Code push - tomorrow (April 26th, 2020) at ~1PM Pacific / 2000 UTC

[mark]

This is a codepush announcement.

Tomorrow around 1PM Pacific / 2000 UTC, we will be updating Dreamwidth to the latest committed code. The short summary of the main changes:

• We continue to iterate on the Quick Reply form, improving its usability/consistency across all platforms and cleaning up the hideously bad code that used to live under it. This particular update includes the feedback from the last update, so many of your thoughts/suggestions have been incorporated!

• A number of improvements in how we render things for mobile devices. Not all of these will be immediately live, but stay tuned to dw_beta if you'd like to turn them on and give us feedback.

• Improvements to Markdown rendering (in particular, the code that turns \@mark into mark should do it more correctly/in fewer places).

• Finally, major changes to how we store passwords in our database (we won't anymore). This will break Semagic and other clients, but there is a workaround: Please see the workaround at the bottom of this post.

For more details, see the relevant posts in dw_dev:

• Code Tour 2020-04-20
• Code Tour 2019-12-14
• Deep dive on authentication changes

We'll update this community and our dreamwidth as we push code out, as per usual. See you then!

Comments

[bluerosedreams]

Is there any way to get back the browse button as an actual button? I understand this is sleek and cool, but my eyes pass over it way too easy when it's the icon. :/

[mistojen]

+1 or at least if there was a way to override it with Stylebot, or something, but the way it's set up, I can't seem to get it to move. Maybe I'm just rusty with my css-fu, IDK, but I do not like it this way, especially since it's only affecting my paid accounts. My free accounts using DW Tools still have the button where it used to be so the inconsistency is making me twitchy lol

+1

[mycenae]

+1

[solerika]

I was just coming here to say this. Unless there's an underlying reason to remove it, I really wish they wouldn't.

Function over form, please.

[denise]

All of the changes to the comment form are part of our ongoing project to make the site work better on mobile browsers (which is the #1 requested thing that people bring up to us!) It isn't change for looking "sleek and cool", it's change because the old layout just flat out failed on mobile: too big, too much space used for comment metadata and not enough available for entering the actual text, and too hard to find the thing you were looking for because of all the scrolling.

We're juggling a number of different considerations of usability, accessibility, and screen space, but the #1 issue is streamlining the amount of vertical and horizontal space being used by the various elements, and this latest round is part of that ongoing project. Taking out the "browse" button and moving the behavior to being "click the icon to select the icon" recovers us a great deal of space when the elements overflow on mobile, and it's also in line with how similar selectors work on other sites so in the future people don't have to relearn the behavior they've learned elsewhere.

[bluerosedreams]

So make it an option if you're not on mobile, because I hate it and my brain doesn't connect it without staring at it a few minutes. Mobile users are not the only users of Dreamwidth, and tbh it's really frustrating how many sites cut down on desktop accessibility by unifying for mobile release instead of, IDK, giving options.

Mobile has various other problems that I feel should be higher priority, too, honestly, than the icon browser, like how I've never been able to use mobile to actually tag because I type anything and the box expands and remains unmovable and will no longer let me hit post comment.

Edit: Sorry if I seem snippy this is just... An accessibility issue for me. And I'm extremely frustrated on this end.

[denise]

There are many things on the "to be fixed on mobile" list, but in this case, you're using the old update page that we inherited from LJ instead of the beta Create Entries page, which is the one that has all the improvements for mobile and modern browsers. (It's still in beta because there's no rich text editor yet, which is something that people rely on, and no draft saving, but it's otherwise fully featured and it works much better on mobile.)

Keeping two versions of sites for desktop and mobile use is how you get one version that's the "real" version and one version that's the broken version nobody ever tests or fixes things in; it's a pattern that's played out on pretty much every site I've ever used or company I've ever worked for. And, generally speaking, more options are bad UI: we already have far, far above the number of options that usability research shows beginning to cause options fatigue and choice paralysis, and it's an ongoing problem we've had with user education and usability since day one. We do try to make sure that our changes work equally well no matter what device you're using to access the site, though, and this particular change is in line with how UI elements behave on multiple other sites. I do hope you'll get used to it over time.

[bluerosedreams]

Denise this isn't a case of "I can get used to this." This is literally a case of "I cannot, for some brain wiring reason, get this to connect in my brain at all." It's not something I am likely to get used to, like how I have to use specific browsers because DirectWrite gives me a splitting headache and no amount of staring at it will help me "get used to it."

IDK, guess time to see if anyone codes an option for a userscript or just... Move on because this isn't a design choice that, frankly, works for my accessibility needs.

[denise]

I'm very sorry that it doesn't work for you! There is still the dropdown with keywords, though, so you can at least still pick icons that way, or click the More Options button for a comment form that still has all the things we moved.

[bluerosedreams]

Thank you. I'm looking into a third party tool, and hoping I can manage that to keep me going.

+1

[mycenae]

Let us know if you find one. DW tools will fix some of this, but not all of it (and only for free accounts). And it's been a clunky workaround since the last time the comments were heavy edited. IA about the design and have the same issue; it's not super intuitive for some neurodivergent folks and my focus also has a tough time trying to parse where everything is, where it's moved to, what's been condensed/what's missing, etc.