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As part of implementing the new unified themes across the network, we're gradually rolling out updated site themes for each site. As of today, we have enabled your updated site theme for testing.

If you can't see it right now, that's by design! This is a very early test implementation of your design and we need your help finding issues with it before we make it live for everyone permanently. So, keep in mind, there will be things that need fixing! We'll address those things as we can.

If you'd like to review it, here's how:

How do I enable it?

Click here and check the "Beta test new themes" option. This will turn on the new theme for all sites that have one in testing, including this one. Here's more info on how to opt in. You can uncheck the box to revert to the older theme until the site is live for everyone. Note, while turning it on is immediate, it will take a few minutes to revert to the old view - but it will go through!

What type of feedback do we need?

On this post: Bugs related to this site's design elements

Please help us look for issues/bugs related to the theme design and how we have mapped the old theme to the new. This needs to be done within the limits of the new unified theme.

This could include colors of sections of the design or text, problems with JavaScript add-ons (if applicable), the logo or top banner appearance or other artwork.

You can also feel free to ask questions about the new layout if you're unsure how to navigate it.

On Meta Stack Exchange: General concerns about left nav or theming

There are some things that are definitely changing everywhere and can't really be adjusted on a per-site basis. A few of them include:

  • Top banner is shorter in height, so some artwork has to be adjusted along with some logos.
  • Left Navigation is active everywhere (but can be collapsed into a menu by visiting your site preferences - instructions here).
  • Responsive layout is active, which lets the site adjust as browser widths change - no side scrolling (some pages haven't been updated, yet, though). For now, if you prefer the scrolling, you can disable this by clicking the "disable responsiveness" link in the footer.
  • Many site elements including tags and voting arrows are standardized across the network.
  • Link underlining is active. In an effort to make links more visible, they are now being underlined.

If you have concerns or issues regarding the left nav or the overall approach we are taking to theming, then this Meta Stack Exchange post is the right place for feedback.

As I mentioned earlier, there are some unique design elements like voting arrows and tags that are being standardized in this process. Keeping these custom elements makes our ability to maintain the sites too complex and, while we're very sad to see them go, we're in a difficult position of needing to make the site designs work together so that we can continue to address feature requests and bugs that will make your Q&A experience better. This is addressed in a Meta Stack Exchange post if you want more detail.

What new themes?

If you're like, "What the heck are you talking about?", then you should read the Meta Stack Exchange post entitled Rollout of new network site themes (and maybe the posts it links to for the full background). To follow along with the rollout of these new themes, go here.

Thanks so much for your constructive feedback!

Oh, Who am I?

If you don't know me, I'm one of the Community Managers here at Stack Exchange. I'm here to listen to your input and convey it to our Design team for responses and fixes to bugs. I'll do my best to respond to your concerns and explain whether changes we've made are bugs that can be changed or if they're by design and why.

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    $\begingroup$ And now the killing starts, followed by a light salad. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented Oct 10, 2018 at 6:17
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    $\begingroup$ FWIW, I still strongly disagree with some of the choices and decisions made during developing the new theme, including the mostly useless left navigation and the removal of custom vote/accept buttons. I'll limit my answers to proper bugs, though, as per your request. (Some of them might still apply network-wide; I'll leave that for you to figure out. :P) $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented Oct 14, 2018 at 12:54
  • $\begingroup$ I went through the issues below and found most are still present. Will there be any changes? $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented May 10, 2019 at 19:28

16 Answers 16

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It seems that, overall, our theme survived mostly intact. That's actually not too surprising, it being one the most recent low-key themes, but still a relief.

For reference, I explicitly checked:

Things that work

  • Overall color scheme seems to be intact and consistent with the old theme.
  • I take no issues with the fonts. Nothing fancy, but servicable.
  • MathJax seems to work just fine. Not layout hickups that I could see.

Fixes to prior problems

Problems that still apply

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Headlines on lists-type pages look out of place

The main question lists now looks like this:

enter image description here

Given that almost all elements are slightly desaturated, the plain-black headling looks a little odd.

Also applies so some text below the question list, and to all other pages reachable by the left nav, and potentially more.

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Long titles

I don't remember what exactly the old theme does here, but extending titles into over the sidebar looks silly:

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Still an issue; example here. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented May 9, 2019 at 6:48
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Padding

Code blocks and tags could use a little more padding.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Seems to have improved a little. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented May 10, 2019 at 19:28
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Tags look different when editing

The colors in the tag editor are inconsistent with the theme:

enter image description hereenter image description here

The tags should look the same as in tag display mode.

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  • $\begingroup$ Still an issue. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented May 9, 2019 at 6:53
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Link underlining

This is a network-wide change, but I mention it because it definitely looks odd:

enter image description here

I get that highlighting relying on color only is not as accessible. However, the lines are jarring especially in link lists (okay, those shouldn't happen too often).

Proposals:

  • Make the underlines thinner.
  • Use other link indicators instead of underlining, such as a preceding icon.
  • Make underlining (and potentially other design elements) part of an opt-in accessible mode.
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  • $\begingroup$ Please let me know if this should go to the general feedback thread. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented Oct 14, 2018 at 13:08
  • $\begingroup$ Link underlining is status-bydesign, as unfortunate as that may be. Yeah, it's pretty unlikely this will be implemented, given that SE is trying to reduce variation between different sites. $\endgroup$
    – EKons
    Commented Oct 29, 2018 at 17:12
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Editor highlights

Editor windows are highlighted in blue:

enter image description here enter image description here

Please change this to use "our" highlight color (#46BDC4, I guess.)

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  • $\begingroup$ No change here. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented May 9, 2019 at 6:53
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Bounty indicators in question lists

The vertical alignment of bounty indicators seems to be off -- sometimes:

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ These seem vertically centered to me on my system. Could you note your browser/OS? Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – Catija StaffMod
    Commented Oct 23, 2018 at 14:41
  • $\begingroup$ @Catija Ubuntu 18.04, FF 62.0.3 $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented Oct 23, 2018 at 15:49
  • $\begingroup$ Still an issue with FF 66.0.4 $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented May 9, 2019 at 6:53
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Cramped header

The size of the top header has decrease drastically. I'm not against that in principle, but the logo size makes it look a bit crowded:

enter image description here

Please give it a few more pixels of breathing room.

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  • $\begingroup$ I would like it to be even more compact. I will not breath over there, anyway. $\endgroup$
    – John L.
    Commented Oct 24, 2018 at 5:05
  • $\begingroup$ No change. Did not get used to that one myself. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented May 9, 2019 at 6:49
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Alignment of Favorite count

The horizontal alignment of the favorite count seems to be off (to the right) ever so slightly:

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Still an issue. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented May 9, 2019 at 6:55
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Alignment of mod tool icons

The horizontal alignment of mod tool icons next to posts is off:

enter image description here

Entries of entries with count seem to be centered as a whole, but the icons not aligning looks odd.

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  • $\begingroup$ Still an issue. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented May 9, 2019 at 6:54
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Box highlight color(s)

Post notice and sidebar boxes use a similar, but still different yellow:

enter image description here

As the number of different colors should usually be minimized and these two not different enough to serve any purpose, use the same one.

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  • $\begingroup$ The block quote background should probably have the same color as well -- or a more distinct one than it currently has! $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented Oct 16, 2018 at 20:26
  • $\begingroup$ This has always been this way, as far as I'm aware. Not that it shouldn't necessarily be "fixed" but I believe these colors are the same across the network and I'm guessing that the Featured box, at least will be changing somewhat in the future as it hasn't been updated to fit in with our new CSS profiles. $\endgroup$
    – Catija StaffMod
    Commented Oct 23, 2018 at 14:29
  • $\begingroup$ It's gotten worse: there are three different yellows now (the header "row" in the bulleting joined the club). $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented May 9, 2019 at 6:51
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Order of post actions

As a mod, I get additional actions on posts:

enter image description here

There are two problems with the placement:

  1. I use "mod" rarely, but it's placed first.
  2. It moves links relative to the non-mod placement.

So I think that link shouldn't be where it is. Maybe it should move right, or maybe to the mini left bar (underneath the voting buttons), where some shortcuts have been introduced lately, anyway.

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  • $\begingroup$ This hasn't changed. If you'd like to request these links to be reordered, that's a bigger issue that relates to the network and should be addressed in a new MSE question for everyone to discuss. $\endgroup$
    – Catija StaffMod
    Commented Oct 23, 2018 at 14:40
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Question Search

Navigating the question lists, I missed a search icon here:

enter image description here

Yes, there's the search in the top-nav bar, but that whole bar feels (and is) rather separate from the main page. It's more intuitive to click a little looking glass there to start a search. This would also be more consistent with where the search box appears on search result pages (after committing a search from the top nav):

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ This may be a network-wide feature request. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented Oct 14, 2018 at 13:52
  • $\begingroup$ This is definitely something that would be a network-wide consideration. The search button exists on the search page because there's a search bar. There is no similar bar on the questions page - and there never has been, as far as I can tell. $\endgroup$
    – Catija StaffMod
    Commented Oct 23, 2018 at 14:45
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Alignment of Search in Question List

The alignment of the Search button and the other elements is off:

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ I'm not seeing this on my system (they're all aligned). Could you give us some information on what browser/OS you're using? Are you still experiencing this? $\endgroup$
    – Catija StaffMod
    Commented Oct 23, 2018 at 14:39
  • $\begingroup$ I think I might have figured out what this is... are you using FF? If so, I think it may be related to how wide your browser window is set. See this answer on the main meta post: meta.stackexchange.com/a/315790/284336 $\endgroup$
    – Catija StaffMod
    Commented Oct 23, 2018 at 15:41
  • $\begingroup$ @Catija Yes, FF, and yes, that alignment jumps around wildly when changing the window width. The screenshot was taken with full-width FF (1920px). $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented Oct 23, 2018 at 15:56
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    $\begingroup$ Cool! I've got a bug report in for this. Hopefully we can figure it out. $\endgroup$
    – Catija StaffMod
    Commented Oct 23, 2018 at 15:56
  • $\begingroup$ Still an issue. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented May 9, 2019 at 6:49
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For all the empty whitespace on some pages, question lists look rather crowded:

enter image description here

There a lot of information there on each question (some of which may be irrelevant to most viewers). Currently, the tags are dominant, while we really want it to be the title.

Please introduce a little more space between questions so that they can be more easily separated mentally. Emphasize titles over tags over other information.

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