Layout Changes

Trying to be polite. Please forgive me, this is a critique of the layout and not any sort of personal attack.rnrnAlacrity's never had the easiest layout to deal with, but the recent changes to the 'original' layout make the site both more difficult to use and intensely uncomfortable for me to look at, and I know this is the case for numerous other users as well; I've seen it mentioned repeatedly in chat. In my case, I'm blind in one eye and have degenerative myopia in the other. I have to wear glasses, and I try to avoid eyestrain as much as possible, as it deeply affects my ability to draw.rnrnThe white chat (which I heard was to be permanent?) against Alacrity's darker layout tones is.. unpleasant. It's a big blinding rectangle in a field of midtones, and the starkness means I have to squint and lean in very closely to read the text. It's a literal eyesore. The previous color was fine, easy on the eyes, and didn't stand out jarringly against the rest of the layout. I enjoy talking in chat and I'd hate to have to avoid it.. but it isn't as though I can escape that big white rectangle, anyway, unless I avoid the site altogether, and I have no intention of doing that.rnrnThe clickable links in the dogs' skill section is a medium blue on a medium yellow background. I just cannot read it and have to resort to highlighting it, and I have seen users with similar font colors in the old chat who were forced to change it to something easier to read. There was nothing wrong with the brown it was before, and it didn't look gaudy.rnrnAnd.. I'm trying to word this last part carefully. Alacrity's layout has always looked left over from the late '90's, akin to Geocities pages I've seen. The layout has been needing an update. But besides the things mentioned above, all I see are very slight changes to the tables, dropdown bars on the top row that lag on coming down, an inconveniently side-stretched page, and a puzzling change of banners. Alacrity could use an entire layout update, not the tweaking that's taken place. If a total overhaul can't be done, then I think reverting fully to the former layout would genuinely be in the site's best interests, and beneficial to all who use it.

EDIT: I'm sorry for the block of text, Alacrity decided to eat my paragraph breaks for some reason.

Last edited:2011-02-15 17:53:22

Ehm

#30807 • 2011-02-15 17:53:22

#30807

Augh. Huge support for this. The new "original" layout has been driving me mad.

#30804 • 2011-02-15 12:02:05

#30804

I totally support every single word!

Steaks

#30257 • 2011-02-07 10:16:50

#30257

I love the dropdowns, not so much the chat BG colour. The valentines layout hurt my eyes so much I had to change it back to Original. I miss the old banner, the one we have now looks like an ad for Alacrity

Growling Cupcake

#30095 • 2011-02-04 07:52:41

#30095

I don't mind the drop downs, however I pretty well agree with most everything said here. And would like to stress the layout chat/side bar chat is WAY too bright of a white. It really hurts my eyes to look at it for more than a minute or two. It's driving me insane since I would love to hang out in chat, but I don't really need my eyes to burn and to get head aches from it. I can lower my screen brightness which helps some, but often I need a bright screen for other things.. and even then it's difficult to deal with chat.

GeistNoir

#30094 • 2011-02-04 07:35:02

#30094

I would also like to add that Alacrity just crashed my browser twice. The only other tab I have open is Wikipedia, and I have to type a few words and wait several seconds for them to show up in this box. The only other programs I'm running are Pidgin and a wordpad document. It isn't Firefox's memory leak as I restarted the browser a little bit ago. ZJ: I would totally love the dropdowns if they didn't lag for me. :( Also if it comes up, I have 3gig memory and a dual-core processor. This computer is capable of running very resource demanding games flawlessly, but for some reason, atm, Ala is making it hiccup awfully. What on earth? Edit: Restarted browser again, it's running slightly less horribly, might switch to Chrome until it knocks it off. I was having lag problems from the site, but none so terrible as when I originally posted this comment.

Last edited:2011-02-03 20:40:30

ZJ

#30093 • 2011-02-04 07:26:17

#30093

I actually prefer the dropdown bars, much easier to use for me. However I whole-heartedly agree on the chat color. The white is intense to say the least. I would also prefer a midtone color. Or at least an off-gray or a light blue or a cream. I can understand the appeal of the white, but it's just difficult to stare at. I myself have all dark colors set on my laptop for my eyes. The layout banner in the original version of the layout seems like it's partially cut off as well.

Last edited:2011-02-03 20:26:32

Layout Changes

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