On Beta Testing
How is the new friendslist in public beta already? This is bananas, hahahha. My old popcorn munching mode has returned, though. I keep refreshing the various news posts just utterly enthralled by all the drama. LJ has never been good at announcing site changes, but this trumps everything I've seen on here previously. It's a glorious mess.
Yes, I've been here nearly a decade, yes I don't really like the proposed changes, yes I'm not planning on giving LJ any of my money (and neither have I given them any money in the past), yes I have been considering various exit strategies (I JUST DON'T KNOW HOW TO QUIT YOU), yes I wrote that massive "OMG YOU GUYS, LOOK WHAT THEY ARE PLANNING TO DO TO OUR FLISTS!!!"-post, but... you guys. You guys. Just... I can't. Hahahhaha :D
Anyway, for those of you who really can not use the new flist at all, rest assured that the current experience is just a beta test. You can switch back to the old style and use that until the new style is released proper. The final release will have options to customize font and background. This has been confirmed through Russian news posts, fiddlingfrog has provided a summary in English here, complete with screenshots of what the style will look like. Of course there is no info on what the customization options will really do, but it sounds vaguely positive. They've also announced ability to deactivate dynamic content and AJAX. That's fantastic news!
Because yes, the new style is still in beta testing. A phrase most LJ users seem unable to understand. Beta testing something does not equal opening a page for 5 seconds, and writing a 5000+ word essay on how you simply can't live on if your friendslist changes. That is not at all helpful to the developers, who are forced to make these changes because supporting LJs massive style system (i.e. the thing that makes it possible for us to customize our flists) cripples their ability to give us new, and useful features. It is not a sustainable model, and I really do understand the need to change this. LJ's source code is outdated. Updated source code is good! It will make the service more reliable, it'll be easier to maintain, and it'll be easier to code for - all of this equals huge benefits for us end users (well.. hopefully). In order to get these benefits, we're going to have to reach a compromise about this new friendslist, though. Whether we like it or not, this is going to be a system page in the future. Better tell them what we would like to be able to do on it, right?
Saying "NO DO NOT WANT" is not at all helpful towards reaching that compromise. So if it's not too much to ask, I would love it if you actively tested the new flist, and then wrote up a proper response on what works and what just doesn't. Feature bugs are the most important things to note, missing functionality is equally important, feature requests come at a lowly #3. Someone pointed out to me that the link list is now missing from the flist, I didn't even think about that.
lj_releases is still the proper channel to guide your feedback through (official release post here), though for actual feature bugs I would suggest opening a support ticket as well.
Happy testing!
Oh, and because I'm curious. Anyone else seeing the site scheme with a completely white background as opposed to the light grey it's really supposed to be? As in this, instead of this? Please let me know, I'm curious as to what triggers it.
Yes, I've been here nearly a decade, yes I don't really like the proposed changes, yes I'm not planning on giving LJ any of my money (and neither have I given them any money in the past), yes I have been considering various exit strategies (I JUST DON'T KNOW HOW TO QUIT YOU), yes I wrote that massive "OMG YOU GUYS, LOOK WHAT THEY ARE PLANNING TO DO TO OUR FLISTS!!!"-post, but... you guys. You guys. Just... I can't. Hahahhaha :D
Anyway, for those of you who really can not use the new flist at all, rest assured that the current experience is just a beta test. You can switch back to the old style and use that until the new style is released proper. The final release will have options to customize font and background. This has been confirmed through Russian news posts, fiddlingfrog has provided a summary in English here, complete with screenshots of what the style will look like. Of course there is no info on what the customization options will really do, but it sounds vaguely positive. They've also announced ability to deactivate dynamic content and AJAX. That's fantastic news!
Because yes, the new style is still in beta testing. A phrase most LJ users seem unable to understand. Beta testing something does not equal opening a page for 5 seconds, and writing a 5000+ word essay on how you simply can't live on if your friendslist changes. That is not at all helpful to the developers, who are forced to make these changes because supporting LJs massive style system (i.e. the thing that makes it possible for us to customize our flists) cripples their ability to give us new, and useful features. It is not a sustainable model, and I really do understand the need to change this. LJ's source code is outdated. Updated source code is good! It will make the service more reliable, it'll be easier to maintain, and it'll be easier to code for - all of this equals huge benefits for us end users (well.. hopefully). In order to get these benefits, we're going to have to reach a compromise about this new friendslist, though. Whether we like it or not, this is going to be a system page in the future. Better tell them what we would like to be able to do on it, right?
Saying "NO DO NOT WANT" is not at all helpful towards reaching that compromise. So if it's not too much to ask, I would love it if you actively tested the new flist, and then wrote up a proper response on what works and what just doesn't. Feature bugs are the most important things to note, missing functionality is equally important, feature requests come at a lowly #3. Someone pointed out to me that the link list is now missing from the flist, I didn't even think about that.
lj_releases is still the proper channel to guide your feedback through (official release post here), though for actual feature bugs I would suggest opening a support ticket as well.
Happy testing!
Oh, and because I'm curious. Anyone else seeing the site scheme with a completely white background as opposed to the light grey it's really supposed to be? As in this, instead of this? Please let me know, I'm curious as to what triggers it.
