Regarding the new site design

Solar2D Daily Builds and Public Releases
#1

The new site is pretty and looks like a WordPress control panel now but please make the API reference page(old one, the new one has horrible padding and crap accessibility) and the forums accessible directly from the main page with a single button. When I’m running into a roadblock, clicking three times to get to the page I want wastes your bandwidth and my time.

Where is the forum search bar? I just wanted to find a thread on font problems and I can’t do so.

Finally, please keep the old API page always accessible. I know the new API documentation page design is now in line with the traditional dev API page designs you see everywhere else on every SDK. But I hated that style, it’s a stupid solution to try to neatly file all the code usage for the web designer’s own benefit, not the end user. Which is why I appreciated Corona having every single thing on a single page for me to easily Ctrl+F. Messy yes. Fast and efficient? Never better.

Don’t get me wrong. The new design is definitely prettier than before. It’s just taking waaaaaaay longer for me to get the the exact page I want. It’s not a matter of adapting to a new workflow, but more like I need 3 times as long to get to the page I want, if I can even find it. [import]uid: 108204 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 327513[/import]

#2

I agree, losing the search function on the forums is a huge loss for us. I think others will agree that being able to search the forum is absolutely critical. Was there a reason why this feature was removed? [import]uid: 82194 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111790[/import]

#3

Hmm, to be honest I found the search function pretty useless as it missed plenty of relevant results. It’s much easier to google ‘corona storyboard delays’ for example and all the forum posts usually come up at the top. [import]uid: 93133 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111796[/import]

#4

Totally agree with @TimeSpaceMagic regarding the old API page. Searching one single page with Ctrl+F is something I used all the time and it’s way better and faster than the new solution!
And please bring back the old Recent Forum Activity which had the last post to the left and new forum topics to the right. And why did you get rid of the dropdown menus on the top of the pages? That extra click is just annoying and unnecessary! The same goes for logout. [import]uid: 129287 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111806[/import]

#5

Hey guys.

  1. The documentation: The old api page (i’m sure) will not be updated from here on out, so keeping it isn’t feasible.

  2. There is still some work to be done on the forum side, so don’t worry too much about missing stuff just yet :slight_smile:

[import]uid: 84637 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111810[/import]

#6

Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place but where is the “share your code” area?? [import]uid: 106658 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111820[/import]

#7

@frissenm: Under Community. Scroll down and it’s the third entry to the left (Code Exchange). [import]uid: 129287 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111825[/import]

#8

ah thanks… only looked at the menubar in community… d’oh [import]uid: 106658 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111827[/import]

#9

Well for forum posts, Google search always does a better job than the embedded search. Walter says improvements in that area are coming.

I also agree about loosing all of the API calls on one page. Using the browser search for that was very handy. While I think and hope the new API docs will be more useful (and are clearly more Apple like) once we get used to them, there should still be a “Quick Index” page that has all of the API calls listed that we can quickly find what we are looking for.

There are also things like drop menus having been gone requiring more clicks, but there is a new trend to not have drop menus. We need to get back to some faster ways to get to things.

Also, while I hated… no loathed… the block at the top of the forums that showed recent posts because of the color scheme and how it scrolled weirdly and the two different categories didn’t make much sense, I used it a lot when I was away from twitter to find out what posts were being talked about. It’s still there and collapsed by default. But the real problem is once I expand it, if I refresh, it collapses again. This needs to stay open if I told it to stay open.

And yes, the site does look much better! Cudos!
[import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111845[/import]

#10

Oh, while I’m at it. I can’t find out how to update an existing app in the Showcase.
[import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111847[/import]

#11

On Firefox each time a coronalabs.com website has to reload to get to the new page it goes thru these steps:
http://i.imgur.com/zHAMZ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/pTgSS.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/tlNRs.jpg

It does not appear on Chrome so whoever developed it did not bother testing on popular browser as FireFox otherwise they would have not allowed this to show each time you reload the page.

I think you should fix that since it gives the site very amateur feeling. I would go so far to say that new design has nothing on the old design which was slick and which rocked. This one feels flat and while the older had more polished and proffessional look. Forum main page also looks very ugly and plain now while old forums had beautiful elegant design. And API page is horrendous, old look was much better, you should have stuck with that one, much more elegant and consistant with the rest of website. You should have gone for beautiful not flat and plain.

Well these are just my 2 cents, I do design websites from time to time and I do not like this new design since it does not present you CoronaLabs that well. It should be slick, mean and pro and currently its not all of that. [import]uid: 13099 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111850[/import]

#12

Also

http://i.imgur.com/URkkL.png

I dont know if this is only on my system, but these fonts are not very well readable nor do they look beautiful, they render the same on both Chrome&Firefox, very blury and hard to read. Background is grey and fonts are grey as well, blending in, like they should be even harder to read. In my opinion small things like this take away from design and give amatuer look to whole page, thats why I liked the old design, it was perfect cos it was polished and elegant. [import]uid: 13099 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111851[/import]

#13

I know what’s going on with the styles. A well formed web page will load the CSS before it loads any JavaScript. This is because JavaScript calls block while they are loading. In fact modern web design pushes most of the JavaScript to the footer.

The site looks like it has a lot of the HTML5 Boilerplate support in it, which Wordpress is hacking on and doing a few additional things.

However, the site’s two main stylesheets: bootstrap.css and style.css are loading after the JavaScript. So the browsers loads in the styles it knows about, then while the JavaScript is loading, it goes ahead and renders the HTML. When the Javascript is done, it loads in the last two CSS files which turns all of that non-styled HTML into what we finally see.

As for the second hiccup, that could be code in the scripts.js which is loading in the footer, now doing all the Javascript bits to the page like turning the slider into a slider.

I think a lot of this could be fixed by getting all of the JavaScript in the footer (except Modernizr which has to load in the <head> area and getting those two primary style sheets higher up in the page.
[import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111854[/import]

#14

Hopefully this is a good place to collect all the various problems with the new design…

I follow @ansca_forums and it’s one way I keep track of new posts. I however am now 0 for 3 in being able to click to posts. For instance:

http://bit.ly/MbUmT3 - Changing Font Style posted in Developer Support

came back with:

Sorry! This page can’t be accessed.

Missing Forum Post?

This usually indicates that someone posted something, the immediately deleted it. And clearly I can t find that post when I go to the forums. But 3 in a row, maybe it is just people deleting them, but I’ve never seen three posts in a row that people deleted that fast. I have clicked on some older posts and they seem to go through correctly. I just get a feel that there are two forums somewhere and posts are not ending up in the right place. Weird.
[import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111856[/import]

#15

Just my 2 cents… test the forums on Internet Explorer. It’s a mess. Yes I know, IE is non-compliant and its usage is on the drop. However it is still used by a large percentage. As a web designer you need to test your work on the top 4 browsers. Chrome, Firefox, IE and Safari. [import]uid: 56820 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111857[/import]

#16

Have to agree with @Nermion as well. The new design is really disappointing. Almost every page has lost it’s appeal and functionality. The site looks amateurish compared to the old one. Only improvement so far is the bug-tracker. [import]uid: 129287 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111858[/import]

#17

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH @Robmiracle`s write!

Also, where is the direct link for the “most recents” forum`s posts? I do not want to go into forum by forum guys…please…shed some reflector here!

Thanks for reading,
Rodrigo. [import]uid: 89165 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111870[/import]

#18

The login flow with safari on mac ( guess that 72% of your users uses safari ) is terrible. Forwards me to an empty page and if I hit back button I get to a page with broken icons…

Joakim [import]uid: 81188 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111872[/import]

#19

So far I like it, I’ve cruised in just about every corner of the new site and all seems or appears to
works good, other than a couple of broken links which will get fixed I’m sure…:slight_smile:

I’m using Google Chrome and searching with Chrome also, I use and have always used Chrome
to search like this example:

“transition to” site:coronalabs.com

“Jonathan Beebe” site:coronalabs.com

Works for me and I find everything I need most of the time. :wink:
Larry

EDIT: or you could use this for example: “@RSCdev” site:developer.anscamobile.com/forum
or
“peach pellen” site:developer.anscamobile.com/forum

to search for a user or anything else. :wink: [import]uid: 107633 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111882[/import]

#20

Lucky i was logged in safari…when i make login in firefox(i am not logged) it doesnt appear the login form and when i use the user icon and make login, forum doesnt detect it.

There is no drop down menu so you have to enter in every section to know where are the things

The search, doesnt search in forum, only show blogs articles, i am using google to find articles…

Generally, the new web is more beautiful but is a pain in the ass…is impossible to find anything.

And really slow

And where are the templates, with source code example? impossible to find.

[import]uid: 113117 topic_id: 27513 reply_id: 111884[/import]