OSNews

I think my only real problem with it is everything is to the left of center. It appears more then a third of the right side of the screen is used up by links and dead space, making things a little awkward on a 20 inch monitor because everything else is shifted so far to the left. With the current version, everything is centered nicely making it easier to read. The lemonade color scheme seems a little garish as well compared to the nice subtle gray. I do like having the recent comments on the right hand side, though this site gets commented on a little faster then I can follow. I also like having direct links to some of the account things, like messages there.

I must say i don't like the new look of the site, it kind of looks too traditional, however, the new features seem very promising.

CSS

RSS

Javascript

So this is the "Internet Explorer Only" version of OSnews?

At least the layout's main column is no longer fixed-width...

I think the current layout with the boxes around the news items is much clearer than the new layout where news items and Google ads are mixed without any kind of separators.

The title boxes are very nice. It does get difficult viewing threaded comments though. I also think the highlight for "my comments" is a little colour-rich when compared to the rest of the site.

Love the new feature list! Congratulations to OSNews on getting the infrastructure together.

The new look is pretty scary. The OSNews logo is a little too web2.0ified for my tastes, and the "Submit News" button looks quite unprofessional. Plus, it wouldn't be a bad idea to columnize things again so that everything doesn't just flow out of everything else.

Still, always nice to see OSNews come out with a new version of the site. There has definitely been a lot of hard work that should be appreciated.

There is too much clutter. The news features (especially the headlines) are hard for the eye to skim. And the lines of text grow too wide to read in a big window.

Here's an example of what I mean: The headlines have one indention due to the star icon on the left. Then comes the dating with another indention and then the main text with a third kind of indention and the comment count with a fourth indention. This stuff needs rational alignment.

All-in-all: Better alignment, more boxes and more spacing. That's how you make stuff easy for the eye, and that's really a key concept when you make a site that people skim through 2-3 times a day.

Sorry to say so, but I really think you can come up with something better.. or at least improve stuff.. I don't mean to say "redo the whole thing".

I like the fresh colors though. The current OSNews is a bit sad... you should do more prozac commercials

Edited 2007-03-22 15:03

I'm digging the new look. Everything is so... green.

The eye... It's talking to me, the eye is talking to me! It tells me to do things... Burn things. Kill things.

Instead of the "Add Bold" and "Add Italic" (or was well as?) how about using the

document.selection.createRange().text
document.getSelection()
window.getSelection()

functions to allow a person to type, drag select the text and click the button (which would then grab the selected text, parse it and paste it back in?

I would like to be able to click on the link of pending news.

Today you can see the list of news not published, submited by readers. I would like to be able to see which article they are refering to because:
1) I don't want to link the same article.
2) Sometimes I saw interesting articles that the 'moderators' are not interested in and thus not published.

Thanks!

I must say, with a few nitpicks that I won't mention, because I don't really care that much, I really like the new schema! Bravo, my winged simian web-coding friends, bravo! i hope they give you an extra banana!

I consider the current site design to be the absolute best out of all the tech news sites I visit. It's always fast and it literally renders everywhere. We'll see if the new one matches it.

It's definitely good to see osnews step up to the plate to update a bit, and I generally like the new layout. I will agree with some other commenters that there are a few things to look at:

-new logo is too web 2.0
-things seem to be a bit left
-there should be more boxing or dividers or something to keep the meat of the content as the focus
-submit news image looks like something from a late 90's site that said "Under Construction"

OSnews is probably the most important news site to me, second only to my personal email as something that I keep up with, so it's nice to keep the simplicity to it. I'm very excited to see the preview of the new layout, and hope with some tweaks we see it soon.

Renders fine on opera mini on my cell.

Browser: Opera/8.01 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/3.1.7139/1644; en; U; ssr)

Nice features, but I don't really like the look. Too bland for my taste. That submit news button... the font doesn't does well with the overall look, and the inclination serves no purpose. The right bar really needs some love, you need better separation between blocks.

As I said, the features are great, but the look needs major improvements and polishing. Keep the good work guys!

Interestingly, none of my Firefox browsers seem to be able to render the stuff on the right side of the site (recent comments, etc.). 3 different distros and a Windows machine, and none of them seem to be able to do it (yes, javascript is turned on); it shows up at the bottom of the screen. Opera and IE seem to be fine, though...is there something I'm missing?

Edited 2007-03-22 15:12 UTC

I'll have to test it out later, but one of my favorite things about the current OSNews is that it actually renders very well in links, I wonder if this new version will too?

I miss not having theme options in user preferences. It's nice to be able to switch between the blue and green themes from time to time.

Also on the front page and comment pages, I don't like how all the articles are simply separated by empty space on the page. I like how the previous setup was with each article summary and each comment being in it's own aesthetically pleasing box.

Much nicer than the old site, particularly the "recent comments" feature.

OK just reading about this, first thing, top has background color, bottom does not. I'll be looking at your CSS, though I know that will evolve. The end product I am sure will be quite excellent. However If
I look at current site, it's quite excellent already.
I can see you intoducing some new features. Anyway don't rush. We shall do cross-browser testing.

There isn't any favicon with the new logo. And I think OSnews team should do a clean up in the CSS at http://www.cleancss.com

I like more the menu in the left and the news on the right.. :-)

Good work!

* Revamp of comments is nice.

Two major dislikes:
- The lack of separation between stories (versus current "box" and space between each story which makes it easy to read through titles fast)

- The left alignment (versus current center). At least invert columns - menu/tools on left so it would make the beginning of main story around center.

I love the new design! The only thing I would change is the font of the "Submit News" link at the top right. The "stencil" style is indicative of a fact or information, not exactly of interactivity.

Unrelated: you guys need an internet radio show! Get some guests and discuss things! That would be greattt.

Finally, no more click-through moderation. Instant AJAXy moderation is mucho bettero.

A few things:

-Get rid of the huge submit news button in the corner.
-Make the text under the logo "exploring the future" darker so it can be read on the background
-Make a fixed width version of the site, 800-900 pixel ought to be enough.

Great job overall I think.

I think when I click to open a story it should be the comments one. Why click two times.

At the main page I can see the news text..

Thank you very much for all your hard work.

Just to my eye, but a small amount of line space between the headline (and the linked line) and then the summary text might help. And perhaps it might look neater if the summary text didn't run round the icon but stayed to the right of it?

Everything works out nicely on my widescreen here, anyway, better than do many sites which are set up for 4:3 but struggle to manage 16:9.

Why don't you put the ads over to the right? I can't imagine Google is happy about the adds on the bottom, and having them on the right would even out the weight of the page a bit.

The submit news button looks painfully out of place with the rest of the site.

I'd go to putting it as "just another link" on the site, if you want it to be prominent then in the top menu but not as a huge great image there.

If it was there to try and balance out the top of the page, you need another plan for that because it looks tacky.

I like it, but I'd like to see a clearer separation between stories. Like slashdot, having the backgrounds of titles another color or something.