Pssst, starting tomorrow when you get to your desk with your first cup of coffee, you’ll be looking at a new version of Baristanet. It will have a lot more functionality and, we think, a sharp updated look. The Barista and her elves will be working all night to implement the change: just a quick head’s up to tell you that any comment you post here after 4 p.m. tonight just may not transfer to the new version.

118 replies on “Baristanet Redesign to Launch”

  2. This is an absolute train wreck. Counting down the minutes before you switch it back. People do NOT like change…

  6. Wow! That was a challenge. My info wasn’t recognized. I had to register again using a computer generated password. Changed that annoying password. Got stuck on the profile page till I figured out how to get here. So now let’s see if this post works.

  8. Worked just fine for me. I think the re-design has a rather generic look. Is there a way to add spellcheck to the commenting box? I don’t see a preview option, either.

  10. I really like the redesign; it looks fresh and modern. Nice work! I love the turquoise/blue color too. I had no problem logging in either. That said, I second Oliver’s suggestion about adding a spellcheck to the commenting box (as I’m the queen of typos. LOL!).

  11. Very attractive, and I’m sure we’ll all get used to it. But, am I correct that it shows only the one most recent posting in each category? Is there no way to scroll down through all the most recent postings, a la the “old” Baristanet? THAT would be a bummer.

  12. Click on the header of any category, Food for instance, and it will take you to the archive page.

    Also try out the search box at the top of the page.

  15. Kwityerbitchin’! (Spell check would not have liked that.)

    Conan is disappearing for several weeks, so you will hear from me again when I decide to leave the blue seas and return to dry land.

  16. The date and time of my last post are a bit off. I posted early this more. Sept. 1st. It reads for me “August 31, 2010 @ 10:32 am”. I’m still testing … let’s see what this one records.

    True I will get used to this

  21. How do you put up a thumbnail? I have a great shot of me posing at the White House with presidents Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan and Carter.

  22. If you want your own avatar, go to gravatar.com, put in your email address and upload the image of your choice.

  23. The new design has promise, but right now it seems very cluttered and not friendly to reading on anything other than full screen (which I’m guessing is going to slow “work day” hours visits to a near-halt).

  24. Looks great on my Droid, though an loads much, MUCH faster than the old site.

    Is the ability to use basic HTML tags still available? testing, testing, one, two.

  26. Except the time stamp comes in as yesterday @ 1:37pm when it’s really today, 9-1, at 9:38am. Everyone’s comments this morning are dated 8-31 in the afternoon.

  28. The change is okay. The way it was, was also okay.
    Sometimes additional finger poking is not really needed.
    Change for the sake of ………………..change, I would guess.

  36. Yeah, I just noticed that the date stamp/time is still wonky. I posted my testing on 9/1 @ 10:26, not 8/31.

  41. The username / password relationship between Gravatar and Wordpress is screwed up. It will tell you that there’s already a user with your name (which apparently is you yourself). You’ll need to pick a new username in Gravatas. (At least I had to.) But that should work.

  43. Gravatar and Baristanet are completely different sites, so there is no connection at all when it comes to usernames. If you have not already signed up for Gravatar, you would need to make an account to set up your avatar.

  45. Gravatar provides a box for wordpress users to sign in, which implies that it recognizes Baristanet usernames and passwords, but it doesn’t.

  46. Ok walleroo. That nasty gravatar did just what you said. Told me I was in use. Sooooooooo if I pick a new user name how then to transfer the pic to this one? I’m so confused!

  47. Baristanet is a self-hosted site using WordPress.org. Gravatar recognizes WordPress.com users.

    Confusing, I know, but that’s why Gravatar isn’t recognizing your usernames.

    If you need any help with Gravatar and the like, you can email me (support at baristanetnew.wpengine.com).

  49. You’re right, that is totally confusing! No wonder it didn’t work.

    Why, though, does Gravatar not allow me to choose “walleroo” as a usermane? I seriously doubt there’s another user with that same (deliberately misspelled) name. If there is, I’m going to have to break some heads.

    DagT: Just user your email address rather than your username, and somehow, miraculously, it works. (Eventually, though, you’ll go to hell for it.)

  50. People must stop choosing animals as their avatars. I chose one because I actually am an animal. But the rest of you: cease and desist!

  53. Much too cluttered and busy. Not suitable for quick visits – requires too much time and attention. Design great for advertisers, lousy for posters.

  64. I’m slowly warming up to the new layout. I think most people will be happy once they realize they can get the same blog-like format from the Towns page. I am somewhat surprised that the Baristanet banner lost its distinctive purple background, though. The header needs some color!

    Also, for those who want spell-check when posting comments: install Firefox. You get automatic spell-checking in any text area (plus loads of other useful features).

  65. P.S. No comment preview? Is that a limitation of Wordpress or can it be enabled? It’s useful for checking that HTML codes do what you expect, etc.

  69. We totally welcome any constructive criticism, like that we need a preview button for comments or that the header needs more color (however, the purple color was banned from the site). I’m thinking this is beta mode and some things will be tweaked over time.

    For all the people who are confused by the layout, isn’t that always the case when you first lay eyes upon a news site? NYTimes.com was rather confusing at first but now it all makes sense to me. After a few days I think you’ll realize it’s not as cluttered as you think. We only have five ads on each page now, and you can access your town’s blog by mousing over the “Towns” link. Click Towns, you get all the towns Baristanet covers, click Montclair Area and you get your old Montclair/Bloomfield/GR blog, click SOMA area and you’ve got Maplewood/Millburn/South Orange/West Orange. Etc. etc.

  71. “For all the people who are confused by the layout, isn’t that always the case when you first lay eyes upon a news site?”

    No.

    “We only have five ads on each page now…”

    Only five? That is three too many.

    Lastly, the home page is terrible. There are no timestamps for each article and the layout is very unfriendly and cluttered.

    Also, what does “barista” have to do with the Montclair area? Kind of a dumb name/brand.

  73. Umm….. I go to enjoy a day at the beach and return to this? I will give a try, but my first thought it that it may go the way of the THUMBS UP/DOWN, remember that mistake?

    Oh, well. I hope my avatar works- it’s really just a pix of me working.

  75. Oh, I hope you can make it so the entire site resizes when when increases or decreases the font size.

    I like to read with a BIG font, but when I do this, only some text resizes.

    And I will disagree with the “Baristanet” name, hansmeier. It is brilliant in that it does not signify a place or even a thing, which will allow Baristanet to grow into areas without being limited by it’s name.

    Imagine if they originally called it something like: Montclairville… Well, that wouldn’t work and those outside of town wouldn’t feel a connection.

    But BARISTANET can be anything.

    (LOVE THE AVATARS!!!!)

  76. Prof – email me (support at baristanetnew.wpengine.com) and tell me what browser you’re using so I can help you get that text-increasing working.

  77. I noticed that the listings of restaurants in the “Food” section is no longer there. Is it somewhere else on the site? Has it been removed from Baristanet?

  80. Thanks for all the gvaratar avatar tips, y’all.

    Prof, not Professor Kingsfield. Please No!

    Just re-watched the original movie on VOD recently.

  81. The new design is bland and has no character. The old design, with the coffee lady, had attitude. It was amusing.

    This redesign reminds me of what recipezaar did. Great recipe web sign. Different, interesting. Then they changed to “food.com.” Now it comes off as a colossal bore. Very corporate. The recipes are the same but my perception of the site is gone. I go to cookstr.com for my recipes now.

    I come here for the “take” on news stories and there isn’t enough on the home page to tell what the poster interaction is.

    This redesign is a loser.

  84. Looking at the site with fresh eyes, I’m starting to realize what is lacking from the re-design: on the homepage you cannot see the lead storIES. Just one story for each area. I don’t want to drill down or click to get to the featured stories.

    With the old layout, I could see CLEARLY the lead articles by scrolling. With this one, there is simply TOO MUCH going on, it’s like craigslist (I mean that in a bad, design way).

    I prefer a sparse, elegant layout. This is a step towards NJ.com.

    Even Patch Montclair is better exactly because it has several news items on the homepage. By my count, Patch has 7 unique news stories on its homepage, whereas B-net has 2.

    For me, I’d rather click to see more from the B-net areas (Food, Real Estate, etc.) than have a preview OF EACH on the homepage, which takes away from a real news story.

    Also, on the homepage (without scrolling down) there are THREE ADS. Compared to other sites, this is too much and takes away from a clean design. Though NJ.com does have THREE also, and that is NOT good company as NJ.com is a terrible site.

    So count me in on those who don’t care for the re-design.

  85. Prof, there are five featured stories at the top of the site. You click on any of the pictures to peruse them. So by the end of the day yesterday, there was: the strike, the pig, the farmer’s market, the “beatles” and Bernadette’s move across the street. Earlier in the day, you could still read about Cary Africk picking up trash.

    If you want the “old” site, set this as your home page.

  86. 5? I see Decamp Strike, 5 un-captioned pictures of what I don’t know… Oh, wait, I guess these are the thumbnails from stories, not sure how I’d know that, I thought they were part of an ad.

    Past the seemingly arbitrary pictures, I have 2 In the Town stories, one a repeat of the story directly above.

    After that are the splashes of the featured articles on your other B-net areas. I’d rather see more of the lead stories that have been posted during the day.

    But thanks for the link. I do want the “OLD” one. Because like, new Coke, even with Bill Cosby telling me it was better, my taste buds told a different story.

    There are still too many ads that clutter the site. And while I understand this is a money making enterprise (You Go Girl!!), it must balance with an enjoyable user experience. Unfortunately, for my taste (and many who don’t care for the re-design) and visual acuity, I may only be reacting to the number and way the ads are displayed.

  87. Good point Prof on how you’d know those are thumbnails, but now that you DO know, get back to us in a little bit on site navigation.

  88. I am liking the new look, after reading through some of the comments on here, it is getting easier to navigate through, good job!

  89. I realized I never posted how much I love the cool blue box that travels over my pointer as it moves across ABOUT HOME CALENDAR.

    But who cares, we’ll get used to it and scream about how much we love it when you decide to re-design the re-design in 2 years.

  90. Like a broken clock that’s right twice a day, the prof makes a good point about those thumbnails. The “towns” page is effectively the same layout as the old homepage; now you’ve added another layer on top. The trouble is, on the new homepage there’s too much emphasis on real-estate, pets etc, which most people don’t care about. When you come to the site you want to see the top 5 or so most recent stories, not all that subsidiary crap. I understand you want to drive traffic to those places, but on the other hand you don’t want to eat your babies. (Even though they taste delicious, poached, with salt and pepper…)

    I’m essentially echoing the prof, and probably will never live it down.

  91. Twice a day? I’d prefer a broken second hand, which is correct once every minute.

    No need to live down echoing me, that pink shirt you (or at least your avatar) wears is what you need to live down.

  92. Walleroo, the point is the opposite. If you’re not interested in real estate, south orange, or whatever, just stick with the top of the page.

  94. The point is, it’s not working. You can’t tell what the top stories are because the thumbnails are two small to make sense, and there’s no headline or preview text to tip you off.

    Also, you can’t tell how many comments they’ve gotten, though that may only be important to four or five of us recidivists…

  96. FWIW, I’ve been using the “towns” tab as the home page. Once I get past the real home page, I never go back. I may not be a typical user (for which you can thank your lucky stars), but I also think the homepage doesn’t draw you effectively enough into the stories.

  97. One more thing (and then I really have to do some work): Once you’ve clicked “preview,” there’s no way to modify your comment.

  100. The home page “portal” is a common layout on other news sites, so I suspect new visitors will adapt to it more quickly. I too will be using the Towns page as my main entry point, but I understand the need to promote the other sections. I do think they weren’t given enough weight in the previous incarnation.

    Regarding the “top stories” thumbnails, I think it just needs to be made visually clearer that they are clickable and represent other stories. Most sites with that feature will either display links like “1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5” or some form of “previous/next” or arrow buttons. Some sites also auto-rotate between the stories every 5 seconds or so, which I generally find annoying because it’s almost always too soon to finish digesting the headline and decide whether you want to click. However, it make it obvious that there are multiple stories available. As long as there’s some sort of “pause” function in that case, I will (begrudgingly) accept it.

  101. One comment about the comments: it seems that all line breaks are collapsed into a single break. This makes it impossible to separate paragraphs with any more than the default amount of space, which to me is barely enough to distinguish between line spacing and a paragraph break. For example, look at profwilliam’s comment at 7:41 am: if you just glance at the left margin, it’s very difficult to tell that he has multiple paragraphs there. It needs a slight tweak to either decrease the line spacing or increase the paragraph spacing (or both).

  102. And one more, to walleroo (BTW, no more “reply to” links?): When I click Preview on a comment, it changes to a Hide Preview button. Clicking again takes me back to the editor from which I can make additional changes. That seems to be the expected behavior there. Perhaps a browser issue?

  103. Last one (I promise): on the main page, the headings above the story displayed for each section (Kids, Food, etc.) are hyperlinks to that section — but “In the Towns” is not. Also, “Recent Videos” links to the Pets page(?).

  104. I had to change my name and password to get back in.

    I find the site a confusing mess with less information than before. I’m not sure how much I will be back here, as there are many other neighborhood sites that are easier to read and follow.

    Sorry Baristanet, but this change is not for the better

  105. In response to your comments, we’ve added a new navigation tool. When your mouse hovers over the thumbnails in the feature section, you now see the story’s headline associated with the thumbnail.

  107. Close, but no cigar.

    (Aren’t we awful? How do you put up with us? If I were you I’d get a punching bag.)

    Seriously, it’s a decent makeshift fix. For something more permanent, I’d throw it back to the designers. For all the dough you’re paying them, they should get it right.

    The prof might fix it for free.

  108. Free? the prof only dances for free!

    His advice- about anything- costs $$$$.

    Or at least a big bite of that juicy Smashburger that keeps poppin’ up on the site. DAY-UM that thing looks good!!!!!

  109. Walleroo,
    I do have to say that the “Pets” section is one of the main reason why I check out Barisanet every day or two. I want to be on the lookout for any lost pets, and I like to read about pet/shelter news. Plus when a pet is reunited with their owner it literally makes my day.

    BTW — love your avatar! It’s so cute!

  110. If you guys have any suggestions for the site, or see something broken, the best thing to do is email me (support at baristanetnew.wpengine.com).

    Otherwise, I won’t see all of your wonderful suggestions/complaints, or be able to respond to them and make the changes that are needed to improve your experience on the site.

  113. Well! I go away for a couple of days and just *Look* what happens! fooey! I don’t like change for change’s sake and it will take me a good, stubborn long time to get used to this. is it too early for a beer?

    but after I saw Roo’s cute little picture, guess what was the first thing I had to do – since this is my inaugural post, let’s hope it shows up properly.

    I will reserve comment on the redesign after the subbornness wears off a little bit…

  114. I would like to clarify that I actually LIKE the redesign overall and despite a flaw here and there (what redesign doesn’t have them?) I think the designers did an EXCELLENT job, especially given all the budget and time constraints. Whoever designed this site should get a gigantic bonus, a raise, gold-plated health insurance and an all-expenses paid vacation to Greece.

    Geesh.

  118. Drat wal ya noticed my little animal! Took that pic myself I did. Thought that the beauty of the sunflower would blind you.

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