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

[slytheringurrl.livejournal.com]

Hey, for # 1 on your changes, you can change the sizes. Or at least you could before the changes. LJ did not change me so I'm not so sure if the post page looks the same :) You probably have the default set to 300px which is an option.

Screenshots are below!

[saurgristiel.livejournal.com]

There are 2 things I don't like about te change (I can get used to the new bar thing):
1. The medium grey on full white. BAD DESIGN DECISION (even though far too many websites go "It looks so slick!". No it doesn't. If you want your website to look empty from a distance, make it empty).
2. Just like every change they make, they do it and then don't tell you they did it. Just BAM! No community consultation at all, just like always. I bet they're getting yelled at by what few users they have left.

I've never had a problem with the text editor, or pics, but I don't post a lot of pics. I can't really help you there.

I love your layouts and you've taught me a lot ^_^.

[girlspell.livejournal.com]

It's very bland and dry looking. I wanted to see some color somewhere. Anywhere. The friends feed is very long and narrow. Some of the things you mentioned I didn't see. It has a flat cold look of early facebook. By accident I allowed the new form in. I had to ask help to find a way to get back to the old way. LJ responded, but told me this will be the change and old way would be gone so I better get used to it.

[jane-mundane.livejournal.com]

I personally like the change. Which surprises me because I've been against almost every change LJ has made since 2004. I really love how simple and clean it is. It did take a while to figure out how to get to my userpics but now that I know where it is, it's no big deal.

The only thing that bugs me is that they call it a Blog. It's Livejournal. lol.

[serenitysangel.livejournal.com]

What really annoys me is that they just go ahead and do it. I'm a paid account. I pay for the use of LJ and they don't give a damn about consulting it's users about the changes. Don't run a beta. Nothing. So far, it's okay, but then I've not explored it much. As long as my friends page and my LJ layout aren't affected I'll be okay. But really...Just don't mess with things that don't need messing with.

That said I would appreciated a better iOS app as currently hate using LJ on my phone because it's very limited and not that nice to use.

OH and why the hell does it keep asking me for a Captcha every time I want to comment? That will get VERY annoying VERY fast!

[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.

[freudian-slip-x.livejournal.com]

I played with new layout for a couple of days. Not loving it. The navigation is unintuitive. I don't care what it looks like as long as I can get where I want to go unencumbered. I don't like the exchange of aesthetics for functionality.

[tracyj23.livejournal.com]

Let's see, where to start ... I'm not terribly resistant to change but I don't like it when:

1. They go and change things without telling us, without consulting anyone (I'm not a paid user or have a lifetime account but it would have made sense to ask those people for their opinions) and just assume everyone will like it.

2. They take away some of the things we used to be able to do without warming.

3. They don't allow us to choose - I'm reading comments and seeing people say they are choosing the old settings -- I never saw that option. I just went to log in the other day and bam! suddenly the site didn't look like LJ anymore and I had no idea what was what.

4. They make it harder to use instead of easier. I can't find half the things I used to know by heart. I'm not a developer like you are and hence I don't find it easy to just "figure it out" on my own. I need things to be easy to find -- maybe I'm just an apple junkie and taught that things SHOULD be user friendly and easy to work with but this is just AWFUL.

I don't like the way it looks and I don't like the way it functions and I really don't like that things aren't easy to find. Way to piss off users and drive them away. Change can be good but in this case it really isn't.

[ladyofavalon77.livejournal.com]

I'm not too sure about the changes. It's not as easy to navigate as the last set. Oh well, something else to get used to.

[dikana.livejournal.com]

First of all, thanks for this post! It was very interesting, specially your comparison between LJ and other platforms.

I must say I really love these changes. I have my journal here since 2007, but my use of it has been very basic most of the times: just write and post. Maybe because of that, I don't find these changes annoying at all. Actually, I think things are rather easier than before. I don't agree with some of your points, like the userpics/scrapbook issues; they seem better for me the way they're now (although I admit I barely use/change/update them since a long time). I don't understand why is everybody complaining about this, because (just like you said) they're trying to "resurrect" LJ. We, fans of this site, should be happy. And I certainly am.

I'm not an expert on blogs, social media in general nor code/programing, so my opinion isn't the greatest thing. I just use what looks easy to me. That's why I've never left LJ in all these years. I really love this site, although many people keeps saying it's almost a prehistoric relic. Because of that, I want to thank you your post; it's been a relief to hear a real pro agreeing with my feelings. Neither Tumblr nor blogspot nor any other plataform look more appealing to me than LJ. I hate Tumblr with all my heart, blogspot/blogger/whatevergooglenamedit is frankly UGLY and I think Wordpress is confusing and complicated. I even took a look of Medium and it's... so lame, isn't it? XD LJ still seems better. What a pity there isn't more people of the same opinion.

Lately, I'd been thinking about moving to Wordpress, just because of what you've pointed: the "page" option. I totally agree with you. With that, LJ would shine even more than at its best years. It'd be a very useful and catching tool. If they're really interested on standing out as a long-length content platform (as they said on the article you linked on the other post), the "page" thing is mandatory. For we writers it'd be a blessing to be able to order our work and offer a better and clean experience for our readers. That was the only reason I would consider leaving LJ. So I'm crossing my fingers, hoping they take your suggestion at consideration. At least, they should.

Thanks to your post, I think I'll wait a little more to watch the rest of the changes. I didn't know Wordpress doesn't allow its users to customize their layouts. Nor even the headers? o____o WTF, Wordpress has fallen A LOT in my ranking. You're right, the freedom we've always had here in LJ it's its main advantage. These changes mean a lot to me, hope they make a good work...

Best wishes!

[katiesangels.livejournal.com]

Have to say that I really like the changes they've made. I looks modern, fresh and in line with the current designs. I don't quite get comments of people who want the very old style back. LiveJournal wants to attract new users as well as keep old ones. But who'll join a site that looks like circa 2005.

I do agree that some things are a bit hard to find, like userpics and scrapbook. The latter I haven't figured out yet but I'm not using it much.

I liked to read their news jornal when it was updated regularly. Just out of curiosity more than anything else.