changes because you want to feel justified in screwing up everyone's work for your own reasons and to fit your own tastes. But I as the creator of those images and the posts that use them do not share your tastes or your sentiments. Many many many many users are similarly frustrated.

    You're alienating a large number of your paying users. Your none paying users aren't going to care because they have not invested anything into your site. They haven't purchased your house for you. They haven't purchased your cars and other expensive properties. They haven't paid for all those expensive nights out on the town. They haven't made your significant other feel significantly secure in her future with you.

    It's your paying customers that are affected. It's the customers who paid for the ability to personalize their posts and profile who are affected. And you've undone that. You've reneged on your transaction.

    This is a really big deal and you're refusing to see it.

    And in general AllPoetry looked and felt better before to use and browse, and it allowed for a bit more real estate. But you're refusing to see this.

    I'm going to post this response also in that thread, but just this response. I and a lot of paying users are extremely frustrated by this.


  • jantastic gold member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    I have searched around and read through a few threads looking to see if there's a way to change the "default" of the side bars on particular pages. I haven't found such an option. Is there a function to select say a solid colour to appear at the sides of all "site/administrative" pages such as the views page, favourites list, home, etc? The frosty trees are particularly unappealing to me just now and I must echo some of the thoughts expressed in Cat's comment about the backgrounds and perhaps some more contemporary ones.


  • Kathleen a Nazarene
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply

    Ugh!

    I keep getting my request to send a ms. bumped. I click & then look for the spot to pop up & it doesn't! Any way you could have the ms. box come up under the note you'd like to respond to? I find it difficult having the box come up way down the page & having to find my way back to where I left off giving responses. I get lots of comments, notes & messages & want to do my best to keep up, but find this Site a bit difficult to navigate! Thanks for your attention to this Kevin!


  • Meroza
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    http://allpoetry.com/poem/4608795

    I commented, now my comment is under the raiting and commenting box


  • Cat gold member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    ok. so that message was lost. let me try again.

    Kevin as long as you are updating this site let's do something about these backgrounds that permeate the site-

    this 1970's school picture background, the old lady rose background, the out of season 3 of 4 seasons pine tree and snow background, the 1980's dentist office light gray stripe background, and lets not forget the subtle yellow diseased dotted background.

    Do you think we could add something to the coffers that looks a bit more trendy? Something that looks less old lady? Perhaps a rich, deep gray or a repeated picture of Barack Obama running down the sides... please


    thanks.

    m


  • Saffron gold member
    September 18, 2008
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    Kevin--thanks for fixing the "edit backgrounds" link


  • cricketjeff gold member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    on http://allpoetry.com/poem/4608765
    I could not award bunnies because the buttons are appearing under a comment.


  • x-Black-Butterfly-x gold member
    September 18, 2008
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    I think site update and changes are ctaching up with my username changes lol. youll have everyone confused

  • cricketjeff gold member
    September 18, 2008
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    Not happy

    I really am not liking this change at all, it seems to be a move to a format that made sense a few years ago but now it is the small monitor brigade who are out of line. I have old poems that I now need to edit to take account of the change, is it not possible to give us a switch to turn back to the old format?
    My tiled image on the homepage now looks horrid and I cannot see a simple way around it. I have all OSs and browsers and size of monitors for professional reasons and have done my best to make my poems work on all, now they don't.
    I really do think this new format a retrograde step.
    On a separate point on dark bakground the new logo really does not work well, I suspect that should be relatively easy to improve.


    • Rose Dark Thorn silver member
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      For your background, go into edit it, set the border margin to 0 and then re-upload the background to your author's page choosing the tile across option.

      • cricketjeff gold member
        September 18, 2008
        Edit | Reply
        Thank-you, that is an improvement, however I have 1400 poems and 54 backgrounds, at least I don't usually use image backgrounds but I have no way of finding those that do other than going to look. 2 minutes a poem, that makes about 2 days doing nothing but check my poems, not something I really want to do.

        • Rose Dark Thorn silver member
          September 18, 2008
          Edit | Reply
          This is true. I decided that I wouldn't get too worked up over that unless I happen to check one and notice the background is out of place and then fix it. I fixed my author's page and my group pages, and I also changed all my backgrounds to 0 border. I only had 3 pages; only took me, maybe an hour. Sigh. That's using multiple tabs, mind you.

          • Kevin Moderators member
            September 18, 2008
            Edit | Reply
            Hmm, it looked better before you did that, I think... You tried resizing your window to see what it looks like for other people?

            • cricketjeff gold member
              September 18, 2008
              Edit | Reply
              You are right, however there are more people with big screens than little screens so I think this is a better option at the moment.
              I don't have a way that I can see at the moment of reliably putting marginal images on the left of the browser where I want them, Although I can presumably embed some css into my poems to overwrite the site settings.

            • Rose Dark Thorn silver member
              September 18, 2008
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              I'm aware of what it may look like for others, but they don't have to come to my page, and I rarely use backgrounds on poems; actually I don't do that anymore, so it's only my author's page and my group pages, and I feel I should have the right to make them look how I want them to.


  • Sue Cardwell gold member
    September 18, 2008
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    Kevin, in this new centred format it screws my home page up and poems with long lines are wrapping around, so many of my old poems will have to be re-formatted. I agree with the rest of the comments, sorry, but I think we should go backwards. If you have a large screen, then re-size your browser.

    • Kevin Moderators member
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      your author page has a very large left edge sizing to it.... this isn't going to work well for many people (and didn't before either...)

      Does this poem wrap for you? http://allpoetry.com/poem/4608579

      It should have wrapped before also then....

  • Saffron gold member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    Is the "edit backgrounds" feature not working? I clicked on that link to edit a background (on a previously written poem) that all of a sudden went from grey to white, and the link says that the file cannot be found...I have no way to change the background or the font color for the entire page, and no one can read this poem (which just happens to be in a contest, but that is beside the point). I just wondered if it was just me and my machine that's messed up...

    Thanks!


  • Cynthia Gaines gold member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply

    I'm with Sharcu & Zahhar...

    Kevin, these new changes drastically affected my front page, to the point that I had to completely change my design yesterday. And not only that, a lot of my poems' designs are now ruined. The backgrounds will never be the same, and the small center looks ridiculous. I wonder why we didn't have a chance to vote on this idea before all the changes were made? You seem to think it is important to have our opinions on some things, but not on this blunder? This is a biggie, and yet none of your members had a voice into the outcome of the decision. When are you going to stop playing with our poetry pages? I'd like to suggest that you start a new poetry site for kids, and the 12-year-olds can help in the design of that one, and leave ours alone. I was happy with this site before all these negative changes began happening, but now I feel like I've been swept into Hurrican Ike's path within my ruined pages here on Allpoetry... Well, this is my thought for the day. I do hope you have a good one, in spite of your enormous workload and the negativity swirling all around. Peace, Cyn, FMA (formerly known as), Rose of Ireland


    • Kevin Moderators member
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      Hmm, I really like how this one looks?
      http://allpoetry.com/poem/3571316

      • Cynthia Gaines gold member
        September 19, 2008
        Edit | Reply

        Hi Kevin,

        I appreciate your taking a look at that one poem. The biggest problem I can see so far (and I haven't looked at every one of my poems yet) is with my front page. I had to redo my design, mostly text changes, but after playing around with it, I think it looks really crappy now. I had a whole lot of one line quotes that were 10 pt. font., but after your changes were made, my quotations lines (sentences) went crazy, and wrapped around to the next line, now looking all weird, not like I designed it. So, I had to change the font on my quotations to an 8 pt., which is waaaay toooo tiny, I can barely read it and my front page looks even more stupid now.

        Whatever possessed you to make all these changes to the website's design?!!? I only see the need for a left-hand margin, IF there were more links added, or other bells and whistles, on the left edge to play around with, but it looks really weird; just wide-and-empty on the left side, especially on the front page, where everything is all crammed up in the center, and leaning too close to the right-hand edge, where all the links are. So now, it all looks "busy" if that is the right word. I mean, there is too much junk for the eye on the right-hand side of the page, and nothing on the left. Well, anyway I suppose it doesn't do any good to complain anymore, does it?

        The way I see it, this is all beginning to look like another "myspace" type of social community. I suppose next we'll be offered services to sign up for in the left-hand side column, like myspace's services. Maybe a community blog, or something connected to online dating, sharing photos, or whatever. I feel like the art of poetry has begun to vanish from this website, and is slowly being replaced by something else... Hopefully you're having a good day/evening.
        Thank you for listening,
        Cyn

  • carole21
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply

    nice

    I notice that the title doesn't always center when the poem is centered . . is this a bug ??


    • Kevin Moderators member
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      Could you send me a link to an example please?


    • Barbara gold member
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      It kind of detracts from the poem, doesn't it? I noticed that it's to the left too much, even on left alligned poems. Makes it look unbalanced.


  • LadyDementia gold member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    I had major trouble trying to upload a BG last night but figured I was tired and left it. I have to be honest and say its the only problem I have had. People are telling me the backgrounds are messed up but I can't see it. So while pleased I can't see it I am rather put of making any more BG's if people are just going to see a messed up version...Is this permanent or have you finished working on it bar any bugs now....

  • Barbara gold member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    My beautiful author page still looks the same. Why don't these 'glitches' ever hit me on AP? (not that I'm complaining.. just mentioning... could it be that I use IE 7? Or some other thing? ... like, I always make all my custom borders 1200 in length?)

    And whoa! My SW page *finally* straightened out on the left border on that.


  • Sharcu silver member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    Kevin, I have been here for three years and supported all of our decisions. But I cannot support you on this one, sorry. This is a very poor choice. All of my custom backgrounds that I've put hours and hours into are all ruined:
    http://allpoetry.com/item/by/sharcu

    Please consider fixing this or else you can say good-bye to one loyal member. Sorry

    --Tim


    • Frodofan silver member
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      I think that would be a pretty sad reason to leave. You can go in and edit it. I know you have a lot, but just whenever you have time... It's not like AP members aren't going to understand.

      • Sharcu silver member
        September 18, 2008
        Edit | Reply
        I've spent more hours on here working on my backgrounds than I have on my poetry. And I don't want to go back and edit them just to adjust to something.

        To make this more realistic to you, what if Kevin made it so all the letter "a" in the poems disappeared and it couldn't be fixed. So the answer people gave you were to just go back and edit ALL of them whenever you have time..... No, I'm pretty sure you'd be upset because I'm sure all your poems contain that letter.

        Same thing. All my backgrounds now have that hard edge. I made them to be aligned to the left. I can understand changing the backgrounds that are posted from here on out, but at least keep the old ones the same..................

        --Tim

        • Frodofan silver member
          September 19, 2008
          Edit | Reply
          That's a bit of an exaggeration considering this is a poetry site, not a background site. I understand your frustration, but still. You can fix it in just a few easy steps. You have a lot, I understand that. But still, who ever said life was easy?

    • Cynthia Gaines gold member
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply

      I'm with Sharcu & Zahhar...

      Kevin, these new changes drastically affected my front page, to the point that I had to completely change my design yesterday. And not only that, a lot of my poems' designs are now ruined. The backgrounds will never be the same, and the small center looks ridiculous. I wonder why we didn't have a chance to vote on this idea before all the changes were made? You seem to think it is important to have our opinions on some things, but not on this blunder? This is a biggie, and yet none of your members had a voice into the outcome of the decision.

      When are you going to stop playing with our poetry pages? I'd like to suggest that you start a new poetry site for kids, and the 12-year-olds can help in the design of that one, and leave ours alone. I was happy with this site before all these negative changes began happening, but now I feel like I've been swept into Hurrican Ike's path within my ruined pages here on Allpoetry... Well, this is my thought for the day. I do hope you have a good one, in spite of your enormous workload and the negativity swirling all around. Peace, Cyn - FMA (formerly known as), Rose of Ireland

    • Barbara gold member
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      I've looked at the first five, and they look fine. the text isn't overlapping, and there's no right side border. Unless it's been finxed since you posted this.... (or could be the server, too... not playing nicely with the upgrades) Love the bridge background

      • Sharcu silver member
        September 18, 2008
        Edit | Reply
        Barb, take a look at this screen shot:

        http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g173/sharcu/ss-3.jpg

        I just took this no a 1024x768 computer. At my home I'm at over 2000 resolution because of the 27 " HDTV monitor....

        Anyways, the problem is that the right side of the border is repeating over onto the left hand side which then creates a hard line. I make ALL my backgrounds perfectly seamless and put a lot of time and effort into them. This new thing makes it not seamless and I think ruins the entire picture. I think they should still be aligned to the left side so there is no way of that hard line...

        If anything, have it so that is on all future backgrounds, but leave the old one's alone.

        --Tim


  • AutumnGypsy gold member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    My background is screwed and I now have to scroll across my screen to see the right side bar. AND now the stupid background settings won't let me upload my background again with different margins. Just got it fixed after last update!


  • BarbedWireButterfly
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    I can't chose colours for my backgrounds. Another bug in this senseless change.

    • Kevin Moderators member
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      Hmm, it's working on all browsers for me. Try clearing temp files I guess? Sounds like your javascript is unhappy.

      • BarbedWireButterfly
        September 18, 2008
        Edit | Reply
        Seems to have worked. I thought of it but didn't do it because generally when everything gets to full I got different bugs on this site.

  • Zahhar gold member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    Jesus what's wrong with people? If you have a big monitor, then size your web browser WINDOW so that left adjusted pages look normal.

    It's not the job of the web designer to try to please every single possible pet peeve that random users round the world express. It's a WINDOW. The browser is a WINDOW in a WINDOWS BASED environment. It is the job of the user to adjust his WINDOWS so that he can read web pages comfortably.

    So you're trying to please people who want to have their web browser take up their entire window space by having AllPoetry content take up a tiny space down the center of that giant user space. Um... Kevin. Let's face it. If someone wants to waste their real estate this way, that's on them. It seems pretty ridiculous for you to try to make AllPoetry look 'right' for people who don't know how to use a computer, and who have no idea how a windows environment is designed to be used.

    When users complained about this, instead of wasting I don't know how many man-hours on trying to make them happy, you should have spent three man-minutes telling them to unmaximize their web browser window, resize it as it seems fit to them, and center that window in their user space. Three minutes for you, three seconds for them. Easy.

    Instead you've pretty much whacked out all of AllPoetry trying to please people who are unwilling to take a little time to learn how a windows environment works and how it's meant to be used. And you've got lots and lots of users who spent countless hours CREATING their own background images--their own poem-space environments--who now find their hard work completely obliterated.

    How's this. Why don't you see if you can find a happy medium. Of sorts. Let any post and profile that uses a background image with a sidebar offset (including AP's native background sidebar images) remain left justified--and not worry about pleasing the people who don't want to learn how to use their computer. And let all the rest of the posts that use tile images (no sidebar offset) or just plain color backgrounds go ahead and be centered in that special way these people who don't want to use their own brain like, including all the AllPoetry native pages and spaces like the main page, forums, store, help pages, informational pages, etc.

    This way when your center-me-silly users complain about a particular page not being centered, you can tell them that user set the poem to be left justified and to complain to them if they don't like it. If such a user complains to me, then, I'll tell them to unmaximize their window and resize it as it seems fit to them.

    --------------------------------------------------

    By the way. I'm using a 1920x1200 monitor. That's REALLY wide. WIDE. It's super WIDE. And I don't like these center-me-silly edits designed to somehow magically 'help' ME--the WIDE screen user--have a better browsing experience.

    • Cynthia Gaines gold member
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply

      I'm with Sharcu & Zahhar...

      Kevin, these new changes drastically affected my front page, to the point that I had to completely change my design yesterday. And not only that, a lot of my poems' designs are now ruined. The backgrounds will never be the same, and the small center looks ridiculous. I wonder why we didn't have a chance to vote on this idea before all the changes were made? You seem to think it is important to have our opinions on some things, but not on this blunder? This is a biggie, and yet none of your members had a voice into the outcome of the decision.

      When are you going to stop playing with our poetry pages? I'd like to suggest that you start a new poetry site for kids, and the 12-year-olds can help in the design of that one, and leave ours alone. I was happy with this site before all these negative changes began happening, but now I feel like I've been swept into Hurricane Ike's path within my ruined pages here on Allpoetry... Well, this is my thought for the day. I do hope you have a good one, in spite of your enormous workload and the negativity swirling all around. Peace, Cyn - FMA (formerly known as), Rose of Ireland

      • Zahhar gold member
        September 18, 2008
        Edit | Reply
        Yea I'm pretty tempted to migrate all my work to a site that's more stable. I'd hate to lose my readership here, but I also really hate having literally four years worth of my time, patience, and energy just fucked to the shits like this on the whim of one massively insensitive man.

        It would take about the same amount of energy to move all my posts to another location entirely, and set things up there, as it would to go through and "fix" my sidebar images that I spent a god awful lot of time setting up--which Kevin might decide to just fuck up again down the road.

        He sent me an email saying my images look fine all pushed in off the left margin. My god talk about no sense of taste or design. And talk about wildly arrogant and insensitive. What made me think he'd never find a way to really screw up my pages again? I got to where I was really happy with where AllPoetry had gotten to and the kinds of changes he was making.

        But his God-complex kicked in again and here we are. Here we are all over again. All over again. All over again. All over again. All over again. All...


    • Lucian Valcor
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      Lay off the coffee


      • Zahhar gold member
        September 18, 2008
        Edit | Reply
        I've been caffeine free for some time now, actually.

    • BarbedWireButterfly
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      Most people know this obvious fact. I have heaps of other different sites running at once and making the window smaller therefore ruins them. You speak as if we're idiots because we have an opinion that doesn't please you.

      • Zahhar gold member
        September 18, 2008
        Edit | Reply
        I have heaps of other sites running at once in other TABS within my browser. They all work and look fine at the window size I choose. Oh. Except for THIS site--Now.

        What we have here is another fine case of following the wily will of foolhardy fad.


        • BarbedWireButterfly
          September 18, 2008
          Edit | Reply
          Well obviously not every single site on the internet is going to be affected. But many that I use shall be.

          • Zahhar gold member
            September 18, 2008
            Edit | Reply
            Actually I have no idea what you're talking about. You apparently want your browser to engulf your entire user space for some reason, and you don't want text to be left justified because it leaves extra space to the right of the tiny space Kevin has setup for AllPoetry content. That's what I'm getting from your responses here.

            What I know is that I've spent dozens, perhaps hundreds, of hours meticulously designing some of my background images--and now that's been shot to shit. Clearly I'm not alone here, judging by the many who have complained about the same before me.

            I'm actually trying to offer a viable solution to Kevin. Leave the sidebar image content the way it was before, and center-me-silly everything else. It's viable. A solution that will make both the artist and the center-me-silly faddists happy. For the most part. Faddists are never actually happy because they're always unhappy with where they're at and what they're doing. This is why they're faddists.

            • BarbedWireButterfly
              September 18, 2008
              Edit | Reply
              Yah, I like everything to be spread out. It makes it easier to manage, especially the home page which is now very cramped.

              Meh, I can't see a point to this arguement.

              I may have found a solution to my unhappiness though =D A firefox add on that allows script changes.

              Anyway, thanks for an interesting read. Good to fill the time with some arguments.


    • Dread Pirate Clyde
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      I don't think adjusting the window for one website is really fixing things. And even if everyone changed the size of their window, as you say, it wouldn't fix the backgrounds. The new layout cuts off a portion of the right side of every background and adds it to the left as a sort of border. For that to be fixed, all backgrounds have to manually have the border function removed and be set to 'tile'. It's a process that your suggestion, unfortunately, can't fix. I wish it was that easy.

      • Zahhar gold member
        September 18, 2008
        Edit | Reply
        What I'm saying is that this center-me-silly "feature" should be turned OFF for any page with a sidebar background that uses an offset. So that it works as it did before. Let the rest of AP go in whatever direction it's king and creator wills. But I want my posts to look and feel as I posted them.

        • Dread Pirate Clyde
          September 18, 2008
          Edit | Reply
          Lulz...that fact got a bit lost in your spiel. I agree, though, and have been calling for this crappy "update" to be changed since Kevin told us it was coming. One of the worst in my opinion. *eye twitches*

          • Zahhar gold member
            September 18, 2008
            Edit | Reply
            Ah yes. Paragraph six. Maybe I should have put that at the top. The spiel had to come first though. Just had to.


            • Kevin Moderators member
              September 18, 2008
              Edit | Reply
              But then the content would jump from the center to the left edge when you went to a left-edged poem...

              • Zahhar gold member
                September 18, 2008
                Edit | Reply
                Kevin. So be it! You're the one that screwed up the pages. Unscrew them and let the content jump from left to center. What you've done is categorically wrong and distasteful. You've charged your customers tens of thousands of dollars to be able to create the look and feel they want with their pages, only to run through and smear shit all over everyone's hard work that you charged them to be able to personalize!!!! Can't you see this is wrong? Can't you see this is terribly terribly terribly unethical?

  • Manda Kathryn Greeters member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    FYI: I do NOT spend money every month for a Gold Membership and work as a Greeter to have the site mess around and screw up on me.

    I love AP, I really really do but this is getting insane

  • Warrior7
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    ummmm yep my background on my author page has an ugly big fat white border edge
    http://allpoetry.com/Warrior7


    • Kevin Moderators member
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      hmm, it's looking great to me?


  • Kevin Moderators member
    September 17, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    OK, I've got your author page looking pretty good again, hopefully you think so too

    • Meroza
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply

      <

      Thank you for the hard work, but I am still not pleased.

      Give me a few days and I may adjust to the changes when I've fixed all my backgrounds.


      I still wonder why you are doing this tho.


  • Brooklynn Tainted gold member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    Ummmm my bgs are allll messed up and i got abunch in contest and lets just say i wouldnt pick them as winners -_-


    • Meroza
      September 18, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      All backgrounds looks horrible right now


      • Brooklynn Tainted gold member
        September 18, 2008
        Edit | Reply
        yesh iv been noticing lol. got any ideads how i could fix them?

        • Meroza
          September 18, 2008
          Edit | Reply
          Cindy has commed with a few ideas, but they're not friendly to small screens.

          I am working on it as well, I'll let you know when I figure it out.

  • Meroza
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    "Please post if you notice things looking especially strange, and I'll try and take a look."

    My whole page is looking especially strange! Everything is messed up and the poor designers are shaking they're heads in sorrow over all the work that needs to be done (This time I am not talking about myself in numbers)

    Ah well, only one thing to do, start re-doing every single background...


  • inspired-8 gold member
    September 18, 2008
    Edit | Reply

    Uggghhh!

    Me walls are closing in egads man! Kevin help!
    We got bugs call Orkin!!!
    Thanks Kevin!
    vic


  • grannyeri gold member
    September 17, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    Another change in the life of this site - we've been through many, and will continue to go with the flow. Keep up your great job. Best poetry site around!


  • Freed by Mercy silver member
    September 17, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    Well, anything on the right side of the page is now wrapping around to the left, including watermarks and signatures "cut" in half. You "warned" us, as you say, but did not give us any kind of hints or primers as to how to revise our way of designing.

    I have many more backgrounds on here than I have poems. They represent hundreds of hours of work.

    Why did this change have to be made?


  • Errant Panther gold member
    September 17, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    no deleting cookies did not work to remove the margins on my pages, plz fix soon.


  • StormGoddess Greeters member
    September 17, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    Honestly, the centering for larger monitors is the pits! I had all my backgrounds set to where I wanted them and now they have this horrid border around them. What is the good in being able to upload custom backgrounds if they are going to be changed by this border crap anyway?
    Also, poems with a line that is just a bit longer now take up 2 lines due to this centering thing. I choose to pay a membership to gain access to features that free members don't have, and now feel like I have just a jumbled slop of mess on most of my pages.

    Please go back to the non centered way. It looked MUCH more professional and appealing!


    • Exit-Stage-Right
      September 17, 2008
      Edit | Reply

      It would take some work...

      but if you're a paying member, perhaps you can downsize the fonts on some of your poems to fit the new parameters? I know the industry is moving more and more toward wide-screen everything... in fact right now I'm viewing this on a 1280 x 800 VAIO screen. My other laptop is 1440 x 960 (maybe 900, I forget). I suspect the old 4-by-3 screens will be the next items to be found in electronic antique shops.

      • Zahhar gold member
        September 18, 2008
        Edit | Reply
        My laptops are all 1920x1200. That's about as wide as it gets boys and girls. And you know what I do? I size the browser WINDOW to a size that seems meet to me and go with that. This is the entire height of my users space, and a little over half the width. This allows me to have other windows open right next to the browser that I can interact with at the same time.

        Anyway... This is another fine example of overdoing it. To an extreme. Needless to say I'm good and tweaked over this, right along with every single last poem I've posted, since they all use sidebar background images...

      • StormGoddess Greeters member
        September 17, 2008
        Edit | Reply
        While that might work for my poems, I am also referring to poems that have been written by others. They seem to have lost their 'shape and structure'.

        • Zahhar gold member
          September 18, 2008
          Edit | Reply
          Ah yes. Shape poetry will be utterly destroyed by these bungling changes. Never mind that it's an important subset of the poetry genre.

  • Errant Panther gold member
    September 17, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    all my pages including author have a margin to the left of the border, I'm going to try and delete cookies and then see if that gets rid of it, if not you might have to debug it.

  • amaranthine lover gold member
    September 17, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    People with paid accounts should have top priority on what layout they want for their membership. Other sites do this and it's not fair in the least. I work 25+ hours a week to afford this and this is not what I want for my money at all. Please change it, it would be only fair and there are never announcements when these changes are happening. This is America, we do have rights when it comes to certain things and I feel that this is not being run democratically at all.

    • Exit-Stage-Right
      September 17, 2008
      Edit | Reply
      "This is America, we do have rights when it comes to certain things and I feel that this is not being run democratically at all."

      LOL! AllPoetry is a private business. Is your local gas station run "democratically"? Nope, hopefully not. If it was, everyone in the neighborhood would vote for the station to sell gas at ten cents a gallon! Woohoo! Payday!

      As a paying customer at this site, your "rights when it comes to certain things" are covered in the site rules and regulations that you mutually agree to when you sign on as a member, and then you really endorse those rules when you pay your bill. Let me clarify here, I'm just an onlooker, not connected with A.P. in any way, so this is my opinion, not an official response--Kevin could take a totally different tack on this, though I think it unlikely.

      Shortly before seeing your reaction piece here, I just noticed that I have eight more gold trophies than before the change! So maybe we have to take the good with the bad, eh?

      Best of luck getting your layout choices resolved...

      Jim


      • amaranthine lover gold member
        September 17, 2008
        Edit | Reply
        It's great that a man such as yourself are so sure of everything.

        • Exit-Stage-Right
          September 17, 2008
          Edit | Reply

          "IS"

          "It's great that a man such as yourself [is] so sure of everything."

          You must have missed the part where I said Kevin might have a different take than mine. It's a shame that more people don't know the fundamentals of running a business... they'd have a lot more appreciation of what it takes to run one if they did.

  • Kevin Moderators member
    September 17, 2008
    Edit | Reply
    Hmm, it's working for me in firefox, internet explorer 6.0, 7.0, safari, and opera.

    Perhaps try clearing your temp files, closing all browsers, and opening a fresh one? Otherwise try firefox, http://getfirefox.com


    • zochit2me gold member
      September 17, 2008
      Edit | Reply

      <

      I clear all of my temp files upon closing my browser and I am using firefox. Internet explorer is too unstable and virus prone. I don't know what has changed for me but something has and it is annoying me because when I post a new poem, I have to use the test that I want otherwise I cannot change it and if I want to Italic one word in my poem I cannot do that either...grrrrrrrrr.


  • cvillelisa
    September 17, 2008
    Edit | Reply


    Running Safari on a Mac
    my messages page stretches past the page borders

    • Kevin Moderators member
      September 17, 2008
      Edit | Reply

      <

      Hmm, it's working for me. It was broken awhile back 4 odd hours ago, perhaps clear the cache and try reloading it?

      Otherwise, anyone send you a message with a really big image or string of text without spaces in it?


      • cvillelisa
        September 17, 2008
        Edit | Reply

        cleared cache -- still the same. Runnin Mac OS X 10.5.4 ??



        • Kevin Moderators member
          September 17, 2008
          Edit | Reply
          You had a message from lute that was like 200 '8's in a row. I deleted it, seems to be working now?

          • cvillelisa
            September 17, 2008
            Edit | Reply


            HAHAHA. That was the Kitten writing to me.

            YES. All better. Thanks. I had just started going through to see if I had long character messages.

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