Absent friends (and communities)

[moth2fic]

Forget about the debate about the aesthetics or general functionality of the new profile page. Or the new update page. Or the friends pages. This is a bigger/stranger worry.

I needed to check something in a comm that was only formed during 2012 (ruby_story_swap) and went, as usual, to my profile to click on them. I had the new profile page open and the comm was

Comments

[anjak_j]

I screencapped my profile page in the old style and compared the two side by side - all my communities, even the ones I joined in the last year, are accounted for. I'm going to keep the screencap until I'm completely sure that I have everyone when they eventually remove the old style profile; I'd recommend all users save a version of the old style page in some form just in case.

With regards to the formatting of your posts - that happened to me once and it was because the 'Disable Auto-Formatting' box had randomly become checked. Such a pain in the ass, especially if the post is a long one.

[moth2fic]

That's an excellent suggestion about screencapping the profile page. *rushes off to do just that*

I suppose the random checking must have happened - that is an absolute pain!!

[anjak_j]

I've only had the random checkbox issue once thankfully... though I've recently started using Semagic to post - the new comment page is so ugly. I made a Stylish style to move the ridiculous floating metadata back to where they used to be, and to tidy up some things that really irk me about that page. However, I made it just to make that page usable and not migraine-inducing. I did the same with the profile page and default comment pages too - I really hate those blue-to-white transitions LJ's suddenly fallen in love with.

[moth2fic]

I can imagine having to do that if you get migraines. I find the new look quite visually stressful and I think a lot of people do. It is a mystery as to why LJ has chosen it! As you know, I prefer DW but of course there are lots of people - and comms - over here.

I will now look out for the checkbox.

[byslantedlight]

To be honest I rather like the blue-to-white gradations, I think they're pretty, and it makes a change. I've always found the blue to be a neutral colour choice too - especially compared to the DW pink colour scheme (yes, I know you can change that, but I actually find the pink the best of their options, somehow!) There's never going to be a colour or style choice that pleases everyone...

[moth2fic]

You're quite right - there isn't - which is why LJ's old system of letting everyone choose their style and view other things that way was so good and probably why so many people are now complaining. Something that worked really well has been taken away.

[byslantedlight]

As far as I know Profile pages and the Posting page have never been customisable at all - we've always had to view both in lj's style, unless we use a programme like Semagic (which lj used to recommend people use, actually!)

They haven't taken away customisation of friends pages completely either - the new friends pages that are currently in beta (ie, you don't have to use them) will apparently have more customisation options than they currently do (definitely a mistake to release them even in beta before they're closer to being finished, it's just panicked everyone), and the post I read gives me hope that actually I'll still effectively be able to view them in my own style. I'm not going to panic until I find out otherwise for sure... *g*

[moth2fic]

No, neither am I - my panic (now over) was reserved for apparently losing half my f'list. *g*