Welcome to the New TNR.com!

Visually, the new look is not an improvement. But what is really important is the function, and I'm hoping for a real improvement!

This new site is very confusing.

Where are the old posts?

Well, the site looks *much* better. Congratulations! However, it is awfully disappointing that old comments do not appear. Are they coming, or gone forever?

p.s. If the new policy is instant posting, as it was before the last redesign, then glory be!

Congratulations TNR on what had to be a whole lot of work, good luck in hammering out the kinks!

Hopefully this goes a little better than when you tried to launch the new site a couple days ago. Thanks for putting the work into this. Glad that we can finally use html tags.

I'm also curious about the comments for old posts. Hopefully those aren't permanently gone?

What happened to the downloadable PDF of the magazine?

It's pretty impressive, even a little daunting as regards the home page. The new text box and the font size for comments are both more than welcome. Hope the html facility works, as that would be very nice.

At this point a change to a recognized interface tailor-made for the kind of content TNR produces is a great sign. Yay for Drupal! I'd really like the ability to customize page views with my account, though -- the right-hand column has gotten waaaay too fat, plus it's full of stuff I have no interest in. I'd like to be able to nix it and recover some space on the left so I can get more than three blog posts on the same page.

Also, huzzah for the recovery of the archives! I'll gladly trade all the comments I ever posted for the ability to find the old Easterbloggs and such again. Looking forward to seeing how things shake out in the next few weeks. (And, word to the wise; I'm currently looking at the site at a 75% zoom, because even with my terrible eyesight it's super-huge at 100%.)

Whoo-hoo!

New site sure looks nice, but it seems kinda user hostile. How come it's necessary to do this word verification stuff again to post once you've already logged in with a username and a password? Also why can't you can't see others' comments when you are posting?

Congratulations. I had just about given up on your publication when it came to the web. In particular, your search engine was, in the argot of the Intarwebs, an Epic FAIL. I had to resort to Lexis Nexis or Google in most cases. Based on a few minutes of experimentation, though, the new search engine is perhaps the best I've seen on a web-based publication. The filtering capabilities are outstanding. No joke: I just renewed my lapsed subscription as a result.

There is one bug with the new site: you neglected to remove The Spine. I'm sure this is just an oversight.

Also, where's the link to subscriber services/edit user profile, etc.?

Good luck with take 2! I am still not a fan of the hachured boxes surrounding the blog listings -- I would prefer a solid light color. But other visual elements do look good.

Two requests: bring back the previous comments, and lose the Word verification stuff. The problem posts in the previous version were from non-subscribers who infested the main article comments because some right-wing trollmaster told them to. No need for "word verification"! The Preview feature is nice, as is a default font size that can be read without a magnifying glass.

Recommendation: PHOTOS of contributors!! You know what, some of you guys are pretty good-looking!* Seriously! You should have photos of all your writers on their bio pages.

*Okay, maybe not Marty.

Well, it appears tomeg has reverted to his former user id, so it's Tgossard all over again, as they say. Thanks again, TNR, for those little surprises that make life here so unpredictably entertaining.

As soon as I get over hating the abrupt switch and loss of already submitted comments I'm sure I'll enjoy the new digs. After all, I'll have to, yes?!?

Hopefully, other posters' previous comments will return and important discussion will continue.

Say, Frank, would you please consider creating a welcome video tour of the new site. Thanks.

I didn't realize the magazine was back under Peretz's control. Glad to hear it, we don't need those ninnies to the north to teach us what a liberal is. Right?

Holy cow. Now I feel like I've been here a long time, as I'm seeing the third iteration of the web site. I'm sure as always it will take some time to get used to.

Testing:

bold
italics

looks good though there is a lot of extra space on the blogs. requires a lot of scrolling.

I like the new look also, Franklin. Well done.

I had abandoned hope. Lost. Resigned to the fates.

Now the new look, the easier access to the articles and posts. A big step up to Web Publishing. Hope the Search Function is improved, as the poster above mentions. Hard to check on subjects when you can't look back. Wondering if I'll ever get access to the archive stories I bought, maybe I should just let go.

Looks impressive and for some reason I think the articles will be better.

You guys did such a good job, take a long lunch, have a few drinks and enjoy this last Friday afternoon of the summer.

It looks nice, but for some of us in the bifocal crown, would you mind displaying the articles with black, instead of grey print. My 55 year old eyes need the contrast.

Holding off on final judgment, but... oy! I took a basic web design class and this redesign fails all sorts of user-friendly tests. As someone mentioned, grey text on white?! Putting the blog content in a 1/3-the-screen-width strip? Default font size way too big. And why a word verification if you have to log in to comment -- you think subscribers are logging in and then auto-spamming the comments with Palinesque propaganda?

Well done on the new site. It looks a lot better, congratulations !

Surely everyone need not complain so much, as we all need to get used to it.

I would like to know whether the digitized TNR Archives will be back. I had paid for a set of articles then and still had credits remaining, but this feature disappeared with the CanWest takeover. Will it be back, and also, will the money we spent on articles be recognized?

with best wishes,

Benjamin B.

b:

...why can't you can't see others' comments when you are posting?

george:

I second this. Now you have to copy and paste other folks comments into the box instead of just scrolling up on the same page.

Also, I remember seeing an option somewhere in this new format to use BOLD and italisized words. But it doesn't seem to be anywhere on this page---the place you would use it.

Other than that though, I like the new format. It looks great.

george

Am I right that all the old URLs are now broken? So all the links to TNR out there -- none of them work anymore? I have a blog where I frequently link to TNR articles. I'm very disappointed at the idea that all my old blog posts are now broken.

I've only given the new site the once over but I think you've done well. I'll not whine (for now) as you've addressed many of my complaints with the re-do.

View source and the CSS looks like Phase 2 had a hand in the new site. Which is a good sign, if I'm correct; that studio does excellent work. Can robust semantic linking -- a Phase 2 speciality -- be in store for TNR.com?

But man, y'all need a new server or something, because the load times on these new pages are insane. Makes me feel like I'm trying to watch streaming HD video on a 286 machine.

Also, the whole site is flushed way too hard against the left edge. Have some mercy and give us at least 12 pixels of space over there, please.

OK, I'll cast my vote for a few tweaks:
1.) The sites is slower. Is that because increased security, instant verification-posting or am I dreaming? I didn't mind waiting a few minutes to see my reply and hope some of the other enhancements are the reason for the site's slow loading.
2.) So far, I'm doing OK with the word verification but I prefer sites which display a standard font (I don't believe it's necessary to get tricky with the code to enhance security). Also, is it necessary to have a case sensitive verification or mixed case display? How about upper case only?
3.) I doubt the opportunity to preview will cause me to edit, censor or regret anything I've written. Would it be possible to allow a review as an option and let someone like me post impulsively?

[Hint: Copy your comment before you hit 'Preview'. I just lost this most interesting reply because the server timed out. Yeah, another problem if the site has to do too much thinking...]

A plus: I can now use down arrows to scroll documents. Drove me crazy that I had to use the mouse to scroll.
A minus: No downloadable PDF? Do i have to open article by article? Someone else on these comments asked the question... I hope we get a good response.

Why do I have to log in anew every time I access the web site? Any suggestions?

And what's with the "word verification" shtick? YOu can barely make out the letters in the box!

I just tried to post a comment. After I put in the "Captcha" code and clicked, I found myself on the Mollom page, with no indication that my post had registered (for consideration). That's not altogether satisfactory, so I hope someone fixes it. I had no way of knowing whether things were just malfunctioning, or whether I hadn't allowed some necessary javascript, or what.

Now I see (instantly) my posting, so that means that the original post was indeed not registered. This second time I used "preview", so maybe that's necessary. The following is what my first posting was.
PRINT PROBLEM IN NEW TNR FORMAT:
With this change, now, when I click on the "print" button,
and then print the resulting page, I get very large type.
Thus, I'm wasting pages.
a) If TNR is intentionally providing a format that results in large type, a more considerate way would be to provide a separate "large print" button, but if this is an accident, please remedy. Thanks.

WElcome to the funhouse, I just got the old format and posted there as well.

May I make the third reference to the downloadable PDF. I'm an international subscriber - that's how I get the magazine. No PDF - no subscription. Where has it gone? Thanks.

Looks great from a normal browser.

One big complaint: I read your blogs using an RSS reader. Your blogs would previously include all posts in entirety as rss w/out requiring me to click thru to the web site. I'm now required to open each post fully to view the whole thing. When other sites do this, I wind up reading them much less so I expect that to happen now w/TNR's blogs.

Felix Salmon made a comment about this a couple weeks ago vis a vis Slate and The Big Money

Holding off comment until I have some time to get used to it, but a couple of small suggestions to make blog comments more usable and readable. (1) put a copy of the "add a comment" link at the bottom of the comments, where I'm likely to be when I actually decide to comment; and (2) in the header for each comment, put the username first (i.e. to the left) and make it stand out more (bold, larger, make it a link to their user page). scanning the comments for people I do and don't want to read is key to working my way through them.

This new cite is a work in progress, or is it a work in regress?

please help:

cookie, cookie, safari wants a cookie...

otherwise I have to log in anew each browser session. frustrating.

testing, I can't get on.

The print subscription services link (http://www.tnr.com/services/index.htm) just leads back to the homepage.

Same comment as Nangodango: the RSS feed for the blogs now requires me to go to the actual web page with the blog entry to read it completely. The old format of having the entire blog post in the RSS feed was the better way to do it.

There's still no answer about how digital subscribers get the magazine. The downloadable PDFs are missing or some way of reading the magazine in it's entirety on-line. Clicking through several disjointed links is not good.

And please, for us paid subscribers, get rid of the word verification thing. I'm already authenticated by logging in and paying to read the magazine.

Where is the "current issue" table of contents or the archives of previous issues or at least a "search by previous issues" function? Or is the new website prety much divorced from the print magazine except for advertising subscription to the latter? Some of us are already subscribed.

E-mail alerted me that the new issue was available for download. It's not there. WTF?

Love the new layout, great spacing. Suggestion:Would like to be able to stop the constantly changing top graphic, though, while I browse the home page. Too distracting.
Good work!

Constructive comments:

I am using Explorer 6 at work, and as soon as the front page fully loads, a big piece of the middle gets blocked out by a huge white banner with nothing on it that can't be removed. This didn't happen at home, where I have Explorer 7.

Also, I see a formatting issue on the blogs: The text appears to start right after the "share" box and then to the second line but moved over so that it is not under the author's name. It's weird. Just start the text on the left a decent distance below the author's name.

I wonder whether the blog text is too large and the comment text too small. I'm not trying to insinuate that we're all equal here, but I find both a little difficult to read. The recently re-designed Tribune websites appear to use 10-point Arial for both blog text and comments, and I find that to be very easy to read.

Now I've had a day to think about this, it does seems as if some corrections to the design would be welcome.

1. Word verification should not be required for logged-in subscribers
2. Although the new text box is great, it is a problem not to be able to see other's comments or the orginal blog posting -- and the old problem of losing text if you change screen is still there. So now it's worse in a way, you can't see the comments you're responding to, AND if you go back to check you lose your text.
3. The gray/white combination is a little irritating -- and it would at least be useful to begin the comment ID with the subscriber's name at the left margin (or if not move it, then perhaps in red or green font)
4. The blog entries are too far left-justified -- if they could get slightly wider margins and a slightly smaller font, it would look better.

Other than that, love the Preview and the html functions.

No easy link on homepage to "current issue" or "issue archives" or am i missing it?

By now it's clear the new site is betaware (not a criticism; much of anyone, anyway). Hopefully a Golden Master has yet to emerge.