Reminiscing the \"old\" ATS

This is the only thread that I contributed my opinion on the "new look".
Guess what? I'm over it. It's too plain.

I understand the reasoning behind it all, bandwidth, new flux of members, server space...etc.
But I especially enjoyed the old look, and am much more accustom to it.
Everytime I log on and still have the old ATS I breathe a sigh of relief...

The new ATS is not catchy enough for me. It seems dull.
Whenever I direct people to ATS now I'm all like "heeeerreeee's Johnny!"
Then the ol' waa waa waaaaaaa sound comes out because it's all bunk.
Before, it seemed so different than any other forum.
Now it blends right in.

bummer.

Really don't care about the look overall, but losing the live.php screen (the New Topics+ tab at the top, 3 rows of live updating headlines, a column each based on flags, views, and newness) is a killer to me cause it's my go-to page on ats. I wish they could have updated without taking away that functionality, I hate the "magazine-like" layout with only the very top threads on display made to look like "articles" as you miss a lot of good topics like that.

Guess I'll just browse ye olde board view from now on. Then again even with that, you miss topics that pop up from time to time in board topics that you don't frequent. On the live.php page you see things in topics that you might not otherwise visit.

Maybe the live.php view is still there and I'm just missing it? In any case it's free to visit and post on the site so I've really got no right to bitch about it, but a little honest criticism never hurts

reply to post by StealthyKat


I agree. I truly utterly despise the new version. I couldnt even launch live headlines. Kept being asked for some strange password LOL

And I get headache of staring into that grey mass with multicolored emoticons everywhere. Its all disgusting.

Originally posted by xdeadcowx
I can live with almost every change, although i would prefer if things were left unchanged. The one BIG beef i have with the change over is the live.php page.

I love that page and i am tempted to start a petition to keep it around.

I understand some people had issues with it, but for those of us that love it, we should get an option to still use it.

DC

That is the only page that always stayed up on my computer...go do something in the house, come back and see what new threads started and how many of Slayer's are at the top. They need to bring that back.

I love the new ATS53. It is my favorite layout yet. Lots of new features and better ease of use like no page refresh when you star a post and pop up boxes to perform tasks instead of page loads. Love the clean minimal look and the choice of colors.

As for a walk down memory lane, I joined ATS in December of 07. The site had the 'Dark Matter' theme (that was changed in 2010). ATS Mix with Johnny and Dave (RIP) ruled the home page, Tiniwiki with WIlliamOneSac (RIP), the atheist vs. Christian site war (haha- it was a heated mess when I joined!), etc.

Other goodies: The ATS Issues Thread! LOL! Undo's 'Stargates are Real.'

I don't find it as user friendly. It seems to take many more movements to find the information.

I don't expect many to agree with me or understand but this is how it went for most of the staff (who have been using ATS53 longer).

Some of us weren't sure at first and found ourselves going back and forth a lot. However, after using ATS53 and seeing just how much better it is, it is now torture for some of us to have to use ATS 2010. lol

It DOES grow on you once you realize how much better it is. I can't use ATS2010 without wanting to curl into the fetal position. lol

ATS 53 rocks once you get a hang of it and you'll never want to go back. As ALL site changes do, we all feel a reluctance to change at first.

Originally posted by ChaoticOrder

violet
I like the look but can't navigate as well, like going to a members posts doesn't take me to it.

I noticed that when I click on one of my recent posts in my profile it takes me to the first page in that thread instead of the actual post... kind of annoying. Is that what you're talking about?

I agree. That was one of my favorite functions. Now, unless you keep a log on what page you posted on you have to scroll through the whole thread to find your post. I dont even bother anymore.

I'm still seeing the familiar ATS, so I'm happy for now.

2nd

Originally posted by Spader
I agree. That was one of my favorite functions. Now, unless you keep a log on what page you posted on you have to scroll through the whole thread to find your post. I dont even bother anymore.

The linking is a little different on the new site. When you view your posts list you need to click on the right side of the list where it shows the time stamp plus your member name. That click will take you to your post.

"Deny Ignorance"...RIP

Originally posted by jokerzwild
Really don't care about the look overall, but losing the live.php screen (the New Topics+ tab at the top, 3 rows of live updating headlines, a column each based on flags, views, and newness) is a killer to me cause it's my go-to page on ats.

I completely agree... we need some sort of live feed. I usually use the "current topics" button on the ribbon because I don't have to leave the page to view it, which is extremely useful. But I could live without the ribbon as long as we get some sort of live feed. The only possible rationale that I can think of for why they have removed that functionality is so that everyone has to constantly refresh their page, thus generating more ad revenue for ATS.

Hopefully that is not the reason, and hopefully the staff are going to implement such a function before they bring the new design back again. 99% of my problems will be solved if the new version just had a live feed and also better smilies. I really don't understand why the staff are so stubborn about changing those smilies when everyone clearly hates them... did someone spend countless hours hand crafting those smilies or something?

ATS 53, or whatever it is called is terrible....everytime I click on a post I keep thinking the page is still loading...then realize I have to scroll down to get past the blank page....annoying password thing, missing names and many more things I dont like about the new format.....At least the old version is back for now, I hope it stays...If the old version comes back for good, then pretty sure Im out........too bad because I do enjoy this site...

Just think, when the new format as it's been presented is adopted, it will cure our ATS addiction, and that will be that, and then it'll just be a bunch of kiddies in a chatroom, which will still grab ad dollars, but the content quality, which has already deteriorated dramatically over the years will be gone. Everything has it's day in the sun..

ATS is going down the same path of doom Windows took. Anyone ever heard of "Windows 8"? I never liked the ATS front page since the last redesign. This design trend of using bulky quadrilaterals is a plague which has destroyed many websites and software since the train of destruction got rolling. This plague takes something which had a sense of vastness and turns it into a padded cell. The fear in these web designer's and software developer's minds is that they're going to lose out on all of the morons who stumble upon their website or software and have trouble "understanding" it. How do you fix this? Easy, turn your great piece of software or website into a padded cell where everything you'll ever need to know, at least in designer's mind, is right there in front of you. Don't be scared, you can see all of the walls and LOOK, they're padded so you can't hurt yourself! Now the moron can feel right at home from the start while everyone else, who loved having a vast selection choice which in order to learn such a selection choice existed had to invest some time to learn, is left with the sense that they were just robbed of everything they loved and now have the choice of living in a padded cell or not. Vast selection does not equal unorganized! It can very well be unorganized if it was not organized from the start, but if it was organized from the start, DON'T CHANGE IT! What is with this mental disorder of feeling that having less is more? It's funny though because they've actually added a lot of something with this new design. Do you know what this "something" is? I'll tell you, it's A TON OF EXTRA SPACE BETWEEN EVERYTHING! Why is there so much damn space between areas of "content"? How on Earth did someone think this would be a good idea? Take a close look, (well it shouldn't really be hard to miss because it's probably already hurting your eyes), at all of the pages in the new design, especially thread pages. My god.

I can't create new threads as I have less than 20 posts, so I'll have to put it here and hope that the staff see my post.

I don't normally browse ATS from my PC, I'd say about 98 % of my browsing is done from my phone either while in transit or after getting into bed - these are the only times that my brain is truly free for some out of the box thinking. I don't log on, as I don't feel the need to reply. I'd rather keep my low post count than add one-liners to every second thread. Even though I may only have a handful of posts to my name and don't log on, I do spend a considerable amount of time on the site - one to three hours per day.

I first started browsing ATS circa 2009, but didn't register for about two years after that as I didn't feel the need to do so. Shortly after I joined, the site theme changed but without really throwing a spanner in the works. When I heard about the upcoming change I didn't feel the need to check it out, especially considering I'm hardly ever logged on. Oh how wrong I was...

24 hours ago I opened ATS and was forced to use the new layout. As I said, I browse from my phone. I do so using Opera Mobile, but the new layout makes the site almost completely unusable. When the browser's agent is set to mobile, zooming in and out is disabled, meaning I only have a few sentences on the screen at any given time. It feels like every dozen words I have to scroll, and I don't have a tiny screen (Samsung Galaxy S2). Swapping to the desktop agent doesn't fix things, as the browser's text wrapper doesn't work with the new site and I am left with an inordinate amount of horizontal scrolling as well as a semi-broken menu occupying the top third of the screen. With the old site I could zoom out a fair bit and sometimes get several entire posts showing on screen without the need for ANY scrolling.

My next big gripe is the HUGE gap between posts. There is a massive block with the poster's name above a post and a considerable gap of empty space below the post. This white space less-is-more doesn't work for me. I like my content delivered in an efficient way, not a hipster trendy way.

What happened to the COLOUR? The site feels so drab that it's depressing. The theme as well - this is supposed to be an adult forum with mature topics being discussed, not a social network for adolescents. The immature, childish theme does NOT suit the serious discussions at hand.

What happened to the strip alongside blocks of text that pointed out whether the content was a quoted post of off-site content? If I put my phone down for a few minutes or swap tabs to continue reading another thread I'd like to be able to see at a glance what the content I'm reading is supposed to be. Those labels were very much appreciated.

I am one of several that maintain and run one of the biggest classifieds forums in Africa, and we made the choice to disable nested quotes to free up resources on the server and keep post lengths down. Great idea there, bad idea here. If I quote someone that posted two pages back, and he quoted three people with posts spread over ten pages, it can be INCREDIBLY difficult to keep track of what's being said. The conversation here is far too intellectual to assume that everyone can keep track of nested quotes without actually being able to see them.

In closing, ATS as it stands (back on the old theme) is one of my favourite pass-times, but you're killing it for me. It's so frustrating to browse that I would rather find news elsewhere, or another site that is more intuitive and efficient to use. It's almost as if TPTB have gained control of the site and want to dumb us down further by giving us plenty of white space to distract us from the content.

Please, I'm BEGGING you. Please leave the old layout as an option. Even if the URLs have to be different, they can share one database and therefore have the exact same content. I'm willing to pay a monthly subscription fee to have the old site back for good!

reply to post by Oj101


You make a good point about how the look of the website contradicts the point of being here. With every new design, the site has become a much more "friendly" place. You're right, it just doesn't feel right. Also, you mention the huge gaps between everything as I did in my post above yours. I just ask myself, "Why?" Another good point about the lack of color. Some may say wanting some color makes me a hypocrite because color points to a "happy" place. This may be true, but only if I wanted the addition of color to be "forced". Remember the design before the last major redesign? That was a perfect look and the amount of color seen on any given page didn't appear to be "forced" to simply have color.

reply to post by SeriousIndividual


Colour doesn't have to be used to make a place "happy" but it can certainly be used to attract your eyes to points of interest. For example, if I see a green vertical bar to the left of a post I know immediately that it's quoted text. If the vertical bar is blue I know that it's off-site content. If I see a bold, pale green I know it's a hyperlink. A small, dull green means a post has been edited. All of these things can be seen even when scrolling through the page at considerable speed, but can't be identified when using the new "ATS53."

Night Star
I hate all the wasted space at the top of every thread where you have to scroll down just to see the first post

That complaint/comment is one I simply can't understand...


It's the same between ATS.2010 and ATS.5/3

reply to post by SkepticOverlord

Why no "New Topics" anymore?