Airliners.net Site Upgrade Announcement & Discussion

kulverstukas · Tue Jun 14, 2016 11:37 pm

All links to photos from "old Anet" are dead. You can't see your own photo in right aspect and in full size. At the same time anybody can download your photos free of charge without watermark and in any size. Thanks, Demand Media.

NC1844V · Tue Jun 14, 2016 11:45 pm

I can get used to this new website, however, the add's have to go. I went from signing in and having no adds, to this. Not good in my eyes.

Are there no longer memberships? I couldn't find them under my profile and such.

Aeroflot777 · Tue Jun 14, 2016 11:50 pm

Wow, you guys really screwed up here. I think you need to revert back to the old site as soon as possible, for so many reasons. A ton of which have already been listed by many members. Do engineers and developers not understand the concept of testing before releasing? There are plenty of people who would have loved to become beta testers and work out the issues before you released this incredible mess to the masses. Major fail.

And no, this has nothing to do with "It's new, get over it, you'll get used to it eventually." There are so many problems here that I guarantee this site will plummet hard and fast when it comes to overall visits and user growth.

Photo section is beyond any mess imaginable. Forum is a catastrophe. Amongst many other things, first and foremost, it is not readable. Hurts the eyes just reading through one lousy page, the colors are all off.

Aircellist wrote:
I concur with the criticism of the contrast. But, ok, I suppose many things will evolve in the next days.

Next days? This disaster was YEARS in the making and you expect change in days?

kiwiandrew · Tue Jun 14, 2016 11:50 pm

IADCA wrote:
This is an absolute travesty. I'm not going to explain how to the entire internet, but I can view the real name of every poster on here within three clicks per user. I managed to change mine to no longer display my real name after several attempts. This is an absolutely massive invasion of privacy. If this is not fixed within 24 hours, I will be deleting my account.

Good luck with deleting your account. I have just spent 10 minutes going through my profile trying to find a 'Delete' option. I hope you have better luck than I did .

ViolaFlyer · Tue Jun 14, 2016 11:50 pm

If I were still a First Class paying member, I would have typed a whole long message on why I utterly detest the reinvention of this site so much. Being that First Class was done away with, then I don't want to sound too entitled for something I am no longer paying for. If there is one major thing I wish to point out: the fact that my computer display brightness settings are low and I feel like I need a pair of nuclear flash goggles before I become splash blinded by the background.

I will miss the uniqueness of the site as I am a firm believer in setting trends, (as this site once did), not following them. I am sure that many aviation professionals and enthusiasts who access this site several times a day feel the same way.

Nothing good lasts forever, but I am a firm believer, that if you don't like something, then change it yourself, or make your own website.

Best of luck, everyone

-Jeremy
ViolaFlyer (FKA Afconcorde1)

OzarkD9S · Tue Jun 14, 2016 11:52 pm

This stinks. Have tried several times to customize my background and provide a profile pic and it keeps going back to the beginning. Fix this crap.

SpaceshipDC10 · Tue Jun 14, 2016 11:53 pm

First impression, after many years looking at the old site style, I'm not impressed by the new version. Perhaps with time my opinion will change/evolve. What I miss the most is the old blue background with white text.

Polot wrote:
1) There appears to be no way to get to the site related forum other than thru the link you posted. Its not on the drop down menu at the top and I can't find any other way to switch forums.

I've accessed the Site related by opening the forums list (right clic) in a separate tab.

Georgetown · Tue Jun 14, 2016 11:58 pm

Two thoughts:

1)The all-white is killing my eyes - need some contrast. This is incredibly hard to read.

2) Why am I seeing adds when I am logged in????

Ytraveller · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:02 am

OzarkD9S wrote:
This stinks. Have tried several times to customize my background and provide a profile pic and it keeps going back to the beginning. Fix this crap.

When it goes back to the beginning, scroll down slowly to see if anything is highlighted in red that you need to change. For me, I had to put the region where I am, and then I was able to add a profile pic.

ninspeed · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:02 am

Looks good on the iPhone !

runway23 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:03 am

Please bring back the old site. This just hurts my eyes, literally spending 5 minutes on here has given me a headache.

It's really hard to read through posts and when you open them takes ages to read what used to be quick. I think I'll unfortunately be done with a.net because of this update.

Revelation · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:08 am

Wow, waaay too much complaining about something we aren't really paying for.

Kick back and enjoy the new look and feel.

Your eyes will adjust.

We don't have to stay in the 90s forever.

Change is good for a person!

I for one am kinda pleased about how much of the past is still retained here.

That's not an easy thing to pull off and the upgrade team did so.

sproosemoose · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:11 am

This forum transformed into an unusable disaster. A.net was wonderful while it lasted. It's sad to see it end like this.

OzarkD9S · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:20 am

honzad8 wrote:
Unfortunatelly very bad change. It looks blurry, diffused - why the world goes in the direction of one picture per site... Previous site was much clearer with all information on it and not needed to scroll like hell

It sucks.

BMI727 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:21 am

This blows.

1. Make replying and quoting easier by enabling it on the same page as the posts.
2. Don't return me to the thread after making a reply. I've just read it so send me back to the forum like the old version.

I'm sure there are dozens or hundreds of other things about this "upgrade" that are at least as awful, but that's what I've found in literally five minutes. This could be the New Coke of websites.

OzarkD9S · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:22 am

skiaplg wrote:
I like the new Forum, or the idea of a new forum. I preferred the old color scheme as this is quite hard to read - the darker blue background worked better. It feels totally washed out and bland. I also liked having more topics on each page of the forum.

On the other hand, it is a good idea to have somewhat of a refresh, as many features of the old forums were frustrating...

But this is in NO WAY better. I hate it.

OzarkD9S · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:24 am

1g wrote:
I like the new design better overall but I still see some annoyances.

Personally I would prefer if the posts were on a different background colour than the websites main background colour, differentiating seems to be a bit difficult.
And second of all does every reply need the huge bold "RE: Title Name" above the post content? The default subject of replies seem to be in the "RE: Title Name" format but I think it would be better if that was simply left blank by default.

But I still welcome the new design change overall, finally the forums look modern and not something that was literally from the 90s

Sometimes, especially in this case....NEW IS NOT BETTER>

OzarkD9S · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:27 am

kiwiandrew wrote:
So much wasted white space and so much scrolling. I am going to trial it for a week to see whether I get used to it, but I suspect after that I will give up.

It stinks for sure. What a useless "upgrade".

SpaceshipDC10 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:28 am

To change the board style (not color)

If you select "Settings", then "Forum", then "Board preferences", scroll down to "My board style" where you can select "Flatboots" and submit. Thus the board will appear spread the whole width of your screen. Instead of blue header, it's become mint green.

HOOB747 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:31 am

Are my "Starred Topics" gone forever? Is there a way to find the threads I started in the past? Has anyone found a way to access them? This new layout is terrible. The white background is more difficult to read.

QFA380 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:33 am

This 'upgrade' is absolutely horrific.

The old forms worked well, specifically designed for this site. Now you've just gone and copy pasted a generic forum engine and your cheapness shows.

To think people use to pay for this site, now absolutely nothing worth paying for.

It honestly has the feel of just being another wordpress with a forum within.
The desktop site is just a spaced out mobile version.

Goodbye airliners, been here for over 10 years. I can get photos on instagram, forums are a dime a dozen. Wish Johan was still running the site.

L-188 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:35 am

Having played on the site for about the last ten minutes. A few thoughts.

Getting rid of the feature that allowed to cut and reply to certain subjects in threads was a bad idea. I used to response to four or five different posts with one post by doing that. I just had to do almost a dozen replies to a thread just to respond to one point in each thread. Very inefficient.

Not impressed with the new lighter colors. It isn't the worst I have seen but it is not what it was.

Again the way the threads are displayed makes it harder to quickly reference a topic and get into it.

Not sure having a preview and submit buttons is a good idea. I personally don't care if I fat finger a word as long as my point gets across.

akiss20 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:40 am

The lack of a "view first unread" button makes long threads basically unreadable. I have no idea what page I was on.

Agree with everyone about the horrible layout and color scheme. Way too much whitespace (modern design has a whitespace fetish. We are nerds, we want information density) and way too little contrast. This will be horrible to look at during the night. Eye strain will be horrendous. Bring on a dark theme.

ZKSUJ · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:41 am

I personally find the site hard to navigate and the forums a large let down. The old forum layout was a joy to use and very user friendly. Features such as those mentioned above were appreciated.

An example. I used the star function to mark things I was interested in and have read or would like to go back too. It stood out well against the back ground, and the list of topics in the forums went on which was good. It also acted as a new feed to a certain extent of what is going on in an industry that I work in and am passionate about. It's things like this which make the new layout a downgrade IMHO. Like introducing 3-4-3 into a 777 and calling it an upgrade from 3-3-3.

Still I hope it improves, I don't know if I will use this site less like others have threatened but it will be less user friendly and I guess as a result I may be less active on forums and things compared to what I was previously.

The fact that membership is now free is good in a sense but also negative. I was a premium member and I joined just to post on the forums. The one off fee meant to me that only people who really wanted to be there and were genuinly interested were there as money acts as a barrier if I wasn't really into something

I understand change in some ways can be a good thing, but in this case so far, I'm yet to see it. I'll await with anticipation

OzarkD9S · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:47 am

Ytraveller wrote:
OzarkD9S wrote:
This stinks. Have tried several times to customize my background and provide a profile pic and it keeps going back to the beginning. Fix this crap.

When it goes back to the beginning, scroll down slowly to see if anything is highlighted in red that you need to change. For me, I had to put the region where I am, and then I was able to add a profile pic.

Been there done that. This new format is an abomination.

Ytraveller · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:49 am

One thing I do like is the notifications thing. Nice to see people have quoted you so you can go respond to them.

However, the "Right Now in the forums" section on the homepage never updates unless I log out and log back in.

cjg225 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:52 am

All I can say is... "woof."

sprout5199 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:54 am

Give me the Queen of the Skies when I joined, the toggle switches and all. And bring back the old users, 747skipper, the F250 guy, et al. Back when you could voice your OPINON and not get banned.

I do miss the 747 climbing out. I will let you know about the rest in a week

Dan in Jupiter

SpaceshipDC10 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:56 am

akiss20 wrote:
The lack of a "view first unread" button makes long threads basically unreadable. I have no idea what page I was on.

When on a forum, with the list of topics on screen, click on the little star right before the title of the thread that interest you. It will get you to the first unread post.

Ytraveller · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:57 am

I suggest you put up a FAQ about the membership changes. A lot of people are complaining about how they're logged in but still see ads.

coronado · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:58 am

A major disappointment. Very hard to read. No contrast. Oh well it was an enjoyable 15 years.

UAEflyer · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:59 am

Ads all over
Star feature is not there
The unread posts not there

Not against the change but some old options are really needed, kindly bring them back.

ZeeZoo · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:00 am

This was a silly move.

Where have the flags gone? Why is the theme so bland? Why aren't there are other themes on offer? Not to mention that with signatures that the site will load slower on mobile as many will use gifs.

I'm in my early 20s so it's not as bad, but there are some veterans here who are 50+ and have been on here for over 15 years and this site upgrade is an insult to them. It is difficult to adjust to and it is a regression.

Poor form.

ZeeZoo · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:02 am

coronado wrote:
A major disappointment. Very hard to read. No contrast. Oh well it was an enjoyable 15 years.

Precisely this. A lot of old-timers are going to leave and us youngsters are going to lose a lot of valuable info, experience and aviation anecdotes due to this change. It is going to be hard to adjust for many who are at an age where they can't be bothered.

If any sense prevails, surely it is possible to offer the option of the old theme?

LatAmFlyer · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:08 am

Unpleasant update. Too much gray and white, no margins, no country flags, no stars, fewer emoticons, too much clicking to get around, too mono-colored (this is really bad). Who thought of using light-gray text color over a white background? Too cookie-cutter. Can't add a photo in a reply.

etc etc.

Maybe there should be a link that would bring up the old design? This doesn't work for me.

downdata · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:09 am

Everything is fine except:
1. Need to have more threads/topics viewable by page.
2. Contrast is terrible, light on light on light colors. Banner color is fine but too big.

2C

LatAmFlyer · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:14 am

No country flags? These really put things into perspective for me.

Maybe a link to the old website would help.

Dreamflight767 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:18 am

Boooooo. Boooooo. Booooooooo.

vikkyvik · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:19 am

Questions/Comments:

1.) Where are the photo likes coming from? I have a hard time believing that 192 people liked one of my photos in less than 6 hours.

2.) Where are the "favorites" in my profile coming from? It says I have 9800 favorites (I assume that's other people "favorite"-ing me).

3.) When is screening anticipated to resume? Which means, when will the photo resolution be fixed?

4.) When I sort my own photos by "Date Added", they come up in some completely random order; certainly not sorted by when they were added.

5.) In certain places, it says I have 910 photos in the DB. I only actually have 905, with 5 in the queue.

6.) Some of my photos show watermarks, some of them don't. Between that and the copyright bar disappearing, you guys are just putting our photos out there for the taking. I'd prefer if my photos were not visible until that gets fixed. How about it?

Ytraveller · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:20 am

Search is still not working! How ironic.

lijnden · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:21 am

My Anet has lost its uniqueness! It has become so...so very 'Air France'... :mrgreen:

SYDSpotter · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:22 am

1) Where is the feature where you could hover over an airport/airline IATA code and up would pop the name of the airline/airport (e.g. DXB, SYD, LHR, QF, AA, EK etc).
2) Threads are now going to have multiple pages which will make it hard to follow the discussion. I'm guessing this is a bandwidth management issue but the new site isn't exactly super speedy at this stage, which is very disappointing.

LatAmFlyer · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:23 am

Why is there no HOME button? :?:

StrandedAtMKG · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:24 am

FlyPIJets wrote:
Man no help text for airline and airport codes is a big miss. I'd find a way to add that back in.

Pardon my language, but that's fucking stunning. This redesign is the worst site redesign I've ever seen from the ground up, but that's an absolutely unforgivable oversight. A.net users have been talking in airport/airline code lingo for years, and that we're forced to go without this now is downright shocking.

SMUtexan · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:25 am

I appreciate what you guys were trying to do but if the old site wasn't broken why try and fix it? This new layout is not as easy and streamlined as the older layout and requires a lot more unnecessary clicking, searching and scrolling. I unfortunately see my potential future use of this website as a fraction of what it once was. This site was great because it was truly the first one on the web to offer a platform for pictures and healthy discussion on the aviation industry and people grew up with it. I just think this change was unwarranted. Fortunately, there are many other airline websites and blogs that I also frequent that will almost be able to fill the void.

LatAmFlyer · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:26 am

Where are the numbers that tell me "Views?" This new site is awful, sorry, too many to list

757MDE · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:28 am

This has been asked before but I see no answer yet:

I am more a photographer than a forum user, and I am very worried about the copyright bar and notice disappearing. It doesn't help theft but helps to make claims to whoever stole the pictures (I've been through it).

I am not a fan of the new design to tell the truth, but that's what worries me the most, and if it's left unchecked I will have to think whether to keep my pictures here or not. The design itself wouldn't make me leave.

Please, anyone on the team, answer this. I read the full thread and I don't seem to be the only one concerned.

Also, what about the work that was being done on MyAviation.net to bring it back, is it ever going to happen? I have some pictures there as well...

Thanks!

smw757 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:30 am

The forum search function does not work.

Also, where did the picture quizzes go?

An-225 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:31 am

You guys completely blew it. That's all. Everything sucks.

Airfrance767 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:34 am

Oh noooooooooooooooooooo. What has Airliners become to?..... please, turn it back to old version, for the love of god. The new version look like a mobile version. It's awful. I'm sorry. More than 8 years joining A.net, and suddenly, everything is changed.

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