Welcome to Delaware Liberal 5.0
So when Jason330 started Delaware Liberal, it was on blogspot. He changed the blogspot site when he moved to WordPress, so we have no record of how Delaware Liberal 1.0 looked, but if you want to see what Jason was writing back in 2004-2006, go here. Delaware Liberal 2.0, a WordPress site, and it looked like this:
I joined the crew in 2008 when we merged Delaware Liberal and Daily Delawhere, which lead to a redesigned Delaware Liberal 3.0. You remember the State Quarter logo, don’t you?
Well, that was DL’s first logo. We changed logos to the blue and yellow DL in Boston Traffic font and upgraded to a specially designed Magazine style blog theme in 2009, and you have been living in Delaware Liberal 4.0 for the last four years.
We were long past due for an upgrade to site. And so we have redesigned the site, reaching back into our past a little bit to add back in some black and white flavor to our logo and appearance, while we embrace a new theme. Now, not much is different. The biggest change is our appearance. The features that you enjoyed in 4.0 are still here in 5.0, with some improvements. Gone are the three columns that defined DL 4.0. We now just have two, allowing for a wider main content column on the left where you read our wonderful articles. On the right column, you will find the Vote Tracker, the Delaware Liberal Poll, the Recent Comments section, and our blogroll. If you want to find our Archives, you have to go to the bottom on the page now. If you want to find our prior interviews of candidates and office holders, that is now in the main navigation bar under the name “Interviews.”
You will notice the ads are bigger and there two ads placed under the header. The reason for that is, after all these years, we are going to see if we can’t make this site at least pay for itself with some small ad revenues.
The biggest technical improvement you will notice is with the comments to a post. You will now be able to reply directly to a comment, and thus the comments are now threaded. No longer will there be just a long page of comments where you cannot tell who is replying to who.
The Featured Post section slider is improved as well, but it is not really that different. And that is basically it. Everything else will remain the same. Open Threads and Daily Delawheres every day. When the Assembly is in session, we will have the Post Game Pre Game columns from El Somnambulo.
I am sure there will be some of you who hate the appearance of DL 5.0. Some hated DL 4.0 at first, but it grew on you, didn’t it? So if you hate it, give it some time. Otherwise, I look forward to hearing your comments and criticisms.
Tags: Featured
Whoops. We got our first no vote on the poll.
haters gonna hate.
Thanks so much for doing this! I know it took up your weekend. It looks amazing!
Gracias. I am glad you like it.
It does look good. Thanks so much for all of your work to do this!
ps.
I really like how you can make the commenting box bigger….
Yeah, that is another new feature. Plus, we have spell check now!!! Please, right wing trolls, use it.
Viva DL 5.0! Well done DD. For the record, I changed to that boring 1.0 theme when switching to wordpress because I didn’t want to confuse my 12 readers. I love that cartoon on the header of 2.0 and just spent some time looking for it. Couldn’t find it.
Here is my post about Castle’s abuse of the word “however” in order to be on both sides of every issue. It is what eventually did him in, but (sadly) it wasn’t liberals who got the job done.
Ah, good. Because in 2007 I found it hard to believe DL 1.0 looked like that. I loved your comment that Manolakos and Korn would be involved in a six year multi million dollar court battle.
Jason, your “rivalry” with Mike Castle was the heart that sustained DL all those years.
You forgot to use the “reply” thingy.
Even for the designer, it is going to take a while to break old habits.
You have to use the embed code to post YouTube videos. The code can be found when you click on the Share button when you are on the video’s page on YouTube.
I had to try! Site looks great! Hence, the Kool and the Gang.
I’m pretty sure DL 1.0 looked a bit better than that. I think it had a graphical banner that got lost in the archiving process – a greenish stock image of a curving roadway tunnel.
I hate change, but this will grow on me, so all I will say is that the giant black rectangle up top makes my eyes hurt. Maybe one day it can be made grayish, possibly an outline-only box, or a half-toned black and white photo or something.
Yes, you are right. Jason explained above that he put up that plain site when he moved to WordPress.
Thanks for the comment, Puck. Are you talking about where the logo and name Delaware Liberal is?
Are you talking about where the logo and name Delaware Liberal is?
Yes. Although I recognize it wouldn’t be an easy change because it would throw off the rest of the scheme a little.
Remember, you can reply to my comment now, as we have threaded comments. I think that is going to be the biggest issue that people will have to get used to.
As for the rectangle logo, I hope your eyes get used to it, because the black and white photo cannot really be made lighter or else it changes the whole appearance of the site.
you can limit the thread I believe. My advice: allow one reply, but no replies to replies.
It can get
out
of control.
fast.
🙂
It is limited to 15, I believe. But I can shorten it.
I’m just messing around a bit, but It can get out of hand. I have seen commenters complain about threaded over at Kilroys.
Maybe just having the ability to collapse threads?
Well, the logo isn’t showing in MY browser anymore. Problem solved 🙂
Nice job.
Is there a way to enhance the “latest comments” sidebar by including the first sentence or so of the post? That was very helpful under the old system in navigating multiple hot threads. Overall, the new aproach looks great.
Yeah, that seems to be an issue with the WordPress upgrade. I will attempt to fix that.
I agree. Floating comments without the identifying post thread is not an up-grade. Glad to see you will work to fix it.
I also don’t like the night-time photo background in the logo……is it leg hall?….but the rest of the change is nice.
Q. Where is spell check?
Nancy, when you post a comment you should see a “ABC over a green check mark just above the comment box. When you click on it, the spell check will check your comment for spelling errors.
Thanks. I can’t believe I missed it!
It looks amazing! KUDOS, you did a great job!
Thanks AOINE!
I agree, it does.
The mobile site looks good too. Oddly the type is bigger here. 🙂
I’m just a simple caveman. I’m frightened and confused by your flying tubes and talking boxes with tiny people inside.
A Phil Hartman classic. Gone to soon.
It’s improved but I still find it difficult to navigate. Also, there is no search capability.
I am adding a search function to the side bar. As for finding the rest of the site difficult to navigate, I am sorry for that. I am not sure how to make it easier to navigate as everything seems basic and straightforward to me. Perhaps if you could be more specific…
DL doesn’t need a search feature as long as it is indexed on Google. Just set up a Google search like this:
site:delawareliberal.net “ernie lehman”
This will work for any web site indexed by Google.
Well, I added a search function to the top of the sidebar anyway.
I LUV it. And all the DL family that make this site a daily must read. You rock!
I’m not a fan of threaded comments; I prefer them purely chronological. I want to go to the end of the comments and see all the most recent. I don’t want to have to scan the whole thread to find the most recent comments. But that’s just me. I guess somebody must like threaded comments.
And in fact, if you don’t like threaded comments you don’t have to use them – just start a new thread for every comment. In other words, never reply to comments; always comment against the post, and then your comments at least will be chronological.
Don’t reply to this comment.
“Don’t reply to this comment.”
I agree! Not a fan of the threaded comments. Also, I like to see the original heading of the comment, rather than just the comment teaser all by itself. But hey, its your site, do what you want.
Well, if you don’t like threaded comments, don’t use them. We are not going to yell at ya. As for the Recent Comments widget on the front page, we are still working on that to try and improve it.
Comments scroll off the Recent Comments widget rather quickly, which is your good fortune for having a busy blog. I personally find it easier to look for recent comments at the bottom of the thread. But that’s just me.
I suggest keeping an eye on hit counts for the two black menu bars up top, and see if it is really justified to keep them. Maybe they could be replaced by drop-down lists or something.
The top navigation bar is staying no matter what. The Category bar might be consolidated into a option on the navigation bar.
The old sofa was just fine and really did not need to be replaced. And of course, now that you have new new sofa, you’ll have to get new throw rugs, some knick knacks, nice color coordinated pillows, maybe a new cocktail table and of the course the lamp shade has to go. Might as well get a new lamp while you are at it.
But the main thing is that the main page no longer fits neatly on a single screen. Now it’s scroll, scroll, scroll and more scoll. Keeping up to date at a glance is no longer possible.
A good deal of that vertical space that causes you to scroll is taken up by the logo. But you can use AdBlock or something similar to take out the logo and close up the space, thus less scrolling.
Puck, in deference to our loyal readers, I made the logo’s height smaller, eliminated the Category Bar, and moved the Recent Comments up on the Side Bar to eliminate some of the scolling. I added to the Side bar a Category drop down menu, and a search function.
That is awesome! Especially with the logo blocked! 🙂 I’d block the Vote Tracker logo too, but I’m afraid I’ll forget it’s there.
Is this what DL 1.0 looked like?
http://web.archive.org/web/20060721164009/http://delawareliberal.blogspot.com/
“Mike M at Down With Absolutes used the words “kerfuffle” and “assholery” in the same post. Double points!!”
Around the Horn! Miss those days, but the site looks great. I’m sure as we get used to it there will be no kerfuffle or assholery!
Yes! Thanks for finding that.
I love what you guys have done with the place!
Is the mobile site puke green for anyone else, or just me? Blech!
Also not a fan of reply-to comments after seeing John’s demo. Threads are going to get incomprehensible really quick.
Yes, the old mobile site is puke green. I am not sure why. I am actually going to disable that since the site appears great on a mobile device in normal mode. Try that.
I am scared to post now. I liked my old brown loafers. I don’t want to complain about a gigantic job you guys did in overhaul–all free and with noble intent. And wish you well in case I can’t play here anymore because I can’t follow the fields. I HAVE BEEN MARGINALIZED 🙂 ! Thank you for all the great years. And this is where I learned to make my first emoticon–I’ll never forget ya!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyaTIXdN5fI
So I have ended threaded comments. Too many people are complaining about it. You people call yourselves liberal? You can’t handle the tiniest bit of change. LOL.
Joanne, you should be able to follow the fields now, assuming you were talking about the threaded comments issue. Please stay.
Ok Liberal, progressive fellow travelers….
Whatever happened to:
ADAPT, INNOVATE AND OVERCOME?
Don’t disable the mobile site! It loads faster than the desktop version, which is very useful when trying to check in just before the airplane doors close. 😉
Ok. But if you hate the puke green color of the mobile site, then switch to the desktop version, which is perfect. This new theme automatically detects if you are using a mobile device and can configure the site to display differently.
I don’t especially care about the color — the previous version was blue — it is perfectly readable, which is all I need, really.
I changed the mobile color to blue, which I think it was before.
I like the cleaner look.
I like the feature in the prior version, in which the Recent Comments included their date/timestamp. In this manner, when I refresh the page, I can quickly see if any new messages have appeared in, say, the past hour.
New feature request–spell check widget when composing posts!
I also liked how the old Recent Comment widget displayed the first line of the comment. You could practically fit a tweet in there. Now you have to click to find out what the comment is about.