especially 3) and 4).
Younger people are much more likely to access DU via phones or tablets so it makes sense to optimize it for that.

and expect to be completely used to it within a few days, when I've found the features I need. "It sucks" isn't helpful at all. Adapting to change is a useful and necessary skill - plenty of old websites changed, and we got used to the changes; if you revisited the old versions now you'd complain about how nonfunctional they are. Many years ago I created a website using iWeb, which Apple then discontinued, and I was unhappy about that until I realized that there were newer, better formats that had much more useful features. So, I like DU4 and expect to like it more as I get to know it better.

I found that annoying in the old format. I always had to scroll to whatever I was reading. The new format looks nice and updated. That's my two cents!

I remember the whining about the change from 2 to 3. With a little exploration I’m loving this change. The “rec” feature for each individual post in a thread is great, the “Note” feature another great idea. Another… the icons that tell you if it’s a video or tweet, don’t want a see a tweet, can’t watch a video you don’t even need to open the post, you know at a glance.

They could have brought it back without having to change the whole site.
I'm adapting, but have yet to see any improvement that they couldn't have just made to the old board.

It’s a fantastic update to a fantastic site created by fantastic people.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

They also had a DUZY award you could give to posts and replies.

We were once able to “unrec” an op, which proved very contentious, but have never been able to upvote individual posts. There have been quite a few I would have upvoted, had I the ability.

I joined in 2009 and I was a newbie.

Lost my login info in a computer meltdown and had to start over.

DU was nowhere near as sleek then as it is now. They’ve put SO much effort into improving this place and for it I am eternally grateful.

Edit: I looked it up. November 12 of 2003 was my first post.

Letting go of the familiar can be challenging, but the greater suffering is born of attachment.

Just kidding.

I liked the old interface on my computer better, but I will eventually get used to this.

The new format is much better on my phone.

I'm too old to to get worked up by small issues with the new interface.

And that comes from a crusty old fuck with 22 years of DU3 usage.

No need to click to go an see the videos, they were on the right side, the posts with news were on the top on the left, ready for anyone to click on them, and the rest of the news was just scrolls away.

I find that having to click to the videos and other parts that were readily available on the past format were a big plus. I know that I will get used to the new format, but the extra click will not go away.

Is the new format prettier? Yes, I think so, but it is all about the user-friendly design that in my opinion, really matters.

Lets enjoy the new face of DU now, I don't know that we have a choice

or how much zoomed in or out one is. For example, at my usual window width, Latest Breaking News was relegated to the bottom of the page, and it was just the subject lines -- there was not the usual 50 or so word beginning of each post.

But when I widened the window, or zoomed out (with Control Minus), or went full screen ( F11 ), there was this magnificent 4-column version, and my beloved Latest Breaking News was near the top of the 4th column (after the 5 Greatest Discussions lines). And with the 50 or so word beginning of each post.

This from a Windows 10 computer perspective.

Control Zero restores the default 100% zoom. Control Plus zooms in.

Unfortunately the DU3 version had 25 LBN stories on the home page. DU4: ten. While the subject lines of all LBN posts are a click away on the left menu, they don't have the 50 or so word blurbs, so that's been lost.

If you're having trouble using DU4, wait until you take-on something like Adobe Photoshop.

Last edited Thu Oct 19, 2023, 09:54 PM - Edit history (2)

You delicate flower, you!

Seriously, I completely agree. It makes me sad to see people react so negatively just because it's different.

One of the new features I especially love is being able to subscribe not just to forums and groups but to individual users. Now I will never have to worry about missing any of Theferret's hilarious blog entries ot Duncanpup's delightful dyslexic rambles, to name just 2 examples.

And I'm pretty sure there are lots of other cool new features I haven't even investigated yet. Long live DU4!

I can’t get DU4 to display the “latest” and “greatest” as two groups. I can only get it to show the headlines, and little or nothing else.

Don’t know why, but even in “skinner view” I’m not able to properly utilize it.

I’ll keep trying.

I've been an off and on user of DU for like 20 years. It took some time for everyone to get used to DU2 to DU3 too.

I'm sure any elements that aren't working as well as hoped will be adjusted with time

Especially when the old can't be used anymore. I used to drive a lot of different vehicles in my driving career, sometimes several different types in one shift, and I was an instructor for a short spell. Every time I get into a "new" vehicle I go through a certain anxiety about missing something important or wondering how long I'd have to use that particular unit while discovering everything I didn't like about it.

After a day I was shifting gears like I'd never driven anything else in all my life and had a sense of size and all that.

I'm finding that day 2 on the new DU is a lot like that.

I use either an iPad or iPhone and it really works for me once I took a ‘minute’ and poked around to find the stuff I use the most.

Thanks EarlG and company!

I’ve always wondered.

The phone version, in particular, is a big improvement. I remember when we went from DU2 to DU3 some 12 years ago that there was the same amount of hand wringing. The vast majority got used to it and a tiny minority stayed on the old version until it disappeared (not sure when that was).

Love the rec feature!

I come to DU almost every day on my desktop computer. I never have trouble reading it on my computer because I have lots of options such as rescaling the fonts etc.

But one time I tried surfing to DU from my cellphone and I said - yuck! never again. I hated how it behaved on my phone and I never wanted to read it or try to navigate it. (this was DU3)

Some DUers have no choice but to view everything including DU on their phones, because they don't own a desktop or laptop computer. This is how the world is evolving, and we're the dinosaurs. EarlG has foreseen that we need to adapt to the cellphone users, or lose them altogether. That would be a problem when we dinosaurs die off, and the young ones aren't here to replace us.

We need young people, especially liberal-voting young people who care about political issues. We can't send them away because they don't like the navigational difficulties. Other websites like TicTok, YouTube, Reddit, etc. have figured it out already. We're learning from them how to attract and retain the younger subscribers.

I, personally, prefer more text to images, but I lost that battle a long time ago. My main objection is that you can't see as many threads at the same time, which has the net effect of favoring those threads that you can see and letting other threads languish. I don't know how you counter that.

I’m going blind trying to read DU on my iPhone ☹️
It’s not better on phones , at least on mine.

During beta testing I sent screenshots to EARLG to show what I was seeing . I think he increased the font size but it was minimal … so it’s still a struggle for me .

It used to be I’d wake , get my coffee and log in to read the news here. It was fun and informative and a pleasure .

That thrill is gone .
I want my $ back Lucky .


✌🏻

On the old version I could see a lot of info on my screen, easily 20+ items at a time depending on what part of the page I was viewing. With the new version I see the first about 1.5 items, & at most 5 items. The headlines are huge & don't change with browser zoom, & yes I have Large Fonts off. It all means a lot more scrolling. There are also inconsistencies in font sizes from post to post that don't respond to browser zoom, which makes some threads hard to read.

I'll post screen caps of what I'm seeing in the Help (or wherever they're supposed to go) forum later because some of these things seem to be bugs, like in some cases font size is being defined by the code (text formatting) while in other cases it's defined by browser zoom, on the same page with different items in a list. That seems like a bug.