It seems the lay out of AQ site changes every other week. I don't like this newest one AT ALL.

It seems the lay out of AQ site changes every other week.

That's a bit of an exaggeration--the showinfo.html page had been using the same code largely unchanged for the last 10 years now. Admittedly, I'm always changing pages, but it's usually a long time between updates for any specific page.

I don't like this newest one AT ALL.

I'm disappointed to hear that, but I'm more than willing to consider tweaking things if there are specific things you don't like. If you just wanted to vent, that's fine, but if you'd like to see specific changes happen, you'll need to be more specific. No promises that I'll run with every suggestion, but general complaints like not liking changes--somewhat ironically--won't lead to any changes at all.

-- Ryan

I'm more than willing to consider tweaking things if there are specific things you don't like.

I'm still getting used to the layout for boxes, but I'm sure I'll adjust. One thing that no longer seems to be there is the "You Found" date. I liked comparing the "You Found" date to the "Last Find" date. I'm geeky that way. Would it be possible to bring it back?

I noticed that if I hover over the green check mark next to the "last found" date, it displays the date that I found the box.

Ah, I just tried hovering and that works. Thanks, brandicat.

One thing that no longer seems to be there is the "You Found" date. I liked comparing the "You Found" date to the "Last Find" date.

Brandicat already pointed out that hovering over the green checkmark will display the date you found it. I figured people looking at the box details were more interested in knowing whether they found a particular box or not than the specific date that they found it--I couldn't think of any reason people would need to know the exact date of their find.

The checkmark I figured answered people's primary question (i.e. did I find this box?) without the clutter of dates. And it provided more room so I could add a red check mark for attempts as well which wasn't listed at all before. (Hovering over that also displays the date of the attempt, btw.)

I know hovering doesn't really work with mobile devices, but I figured if someone really needed to look up a specific date of their find, there is a logbook for that... Is the hover trick sufficient for you purposes, or are you really dead set on getting a new column of dates added?

-- Ryan

The biggest change that I notice is that many more screens are in column layout including the My Searches page and the comments on the bottom of box detail pages...probably others too but I haven't stumbled on them yet. I do find the three column layout on the comments to be a bit odd as the dates go down one column and then up to and down the next....newspaper style....vs. horizontal table style rows. I'm not sure what was 'broken' but if this 'fixed' it I can be okay with it.

Peace
CTEE

Is the hover trick sufficient for your purposes, or are you really dead set on getting a new column of dates added?

I can easily make do with the hover trick, thanks.

I couldn't think of any reason people would need to know the exact date of their find.

Well, let me enlighten you. :) I like to know if I'm the last finder of a box. When I find a box, I give it an orange tag, which is my shorthand for "I was the last finder of this one." Before the most recent changes, I could run my Last Finder search and go thru the boxes comparing the "You Found" and "Last Find" dates. If they were the same, I was still last finder. If not, out with the orange tag. Why do I do this? I don't know--probably a combination of idle curiosity and the comfort of knowing that if someone finds a box after me I'm not responsible if it goes missing. Plus there's the sheer fact that I do it because I can, thanks to all of AQ's nifty features.

I like to know if I'm the last finder of a box. When I find a box, I give it an orange tag, which is my shorthand for "I was the last finder of this one." Before the most recent changes, I could run my Last Finder search and go thru the boxes comparing the "You Found" and "Last Find" dates.

I do this too except I give boxes yellow tags when I log them in. I have a custom search for the yellow tags.... I call it the "Letterbox Checkup" search....but I set the Sort By to "Recent Finds". I would not enjoy a manual date comparison process. When I run the search, if a box has been found since I last found it, it shows up at the top of the search results. Since I can recognize that the box at the top of the list is no longer my most recent find but a box that I found some time ago, I can go in and remove my yellow tag. It isn't a perfect solution because if the one I found most recently then gets found again it will still be on the top of the results list but I can easily click onto the box and compare the last found date with my found date if I feel it may have been found again. Hope this makes sense.

Peace
CTEE

but I set the Sort By to "Recent Finds"

That is a much more elegant solution. Thanks, I've edited my search to take advantage of your tip. You're even geekier than I am. :) :)

I do find the three column layout on the comments to be a bit odd as the dates go down one column and then up to and down the next....newspaper style....vs. horizontal table style rows.

Horizontal-style rows don't work particularly well since some comments are really short and some can be really long. If there's a really short comment, followed by a really long comment, then another short column can't fit in a new column so drops to the next line--it'll leave a gigantic gap between the two small comments. I could stretch comments across an entire page, but that looks weird on really wide screens and is kind of hard to read. In the past, I just had comments stretch across the entire page until it reached 40ems (or some arbitrary width) which generated a neat, single list of comments--but left a heck of a lot of whitespace on the right side of the page.

And you know how picky people can be if I don't fill up the right side of the page with stuff. ;o) (Kind of ironic that's what people complain about in this update when the old version had more than its fair share of whitespace too.) The newspaper column layout is convenient since the browser can break the information into relatively equal-length columns regardless of the number of columns.

But you know.... I have absolutely no qualms about removing the multi-column look for comments if that's what people would prefer. I kind of liked being able to scan more comments at once without scrolling down the page so much, but I can take it or leave it.

many more screens are in column layout including the My Searches page

Oh, yeah... that page... *sigh*

I used to use a table for that, which I actually liked, but the tables didn't play nice on smartphones. So I ditched the tables and turned them into lists, which were pretty easy to turn into columns and get rid of all the whitespace on that right side of the page it created.

But again.... if most of you don't like multiple columns on that page, I have no qualms about getting rid of those either. That's pretty much the case anywhere there are newspaper-style columns. I added them because it fits more information without scrolling the page and gets rid of that whitespace, but all of those pages will work just fine with or without multiple columns. It was just a judgement call on my part for what I thought looked nicest, but I'll do whatever the majority would prefer.

-- Ryan

I have absolutely no qualms about removing the multi-column look for comments if that's what people would prefer.

I was finding that a bit hard to read (reading short columns going down, and then having to read the 2nd column, etc. with separation lines, different sizes of text boxes). It felt too busy for me. I'm usually on a desktop, laptop, or tablet. Maybe it's less disconcerting on a phone?

Maybe it's less disconcerting on a phone?

On a phone, there would only be one column^*. Your browser will adjust the number of columns used based on the width of your browser, and smartphones just aren't wide enough for more than one column.

Let's take a poll on the matter.... if you'd like to see comments left in a single column at all times, click "interesting". If you prefer the multi-column layout on wider devices, click "educational".

-- Ryan

^* = I put an asterisk next to this because right now you might actually get more than one column on a smartphone. The pages aren't fully mobile-friendly yet since the menubars and header haven't been updated to fit them. However, when all of the dust has settled and AQ is officially smartphone-friendly, it'll only use a single column.

Thinking about the columns for comments, I had an intriguing idea for how to rearrange some of the data which actually solves a couple of my problems with layouts, and kicking it around on my development machine, I really like it!

For those who are on desktops with their browsers set to be super wide, there's really plenty of room on the right to create a column just for the box comments. It would be a single column at that location, but it's kind of nice being able to see the last couple of comments people have made without scrolling down the page for it. It leaves less whitespace on the right side of the page in almost every scenario I tried. And because it takes up space on the right side of the page, that means the content to the left of it doesn't have to adjust to such large extremes. The comments pick up some of that extra slack.

Of course, it doesn't help any if there aren't any comments on a box, but I've gone ahead and uploaded the change. Let me know what you think. I'm really liking it and want to use the same layout trick for posts on trackers, but I figured I should hold off to see what people think of it in this instance first. =)

To see an example, check out my Los Osos Oaks series, and be sure to stretch out your browser wide enough so the right side has a column of comments. The browser has to be pretty wide to see the effect.

-- Ryan

If this change goes like most things online, at first I'll be confused, then I'll figure it out, and in a week I won't remember doing it any other way. The human brain is a marvel of adaptation :)

I do find the three column layout on the comments to be a bit odd as the dates go down one column and then up to and down the next....newspaper style....vs. horizontal table style rows.

I see this has changed again. The comments are now along the right hand side of the details page. I like it!
Peace
CTEE

I see this has changed again. The comments are now along the right hand side of the details page. I like it!

Glad you like it. So far, nobody has complained about that change. *knock on wood*

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that that only happens if your browser is wide enough to support it, so not everyone will see it, and you might not even see it there depending on the device you're using.

-- Ryan

I'm late getting back to this post, I see most has been covered.
I was in agreement of the detail page looking and reading order so strange.
~~thanks

I am not a fan of the new box details screen for a few reasons.

1. As someone who uses tags, they are all over the place. Sometimes, they are on the right margin, sometimes below in the middle if there are fewer finds logged but if there are a lot logged then the tags might be all the way at the bottom left of the screen. I would rather it be locked into two columns or three columns and know where to find the things I am looking for, not variable based on comment boxes or photo boxes.

2. I don't like the view of the planted/modified/etc because most of the time it ends up scrolling the box status off the visible screen and I think that is by far the most important piece of information.

3. I know others have made comments already but the Notes are hard to work with because it is a challenge to find that little tiny pencil that also moves depending on how much you have typed; I would rather the edit options be at the beginning so again, they don't keep floating all over the place. And along that thought, notes ALSO impact issue #2 since they too are included above the status box.

I don't like the view of the planted/modified/etc because most of the time it ends up scrolling the box status off the visible screen and I think that is by far the most important piece of information.

Hmm.... It never even occurred to me to put the series information before the box information, but you make a good point--the stuff listed as the series details is generally more important than the box information. I'm not opposed to the idea of moving the series details to the top of the page.

-- Ryan

I couldn't think of any reason people would need to know the exact date of their find.

To see if anyone found it after me, mostly for series where there was a box I couldn't find. However, that's mostly just because there is no way on AQ to record my effort to look for a box when I was unable to find it. The only option is to say the box is missing (as "attempt" is defined at AQ), and I don't want to do that. I used to log attempts and then I could just pull up that page in my AQ logbook and see at a glance the status and last found date of all the boxes I looked for but couldn't find. Then I'd go back out and look for the ones that I couldn't find before that had been found since. I wish there was some way to record that we looked for a box but couldn't find it without be forced to make some conjecture about it's status, like the DNF (did not find) at geocaching.com. It's very frustrating. Sometimes I see a listing for something and I can't remember if I looked for it or not. Other times I put the box on "ignore" after I couldn't find it so it doesn't clutter up my search results - but how do I remember it was ever there in case people start finding it, or it's replanted? Usually I try to leave a private note to myself, but even then you still have to click through some pages and can't sort the boxes based on whether you looked for the box previously.

I wish there was some way to record that we looked for a box but couldn't find it without be forced to make some conjecture about it's status

They're called tags. =)

And you can even rename one of them to say DNF. ;o)

-- Ryan

I could see a real use for a looked and did not find button that is only visible to the planter and finder.

It would mark it for the finder, but would allow the planter to know that the box is being sought, that it was not found, and to take note of it.

If I was the planter and received DNF notices on one particular box I would "double check everything again- my clue, the box, location info, etc. It would be feedback for me. When I plan to do maintenance I try to do the most needed box first. This would be valuable information for planning.

Tag the box. Send a message to the planter, and if they want to check on it, they can also tag it. Problem solved.