Hi all,

You may have noticed that when you now click on the printer icon, you get a page with an article's text and images only -- no ads!!

Terri Stone
Editor in Chief, CreativePro.com

Kudos for moving to Drupal to make it a more social/interactive site. One nifty feature of Drupal is that you can allow users to choose their preferred theme in the 'My Account' section (if enabled). Perhaps you could make some modifications to this base theme (with varied colors, larger type) so that users can choose the theme that best suits their style.

You may want to edit your allowed input formats. The current settings for 'Full HTML' can be abused. See discussion on Drupal.org for more.

I like the new site, it is simple and clean. there is a lot of information and the graphic elements don't compete with the information. With such a content heavy site that is always a difficult balance to achieve. Navigation is easy to understand. Good job!

creativepro.com has been my home page for ever 8 years, but since the change it fails to catch my eye.

As a subscriber from the beginning, I feel that you broke something that was not in great need of a fix. The narrowed format gives me a good amount of wasted space on either side of the monitor. The new monochromatic scheme does nothing to help distinguish topics — they just blend into a sea of grey. By far the most annoying change is no longer being able to print an article cleanly, without the crap. Glad to see that so many others feel the same. The authors deserve better. We deserve better!

Regarding those of us "having trouble with reading online", I've got the glasses, I've got Firefox so I can Ctrl+ my way to the top of the eye chart — I don"t WANT to sit and read Gene Gable on the screen. He (and some others) deserves to be read in a comfy chair, feet up, beverage of choice close by and WITHOUT ADVERTISING!

The newsletter has a couple of wrinkles to address. First the plain-text version has text and links all over the place. It needs some order established. Second, the alt attributes on interface images needs to be set to "". Seeing the text "dotted-border02" between each feature in the sidebar is distracting. Overall, nice clean look. Very consistent with the website.

Cons on the website. It take a bit longer to load. Pros: most everything is on the homepage and only a click away for more information. I'm a fan of tabbed content to maximize the real estate on a page.

It's a monumental feat to take an existing site with so much content and move it into a new CMS, especially while trying to theme Drupal. (I'm trying myself on a much smaller scale. Decided to go with Wordpress though.) Overall very nice job.

The site looks attractive, fresh, with-it. Like all changes, it'll take some getting used to. It doubtless will remain my favorite commercial site. Just one quibble:

Please turn off the blinking ads. Nothing online is more off-putting.

i'm disaapointed with the new site- particularly with readability of the main column . It's busier, and harder to scan thru and grasp what's what.
Why? 'Cause the distinction between "ad" and "edit" has become harder to determine. I know ads pay some bills- but a simple indent for all of the ad messages would allow some instant clarification for my eyes.
But I do love the service ya'll providee, and do pursue ad and edit messages on the site.

I like the clean look of the new design. That's important, but secondary to great content, which is the main reason I have enjoyed a long relationship with Creative Pro.

Type point (pixel) size isn't an issue for me because I am able to control that either in my browser preferences, with a style sheet of my own or from my keyboard. I see you use a gray color for text. I know that's trendy like drop shadows. But you might consider switching to black for your text. It would increase contrast for the text, which might help text readability for readers struggling with the small type size.

Color is such a subjective thing, but on the web even more so because of monitor variances, age, calibration, resolution, color management, etc. Intent also directs color choices. The banner ads do pop more in the new design color than the old one. I don't have an issue with the ads. I prefer static ones over animated ones, though. If ad revenue keeps your service free, then I'm okay with them.

I'd like to not only see a printer-friendly option but also email links to authors.

Ricky

I loved the sunny yellow color. This is so drab, so cold, dull, doesn't make me want to read it. Please bring back the yellow. I get several newsletters that look just like this...your sunny yellow stood out.

Also hoped the new design would include comment area right after your letter, every article...little hard to find this area to make comment.

Sue Lowery
Windsock Media Publishing

Perhaps I'm just missing it but have you taken away the option to get a printable version of the articals? It is something that I liked about the old site, being able to print without all the ads included.

Another progressive lens wearing geezer-in-training here.

Using Firefox, I've set its prefs to use my choice of font, and to not display below a certain point size. For me, it looks about the same relative size (given my monitor resolution and the distance I sit from it) as the body type in most any local newspaper. Folks are used to the size, and buy their reading glasses accordingly.

Having trouble with reading online? Then you really ought go to an ophthalmologist and get a pair of glasses which will make it comfortable for you to do so. If you spend a significant amount of time in front of a monitor—In my case that often stretches out to up to 15 hours a day—then a dedicated pair of glasses prescribed to ease your work should be as important a part of your tool set as a good chair, a good mouse, a favorite writing instrument.

And for those times when I don't happen to have my computer-work glasses handy (which is almost never), tapping Command - + a couple times increases the point size enough to ease the strain. That's why the shortcut is available.

As for the new design...I'm still becoming accustomed to the change. Things are different, to be sure, but I won't be too hasty to condemn it, or to suggest big changes until I've had a chance to get used to the changes.

For me, the most important thing is information density—I want a lot of compelling content, and I was it to be easily and intuitively navigable. I like captivating aesthetics as much as any discriminating eye, but not at the expense of gratuitous garish color, flash-based gee gaws, and the latest and greatest widgetry. If I might cite a parallel: There are sound reasons why traditional print media maintain their style and formats, often for decades. It's because they work.

My quick assessment: The new design is fine. Now, it should be incumbent upon the web dev/design team to pay attention to what visitors are saying and to slowly tweak things out. Just because a lot of time may have been spent on the new design before it went live doesn't necessarily mean it's finished.

Refine, refine, refine.

I've always said: Writing is easy; editing is hard. But it must be done.

The new CreativePro.com has been written. Now comes the hard part.

Best regards, and Cheers to the new design.

Sorry to be harsh. I imagine a lot of work went into the new site, but…
I was very disappointed with the newsletter in particular - cluttered with obnoxious ads, flashing at you as you try to follow (very small) text placed in seemingly random, scattered blocks (and this forum page is even worse!). Was the main purpose of the redesign to squeeze in more ads?

The reviews & how-to's no longer have that "Print Version" option, so now printing carries along all the ads & the goofy screen layout - a big loss for those of us who still want to read when not at the computer.

I am really liking the new site - You have improved the legability dramatically, particularly in the navigation. It seems very intuitive to get right where I want to go now. You are, as always, a great resource. Thanks for the improvements!

I have never been a big fan of yellow and on the old site it was really kinda in your face. But the new site is...how can I say it...well...boring. Really boring. Seems to operate better than the old site. Faster than the old site. Clean design. But the type is really small. And, no, I am not a bifocal-wearing geezer. Perhaps it's hip to use microscopic type. But, to me, it's usually just an indication that a site was designed by twenty-somethings who sometimes seem to think they are the only people in the world. Very competent site, but drab. All the colors in the world to choose from and you came up with gray, charcoal gray and blue gray? Dare I say it, I miss the energy of the old yellow.