So here it is, folks: the new We Hunted the Mammoth, which is exactly the same as the old We Hunted the Mammoth, but with a cleaner and more up-to-date look.
Hopefully this move to a newer WordPress theme, and some behind-the-scenes tinkering, will help to prevent the glitches that have been knocking the site offline in recent days.
The new theme should preserve the same basic functionality of the old theme when it comes to things like commenting and navigating. (In case you’re wondering, the “Recent Posts” and “Recent Comments: widgets are now at the bottom of the page.)
I may do some additional customizing of the theme in days to come. Let me know what you think of this new look!
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Seems to have also fixed the image embedding issue. Nice!
Looking good! Especially in dark mode.
I’m sure you’re already on it, and have tons to do beforehand, but it would be perfect if the comments box could be at the bottom and maybe a tad bigger.
I quite liked the vertical comments. Had a nice Japanese calligraphy vibe. But I can see why you fixed it.
LOL you’re a monster, Alan.
@Alan Robertshaw
My big takeaway on Japanese calligraphy is that it’s very important to get the order right in terms of down vs across. Otherwise you could end up like Ariana Grande, with a tattoo that says “Japanese BBQ finger.”*
*It was supposed to say “7 Rings,” but instead it originally said “small charcoal grill,” then was ‘fixed’ to say “Japanese BBQ finger.”
I’m glad i didn’t break the comments for everyone permanently! Phewph!!!!
It is also now showing the edits i had made that didn’t show up. So i’m glad that was also fixed!
There is a little person+gear icon that gives me the option to ‘delete all my comments’. Not sure what that is about! I’m risking the vertical mammoth here…
We probably don’t need that, i’d think!
I was also curious about the ‘upload image’ button. Where are those being stored? Will you run into space issues, if lots of images are uploaded? It might be best to disable that…
On mobile, if i tap the ‘share’ icon, it immediately opens this tab, and pops me to it. When i close that tab and come back, there are three sharing options. I only recognise twitter.
I think Valentin told us that these were russian social networks? Might not be the right ones.
I’m sure this has beem a nightmare, David, bit you’re getting there. Good work!!!
@Rhuu
For me, the share icon opens a little menu with the icons for Twitter and Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki (Russian social networks). I’m on an iPhone, but I think the same appears on a computer. I don’t really think I’ll be using that widget, but for anyone who will, maybe there’s a way to change the icons to more common networks in America like Instagram or Facebook.
Whilst we’re talking computer stuff…
“Choose a password”
“chicken”
“Password must contain a capital”
“chickenkiev”
(I’m in town all week!)
What’s this share icon that’s opening up russian social networks? There are buttons to share on twitter, facebook, etc at the end of every post, but I’m not sure what share button you’re looking at.
on another topic the uploaded images are uploaded to my image directory for the blog. I’ve got plenty of space left but probably using the embed function would be better.
EDIT: I think I’ve fixed the share icon thing.
It’s this one, which i don’t see on my desktop, only on the mobile site. It opens up a twitter window now. Not sure if that’s how it’s supposed to work, i honestly never use the share buttons. I usually just paste links.
You might want to include facebook, but i don’t know what other social networks. Pinterest, maybe? I think there’s lots of Q stuff on there for some reason. Instagram?
I’m still having the problem where the comment box doesn’t grow with the content, but rather the cursor. That’s okay on my new phone (i have a keyboard mode with ARROW KEYS, it is AMAZING) but on my old phone, i would have no way to actually scroll to the bottom of my message.
Oh, also, the title of WHTM isn’t showing up in my mobile browser’s tabs. This page (where i have clicked on ‘share’) looks like this:
It still looks like that when i make a new tab, go to the main site, and click a post title link.
Now that i’m writing a comment, it looks like this:
The main page (loaded from a bookmark, no links clicked) looks like this –
But it did flip between quite a few things before settling on that.
Firefox beta, android (updated today!) On a pretty new phone.
I’ve found out that the typefaces used are Inter and Arimo. Personally I’d prefer to have only Inter used as the site’s typeface (with different font weights and sizes), since the current typefaces don’t look distinct enough to have a reason to use them both.
Otherwise, great work on the site redesign, and nice addition of a dark mode too! It would still be great to have links for those who are being harassed.
I skip a few days, and everything’s different! I like the new format!
(Perhaps I’ll get a gravatar. They look nice in the round format. But for now, just commenting like normal to see if the comment shows up OK.)
I like the new look now that it’s moved over to all sans-serif fonts, and I’m with Alan that Dark Mode looks good, but Dark Mode obscures the site’s name in the upper-left icon. Can the CSS be tweaked to swap out that graphic for a copy that has a more compatible color scheme?
I can’t swap out the grephic (I used a plugin) but I’ll see if I can find a color scheme that doesn’t obscure the name. But it’s not the end of the world to have it obscured.
Late to responding to give feedback on the site, but partner showed potential symptoms of Covid in last couple of days, and we had to sort out tests. Hopefully all ok.
I am liking the new look a lot – initially I went ‘whoah!’, but I quickly adjusted and I really like the body and title fonts, as well as the sense of cleanness and space that has been generated with the new layout.
I was unsure about the white and then the slightly violet background, but I definitely prefer the peach we have now – it’s pretty lovely to my eyes. As is the addition of a dark mode, depending on how my eyes will feel in a day this is a great help. But love the peach!
I wonder if an addition is possible? One thing I used to like being near the top of each article page was the red title link to the older and newer articles. I know it’s near the bottom and it may not be possible with the new layout (maybe smaller?), but just a thought. (And I do admit, I miss the bigger mammoth too!)
Looking great though David, and good work!
IBM Plex Sans looks legible (one can easily tell between “I” and “l”), but it is from a quite problematic company, for
I hate making you keep considering typography changes when you’re someone who likely isn’t very well informed about typography. Let me know if you wish to discuss this in detail.
Hmm. Still got some odd stuff happening when I try to block quote.
Has the background gotten pinker recently? Like, today? It is VERY pink now, and the light gray is difficult to read on it.
@PoM
Have you tried dark mode?
@Naglfar
I have not. I find that light text on a dark background hurts my eyes so I haven’t bothered.
Yeah, I made the background very pink. I’ll make it less pink again.
I made the comment text darker as well for added readability.
hey RV, what are the fonts being used for the various sections of the page (besides the IBM one for the post text). I’d like to have the fonts match up, though the plugin I’m using to change the font only has a limited selection of google fonts to choose from and I might not be able to get the fonts to match up exactly but maybe I could get them a bit closer than they are now.
Readability is great again, thanks!