Style Changes to the Site

thank you

RJ,

Your post was noticed this morning once we were back in the office. I haven't noticed it personally, but Catherine is aware, and we're investigating...

Thanks guys for making the styles smaller - it's so much better now!

Thanks John, it's much appreciated.

Must say I prefer to go onto ChinesePod on my ancient Dell laptop which has a much higher resolution.

The fastest growing computer segment is the little notebook popularised by the eeePC - I know because I am helping their sales. The tech information says Display 1024 x 768; Resolution 1024 x 600 (sorry, I don't know the difference, maybe someone can inform me.) The point is that you may get an increasing proportion of users with this kind of resolution.

Thanks, Sebire. I'm clear now. I agree that 1024 X 768 is reasonable resolution. We will be making further adjustments to the CSS to better accommodate all our users' needs, so your input has been very helpful.

If it helps, my screen resolution is max at 1024 x 768, 4:3 aspect. I thought maybe I had an unusually low resolution, but Wikipedia claims that 20% of users still use it, which is not an insignificant minority (Firefox's market share is roughly similar, for instance).

John, I can set a font and size in the preferences of my browser (Camino). I can set a minimum size as well, which is what I have to do in this case because if I make the fonts smaller using the normal options in the view menu, all the other links on the side bar are tiny. I can zoom out every time I come to CPod, but that's a pain, so I put in a global setting that I could cope with on all sites. If I had the ability, I would set it for CPod alone, but I don't think I can. This was never a problem with the original styles. Is there a reason why you guys have made the fonts so massive? I really find it unreadable.

sebire,

What do you mean by "override the style changes"? One of the improvements we made with the new style is that we went from specifying text size in pixels to using ems (relative measurement of text). This is the "proper" way to do it, partly because it better supports resizing of text.

What browser are you using that you can't resize the text? Or by "override" do you mean something like Stylish (a Firefox add-on that lets you change the CSS for specific sites you frequent)?

OMG, I can't even override the style changes with my browser anymore. Is CPod insistant that I may only see a couple of paragraphs at time on a 15" monitor?! At least before I could change it, now it's forced upon me. On the conversations page, I can literally see three threads before I have to scroll own. I am actually incredibly frustrated with the font size. Perhaps this is why no one joins in - everyone uses a computers with small screens!

To put into perspective - CPod's font is bigger than the BBC News main headline font.

ok, experimentally I would say it switches color every time you view the conversation, whether or not you comment.

or maybe not.

hmmm.... yes, I just saw that this one was back to black on mine after I commented, so I went back out before commenting again and it was back to red.

Ok, you are right, it is weird.

OK, that seems to be true to an extent. But I have posted in two lesson threads today (not far below this one on the list). That means I must have visited the lessons themselves. Yet they are both black.

I think the pattern is this: When you sign in all the header links are black. When you click on one, it turns red. It just helps you know were you have been, nice for keeping an eye on conversations you are involved in.

Ah yaaay! You're right! It looks much better all ready ^^ The blue font was the worst... o.O and now we've got the red back again and the font size is good again (well at least for my eyes :P) My only slight hang up is that the links are still blue... But still, I can deal with that if it means everything else is good again ^^

The size is fixed!

Partly cultural?

A recent FT article ("A Species Apart") suggests that Chinese sites have evolved a different format to help users avoid typing. So, "[a user] navigates almost entirely using the mouse... ...portals have reacted by filling their pages with hundreds of colourful links competing for attention - creating a cluttered and disorderly view to the western eye but making life easier for Chinese users."

That describes some of the Chinese sites I've looked at - like trying to concentrate in a disco, for me!

I completely agree. If there's ever been a weak spot at Cpod, it's the web development.

And welcome to China! I find that 99% of Chinese websites are 10 years behind the times, in both design and functionality. Why that is, I have no idea...Chinese are outstanding at Math, so you think they'd be good at building websites. I rarely find that to be the case.

go_manly
I've sent you a PM.

I'm using a CRT monitor.

I also have no idea what those terms mean, or how to change from one to the other.

go_manly

you're probably using an LCD monitor with standard font smoothing. Try changing to ClearType smoothing (or Mac equivalent).

calicartel

I am assuming that you missed the worst of it. The current font in the discussions is fine. But there was a period of about 24 hours or less when it was dreadfully small, hence the complaints. But I still think the letters vary in darkness - for example compare

ava, bwb, cyc

v, w and y appear noticeably lighter than the other letters.

the underline becomes useful for not so obvious links like - xxx replies to yyy

The blue seems to be the unformatted, classical default link color, and I bet CPOD will change it.

IMHO, the single most problem is that English fonts are easier on the eye than chinesefonts with the same font size.

Oh, and once more: zooming with ctrl+ + used to corrupt the exercises.

Knowing that we are seeing work in progress, I'm very happy about the changes so far.

New dashboard -> same old mistakes: no beta testing, just have all users do the testing with the productive system and patch things up on the way.

For ***** sake, ******!!

In German: ES NERRRRRVT! TIERISCH!

Yeah I know you meant no offense Chris, sorry to make you apologize--!

Sorry Zhenlijiang, didn't mean to imply blame. As above, I'm indifferent to the font size. The point I was trying to make was that it's good CPod responds to our requests, although with hindsight I guess my use of the word mature was provocative. No offence intended ;-) In fact, I have to wear contacts myself!

I'm really sorry John, I know I went on yesterday about size, but actually it's a combination of things namely size, spacing and typeface, Paulinurus mentioned lightness (I also thought maybe the previous text was a dark gray and not a black, which makes small type unnecessarily hard to read?).
I realize you can't ever please everyone. I found the previous text very stressful to look at; the current one I find not stressful on my eyes anymore but to take up way too much space and be 有点儿不好看. In this sense, the previous CSS was just fine.
Thank you for all your work though, I hope I don't sound too unappreciative.

(sigh) I hate being a complainer but agree that now the font is too large (isn't there anything inbetween?), particularly in the Lesson Dialogue and Vocab tabs, but in the Discussion tab too.
I don't have any problem with the BBC site either.

I did complain that the previous font size was too small, and did say that this was an issue for middle-aging+ folk that maybe younger people just don't know exists. But we weren't the only ones with the complaint; at least one of us was a teenager. I guess I'd appreciate it if we "mature users" didn't get blamed for the jumbo-sized text, which I didn't ask for.

It was good enough before the style change, and it was fab when it was a smaller font. The font is far too big now, it must be twice the size of every other site I regularly use (e.g. bbc news).

I do need a new computer at some point though. I wonder if this iPad is any good.

sebire, you need a new, bigger screen ;-)

IMHO the font is now too big.

Tvan, the font is so enormous that I can't even see the bottom of this reply box and the top of your post at the same time. My screen is on max resolution. The fonts aren't even the same size as the links on the side bar, which is a normal size. If I shrink the text to a normal size, the links are tiny. As it stands, the font size is on a par with a children's books, and furthermore it makes it even harder to find posts.

Me too. I'm a senile old poop, and have no problems with the new font size. I like the new look, and can't wait for further improvements. A new subscription looks immanent.

sebire, I qualify as a mature user and seldom have problems with web sites; I just have to tilt my head back to kick in the bifocals. I spend a fair amount of time reading online news with no problem and, as you note, those sites have a lot smaller font than CPod. Bottom line, I have no issues with the site as it stands now.

I am wondering how our mature users look at any other website on the net - ChinesePod has the largest font of them all! I've taken to having to shrink the text now, but I don't know how to set it just for CPod :(

Whoa! I turn my back for 15 minutes and I'm treated to jumbo sized font! I'm indifferent on that point, and good to see you responding to our more mature users' requests.

Chris

We will definitely be fixing that as well!

(Hmmm... I'm noticing the font size inside this text box needs to be increased too...)

Our work isn't done!

Thanks for all your continued hard work John, and everybody.

Thanks, bababardwan!

You'll be seeing the improvements very soon. First, the changes overwhelmingly deemed negative will be fixed (fonts too small, etc.), and then you'll start seeing new improvements too (Exercises, etc.).

Hear, hear!

Server failure? John, you shouldn't be using Windows servers : )

I like the small font!!!!

Yes.

Does this mean we will be getting a larger font?

加油！I was wondering why I couldn't access the site for a few hours.

[NELSON]HAHA![/NELSON]

Outrageous! Some of my apostrophes have been deleted!

That has been fixed.

Amen.

I guess, the simplest solution would be to adapt and integrate WLCP here.

Second solution: a simple API, indeed. There seems to be something like that out there already, otherwise, skritter could not connect to CPOD - misterious, misterious

What we need is for ChinesePod to create a public facing API that delivers lesson content. It really wouldn't take long for ChinesePod to code something directly against the database and deliver the lesson in a useful xml format. The Wlcp xml/xsl pages are superior in design and quality to anything I've seen coming from ChinesePod. It was not just a hack. It has become hacky because it is parsing ever-changing html pages. Until there is an API, that is the only way to get the content. The other Andrew's Refrigerator Magnet Program is also a nice application that, I'm guessing has been broken by the latest change. That would be more stable if there was an API. If there was an API, someone might create an Anki plug-in to load vocab directly into Anki with sound files. Its probably not going to happen without a stable API. It would be nice if ChinesePod considered becoming a Web 2.0 company, but it really doesn't seem to be headed in that direction. As far as I can see, ChinesePod is moving in the opposite direction, pushing for greater control over all hosted content, community or otherwise.

The current situation with WLCP is a sad one.

The creator(s) and/or inheritor(s) of the mantle seem to have abandoned it, (little wonder I guess when the CPod website undergoes a major change every 5 minutes and the thing gets broken again.)

No one seems to want to fix it or rewrite it, even though it's an incredibly useful app valued by many poddies (who are always just ignored when a new month comes and it's time for another big change.)

Anyway my fingers are crossed that some white knight will step forward after the dust has settled (again). If not, it will be time to say RIP wlcpod. I'll organise the wake.

daniel, two scenarios:

1) CPOD is just tweaking CSS. Consequence: wlcp will be unaffected.

2) CPOD is restructuring their HTML to meaningful entities: wlcp has to be restructured but can be simplified again, since pieces in the HTML are easier to find. any future design changes will not affect wlcp, since they can be made in the CSS itself.

in anyway. although IL-WLCP, please remember that it is a hack and it will stay a hack in its hacking geekiness [one could call it WLHCP]. CPOD cannot avoid it, and we all know it, even if it means that WLCP has to be rewritten.

About the "breaking down:" A clean rewrite would help a lot, I suppose.

Matthiask and Tal,

I believe that Wlcp parses html with python using regular expressions, so these updates will not help Wlcp, it will just kill it. The Wlcp code is already breaking down under the weight of all the incremental changes to the website, and workarounds in the python code.

I do all my studying against the Wlcp files ... the whole community section could disappear, and it wouldn't bother me nearly as much as a broken Wlcp.

reconsider the saying (maybe imagine it without all the backslashes ;) )

yes, playground servers, site mirrors, backup environments, or simply just saving a local copy of the page and editing the css would work - your intution is right: there are possibilities. - but with all the JavaScript/Ajax on bord, you may miss things. I bet this happened here as well.

However, already for this page, w3c validator returns 263 errors - clean xhtml ain't easy baby.

Okiedoke, I'm holding my breath. Seems to me though, that every time there's any change to the site, everything goes haywire and even when the dust has settled folk just have to get used to stuff they didn't like in the first place. And these changes are all too frequent these days. And I'm no programmer or web designer, but isn't there supposed to be some concept of having this stuff working before changes are made?

tal_, if done right (and some of the html was really messy), this is a fix *for* WLCP and not against it, because when all the elements have there rightful identifier, parsing the page becomes so much simpler - and future design updates do not interfere with the html and thus with WLCP.

Yeah, but John's never finished changing.

I prefer the wise saying \"When you\\\\\\'re finished changing, you\\'re finished.\\\"

Good point. I haven't tried to alter the style on my threaded comments, so that never occurred to me.

That is how it has been since the threaded comments were introduced, which I like since you need to use html to do any style editing.

don't know, whenever I propose something like this and offer my solution, the community retreat into silence. (btw. there is no need and reason to offer only one CSS)

Exactly!

Yeah, it sounds like stylistic elements weren't separated from functional elements as they should be. Updating stylesheets is very easy when you follow best practices ;)

It's still ugly.

Yeah, I agree. I've got a Mac too and to me, the font also looks very ugly/unprofessional as everything has changed to Trebuchet MS. Perhaps Windows users are getting a more accurate representation of the new layout, but coming from a Mac user, it's definitely not good >.<

On the office PC, Trebuchet and Verdana fonts do not support letters such as ǐǒǔǚ, hence the ?-marks.
At home, Opera makes do by substituting a default font, resulting in an ugly mix of fonts. To display these letters with Caron correctly, a Unicode font should be used.
On the plus side, SimSun is an improvement over Arial Unicode for Chinese.

Oh, and under IE6, the toolbar for the comments box shows buttons with non-functioning icons (two on one button.)

The tones show up fine for me. But its interesting you should say that. When I cut and paste Pinyin into Word, the 3rd tones, apart from e, always show up in a different font. And selecting what I have just pasted and changing the font doesn't work. I have to manually change each letter. I've never understood this.

I also don't understand what Compatability View is (and I'm not asking by the way), but I know placing a site in this Compatability View helps you to see characters that aren't displaying. Its in the Tools menu.

As an aside, has anyone noticed the screen you get when you log out?

Well, that presupposes that those posting here are representative of the majority of users.

What surprises me most is that Chinesepod staff just couldn't expect these responses.

>haphazard

nice word. too true and wonderfully honest.

paulinurus,

This is not merely a cosmetic change; proper separation of content and presentation is essential for continued development, and this CSS overhaul was necessary. The font changes are largely a result of the consolidation of font classes which were once fragmented (and somewhat haphazard, to be honest).

We are adjusting the font sizes already, but lesson content remains top priority.

Please refer to my post:

The main goal of this change was to update our CSS to a more consistent, manageable format, which will then be easier to iteratively improve upon.

What surprises me is Cpod's constant fixation on cosmetic changes (and not for the benefit of viewers) while the quality control of lessons materials are deteriorating. Almost every lesson now has glitches and errors. Great time for my subscription to expire in a couple of days and for me to take a break.

I can't agree more. What on earth is the purpose of this change?

Thanks for the feedback. We're reviewing those font sizes now.

I just took a look at an Advanced forum to see what an all-Hanzi discussion looked liked in this new font. I'm afraid I wouldn't want to try reading that for more than 5 minutes at a time.

Yeah, I agree! I don't think there was any reason for change. There wasn't anything wrong with the old one. And the blue looks really odd against the red, I don't like it >.< Plus, the text is really pretty small! I mean, I'm have trouble reading it sometimes and I'm 16 with perfectly healthy eyes! Same thing about the spacing and the font type; I think it's harder to read since it's not as 'bold', if you see what I mean.

So that's my rant over. I think I'm like you chanelle77! I hate change too but this is one change and I really can't get used to >.< The site definitely isn't as aesthetically pleasing which is a major negative to me since I'm a bit of an art freak :P and seeing aesthetically pleasing things put me in a good mood but right now, I'm not really in the mood for Chinese >.<

Sorry to burst your bubble guys because you've worked really hard but it's just not doing it for me :(

I agree with the voting pole idea! It seems to me the majority of people don't like the new layout/style. Maybe we'll just have to get used to the change but I just can't see that happening I'm afraid >.< Particularly the blue links on the white; it looks quite unprofessional and, dare I say, cheap. Sorry guys :( But sizing is definitely an issue that needs to be sorted out pronto, particularly when we're all reading and writing hanzi.

Thats a fair point...Yes I agree, if the majority are complaining its too small then it needs to be changed. Then the minority can press "CTRL and -"

They need some voting polls adding for when they make changes like these I suppose.

Sure I can hamshank, but why should I have to? Or, put it another way--if users are always having to take that extra step to deal with the site's format, that's something CPod ought to be aware of.

The tags are still too tiny, I have to zoom in twice, blowing the page out of screen. And they're still too tiny. It is extremely annoying having something displayed in your screen that is illegible.

This has been fixed. Is it OK now?

Hanzi might scare newbies mate,unless you're at least prepared to provide a translation of your name anytime you post on a newbie or ellie lesson.如果我们可以我就订“怖怖”

HI zhenlijiang

I forgot mentioning this big improvement, which is clearly not fair! I love the new editing box!

> this text editing box is nice and large!

Whoa, OK. I see. I was just about to go on a rant about how I hate this new format (very sorry. I know you guys at CPod are working so hard to make things better here), how the font size is way too small (can't read the tags!) for older girls like me too. But one thing good
--this text editing box is nice and large!

Really, however, the font size is too small. I've said this before--sorry but you 20-somethings and early 30-somethings just don't get it about the small print and our eyes. It really is a problem. I'm sure you have quite a large middle-aged + contingent here. Please consider our needs too.

I know people adapt to changes. But this, I think may actually finally put me off from coming here and reading and posting so much (hey! an effective deterrent, finally). We'll see I guess. But for now, I'm finding the experience truly stressful. Thanks for listening to this.