dooce® v6 Update
February 13th, 2009Just relaunched the mothership with added tabs to the upper right corner of dooce.com. These take you to the latest photo in each section. Heather designed these the night after we launched the redesign, then changed them and then I spent most of yesterday wrangling Drupal to get them to work.
Some notes:
The space between content and ads on dooce.com v6 increased. There is more whitespace for the content.
Fonts were enlarged to ease in reading, particularly on larger screens at higher resolutions.
We didn’t know what the Barbie® ads were going to look like until right before they ran. People, I live my daily life in PINK. The ads will rotate. It’s going to be ok. I have another daughter coming. I’ll be living in PINK for the next several years. Think of me, please. helpmepleasehelpme
I’m fairly sure Heather plans on changing the mastheads out. Don’t panic.
Bugs in the comments. Have a great weekend, people. o
Tags: dooce status, dooce v6, dooce®, getting my drupal legs
When I click on one of the photos in the masthead, it doesn’t take me to the photo, I just stay on the main page. Is that the way it’s supposed to work? I assume so since it’s not like you & Heather don’t know what you’re doing with this whole, website thingy.
By the way, thanks for giving me a giggle with your “pink” comments! I’m not a huge pink fan myself, but I’m bracing myself for the day my daughter decides otherwise.
The masthead is non-functional except to link you to the homepage. The tabs ABOVE the masthead are what you click to get to the latest Daily Chuck, Daily Photo & Daily Style.
thanks for the reply. I did see the other tabs (thanks for adding those!), but I had just wondered if clicking on the photos would take you to that particular photo, not necessarily to the daily style, etc.
PS ~ you have a great weekend as well!
Since I didn’t report bugs the time I thought I’d continue the tradition.
Looks great Jon. Nice work.
It looks great! Lovin’ the tabs!
Happy V-day to you and your lovely bride!
I like the tabs too.
Btw, “previous photo”would be preferable to “older photo”
I know, picky picky + ingrates! @ eleventy
No rush, have another Daddy drink first.
PS I have no objection to pink.
Actually, proper user experience nomenclature is “Older” and “Newer” when dealing with chronological content.
I’m sure there are people on both sides of the Previous/Older and Next/Newer divide.
I cant find a way to search the archives.
Other than that it looks great, super clean and I think the masthead is very nice.
Search is coming… probably next week. We hope.
THANK YOU for the new tabs. I was really hoping for them.
I like the new look – the added space between content and advertising is definitely noticeable. And all that pink… well… If nothing else, the irony is amusing.
LOL about all the pink, you poor, poor man.
I miss the “I’m Heather B. Armstrong and this is my website” bit, but I do like the new tabs.
I know that’s not a bug (pleasedon’thateme!) but I thought y’all might like some positive feedback too. I know I always do!
Hover your cursor over “About This Site” and watch the magic!
Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.
Jon and Heather.
I am thrilled to have the tabs back at the top of Dooce’s site. I like the new layout also.
I have you have a nice Valentine’s day weekend.
Shit, I think it looks awesome.
*applause*
Love the new changes.
Suggestion: How funny and CUTE would it be if you added your baby’s sonogram to the family masthead??? Dressed up as something. Pink haired troll? Marvin the Martian doing the shaka?
Or not.
(And in Dooce’s sitcom, this is where you could have a sub-plot of a design impaired reader being a creative consultant wanna be. haha!)
Have a great weekend.
My Dad has 3 daughters. He’s 83 now. And he’s still sane. You will be fine Jon!!
The tabs a beeeeeeautiful! thanks for listening to the masses. Now I can get my daily photo fixes with ease!
Great new design – and the new tabs are the icing on the cake for me.
By the way, I loved Heather’s matching outfit for the launch, that was a superb touch!
LMAO @ your pink life and the Barbie ads! I had to laugh when I first saw the ads because I was SURE Heather didn’t know those were coming when she designed her fabulous February masthead. Ha!
So, this might just be my browser (Chrome) or connection acting up, but I’m not seeing the section at the bottom that now has the books and other websites. I’m also not seeing any Google or text ads below the Momversation section, while I do see all banner ads. Originally I did see everything, but this is the first time I’ve visited since the “Daily…” tabs were added. Like I said, it’s likely a problem on my end, but in case not I thought I’d let you know.
And while I’m here, I’m going to go ahead and inundate you with some unsolicited feedback on the redesign, as well. Let me just say, I was super excited to visit my favorite blog on my birthday only to see an unexpected surprise–a fabulous new design coupled with a post titled “And I just happen to know today is her birthday.” :]
BUT my excitement quickly turned to panic when I realized the “Daily…” thumbnails were GONE. I frantically scrolled over the photos in the masthead, thinking maybe y’all had integrated them into it. Nope, not there. I then scrolled down a bit, and WHEW! there they were. I don’t know what I was thinking. I mean, OF COURSE they would be there somewhere.
Obviously, like so many others, I missed the quick access to my “Daily…” fix. At the same time, I did actually like the integration into the main blog as well as the new rectangular thumbnail. Verrry nice!
I came over here and found you were working on a solution to quell the public outcry and I’ve been eager to see what that would be. And I must say, I do love the new tabs. They’ve got a nice flair to ‘em and I’ve got a quick link to my fix again.
But something funny happened. You were totally right about giving it a little time, because I’ve already adjusted to accessing them solely through the main blog. In fact, I quite like seeing the preview going to the full photo. I think it’s because you or Heather (who does that part, anyway?) do such a nice job cropping the thumbnails, making them very fun to look at before seeing what the whole photo has going on.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, I love the new tabs, but I also love the “Daily…” posts integrated into the main blog. I like having lots of options! So I hope you end up keeping them both.
And now I am FINALLY shutting up! I wasn’t lying when I said “inundate.”
Is there a way to search the archives? I like to share old entries when appropriate…like, my friends who will be weaning their 9 months old in the next few months *have* to read about the cabbage!
We pulled search for the time being, but it’s coming.
In the meantime you can use google. In the search field use this:
“cabbage” site:dooce.com
or
cabbage site:dooce.com
Google is faster than the native search (part of the reason we are revamping it).
I don’t know if this is how you meant it to be but when I access dooce on firefox, I see daily chuck above a post and daily photo & daily style below a post for every date. Apologies if it isn’t in fact a bug
The new version looks wonderful. I love the tabs too!
Uh. confused. If you’d be so kind as to send me a screenshot? Hit the contact page for the correct email address.
If you’ve shift-refreshed a few times and it still looks like what you are saying, I’ll need that screenshot to troubleshoot.
Thanks!
Alright, I’ve been playing on the new dooce, and I love it! Let me preface this suggestion by telling you that I know NOTHING about web designing or the intricacies involved, but I think it would make the general navigation for the “Daily…” so much simpler if the features expanded lengthwise within the actual area it’s already in (notice my expert use of technical jargon) instead of taking you to a new page…although I suppose that the tabs are there for the easy navigation already, but I’m very lazy with my clicking finger. Just a suggestion! =]
Hi Jon -
Not sure if this is a bug or not, but I figured you would know. With all the crazy masthead drama that’s been going on over at Dooce, I decided I wanted to go back through and revisit old mastheads to marvel in the creativity. However, small problem – the “Older” and “Newer” buttons don’t seem to work as intended.
Here’s what happens: I click on the “Mastheads” link at the top of the page, which takes me to the masthead archives. Then, I click on one of the “posts” (sort of, don’t know what else to call it), and then click on the Masthead title, and the image opens in a new window. (BTW, it seems a little redundant to have to click on the post, which takes me to a new screen, and then click on the link to see the image, but that’s little and I can get over it.) After admiring, I close that window, and I want to see another one. But when I click on “Older” or “Newer”, it doesn’t take me to an older or newer masthead, but rather what I believe to be an older or newer blog post. Since the masthead archives are separate from the rest of the archives, can the “Older” and “Newer” buttons be used to simply navigate through them, and not the entire content? That’s what I thought they would do anyway.
Thank you so much for being willing to walk through these things with us not-so-technical folks, answering our questions and enduring our unsolicited feedback. You are very much appreciated.
Heather is going to completely revamp the Mastheads section. Stay tuned!
And thanks for your feedback.
Not sure if this is a bug or if it’s simply still in the revamping process, but in each “Daily…” post, it has the new “Older Photo”, but still has “NEXT PHOTO” (all caps in the old font) to move forward.
Also, in the footer, the section title images are all screwy. The alt text suggests they say “Books by Heather B. Armstrong” and “Elsewhere,” but what I’m seeing is a bunch of dots and lines. Looks braille-ish, actually. I wondered if this god awful IE I’m forced to use at work is unfriendly with PNGs, but I can see the book covers just fine. I dunno. Maybe you can drop some knowledge on me.
And again, you’ve done a fabulous job on this redesign. I’m still loving it. Can’t wait to see what y’all are cooking up for the archives!
Thanks for mentioning this.
You need to do two things:
1) Upgrade your browser. IE6 is now eight (8!) years old. We are increasingly not supporting it, as are other sites across the internet. There are options: IE7, Firefox and the upcoming IE8. IE6 does not support the kind of PNGs that are used to render those graphics. I’d recommend an upgrade pronto. If your IT department says no, do it anyway and see what they say. Until users push for upgrades, IT people can be loathe to accept something called “user reality”.
2) Clear your cache. The “old font” issue is because your cache has not let go of the image. You can also hold down the shift key and click the refresh button until you see the correct graphic.
Thanks again for taking the time to submit this and your kind words.
Not sure if you have any control over the feed, but my feed has been malfunctioning since the update. The posts sometimes show up, but usually don’t–and when they do & I click on them, they tell me there’s a problem with pheedo (?) and the page won’t load.
Catlin,
Try this one:
http://dooce.com/feed_main/feed