back to article OMFG, what have you done?

As you see, we've made a few changes to the Reg look and feel this week, and we expect numbers of you to go off on one (or indeed two or three). So before you do, we feel the need to assure you that it's all still there. No really, it is - it just looks a little different. So where is it? Current stories remain the core of the …

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  1. Steve Sherlock
    Jobs Horns

    High Res

    I'm running at an insane res on a laptop and I'm getting two huge grey bars down either side of the site. Looks awful and it's a terrible waste of space. Can we come to a compromise and make use of the full screen when reading a story at least? Shoot the mac-wielding graphics types if you must...

  2. Andy
    Thumb Up

    Woah

    What a suprise... starting to like it though.

    Keep up the good work!

  3. Randalf

    Bring back the old icons!

    If none else, at least Paris and Devil Jobs.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Heart

    Sounds good

    I was a little startled to see the change, but it sounds like a change for the better.

  5. Dominic Kua
    Dead Vulture

    Site style changes are fine and dandy

    But what happened to the shopped photos for post icons?

    That said the comments on the icons are better now, I just miss the shopped photos.

  6. Paul
    Unhappy

    Oh my

    Going for the record number of flames? Where have the Steve Jobs icons gone???

  7. Stuart Elliott
    Thumb Up

    Site update

    Can I be (but probably aren't) the first to say I like it, the font in the banner needs a bit of work, but the rest is nice enough.

    Well done.

  8. Honey
    Paris Hilton

    ZOMGZ

    But but but but... it's DIFFERENT.

    I suspect the biggest PR disaster you face is the disappearance of Paris, and the instant nonsensicalisation of all historical "Paris cos" comments archived.

    I predict a u-turn.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Bring back odds'n'sods

    If there's no link to the top-level /odds/ category there are a number of stories that you can't see because they're not indexed under any of the subcategories.

    Oh, and the icons are just rubbish.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    wtf?

    fixed width? you suck.

    new icons for comments? you suck more

    everything else? i dont give a shit

    fixed width? it is the single most moronic idea *ever* - the pinnacle of terrible web design. now, half my screen is devoted to some grey background instead of text. Now i have to scroll more, read less. you have removed from me the choice of how i want to display my stuff. I am removing you from my bookmarks, seriously. It is a point of principle for me to not use any fixed-width designed sites. its like.. geocities design.

  11. Squits
    Thumb Up

    Hmmn

    I quite like the redesign, it looked rubbish the very second I saw it, but I think it makes sense and looks tidier this way.

    Hopefully our redesign overlords will serve us well.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    You broke my browser

    Sadly some of us are stuck on old kit that can't run anything newer and safari 1.3.2 appears to toally bomb out on your new page design (not the front page)! Fix it now!

  13. Paul Nolan
    Paris Hilton

    Reg 2.0?

    Much cleaner-looking; very nice.

    Paris because I wasn't even sure it was Paris at first, what with the new icon theme.

  14. dave hands
    Thumb Down

    More to the point.

    OMFG - you removed the Paris icon!

    Now you're gonna catch it.

  15. Jack Sprague
    Unhappy

    New Format Downer

    I will give the changes time, but to me, it looks like a sell-out. The ads all became bigger, and the available space to search for stories became smaller, and with much more need to scroll. A bit of a bother, and I will have to use my other news sites more often till I get used to the new format. The new icons for comments are also way too cute, in a bad way.

  16. toby powell-blyth
    Thumb Up

    I for one

    I, for one, welcome our fixed width overlords.

    Srsly though, like it :o) Nice move.

  17. adam
    Stop

    Who the hell do you think you are?

    facebook?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    I think we need a new group

    To bring back the old comment Icons!

  19. Joe
    Thumb Up

    A change is as good as a rest!

    Apparently. I'm sure you'll get lots of negative feedback, but it looks great to me. I'm sure you'll be tweaking it over the next few weeks, anyway.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    ROFL - broken on opera

    New design, new layout bugs.

    Fire up Opera v9.52 and you'll find the little icons for "Print", "Comment" and "RSS" are breaking free and running riot.

    Well, they ain't in the right place on my screen... but maybe I am just drunk?

    (Oh - and I had to laugh... but it also fails this... http://validator.w3.org/check )

  21. Dave Harris
    Thumb Up

    Comments?

    I'm not keen on the new comment icons, which are a bit characterless (especially the Paris Hilton one). Also, it's a shame we can't see the first few comment titles any more - I used to use those to help decide whether to open the comments page.

    Otherwise, the new organisation seems promising. All the whiteness is a bit stark, though.

  22. Stevie

    New Look?

    Hate it. The Register has gone all carbuncley.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    RIP The Reg

    I'm off to the Inquirer

  24. A Smithe

    A disturbance in the force

    I had a premonition you would go all web 2.0.

    I don't know, it's alright, not the same though :)

    It feels a little contrived, sort of like a designer without a passion for the site did it. Ok, I suppose, but you did have something different before.

    And I would like to point out, that it worked on 800 width (in fact I think it was flexibile) now it doesn't.

    Still it is your site, and it looks like it has been done well, there is nothing wrong per se.

    Oh well, end of an era.

  25. Frank Sattler
    Thumb Up

    New look

    Congratulations on the new look! From what I've seen so far, it's great (and gets rid of most of my personal niggles). The reduction in headline font size is a very good idea, and makes the whole site a lot more usable. The whole layout looks considerably more professional and a lot slicker. Well done!

    PS. Not so sure about the icons though...

  26. Darkwolf

    nope

    Dont like it, reminds me to much of sites ive quit reading, gotta scroll more, and thats just irritating.

  27. Dave
    Go

    Not too bad

    It doesn't seem to be too bad here so far. It'll take a bit of getting used to, so I guess final judgement is reserved for a week or so. I'm not normally a fan of fixed width, but you seem to have chosen something just slightly narrower than my default browser size so it fits OK.

    Interesting set of icons on this one :-)

  28. FatherStorm
    Flame

    fixed width?

    really?

  29. John Lettice (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: Comments?

    It's intended to be a more open, less cramped look, but we've currently got some extraneous white space caused by ads misfiring. We'll get a lid on that tomorrow, if not before.

  30. Anonymous Bastard
    Thumb Down

    Re: geocities design.

    Hoorah for Double Dekkers. Well said that man!

    Boo for fixed width, it's several steps backwards. As screen resolutions INCREASE you decide to DECREASE the area used!?

    Icons are a disappointment but at least there could be a case for simplification unlike the decision for fixed width.

  31. Jeff Deacon
    Flame

    Nothing lasts!

    Yes, I suppose you can be excused for restyling the vulture, commended for some of the new style icons, but let me award you a new style flame for going to fixed width pages.

    One of the great advantages of HTML formatting as it was first set out has been the control the reader gets over the width, typesize and font face in use. I suppose that you are not entirely to blame, for you could not have used it if someone else had not provided it. But just because you could turn El Reg into an impression of a pdf didn't mean that you had to! Please find some excuse to go back to variable width in a few days.

    In the mean time, does anyone know how to get Firefox and/or Proxomitron to change fixed width to variable width pages?

  32. Nomen Publicus
    Alert

    second attempt

    Something seems to be fixed, the comment text isn't deleted ny more. Is thiis because I entered a title before the comment whereas previously I typed the comment first and then the title?

    The default font is too small.

    The new icons are _nasty_. What is the one after the green apple anyway? For that matter what is the one before the green apple? Or the red triangle with three dots, what is that? Why are all but the thumbs up/down very stylised? Where are the devils and angels. This is a web page so, why not 64 or more different icons?

  33. Peter Gold badge
    Go

    OK-ish, but for the width

    OK, I can see the logic (hey, I actually *read* the article!) and the only thing that bogs me is the fixed width of, what? 800? It feels claustrophobic, frankly, especially since the side panels have to somehow fit in as well.

    So you're right, I'm hereby handing you stick for the fixed width. For the rest I can see what you're trying to do and it would be unfair to yell at you yet, I have to use it for a while first (translated: I may still in a week from now, though :-)

    And I liked the old icons MUCH more..

  34. James Condron
    Thumb Down

    Uh-huh, but...

    I understand about missing stories, and the time zone thing, hell, it really is an improvement this way, but why make it so damn ugly? The front page may have been everchanging, and cluttered but at least you could see what was going on, albeit after some marginal practice.

    Seems like deisgn for the sake of design. Hell, this new comment form too, why did that need changing? I'll give you a fiver to bring the old way back, if only as an opt-in thing.

  35. RW
    IT Angle

    A Change is as good as a rest

    It looks just fine, guys (and gals—musn't forget the Divine Moderatrix!).

    As for the masthead typeface (not font, dough-heads: there's a significant difference), when doesn't El Reg run a contest for the masthead design, and let those of us with thousands of font files squirreled away play with them? I'll leave selection of a suitable prize up to your devious minds.

    One glaring flaw: no man from mars icon! At first I thought the IT? icon was it, misreading it as M for Mars, but no, I was sorrowfully disappointed in this continued failure to cater to the true needs of your readers. Perhaps you could automagicallhy attach a suitable MfM icon to his(her?) postings?

  36. Dominik Stansby
    Dead Vulture

    BUGS!! Can anyone confirm?

    I'm using Opera 9.6 and I cannot type anything in the email, password, or title fields of the comment box! This means I can't actually make comments using Opera!! Please fix this!!

    Also one more thing, not everything is still there! Where are the links to Reg Hardware and Channel Register?

  37. Jenkins

    width, indeed.

    The redesign seems fine except for, as others have mentioned, the fixed bloody width.

    I don't dislike the colour grey, particularly, but nor do I enjoy having almost half of my (1680) screen constantly showing it to me. Having to look at this greyness is going to make me feel depressed eventually!

  38. J

    Mixed feelings...

    Also startled at first (did I click the wrong bookmark, wtf? oh wait, it IS the Register...), but I do like the general change in the looks. IMNSHO, more pleasant and easier on the eyes, with the grey bars.

    But to echo the general choir, *fixed width is so 20th century*, please... As I said, I like the grey sides, but they are quite largish in my bigger, widescreen home monitor. I could use with less scrolling, I'm sure. I'm guessing they will look fine at work (smaller, 4x3 screen), will see tomorrow.

    Oh, yeah, and the icons are appalling, really. Really, really. What is this, an IT for kids website? It looks like someone's child spent 10 minutes using Windows paint to draw them. I had to look at the alt text of some of them to even recognize what they were to begin with. The old ones were much better graphics and had personality.

  39. Jared Earle

    Excellent

    Finally, El Reg doesn't look stuck in the 20th century! I for one approve.

    Oh, apart from the icons. Them's bad, especially seeing as you've sold merchandise with the old ones on.

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Somebody pass me a barf-bag!

    I'm a long-time lurker, loyal for years, and I'm horrified by this god-forsaken mess.

    What used to look like a proper professional journal now looks like a cheap nasty tabloid.

    Way to go guys - you just doubled your advertising space, and halved the value of it...

    I hope you're proud.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    A title is required.

    http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theregister.co.uk%2F&charset=(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0 gives it the ok as 4.01 transitional

    But the icons are crap and fixed width is silly.

    And the "A title is required." bug is still there.

  42. John Lettice (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: BUGS!! Can anyone confirm?

    We'll check the 9.6 issue. We got rid of the old links to Reg Hardware and Channel Reg because they were relatively little used. Go down the page and you'll see bigger, alternative jumping off points for both, plus BOFH. This is experimental, by the way. We'll be checking stats on what works and what doesn't, and modifying in light of that data.

    We'll also likely start running links from the grey strip under the nav bar below the masthead. This is occupied by the subsections on the section pages, but on the front page we're looking at how we could make it more fluid. Reg Hardware, Channel and BOFH would be obvious chandidates for inclusion there. And we'll be running links to specials in both of them in the right hand column, so they ought to be better promoted than they were in the old look. That's the intention, anyway.

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Distinctly 'meh' ...

    Now the new layout isn't as criminally bad as 'New' Farcebook ("Oooh ... look at the cute things we can do with CSS!") but can we please, *please* have the old icons back? There's a time and a place for gratuitous cuteness, and I don't think El Reg is either.

    Irrespective of what happens, we still need a 'Meh!' icon IMO.

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  45. TallPaul

    Never mind the quality ...

    ... but the fixed width sucks. Curiously unlike other posters who are complaining it being too narrow for me it's barely wide most of the time. Which illustrates the point equally well.

    Good news about going back to having stories in posting order though: the previous method confused the hell out of me and I was missing stories.

    (And at the risk of being drummed out of the regiment I''d have been happy if you'd dumped the posting icons completely - the Paris meme had long since worn a little thin and the others were just a waste of bandwidth and screen space.)

  46. yeah, right.

    while you're at it

    How about:

    - "view comments" link from the TOP of the article.

    - a "view article on single page" option so that I can just load it and read, rather than paging through each page or selecting "printer friendly" but losing the easy-to-read screen layout.

    And the new icons for comments are pants. They look like 1990's free clipart that someone stole from somewhere. Bring back the old ones, damnit.

  47. Daniel

    Ad revenue

    If El Reg would like to get more ad revenue, perhaps they should consider dropping ads which require flash or javascript to view. I don't use an adblocker - after all, the fine people at El Reg and various other sites I use need to eat, too - but I do run noscript, which kills just about every ad on theregister.co.uk. What's more, I absolutely will not poke holes in my security for someone else's benefit, and considering that this site has a highly technical audience, I can't imagine I'm the only one in this position.

    Other than that: I hate the new design, change is bad, I'll get used to it. :)

    -Daniel

  48. Ross Fleming
    Thumb Up

    Not bad...

    Will take a bit of getting used to, but all looks the same on Opera Mini on t'mobile, so can fall back on that!

    Plus, an "email me when BOFH published" subscription. thumbs up for that by itself!

  49. RW
    Thumb Up

    Works in Netscape 7.2

    Just thought you'd like to know.

    What's wrong with Safari?

  50. adnim

    Form or function?

    Some prefer form over function, not I.

    Although in a news site they are almost one and the same. I reckon it's just a case of getting used to it. It does look clean and crisp.

    I don't like the new comment icons, and the fixed width is er fixed!

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