Airliners.net Site Upgrade Announcement & Discussion

Psych · Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:26 am

Please can I check - as a previously described 'First Class' member, is it correct that with the new site I am seeing adverts?

If so, that is a massive issue.

Paul

P.S. Apologies - I hadn't realised how many pages there already are in the thread - maybe this is already answered. I will check .....

FYODOR · Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:30 am

There are some obvious positive changes, however some problems I see as well:
- the only list of photo with view conter is 24hr photos - all the rest are just pictures; lost of ability to watch detailed view statistics of photos in the table is sad. Even at the list of accepted photos in Photogs corner there are no views data;
- search of phtos by date gives random choice of photos - no ability to see latest additions besides the Photog's Corner (only my personal photos)
- data presentation like "38M", "77K" might be good but it would be nice to have an option to see clear data like 37.976.261 as it was before. Might be somethere or to add a option
- Photog's Corner contains background with general aviation plane which take almost all the space with no function, looks not pretty for me.

Regards,

Fyodor

offloaded · Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:33 am

Arghh, the whole site's gone Eurowhite!!

cveticd · Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:36 am

Oh please change it back to the original theme.This one just hurts!

flipdewaf · Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:43 am

P.S. Apologies - I hadn't realised how many pages there already are in the thread - maybe this is already answered. I will check

Haha, the irony of the new site features making issues in the thread describing the new site.

Fred

ZKNCI · Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:45 am

I can understand the need for an overhaul of the software, but for some reason this new site is destroying my battery (it dropped 70% in 20 minutes). Seems odd for a site which looks mobile-optimised (for a computer screen, the density is too low). Hopefully nothing a little iteration can't handle; nothing is perfect first time

The internet-generic grey and blue with white text boxes also doesn't stand out among the crowd anymore, but guess it's a sign of the times, just as airlines around the world move to more generic liveries.

MUC_Spotter · Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:47 am

Thank you airliners.net for this new layout. Because if this really stays like that I'm outta here and will have more time for other things.
I have not checked it on my mobile (maybe never will), and I do not see a point viewing it on my mobile either. I am still taking photos with my DSLR and sit on my desktop to work on and upload them. So I am using my desktop anyhow.
If you aim for mobile users, good luck to the screeners for screening uploads taken with a mobile

Regarding viewing photos on a desktop is a complete waste for me. I see on the frontpage top photos being cropped left and right. Working immaculate on photos to get them accepted here and subsequently they are being presented like that. NO WAY! :cry:

Also new uploads are barely visible.
I hope that even with the new layout you will still continue to work heavily on that.

Regards

Andreas

B747forever · Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:50 am

Dont know if anyone else has noticed, but checking my profile it seems close to 5,000 post are missing from my profile count. Also says my last post was about 16 days ago, which is not correct as I posted just before the site was taken down for this update.

jetcrazy · Wed Jun 15, 2016 10:00 am

All TOP 5-Pictures taken by a.net Crew members ???

Hey, you couldn´t find some better ones from the non-crew-users?

acelanzarote · Wed Jun 15, 2016 10:12 am

Used to love checking Airliners.net for anything new happing airline wise, but this site now reminds me of Facebook. yuck. So once a day quick browse and go and do something else instead!

While airliners.net might have needed updating, this went way to far...
:cry:

TK787 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 10:29 am

I am really shocked with this update. After posting here for over 10 years, it is like losing an old friend. I can't bring myself to actually explore it. I only use a.net on my laptop and I want the old a.net back. I loved the home page with the 747 on top, best photos, everything on one laptop page. Now, I go to 5 different pages to find stuff, lot of empty white space on every page. This is too drastic of a change for a community that has been together for so long. I have a feeling a.net may not recover from this

Rexus · Wed Jun 15, 2016 10:45 am

I agree, the old website may have looked old, but it never needed an update to its appearance. Every thing was easily locatable after seconds, even for new members. With the new layout I am struggling to get the information that I want. After 5 minutes of looking I still have not found my own photo album.

In my opinion, and I am not saying this because I do not like change or because I want harm to the job the admins and designers are making, the old website could have remained for YEARS to come and there was absolutely no need for an upgrade. It was very intuitive and you saw a lot of new stuff in seconds anytime you checked in for the first time a day. With the new website you have to scroll like forever to get to the stuff you want.

Of course I will stick around as airliners.net is the biggest website when it comes to aviation photography, but I also hope that the admins reconsider their decision and maybe offer the old website layout by a click in the settings.

MUC_Spotter · Wed Jun 15, 2016 10:47 am

And what about removing the bar with the photographers name? This one has been removed with the update as well.
I see this as a MAJOR disrespect of the contributing photographers as such the images are no more directly linked with our name, but only with the "airliners.net" logo.
Under these circumstances you have lost one photo contributor to your site.

Regards

Andreas

16321 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 10:58 am

I am here on Airliners.net since ten years and with the new design it does not feel like "home" anymore. I hope I get used to it.
By the way, where has the personel photo statistics gone to?

PeterB · Wed Jun 15, 2016 11:03 am

After visiting A.net daily for about a decade and contributing with pictures for 3 years now, I am also thinking about moving to another aviation website. It is really sad and frustrating!

Kickert · Wed Jun 15, 2016 11:07 am

Long time lurker to the site and this will be my first post. (If this goes through, I assume you no longer have to be a paid member to post). I wanted to take the time to thank you for the updates. Lots of initial critisism, but that can be expected with any website revamp (people don't like change, but they get used to it.) Personally I love the new site. The old design was so outdated, I felt like I should be viewing it on a 737-200. Modern functionality is a must and it seems this design is on the right track. Great work! Let people get used to it and within a month they will look back at the old site and realize its major flaws.

virage · Wed Jun 15, 2016 11:07 am

Not liking the new site look and functionality. It's become hard to use, hard to search, hard to read.
Many features are no longer available. For example, where is the photo upload queue? (on the old site it was under https://www.airliners.net/myphotos/processstats.main ).

Rexus · Wed Jun 15, 2016 11:13 am

I now found my photo album again. But I can only sort the pictures in it by 'number of views' or 'numer of likes'. PLEASE make a slight redo of the album, so that we can see more than 8 pictures of it at once (without turning to the next page... before the update you could see 50 or even 100 pictures at once) and so that the pictures are ordered chronologically from 'date added', like it was before!

atg3v · Wed Jun 15, 2016 11:16 am

My two cents worth -

There really should be an option to change the size of these thumbnails. The continual scrolling up and sown is irksome.

..but even more importantly -

The thumbnails MUST have the reg of the plane visible!! This is the most important single piece of information.

Thank you,

Alastair T. Gardiner

EVAAIRBR076 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 11:31 am

pfff too much changes at once and very confusing :cry:

SpaceshipDC10 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:14 pm

I'm still not convinced by the new A.net. Since many here are asking to get back to the old one, technically, can they still do that?

fortytwoeyes · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:18 pm

SpaceshipDC10 wrote:
I'm still not convinced by the new A.net. Since many here are asking to get back to the old one, technically, can they still do that?

Having been involved in a forum upgrade and redesign made necessary by technical reasons (which obviously garnered the usual backlash, and a month later everybody was happy with it, as will happen here): No. It would be difficult even using commercial software, and close to impossible using the custom made mess the site was running previously.

Thudf4 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:23 pm

Don't like the new site at all. I am looking for certain serials/regs and the msns and all available pix of them . Now this takes a lot of time. This new layout is of no use to me at all and I will not waste any time on it. At 84 pix per page it takes ages until theses are all shown.
Why not offering an A-Net Classic site for those who are just after certain infos and pix and don't want to play around. Nerds may like it, I DON'T!

blueconcorde · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:33 pm

SpaceshipDC10 wrote:
[color=#0040FF]I'm still not convinced by the new A.net. Since many here are asking to get back to the old one, technically, can they still do that?

JetPhotos went offline for almost 10 days last year when a big server change happened. It was bad for the users, the watermarking tool for new photos stopped working for some days, but they never put online old photos without any footer or watermark (if the user added it). Their solution was interesting: the main page is still the same, but the photo pages that non-users access through Flightradar24 are all updated to a responsive style.

I don't even know what's worse: not having any copyright protection or a lousy response saying that someday it'll work. Put the old photos on place while this new watermark thing doesn't work, what are you waiting for? A hacker group to steal all a.net photos without copyright and put a torrent online?

I liked the green text idea to protest. :twisted:

[/color]

kulverstukas · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:36 pm

How can I now remove my photos from the site?

D328 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:39 pm

I think I am done, too amateur looking now. It wasn't broke why did you try to fix it

.. Loved reading the forums now I don't...

PeterB · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:40 pm

Thudf4 wrote:
...This new layout is of no use to me at all and I will not waste any time on it. ...

This is exactly my opinion. I have other things to do than wasting time to get used to the new design.

idlewild · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:55 pm

I have a skull for an avatar; for some reason, your site won't allow me to change said avatar on my iPad Air 2 - in mobile or desktop verion Chrome. Logging in is like jumping through hoops. I still get ADs after I figure out the route to logging in. I'm not sure I understand why the seperation of everything; navigating the new site is like using the old proprietary MAC GPS.

Boeing717200 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:55 pm

IADCA wrote:
Boeing717200 wrote:
N1120A wrote:

The single, solitary thing anyone who "works" for A.net has responded to. Absurd.

Only thing they can get sued over.

No, it's really not. On the old site, what you entered in the "real name" field had text next to it indicating it would not be publicly displayed. People posted things relying on that anonymity, often involving sensitive information from their airlines. Now, I can find out the real names of several of these people, including several prominent current and no longer active members of the site (some of whose identities surprised me). Even those folks who haven't been on here in years have their names out there, and because they don't come on here any more, they have essentially no way to fight back against this. It's pretty easy to see a situation in which a breach of the previous promise not to reveal someone's name publicly could result in damage to that person, such as some of those folks getting fired from their airlines. Frankly, if that happens, DM deserves the lawsuit it would quite likely receive.

The fact that they went live with an update that reveals people's real names and doesn't provide any copyright protection for photographers tells you all you need to know about their attitude towards users' contributions to driving traffic to the site. Enjoy the 13-year-olds yelling about whether the 757 line might be restarted, folks, because that's soon all you'll have left.

Whoa.

Handballer · Wed Jun 15, 2016 12:57 pm

How do I remove pictures from my queue???

Thanks and best regards. ;-)

Keefyjet · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:01 pm

If it ain’t broke why fix it?
Call me old-fashioned (if you want) but I much prefer the old ‘Classic’ design.
Will there be an option to choose the previous set-up?
I do hope so.
:cry:

Braybuddy · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:06 pm

As I've said in the thread in Civil Av, this is like expecting to have your house redecorated only to come back and find it completely rebuilt from the ground up, with everything you owned being hauled away in a skip.

While change is inevitable, it seems everything that was good about the old site has been chucked out. The flags and country identifier are gone. The thread previews are gone. The scroll-over airport and airline codes are gone. The "Joined airliners.net" feature is gone. The numbering of posts is gone. The collapsibility feature is gone. The number of views each post has been viewed has gone. Each thread has the title repeated above each post in 18pt, while the username underneath is lost underneath in 14pt.

While I understand the need to a newer platform, surely a skin could have been developed beforehand to make it as close as possible to the old site before introducing such radical changes?

sjhoyes · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:16 pm

I sill get advertising and watermarks across the photos even after logging in. Sure hope this isn't a new policy.

diverted · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:38 pm

I was fairly vocal about how long they took to update the site, while holding out hope they would be able to do something special. But, this is so generic and amateur. So much scrolling and *SHOCKER* having to click through multiple pages in order to view a thread, because hey, more ad revenue for DM. Not impressed.

PlaneInsomniac · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:44 pm

Well, I have previously voiced my criticisms in detail.

I will also say, like so many others, if this stays, I am out. Everything that was charactersitic about a.net - and an a.net profile that people built over many years - has been removed and replaced by a cheap Facebook clone seemingly aimed at teenagers.

As it stands, I cannot even go back and look at my 600+ previous postings myself (incorrectly reported as 347 by the new a.net - a completely random number).

"Sorry, search could not be performed. More information about this failure has been logged in the error log."

Thanks, but no thanks.

I hope you guys change your mind, but I also have better things to do with my time.

yushinlin · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:45 pm

This interface is a very bad action

CXfirst · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:55 pm

I'm not going to be as negative as many of the users here, and do agree that an update to the forum software was needed. And, as this is a more commercial software, it will be a lot easier to update in the future and add new features too.

As for the look, I'll still wait a few days/weeks to give my full judgement, but there are a few changes or improvements that I would personally like to see.

- Starred topics. It is an easy and quick way to see topics that I would like to continue discussions in.
- On the forum pages, I would like to see what topics are new, and which ones have new messages (like in the old a.net)
- Hoping this is just me, I cannot find my own photo albums. I can find albums, but not my own, so hoping it's just me looking in the wrong place.
- Have all replies in a thread on one page. Continue like old a.net, with threads that hit 200+ replies get a part 2. This new forum software will kill the need for 'parts', however, having multiple pages stops people from reading entire threads, and just get annoying. Plus, I like being able to ctrl+f to look for things.
- Lastly (for now), submit button must submit. As it is currently, it won't work if anyone else has submitted anything, and that simply won't work for threads like the accident threads, where posts are posted with second intervals.

Matt6461 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:58 pm

Specific issues:

-when quoting another user, there's no longer an automatic reference to a post number. This is bad - you can't easily go back and see the context of a quote. Could lead to very unproductive misuse of comments here.

-The ability to see posts by numbers unique to the thread was useful in general. Now the posts appear to be numbered by - what - posts on the site as a whole? How is it useful to know that this post is the 9-gazillionth on this site ever?

-Please restore the ability to see bookmarked/starred posts. Please provide both a "toggle" for that option within each forum and a visual signifier of starred posts when viewing the forum generally

-A "Foe" option? Seriously? Are we trying to make stupid A v. B threads even more common?

flipdewaf · Wed Jun 15, 2016 2:04 pm

The little profile image that is on the top left of every post

If there is no image there is another way to denote that and that is by not having a fecking image! We'll all know there is no image by the virtue of there being no image there.

This site appears to be aimed at the lowest common denominator now, before long it'll have links for "see how this local man made £7600 a day all from home" and links for top 10 celebrity boob jobs.

I have been paying for 10 years to be a member of this site and demand media have ruined it, I was excited yesterday to see what changes were being made and to feel like some dick bags have taken it upon themselves to not even consult the community who have out so much into this over the years and have ultimately made it what it is, and understand their needs. I hope you can change it but if not I'll probably be angry at it till I'm banned or at least until it goes the whole hogg and changes the name to "planebook.net"
This site has become shite and it has done so because of a lack of understanding of the user base and attempting to make money through clickbait adverts, why couldn't you just fuck off and leave it alone

Kind regards,

Fred

Laddie · Wed Jun 15, 2016 2:09 pm

1. What happened to starred topics/bookmarks? I can create/remove a bookmark, but I don't see a way to go to my bookmarks directly.

2. I cannot change the default avatar. Clicking the "Change avatar" does not do anything.

FYI, I am running Mozilla Firefox on Windows 7.

9lflyguy · Wed Jun 15, 2016 2:10 pm

I am too one that is greatly disappointed by the updates to the site. One of the first major flaws I noticed that was nice about the old site was the ability to type your reply if you were not logged it, the website would force you login then your post would still be there ready to verify. Now when you login to post, you get redirected to the homepage. A little annoying. Also, I must agree with way too much white. I liked the dark blue theme as it was easy on my eyes. I suffer from ocular albinism and too much white is really hard to look at for too long. It gives me headaches. There are tons of other things I could point out but after going through all 8 pages of this post, its all been said and I must agree. A change was needed but this is not it. :roll:

airkas1 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 2:13 pm

All TOP 5-Pictures taken by a.net Crew members ???
Because of some issues, we haven't been able to screen. therefor, no new photos were added to the DB and we needed to make sure there are atleast 5 photos to display on the home page. also for you all to see how it will look (in stead of having no photos there and just an awkward grey space). These crew photos will be deleted once the photo viewing issues are solved. That's why we only used crew photos, since we don't mind having them deleted after they have done their duty for testing purposes.

And what about removing the bar with the photographers name?
This has one of the highest priorities.

How do I remove pictures from my queue???
Unfortunately this is not possible yet.

If it ain’t broke why fix it?
Because the backend part of the old site was such a mess, that it became the fix of the fix of the fix (etc.). At some point, any maintenance to the old site became such a sensitive matter, that the smallest mistake could down the whole site.

Hoping this is just me, I cannot find my own photo albums. I can find albums, but not my own, so hoping it's just me looking in the wrong place.
Upper right corner --> My Profile --> Albums.

maggo309 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 2:23 pm

Just a legal advice. It is definitiely not ok, if the photos are online without any copyright bar or copyright information. These are the photos of the photographers and not the photos of airliners.net! On the photos itself are no informations.

I recommend to the staff/owners to get the old format online as soon as possible. This is getting worse and worse.

slider · Wed Jun 15, 2016 2:24 pm

OK, I've given it a day (or less) and still am disgusted by this revamp.

My right index finger is cramping from the mouse wheel scrolling.

My eyes are strained from trying to read even just a few threads on the forums. The FONT is absolutely awful as well.

I've been here for years, sometime good, some bad. The Non-Av forum is a stinking leftist pile anyhow more often than not, with only unpopular speech moderated, and the Aviation forum--the ENTIRE PURPOSE OF BEING HERE--is nigh unreadable and unusable.

Way to burn the place down, A.net. Total fail.

flipdewaf · Wed Jun 15, 2016 2:25 pm

airkas1 wrote:
All TOP 5-Pictures taken by a.net Crew members ???
If it ain’t broke why fix it?
Because the backend part of the old site was such a mess,

Then why change the front end? Or at least ask the users what they wanted from the front end?

sejtam · Wed Jun 15, 2016 2:27 pm

Horrible, Lots and lots of wasted real-estate for nothing but white. The old forum had its faults (expansion of some posts was bad, esp the last two in each batch etc) but at least one could read lots of content on one screen. Now one can barely get one post onto one page needs to scrols and everything is just horrible to look at. Not agood change. Please bring back the old forum.

Airfrance767 · Wed Jun 15, 2016 2:36 pm

There will be any possibility of turning back to old site due to the huge amount of complaints?. Or this is a definitive change?. I'm truly shocked about this sudden change to my favourite aviation website. I don't like it anymore, which really piss** me off....

NWAROOSTER · Wed Jun 15, 2016 2:39 pm

moderators wrote:
Since 1995, Airliners.net has been the largest and most visited aviation site on the internet with world class photography, forums, and visitors.

It is with great honor to introduce you to the new Airliners.net which has been a long time in the making and something you've been asking for over the years. It's finally here and we're pleased to share it with you and we hope you'll enjoy it just as much as the previous site.

You'll notice the new homepage layout which contains all the regular features you're used to such as the Top 5 photos of the day, Photographers' Choice, banner news, Top photographers', Right Now in the Forum and the latest news. Search can now be accessed via the drop-down photo menu.

We've upgraded the Forums to operate off phpBB, which should make the forum experience a lot better for you especially when it comes to searching for topics. You'll notice also a like button for a photo now and you can also follow your favorite other members and friends.

As this was such a large task there maybe some bugs and no doubt you'll have questions about the new look site so we would like to use this thread where you can discuss the changes and any issues you may encounter. Our developers are monitoring the thread 24x7 and will resolve any bugs that are raised.

We are committed to maintaining our position as the #1 aviation photography site, and to continue introducing our talented photographers from over 171 countries to aviation enthusiasts around the globe.

Many thanks to the engineers and crew for their support and dedication to redesign. We could not have done this without you.

Lastly, We'd like to thank you for your continued support of our photographers' and the site and we trust that you enjoy it.

Enjoy the new site and don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter!

BestWestern · Wed Jun 15, 2016 2:40 pm

I am a Citizen of Hong Kong, not China.

Give me my country back.

Kickert · Wed Jun 15, 2016 2:42 pm

sejtam wrote:
Horrible, Lots and lots of wasted real-estate for nothing but white. The old forum had its faults (expansion of some posts was bad, esp the last two in each batch etc) but at least one could read lots of content on one screen. Now one can barely get one post onto one page needs to scrols and everything is just horrible to look at. Not agood change. Please bring back the old forum.

Am I the only one that appreciates that this thread has gone to 446 replies without having to be found in "Airliners.net Site Upgrade Announcement & Discussion PART 3"?

I think there are some real issues with the photography part of the site when it comes to copyrights and access. As for the forum front end, there are some significant issues, but when you realize what the back end can do, it makes up for it. Thankfully front end changes are easier to fix. With a couple key changes to the design / template / skin for the forum, I think a lot of people would be more comfortable:

Get the font sizes right in proportion to the significance of the information (thread title repeated is huge compared to username is small).
Ditch the low-contrast white (or provide a few options based on people's preferences)
Better utilize the space so there isn't as much scrolling.
Put more threads (or an option for such) for the front page and utilize more of the deadspace.
Allow users to adjust posts per page and also decrease dead space between posts
Clearly distinguish which posts have been read or not read (although, as people become used to the "first unread post" link that is embedded in the asterisk next to the thread title, this will be less important).

The photos section is following a much more bandwidth intensive model commonly found on other photo sites. It is effective as catching your attention, but may not suit the average user here who is often looking for something specific.

Who is online

Popular Searches On Airliners.net