New screenshot upgrade

[sothis]

We're currently working on redesigning some of the core pages of the site - profile pages, entries (anime, manga, etc) and homepages. While the redesign itself will take some time, we've made one small step towards the ultimate design of the entry pages - moving the screenshots.

You now access the screenshots by clicking either the main image or the button 'more screenshots' below the main image, in an anime entry. The main reason we did this is because in the near future, the 'tabs' you see in the entries will go away, and some of each type of content will be easily visible on the page itself. Since there's a variable amount of screenshots any anime can have, we decided this was the best way to access them.

An added bonus is that now, bigger screenshots are possible. check out the screenshots here as an example.

Our goal is to replace all of the old screenshots with better/bigger ones. As you can imagine, this will take awhile to accomplish. We agree that the smaller shots up now don't look great with the new design - the 'Image 1 of 6' text, for example, shows up over the image. As you can see from the above linked example, this text looks fine when the images are larger. We'll work as fast as possible to replace as many of the old images as possible, and appreciate your patience during that time.

Also, for the next week or two, we've put up a temporary notice in the old screenshots tab to let people know where they moved to. We'll remove the tab entirely soon. That temporary notice does show up on all anime pages, even if there's no screenshots for the anime. So if you see no main image, there's no screenshots. :)

If you like this feature or any new features, please consider donating! Donations are what keep the servers running and features in development. And until Jan 15th, you even get a gift badge in exchange :D

[sothis]

Also, if for some reason you see an error at the top of the site, do a hard refresh in your browser and it should go away. ^_^

[Drahken]

I dislike the moving of the screens. The screenshots are the first, most important (and sometimes only) thing that I look for in the entry. The bigger/better screens are good, but adding an extra step to get to what is (IMO) the primary content is not so good. (I've also never been a fan of the overlay/lightbox thing, but that's a personal problem which even I don't really understand the why of. It might be little more than a knee-jerk reaction. *shrug*)

These are of course just my own opinions & I know they won't affect anything atm, though perhaps they'll influence the next redeisgn. (...but probably not :p ) *shrug*

[sothis]

not sure what the extra step is? you have to click to get to each picture in the old system, the new system is identical.

also, if the screens stayed where they were, without the lightbox, they'd stay the same small size. seems like a big win for people who consider the screens to be super important (as now they will be bigger/better)

[Drahken]

Extra step=clicking the "more screens" button.
Yeah, I know, the more I think about it the more I realize that's just nitpicking. In the old setup you only got 1 screen without clicking anything. Nevermind.

re size/position: Personally, I would probably put the screens below the main entry, right above the recs.
I don't know why I don't like lightboxes, maybe it's because they remind me of those pop-in/overlay ads that sprung up in reaction to people blocking traditional popups. *shrug*

Forget my previous nitpicking. The larger screens are a definite improvement & the new system works well enough, I doubt there's any setup that I'd be 100% satisfied with.

[Draco]

I don't personally like the upgrade currently but hey that's how we humans are, anti-change (at least most of us) I'm sure I'll get used to it. :)

[VivisQueen]

Hi sothis,

I just tried it out and it seems an interesting idea. Looking forward to the finished product, especially larger screens will be great considering some of the high quality images we get for newer shows. But I was just thinking of the review pages. There is a button there that says 'see more screenshots' which then takes you to the main anime page. This used to make sense because you'd immediately see the screenshots when you arrived on the page. But now if you tried it, you'd have to hunt around (if you're a newcomer to the site) for the screenshots. At least, visually, it makes less sense to want more screenshots and then arrive at a page where there are many other things apart from the screenshots vying for your attention.

I'm wondering if it'd make sense to have the same overlay effect on the reviews. This way, also, you'd not actually leave the review page when you decided to have a peek at more of the screens.

[sothis]

cool idea, its very doable as well. one thing i know i still need to fix is an auto resizing of images (to be smaller, if they're huge) on the site review page, since right now they display full size, and clearly the design would break in that case!

[sothis]

Originally Posted by Draco

I don't personally like the upgrade currently but hey that's how we humans are, anti-change (at least most of us) I'm sure I'll get used to it. :)

hehe, understandable, its why i wanted to roll out the new changes sloooowly instead of all at once, to soften the blow :) i'm guilty of the same quick reaction/anti-change sentiments too on sites i visit!

[VivisQueen]

Originally Posted by sothis

cool idea, its very doable as well.

Hurrah!