A New Look and Feel for InDesignSecrets
We are very pleased to announce InDesignSecrets’ new design. Our goal is to make it easier than ever to find the information you’re looking for. Take a look around! In particular, note:
- The Recent Posts, Recent Comments, and Most Commented Posts tabs at the bottom of the right sidebar.
- The menus at the top, including fast links to all the Secrets posts, important resources, and more!
- We’ve made it easier to listen to the podcasts quickly in your browser window, if you so choose.
- “Breadcrumbs” show up at the top of each post, so you can easily see where in the site you are.
- There are quick links to other posts you might find useful in the upper-right corner of each post.
However, change rarely comes without hassles. It would not surprise us if there are glitches here and there. Please be patient with us as we fix them. If you see something odd or something you wish were different, feel free to email us at info [at] indesignsecrets.com or go to our Contact page.
Great thanks to everyone who contributed to our new design, and most of all to the extraordinary coding and design work performed by Pariah S. Burke. Wow, great job!
I love the new look. very subtle, easy to read. Looks like the wacky wierd-characters problm you were having with your feed might be cleared up too.
Keep up the good work – I look forward to more tips and tricks.
The new site makes it easier to find relevant info and everything seems a bit more logically organized within the top menus. Good job on that front.
However, I definitely preferred the look of the old site. This new design has close to no graphics in it (apart from ads on the right) and it seems like every effort was made to avoid using imagery and instead use uglier, CSS-based solutions. I understand the advantages of a pure CSS-based approach but as a site visited by designers, I guess I expected a slightly more elegant and graphically pleasing site. Consistency-wise, things are a bit all over the place — the rounded corners on some elements have different corner angles than others, some areas have nice white space around the text while others don’t. Color-wise, the blue gradients in the site are ok but that gray is a bit boring. Reminds me a bit of the default gray used in Netscape 2.0 before web pages specified background colors.
Congratulations Guys,
very impressive!
Neil
I like it, a lot. Welcome to 2008.
So Cool. Best resource for indesign.
I’m sorry not to see the old square “toolbox”. It was instantly recognizable as InDesign, yet its square shape and area evoked a sense that “there’s a lot to get in order”, and “you’ve come to the right place”.
Hi
I think the new look is quite ok. What I would like to see is that the “all the secrets” section would also show the podcasts. (If you click on the “all the secrets” then the list like the old design appears.) So it would “feel” like the old approach.
But as it always is with design it’s a matter of opinion.
I also see some things to fix – as “anonymous” mentioned.
But all at all its ok!
PS: the posibility to edit comments is a great feature!
Sehr schön!
Seems splendid! Kongratulations!
What I’m already missing from the previous look was top-level information about how many responses there were to a topic. Now I have to visit each topic to see if there’s anything new.
I also wonder at the size (width in particular) of the tags holding the names of the commentators. Seems to me that could shrink to about 60% of its current width, allowing the messages themselves to be wider.
Overall, the new look doesn’t feel as welcoming as the old, but it does look as though it does a better job of introducing newcomers to the breadth (and wealth) of useful information here.
Dave
To be honest, I think the old look and feel of the site was far better, cleaner and beautiful then your new design.
I already miss the old one.
Ah, I just found the News page. How come no link to that from the Home page? That’s where I find the information I was missing before.
Dave
I see now that I misunderstood what the News page is about. It’s not all posts, just ones classed as news. Not so useful as I at first thought.
So, please add comment counts to the titles in the home page.
Dave
Anne-Marie & David, David & Anne-Marie,
New look… fabulous.
New feel… fabulous.
Cheers,
Steve
“…top-level information about how many responses there were to a topic. …”
yes, the counter would be great!
A formatting nit. In the main menu bar at the top of (most?) every page, INDESIGN SECRETS STORE is wrapping to a second line making the RESOURCES menu hard to use — not to mention looking a tad ugly. Perhaps shorten to STORE or SECRETS STORE or ID SECRETS STORE — I’m not sure if the second or third suggestions will make the menu entry short enough to fit where it belongs.
Dave
[Fixed –Pariah]
Finally I don’t have to hit cmd-+ just to read the text here! Yay!
Two issues popped up right away:
In Safari (3.1.1 Leopard), the content is jammed against the left edge of the window. Ugh. It centers fine in Firefox.
Hitting return or enter after typing in the search box does NOTHING! You have to stop, grab the mouse, and click a relatively small button to get it to work. Talk about your Dark-Ages Netscape flashbacks. Please fix it. I hate to see such a great site hobbled by simple usability issues.
Finally I don?t have to hit cmd-+ just to read the text here!
I still have to, even more than before. The body text of the post is much smaller than the comments. If I enlarge it enough to be comfortable, the comments are big and the headings humongous. And as another commenter mentioned, the menu bar items wrap to another line before anything is big enough (for me) to read.
I’m also seeing the whole design stuck to the left of the screen rather than centered.
I’m on Mac OSX 1.5.3, Safari 3.1.1
I like the look, but I liked the old look better. I preferred the light, bright and clean feel, and I miss the toolbox icons too.
I’m sure I’ll get used to it.
Thanks Pariah.
There’s a similar glitch with the three tabs: Recent Posts, Most Commented Posts, Recent Comments.
It has taken me this long to realize that it is a glitch. I thought there was some problem with getting the Recent Comments because it always looks as though that’s what the section contains. I finally realized that these are three choices.
Dave
These are all great comments! Keep ’em coming!
It’s heartening to hear our old logo has a fan base … ;-) I’m sure we’ll be experimenting with getting it back in the header somehow.
And apologies for any formatting glitches, getting CSS to play nicely across all browsers/platforms is an ongoing process. I’m surprised that Pariah has any hair left. Your mentioning of browser versions and platforms is immensely helpful!
What do you think of some of the new features? We’ve been wanting to add a Recent Posts/Most Commented Posts/Recent Comments for ages; especially Recent Comments … because lots of people land on old posts via Google or just browsing through categories and add interesting information. Until now, only the author of the post and the admins knew that a year-old-topic was still being discussed.
We also wanted to give more publicity to our contributors via their pix and recent stories at the bottom of our home page (still working on finalizing its look and feel), and give the podcast a little more exposure … note how you can listen to the latest one directly on the home page too.
Nicely done! I think the presentation is much better. It would be nice to see a link to a site map at the top of the page, near the about button.
“In Safari (3.1.1 Leopard), the content is jammed against the left edge of the window. Ugh. It centers fine in Firefox.”
FWIW the site is displaying fine for me in Safari 3.1.1 on 4.11. Must be yet another Leopard bug. No issues with type size either.
I do like the new look.
Hi Guys
A couple quick critiques
– Rounded corners can be great but I think they’ve been overused
– Horizontal gradients aren’t really working
– Text is nice but is overshadowed by busy colours and background
– Black boarder around the ‘Container’ element isn’t working
– Would look at making the ‘In design secrets’ header image taller. Something like 150px would be better than the current 80px. This would improve the 1/3 ratio and make it more appealing.
Keep up the great work!
Love you guys.
It is much easier to use the site, though it looks a little clunky.
My suggestion would be to make the #id of each post visible again because it has been common for posters to use it in instances such as: “replying to comment #37, I think that’s a rancid smell” or “the tip in reply #42 is great.” Especially looking back into the archives, such replies would look confusing.
I really don’t feel the new homepage. I liked being able to just go there, see what new posts there were (including [some of] their body text) and if they had more comments than the last time I visited.
The tabs idea is nice, but can’t the ‘today’s posts’ and ‘recent posts from’ be combined? You’re wasting space here that could be better used by showing the first X words from the recent posts, along with the number of comments for those posts.
I don’t notice any problems with the top menus that others have reported. Perhaps it’s all been fixed, or it’s my browser-platform combo (Win XP Pro + Firefox 3)
However, there is a small issue with Bob Levine’s recent posts: the last one (“CS3 Activation Limits”) is half-hidden underneath Russell Viers’ name. It’s a small issue as I won’t look there anyway :)
With all of that out of the way, I kind of like the new look, but why aren’t the corners of the tops of the ‘tabbed panels’ rounded also?
Ohh now this I do like: Post editing for 10 minutes max. Sweet. I wonder if it shows you edited your post?
Two things though: the header bar is too dark for the black text, and the text area is so small it doesn’t fill the entire ‘window’. Minor issues, but still… :)
Oh yeah! its cool! Great colors I don’t miss the old one a bit. Now it all comes together, top notch inDesign gurus and a subtle yet modern site. Nice on the eyes. Cheers!
Yeah I gotta say I don’t care for the look. The color is nice, but the page load has slowed down and the gradients don’t work properly as far as I can tell. Whole site appears frenetic and makes me want to run (not stick around and read). But then again – since the site is heavily focusing on CS3 I don’t have much use for it anymore anyway. Hope you can the sweet spot soon content wise, and I’ll be back.
Sorry guys, I’m finding the new look awkward and a little too “Pariah” and “QuarkVSInDesign”-ish. I’m always up for improvements, but I think this is a step back from a site that worked well for what it was designed for: Quick and clean access to InDesign tips.
IE7 on Windows XP
Comments section is overlapping items.
I think the new site needs a few tweaks and twists. But doesn’t every site. I frequent a graphic design site and every link someone puts up someone has to have a go and say it’s ugly and crap and all. When, in fairness, it’s not that bad at all.
I like the new site. But I do miss:
From the home page, I can’t see the comment count? You could before, so I could look at the recent posts and go, ok there’s 12 comments, the last time I checked it was 11.
and I miss the bar down the left side for links.
I think the Related Posts would be better suited underneath the article, for reading coninuity and I think the recent posts would be better suited to where teh Related Posts are now.
I really like the window for Recent Posts, Most Commented, and Recent Comments.
Overall it’s a clean good look, I’m sure we’ll get used to it, and I’m sure there will be tweaks and twists to it over the coming weeks.
Good work everyone.
Eugene
Mmm… the Link in the post for Contact us is going to the wrong address too.
Now I?m one of those rare print-only designers, and I?m not about to say my opinions trump those of the amazing people who contribute to this blog, but here are my opinions…
New comment layout is nice, but I agree with Dave Saunders, the tabs could stand to shrink quite a bit. Or maybe go to a grey color so they don?t stand out so much more than the actual comments themselves.
I could do without the screened back ?InDesign Secrets? in the header area.
I enjoy the layout of the homepage with most recent postings listed right there nice and big, but I do miss being able to read a bit of the post before I click ?read more?. Also, I think the blue gradient can go. The dark blue color in the background would look just fine, I think. It would help to simplify things since there is so much going on in the foreground with all the boxes and tabs and whatnot.
I get an ?Error 404 Not Found? When I click on the ?Contact Us? link at the bottom of the page.
I would be interested to hear opinions of InDesignSecrets.com?s new users who have only seen the old design a couple times or not at all.
No matter what the site looks like I will always continue to refer to it for InDesign tips and ideas and all things InDesign! [ine..ine…ine…ine…]
I didn’t really like the new look, especially that there are no longer introductions of the texts in the home page and no comment count ? now when I want to follow up comments I have to open the respective post just to see if there are new comments.
The comments also are a mess in IE 6, even though they show up fine in Firefox 2.
Great redesign!
Although – I would still like to see a favicon on your site… it’s one of the only sites I regularly visit that doesn’t have one. Think branding!
I like everything about the new look apart from (importantly) the fact that it’s left-aligned. There just doesn’t feel to be any breathing space between the main panel and the left of the screen. The main logo seems extremely cramped up to the edge, too.
That little black curve at the top left should not touch the edge of the screen in my opinion, it should either go beyond the screen edge, or stop before it and have some space. So that bugs me.
I can understand that this left-aligned page might be very compatible with tiny resolutions (like for PDAs or something), but for people like me who are actually sitting at their machine using InDesign and come here for reference (I would say the vast majority of users), the body text is going to look really far to the left.
Even 5 pixels of blue would make me happy. Although I generally much prefer center-aligned sites as the text is in line with my head.
Anyway, nice work in all other regards.
At my work, I am forced to use two browsers. In IE 6 on XP the site is a mess starting with the banner graphic not looking right, objects not lining up properly, weird grey boxes all over the place.
In Safari 3.0.4, the actual post text is the smallest text on the page.
For a demonstration of one’s CSS coding abilities, this may be a great site. From a usability standpoint, it’s terrible. There’s WAY too much clutter and design elements simply for the sake of design. Whatever happened to the beauty of white space?
Bring back the old design!
Here’s what I see with IE 6 on Windows XP:
https://img387.imageshack.us/img387/480/ids1vf3.jpg
https://img387.imageshack.us/img387/4381/ids2jc9.jpg
It is testament to the new look of the front page that I just added a comment to a topic from last June that I otherwise would have forgotten about completely, and, what’s more, that comment is on the Recent Comments list so other people can now know about it.
Dave
Hi, Guys!
To be honest, I liked the old layout better as well. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but the new layout made me go “What the?” when I opened IDS this morning.
dt
Here’s a suggestion: I’d like to see a “More” button added to the recent comments list that would provide a longer history should I want to look at something I can remember from the last day or so without having to try to remember which topic it was in.
Firefox 2 has a hissy fit about a quarter of the way down this page in a post by “Peter”: https://creativepro.com/dos-and-donts-of-text-in-indesign.php#comment-466103
It looks as though the object behind poster comments is being used as a bullet character.
Dave
I prefer the old layout. In XP and IE6 the new site presents many problems with background. Anyway, even if these problems are fixed, the old layout was more compact, organized and distinct.
Former layout has InDesign-related graphics, giving a thematic approach to the site. The new one is just another blog-with-some-ads-and-comments. It could be about any matter as it uses just neutral elements.
The new is also very much like tons of other sites, with ugly titles set up in large Georgia. I also dislike the way ads are grouped in a kind of large block of non-content between tools and contents.
The beautiful background image is almost not shown. So, why to use a background at all?
i, too, miss a few things about the old layout. i miss the first couple of paras of the newest posts on the home page (along with an image), as well as the number of comments.
i’ve never been a big fan of lots of gradients (seems to be the “in” thing with the whole “web 2.0” phenomenon), but i’ll get used to them. seems like there’s a lot more “punchy” contrast on the site, which feels a bit overboard. the old color scheme was a bit more understated.
Wow, note to self: Don’t go camping with the family the day after a major site redesign. What was I thinking?!
I really appreciate everyone’s comments. These are great, and we will sit down (virtually) over the next couple of weeks and figure out how to make the site even better.
I’m personally very happy with the new design. The problem is that all change requires relearning — in this case, learning where the new links are. But I can already tell we’re going to be making some further changes to address some of the excellent points made here.
I fixed the “contact” page links…
I also fixed Peter’s weird link on the dos and dont’s page that Dave S. pointed out.
Very nice redesign. But there seems to be a big difference in type size between body text and some titles. If I make the body text big enough for comfortable reading, the headlines take huge amounts of space (especially the five headlines headed by “Typing Out the Complete File Path for Proofs”). Maybe a bit less difference between biggest and smallest type? (This is on Win XP/2, Opera and Firefox.)
Peter
I think someone got a little happy with the default rounded corner setting. This is a great site, but i’ll stick to reading the feed.
this is probably silly but…
i use your site almost every single day; generally hunting for a fix for something as we’re rolling over from quark to indesign so i use the search field ALL THE TIME.
little & silly but it would be really nice to just be able to hit enter when i’m done typing rather than having to mouse click the little magnifying glass.
otherwise: hooray for new things!
After using the site for a few days, I’m really warming to it.
I don’t share the same esoteric opinions regarding the rounded corners and gradients, I quite like the site.
Still after a few days of using I’d like the recent comments to have a section of it’s own.
I feel the Todays Post tab is good, but what’s wrong with a tab for Previous Posts?
And, it took me ages to find this thread, I don’t know why, I went to the home page, recent pages etc., finally found it through the Recent Comments.
I don’t click or really look at recent posts, so perhaps something could be done there, or added, perhaps tabs, to include, recent comments, it’s a good height on the page, at least to me it is, to have recent comments up there.
I am not getting used to this new layout, I still think this new redesign lacks the “personality” the old one had, this seems to me just like the many wordpress templates out there.
But, thats me! I am writing because I think your reply box is not rendering as it should in firefox 3.0.
The input boxes for name, mail and website are rendering below their tags (left aligned to the html help text), and it seems to me your intention was to them stand beside their tags (right aligned with the comment input box.
As an image is better then words, here is how it renders on my machine.
https://img365.imageshack.us/my.php?image=commentvh9.jpg
You know what I’d like? A “my recent comments” tab. I don’t bookmark every post I reply to, but sometimes it’s be nice to be able to quickly find the posts you’re having a discussion in.
On the old layout you’d just look at the list of recent posts and that’d help you remember where you’d posted, now it’s… messy.
I guess it’d need registration of commenters for that to work though, so I’m not entirely sure how well that would fare.
Hey, Anne-Marie just taught me something great about our site: You can click the words “All the Secrets” at the top of the menu to get a list of all the “secrets” posts in chronological order, including number of comments, and so on. So, until we can make some of these suggested changes, that page might help some of you.
And the redesign continues, based on reader feedback.
You may notice a few changes to the site. For instance the tool grid is back (yay!) in the masthead, we’ve removed the tabbed interfaces from the sidebar due, and the comments layout has changed (it’s still in progress, but you get the idea of where it’s headed).
Oh, and we also have a favicon now!
I’m still working, and there are many other changes in process as requested by InDesignSecrets.com readers.
Please keep the comments and suggestions coming!
Yay! You can press Enter in the Search box again! Great improvements, Pariah!
Good work Pariah!