I don't find change to be a bad thing...

[sireesanwar.livejournal.com]

I know there are probably some of you out there who aren't really appreciating the changes to Live Journal but I actually like them. Granted the "homepage" navbar is complicated but I think after spending a little time clicking around and getting used to it; it works well. Now, it does get annoying that LJ has to update things constantly but at the same time they are trying to improve things.

I've already noticed that some of the text editor issues have disappeared. I can now manually enter Blockquotes without the editor creating new line after new line between my previous paragraph and said blockquote.

What I would like to see is a return to table adding and blockquotes. Why did those buttons disappear off the text editor so long ago only to be forgotten?

A few more changes I would like to see:

1. The ability to set what I want as my default size to images. I'm sick of them always coming up as 300px. I want them to be original size or whatever size I want to make them.


2. The fore-mentioned blockquote button and table button.


3. Maybe add userpics under that MyBlog menu so finding, updating and changing userpics isn't so difficult. Also add scrapbook so we can get to our scrapbooks easily.


4. Give us the ability to "randomly" choose our user icon. This can be a fun feature.


5. The ability to have pages and expand our navigation bar....

Why #5
Many of our friends from Live Journal have left for platforms like Tumblr and Wordpress. Notice both have the ability to add a "Page" to their blogs which in turn adds to their menu (some menu customization abilities maybe necessary for sub-content). I think LJ implementing this would put them in league with Tumblr and out shine Wordpress and I'll tell you why.

WordPress doesn't give the average user the ability to customize their layout. You are stuck with a few general layouts that are not all that appealing. Live Journal with page and menu customization would end up outshining WordPress for the fact that their letting their users make their blogs their own and giving them some flexibility while also being in the running for the "Blog Website" users. Premium users at Wordpress do have the ability to customize their layout but it costs 5 times as much as Live Journal. Even if LJ paid accounts cost $5 more a year to cover the "new features", you'd be paying a quarter of what the WordPress Premium users are paying.

Tumblr not only gives you the Page and Menu ability but they let you customize your layouts by going out and finding the coding or creating your own. The big issue I've found at Tumblr is the "open in new tab" links which are frustratingly annoying. Live Journal let's us control that through coding or the convenient check box when adding a link to our posts. Not only that but in my experience Tumblr's posting is more difficult than Live Journal where you can simply click "post".

Having said all that, I'm still liking the some of the newer stuff and am planning on creating a tutorial for some of the changes which took me a while to find.

What are you disliking about the changes? Anything you can't find?
Please be respectful.

Comments

[whenwhywhere.livejournal.com]

This.

I love change. Most of the time anyway. I'm glad someone made this article, the only thing I find weird is how there's nothing up in the "new releases".

Other than that, I'm kinda excited for the new changes.

[sireesanwar.livejournal.com]

You and me both! I kind of love the modernization of LJ to an extent. I mean how is LJ supposed to stay solvent if they look old and ancient and no one wants to create a journal?

My only real issue is when they want to take away abilities I have had. Such as making my friend page look like the rest of my journal. I doubt people stopping by care that much about my friends list so if I'm the one looking at it... LEAVE IT ALONE. I know there are some new and special features on the new Friends Feed and that they are making it more like word press and Tumblr... but there is a reason I don't use those platforms.

Still, I like good change and I don't see most of what LJ has done as a bad thing. Also, I don't care to be updated everytime they want to change something... just maybe big stuff that will really affect a user.... FRIENDS PAGE.