New Feature: New Profile Page

Today we're releasing an updated profile, designed to be more appealing and functional. The page looks different, but the changes are not radical!

Examples:
* Your profile https://www.librarything.com/profile/MEMBERNAME
* My profile https://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding
* Author Kaya Oakes https://www.librarything.com/profile/kayaoakes



The major changes are:

• Everything is mobile and accessible; the old profile was a disaster.


• The font is larger and therefore the page is less information-dense per square inch. But with a very few removals and additions, the data available is the same. And you can change the font size (see the very bottom of most pages).


• The "Action Area" on the right is cleaner and more familiar to people who use other sites, with buttons for adding a member as an interesting library or a friend. Other statuses are still available, under Connection Lists. (We debated going to a follower-only model, like other sites, but decided against it based on negative feedback from members.)


• Sending Messages has been moved to the top action area.


• We've moved some of the most important information into the "scoreboards" at the top (similar to other pages).


• The "Profile Picture" area now includes a mini-gallery, if you have more than one picture.


• "Books to Borrow" has moved from being a link to showing five.


• The right side has a "MDS Spectrum." This is a little bit of eye candy that can also be quite informative. It shows the member's library by its Melvil (Dewey) Decimal System code/color. The Spectrum has been added to stats and MDS pages too.(1)


• You can add to your gallery from the Edit Profile page


• "Random Books" has been replaced by a more graphical version.


• Your profile can now include your pronouns; go to Edit Profile to add them.


• If a member is a connected to you, it now lists how at the top of their profile. This feature in general needs work, but it's a step toward the right solution.

Thanks to @conceptDawg and @Knerd.Knitter for all their wonderful work on this!

Let us know what you think!

---

Notes:
1. We debated long and hard over the name. We almost chose "Thingerprint." Half the staff loved it. Abby hated it.

Justice for Thingerprint!

I exercised my veto on "Thingerprint" (cute, but wth does it mean?!) repeatedly over the course of 48 hours.

Oh come on, Thingerprint is fab!

>3 ablachly: I'm with you.

Hmm, I read that as an MD5 spectrum. Maybe that would make as much sense as a Thingerprint?
BTW: Nice feature. I had to look up what 2XX would have been :-)

I love it!

Very nice — thanks!

I can’t find the option to set the random books back to text: I want to see what the books are, not what colour the covers are when cropped square.
“From Their Library” is puzzling, a pronoun out of the blue: “From MEMBERNAME’s Library” would make more sense there.
“Settings” seems to do the same as “Edit profile” — is that intentional?

First impression is good, but I need to check it out more thoroughly to say much more.

Oh, and THANK YOU for making it easier to get to the gallery and add pictures. It’s been driving me up the wall recently.

Would it be possible to change the order in which the Groups appear on the profile? I’m not sure what order they’re sorted by now (looks mostly by-year-joined but not quite) but at least for me, having them sorted by most-recently-active would make more sense. It’s more interesting that I am a member of the 75’ers in 2022 than that I was a member of the 75’ers in 2013…

>3 ablachly:

I exercised my veto on "Thingerprint"

Thank you!

>8 thorold: Yes, that is semi-intentional. We recognized the difference but we chose not to change the global "Settings" button. It wasn't an oversight but it also isn't a decision that is forever.

>9 PawsforThought: change the order in which the Groups
Yes, we can look at that. It's a good idea.

Nice work in progress!

Are there plans to include a list of links to "5 most recent reviews" or "recently read"?

>13 Petroglyph: We didn't want to change too many things while reworking the design for this page. We find that doing that tends to be a bridge too far for many people. But these are things that we can consider.

>13 Petroglyph: Are there plans to include a list of links …"recently read"?

That’s a nice idea! I’d like that.

Like:

1. Having the link to collections/reviews/etc. at the top.

2. Easier access to add profile pics.

3. Maybe it was always there and I never noticed it, but I like the subtle color change between the library-related info and the personal info.

Don't Like:

1. I'd prefer not to have that mini-gallery. I want to be able to choose which pic people see when they are on my profile, which would not be some random pics.

2. I'm not fond of the MDS Spectrum. It means nothing to me.

3. I agree with >8 thorold: about "Their Library". My first though when I saw that was "whose library?" Then I realized it meant my library. And I am only one person; I don't use the plural pronoun. It should say "Lilithcat's Library" or "this member's library".

4. If a member is a connected to you, it now lists how at the top of their profile. This is a bit confusing. I noticed some profiles that showed a connection to be "Interesting Library", but I haven't used that. So I assume it means that that person marked mine as an Interesting Library, but that's not clear.

5. "Random Books" has been replaced by a more graphical version. Sorry, I'm a text person. Would it be possible to choose between text/covers as we can elsewhere?

Mostly I love it. It's going to take a bit to remember where all the parts have moved to. Thank you for the pronouns box.

1) "Connection: Friend" looks great. "Connection: Interesting Library" is more confusing because it doesn't specify if I find THEM interesting or if THEY find ME interesting, and indeed if I find them interesting there is no connection listed at all. I'd suggest a wording change to make the direction clear (having trouble thinking of an example that doesn't sound like a dating site) and also including the other direction

2) I miss the numbers (e.g. "(45/545)") next to user names in the "Similar Libraries" section. I found it really interesting and also useful for spam fighting

3) You mention "Books to Borrow" in >1 timspalding: but I don't see it on the profile anymore? Am I missing it? (fixed)

>9 PawsforThought:

Would it be possible to change the order in which the Groups appear on the profile? I’m not sure what order they’re sorted by now

They're currently sorted alphabetically.

>17 norabelle414:

You mention "Books to Borrow" in >1 timspalding: timspalding: but I don't see it on the profile anymore? Am I missing it?

It's been moved, along with "Books you share", to just under "Local Favorites" in the main section of the profile.

>19 lilithcat: Hmm I definitely don't see that. When I go to someone else's profile and scroll down to the bottom I see:
Local Favorites
Books You Share
Recent Activity
Member Connections

(Windows 11, up-to-date Chrome)

>19 lilithcat: I don’t see it either

>20 norabelle414: , 21

That's very odd.

I see it just under "books you share". And it seems very unlikely that if you shared books with someone, there would be no "books to borrow"!

>22 lilithcat: Maybe it's a browser thing? I'm on Safari, I tried both iPad and MacBook, and it goes straight from "books you share" to "recent activity" in both cases. (To be sure I tried your profile, we share 287 books)

>23 thorold: okay yes, I do see it when I use Microsoft Edge but not when I use Chrome

>16 lilithcat: "3. I agree with >8 thorold: thorold: about "Their Library". My first though when I saw that was "whose library?" Then I realized it meant my library. And I am only one person; I don't use the plural pronoun. It should say "Lilithcat's Library" or "this member's library"."

I agree with lilithcat's agreement with thorold. It's weird for LT to ask for our pronouns and then to immediately turn around and ignore them.

>23 thorold: We don't filter based on browser. And certainly if you see something on Edge you should be able to see it on Chrome (we mostly use Chrome and Safari during development).

Could it be getting filtered because of some adblock filtering (based on classnames)? I can't think of anything else off the top of my head but I'll keep digging.

Based on code the only reason that it wouldn't show is if the other member has their library set to "private," of course.

>26 conceptDawg: It's appeared now, in Chrome

>27 norabelle414: We have changed nothing. Not a single code push in the last few hours. :) Oh well, the elves have done their job.

I like it generally.

Two things to note. Covers for 'From Their Library' (I agree this should be member name instead of 'their') should really be more rectangular as very few covers are square and this way they are bad crops of covers. Secondly, I preferred badges without the little square around them, but more importantly they have a life of their own. If you hover over badges they rearrange in unequal rows, say the the first row has only 2, then full row than only 4 etc. They keep dancing as you move the mouse over them, hahaha

Edit. Windows 10, latest Firefox FWIW

>3 ablachly: Oh thank goodness there was a voice of reason in the room.

>28 conceptDawg: Apparently not. Not seeing the books to borrow on Firefox 101.0.1 (64 bit) and Win 10.

As for the rest: Meh.

Looking at Books You Share, it seems weird to see a "show more" link followed by a "Show all xx books you share" link directly beneath it. It feels redundant if you don't understand the function of the site. Just weird if you do.

In the random books block: Can something be added where if a book is showing the generic cover, it does NOT show up?

>30 gilroy: Yes, we are going to work on the generic covers in the random books block. We are already doing some limiting but we need to do better.

And yes, the "see all" and the link to the view within the library is an awkward one. Can't win them all.

But at least we got a "meh" out of it. That will sustain us for months.

I'm not seeing the "books to borrow", either. Windows 11, latest FF. But my catalogue is currently set to private, if that makes any difference.

>29 SandraArdnas: >17 norabelle414: >16 lilithcat:

1. I'd prefer not to have that mini-gallery. I want to be able to choose which pic people see when they are on my profile, which would not be some random pics.

How about if we gave you ability to reorder pics?

Their Library

Yeah, okay. I was trying hard to have it fit on a single line. I'll review it.

If a member is a connected to you, it now lists how at the top of their profile. This is a bit confusing

Yeah. I agree. We need a better solution to this.

Sorry, I'm a text person. Would it be possible to choose between text/covers as we can elsewhere?

We'll think about it.

2) I miss the numbers (e.g. "(45/545)") next to user names in the "Similar Libraries" section. I found it really interesting and also useful for spam fighting

Yeah. So the plan is to link to a much more detailed page of such info. In the space provided adding (XXX/YYY) was making most users a single line, which is icky. So wait for the new page and tell me what you think. Oh, BTW, you can see the number if you hover over the user's name. It's the "alt text."

Two things to note. Covers for 'From Their Library' (I agree this should be member name instead of 'their') should really be more rectangular as very few covers are square and this way they are bad crops of covers.

Yeah, the idea is to tease people a bit. If we go rectangular we can only show two lines.

They keep dancing as you move the mouse over them

Woah. Okay, @conceptdawg?

In the random books block: Can something be added where if a book is showing the generic cover, it does NOT show up?

Yes. We are working on that--we just didn't finish by push time. It will prefer ones with covers.

I agree that the book covers in From Their Library (also, agree that it should be member name) should be rectangular instead of square-ish. It looks really weird now.

>33 timspalding: If we go rectangular we can only show two lines

Huh? Are you referring to mobile (portrait) view? Because on my iPad (landscape view) there’s only one line of book covers.

ETA: I just noticed that “From Their Library” doesn’t seem to be showing books from “My Library” but rather from “All collections”. Not the same thing. It should either be actually from the library or else the title should be changed to “From Their Catalogue”.

>33 timspalding:

How about if we gave you ability to reorder pics?

Honestly, I'd rather just have the one pic.

>34 PawsforThought: The random books block is different shapes/sizes depending on the view size/orientation. We can make them rectangles—and in fact that was my original version but the staff preferred them as squares when we demoed internally.

As for the Books to Borrow section not showing up for some people: there is a problem with code related to caching of recommendations that is somehow affecting the display of this data. We're looking into it.

>37 conceptDawg: OK, hope you can find a way to make it come back, that was one of the most interesting bits of the old profile page.

I’ve looked at a few more profile pages at random. Further thoughts:

— I see the pint of putting the books you share, recent activity, etc., at the bottom rather than cluttering the right column with it, but it makes it difficult to get to for the few people who have very long “about me” or “about my library”. We either need a cap on length (e.g. a “See more” link) or a way to give those people extra space somewhere else for listing all that vital information they keep in those fields.

— If it’s “my” library on the left, shouldn’t it also be a first-person pronoun on the right?

— The nine-cropped-squares thing really is a waste of space and doesn’t convey any intelligible information about the library, while the old five text titles were something I found myself looking at quite a bit. There probably are more “text people” than “image people” on LT, things shouldn’t keep defaulting to cover images.

if it ain't broke why fix it?

A few thoughts:

i) First impression is that it's disorienting. This may wear off with familiarity.

ii) I can't see "Books to Borrow" either.

iii) It seems a little bit weird that "Books you share" is textual and in the main column, while "From their library" is pictorial and on the right. I'd like both to be switchable between text and covers, and both, probably, on the right. Oh, and please don't deprioritize books with generic covers, especially if you add a textual option!

iv) "Recent Activity" stretches all the way to the left, while the other bits of the main column not even the longest headings stretch that far. I think this is part of why the page appears messy.

v) I dislike the boxes around the badges.

vi) I do like the MDS Spectrum, but I dislike the name, which sounds like a developmental disorder or something. If "Thingerprint" is too twee, there has to be further options.

Okay, now I've had a look around in desktop view (only had access to ipad before) and I have more thoughts/opinions.

1) The square books in "From Their Library" looks even worse in desktop view. Please change it.
2) I understand why there's a separation between "personal info" and "library info", but why are tags, clouds and media in the "personal info" section? I'd say that's more library-related.
3) In "Books You Share" and "Books to Borrow", the titles seem to use the language used by the other member. Would it be possible to have that automatically changed to the language I use in my catalogue? (This issue is tied with one I've complained about before, which is that I can't choose what language books show in.)
4) Agree with AndreasJ that "MDS Spectrum" doesn't sound good. But then it doesn't really mean much to me anyway because the majority of the books in my collections are novels, and my library doesn't use Melvil/Dewey anyway.
5) Also agree with AndreasJ that the boxes around the badges are not a good look.
6) I'm not bothered by the mini gallery but understand why people wouldn't want to have it. You choose a profile picture for a reason. Could we have a box to tick for pictures that can be included in the gallery? Then you can choose to only have the one if you like.

I rarely look at profiles, so it's not very important to me, but I agree with the people saying "their library" is very confusing. There is a tab "your books" and charts and graphs are from "your library", so either membername, "my" or "your" would make sense.

I like the badges!

>1 timspalding: "Let us know what you think!"

>39 Crypto-Willobie: "if it ain't broke why fix it?"

Assuming you really do want to know what we think, and not just a chorus of fawning congratulations, I'm with Crypto-Willobie. It (by which I mean the salmon pink page; I have no experience of the original chocolate brown profile page) was not broke. It did not need fixing. It didn't need switching off.

And before conceptDawg comes back saying "For goodness sake, we haven't done anything with the salmon pink pages for donkeys' years. They're legacy" - excellent; you make my point for me. It shows what a good, robust job you made of the pink pages in the first place.

With developers' time such a scarce resource (look at the way Ukrainian was rolled out, then hurriedly rolled back in again), why spend it on re-inventing the wheel, and then enforcing Wheel 2.0 on everyone? Please can you at least return the choice to use your excellent and more aesthetically pleasing pink pages until such time as you change the architecture and they stop working naturally?

I use my profile page as my home page, and frquently look at other peoples' profile pages. I very rarely look at the 'Home' page.

------------

Edited to correct typos.

I've changed "From Their Books" to "Random Books." I think the context is still clear, and "From so-and-so's Books" frequently goes to two lines, which I dislike here.

>41 PawsforThought: I understand why there's a separation between "personal info" and "library info", but why are tags, clouds and media in the "personal info" section? I'd say that's more library-related.

The first section is about your library. Your books, collections, tags, media, etc. The clouds are in with that.

Also agree with AndreasJ that the boxes around the badges are not a good look.

We added them because, with the slight background color, they were getting lost. Here, you can compare here. If members really think they look better without the box and white pad, we can do that.

With boxes: https://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding
Without boxes: https://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding&hidebadeboxes=1

>43 Cynfelyn:

I use my profile page as my home page, and frequently look at other peoples' profile pages. I very rarely look at the 'Home' page.

Same here.

>45 timspalding:

With boxes: https://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding
Without boxes: https://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding&hidebadeboxes=1

I'm seeing the boxes at both links.

(For what it's worth, I don't pay attention to the badges, so whichever you end up doing won't affect me.)

>45 timspalding: Fine, then "Groups" and "Joined" shouldn't be in that section, they should be in the personal info section.

And like lilithcat said, both links have the boxes.

Sorry. Will work soon. Issues with "branches." Kill me.

No offense to Jim Elkins but why is JimElkins a category on my new Profile page? Really, not a joke.

>50 Crypto-Willobie: Oh, yeah, that's weird. Mentioning to devs.

Okay, try it now:

With boxes: https://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding
Without boxes: https://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding&hidebadeboxes=1

Please, just a link to the gallery, don’t show thumbnails. It clutters the page.

Also badges without the box is much cleaner.

Otherwise, I like it!

>50 Crypto-Willobie: It appears you have a connections list with that name and that member; you should be able to remove the member from that connection list and have it go away.

>52 timspalding: I don't care for the badges with boxes so much. Perhaps one box around all of them would make them stand out. Less clutter maybe?

>52 timspalding:

Okay, without boxes looks better to me.

>52 timspalding:

Prefer without boxes.

I think the new look in general is fine, but I do have two criticisms.

First, I am definitely with those who dislike the cropped images on the "random books." I've always found it kind of fun to be able to just quickly glance at a random sampling of someone's books, but now I mostly can't even tell what books it's showing me unless I take the time to carefully mouse over each one of them, which feels like far too much work for something that's not really doing anything genuinely useful. Kind of takes the fun out of it, really.

Second, and perhaps slightly more significant, I'm mildly annoyed that if I want to go to one of my friends' libraries, I have to scroll all the way to the bottom to get the link to it, whereas the "similar libraries," which I have very little interest in, are right there at the top. It would seem to me to make more sense to have the links to libraries I've specifically expressed interest in be more easily accessible than those of strangers.

>52 timspalding: I don't think the badges get lost in the background color without the boxes. In fact, I think they actually stand out more without the individual boxes, at least to me. Having said that, I have no strong feelings either way.

Overall, I like the general look and feel of the new page. I haven't done a deep dive yet, so I may have more suggestions later. But right now, it's a thumbs up from me.

>55 perennialreader: I agree, one box around all of the badges would look nicer

>52 timspalding: Yeah, without boxes looks WAY better.

>52 timspalding: Definitely the boxless version.

Okay, badge boxes are dead.

*dancing on a boxy grave*

Any thought on treating Random Books and Books You Share more analoguously?

I like the new presentation. Thanks to the developers.

I like the MDS spectrum best. The name doesn't bother me either.
Maybe spectrum in German has a different weight in some of the meanings.

I wish a few things are working different:

- Would it be possible to show the additional information of the number of books and their percentage in the MDS spectrum pop-ups (maybe on a second line?).

- In the Similar Libraries section, you have three choices: Weighted, Raw, and Recent.
Weighted and Recent can be translated. You can't do that on Raw. At least at LT.de.

It’s easier to flag spam profiles too. Much easier on these old eyes.

It appears that the bug in which clicking on a Member Gallery or Junk Drawer photo tag returns an empty set persists. I'm not agitating for it to be fixed immediately — two weeks is fine — but I wanted to note it for the record here.

If Random Books will be covers (I prefer links but oh well), can they at least be full covers and not just the middle parts of covers?

>69 AnnieMod: Same. I prefer text, but the partial covers just look like an error to me.

Initial thoughts:

The "Profile Picture" area now includes a mini-gallery, if you have more than one picture.

It stinks that years-old errors in accidentally uploading a screenshot to my Member Gallery, rather than Junk Drawer, are now on display for the world to see by having a series of ugly thumbnails under my selected profile pic. I choose the one I do for a reason, and second-guessing me by showing a bunch of others is really not considerate. Even once I finish moving all the screenshots to Junk Drawer, I'll still have my other profile pics (which I rotate through) on display at all times. Do Not Want.

The font is larger and therefore the page is less information-dense per square inch. But with a very few removals and additions, the data available is the same. And you can change the font size (see the very bottom of most pages).

As per usual, the "mobile-first" approach translates into "We'll use giant fonts and lots of whitespace on the desktop/laptop view, so as to replicate the experience of viewing on a tiny screen".

"Random Books" has been replaced by a more graphical version.


Most book covers are not square. Why use square images here?

You didn't address this change, but I miss the numbers you used to give in the "Similar Libraries" section. Is it no longer possible to see the "books you share with $member" that used to be accessible from there?

I'd prefer "Thingerprint" but I guess that's an unpopular opinion. Regardless, the MDS "spectrum" is uselessly boring if all (or most) of your books are fiction.

>71 lorax:
Profile picture gallery
We are going to be providing an option to remove the mini-gallery from your profile (or removing it for everybody).

Random books
I think we might eventually go back to my original version of this that was normal book cover sizes....we'll see. And I want to give an option to have it as text but it is in the sidebar with very little room for long-form content (like 'long book title by long book author'). But we'll be experimenting.

Similar Libs
Tim mentioned it somewhere above, but we plan on having an entirely new page from the profile that shows all kinds of interconnections information. We just have a lot of logs on the fire right now and wanted to release the new Profile before we finished that new page. But it's coming....soon(ish)?

To add...
Nothing we do is set in stone. Our minds change.
Members get all out of sorts when we change things. It's like we kicked their dog and slapped their their grandmother. But we try things. Then we try other things. Occasionally we get them right.

And remember: in order for LT to survive (this isn't hyperbole) we must change and adapt to current standards. That is a majority of what LT2 is about: responsive design, laying the groundwork for better accessibility, readability, standardization of layouts/components across LT.com and our other projects, allowing us to be more agile in the future, etc. ).

>72 reconditereader:
The MDS spectrum isn't necessarily about being "useful" in that sense.
The original idea that I had with it (months ago when I did it for my own library for fun) was that it acts as a unique identifier image for your library. It can give you a quick idea about what a person's library is like in a single image.

Like tags, tag clouds, etc. except it's more than a qualitative way of representing a library.

I don't mind most of the changes since they're really just moving things around slightly. What I don't like:

1. The pictures under my profile picture. They make it look cluttered.

2. Covers instead of text for Random Books. I liked being able to immediately know the titles and authors; now I have to hover over an unidentifiable blob to get the info.

3. The MDS Spectrum. Awful name and not at all helpful unless you already know what it means. Why even bother when you can just click over to Charts & Graphs to get a better display of the information?

>75 amanda4242: Why even bother
Sometimes things can just be for fun. No other reason.

>76 conceptDawg: I guess we have different ideas of what's fun.

Why do the books in Recent Activity have rounded corners? They don't look like books, now.

MDS Spectrum means nothing to me. Can I get rid of it? This is 'My' profile.

>74 conceptDawg: Then it *should* be "Thingerprint"! (-;
Although I don't think it's that unique.

book covers in the sidebar look much better now that they're rectangular!!!

>54 knerd.knitter:

I see JimElkins listed as a Connection, however it is not clear how to unconnect him.

>73 conceptDawg: Members get all out of sorts when we change things.

…and a few weeks later we are so used to the new look that we forget that it was different before. ‘Twas ever thus!

When a brilliant engineer first came along with wheels on a cart, I’m sure there were people who complained that it made carts so much easier to steal. And someone else who argued vehemently that square wheels would be much cheaper to make than round ones.

We do appreciate it when you try to make LT better, even if it doesn’t often sound like it. And a lot of us have been on the other end of this kind of discussion enough times that we ought to remember what it feels like when users hate the new thing you’ve been slaving over for weeks.

On a whole, I think it looks good, especially after the latest adjustments. Well done. I'm neutral as regards the MDS spectrum. It doesn't do anything for me, but it's harmless and I don't object to a little colour. However, I would really like a toggle for Titles vs Covers in the Random Books. It now looks very ugly and sad for us with lots of books without a cover, and I don't have the time to sit and scan thousands of covers just to make my profile page look good again. Please? I think giving us a toggle and setting Covers as default would accomplish roughly what you are trying to do.

The MDS Spectrum looks better when the lefthand column is pushed to the bottom and it crosses the whole screen. But please keep brainstorming a better name for it.

Thank you for making the covers rectangular again.

I like the updated page fine otherwise. I am glad I've only ever added one profile picture.

The thing I find that throws me is the disconnect from my cover as displayed in the random book section to the work-level cover you see when you hover over that book. OK when there is only one cover available, but I'd really prefer to see my cover not another cover.

However, that's actually a wider site-level issue - it's the same when I look at a series. I see the work-level cover not my cover.

To my mind, you should see the cover you selected for that entry in your catalogue, not the most popular cover. You should only see the most popular cover if you don't have a catalogue entry for that work.

>84 Maddz:

On somebody else’s profile page, I’d ideally like to see their cover.

>63 timspalding: Thanks. I think you deserve a badge for killing off the bad, bad badge boxes. Maybe with a badger as motive ?

>84 Maddz: This is an issue I've pointed out (well, I think "complained loudly" is a better term) several times before. I can't remember why it couldn't be done.

>84 Maddz: How I would hate to see all my ugly generic covers for the thousands of books that I used an Amazon cover for before I realised how bad that is and turned them off. After I retire, I will spend a few months on scanning them all, but not before then. No, I vastly prefer it the way it is.

I wonder if the MDS spectrum thing would be more interesting if expanded to year-of-added-to-your-library? (I.e. a spectrum for 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, ...)
I might experiment a bit with my own library data, now that I've gotten the idea.)

BTW1: I use my Home page much more than my Profile page. Mostly because I use the Notes feature a lot.
BTW2: I have a script that gives me the last 10 books added as something that I can copy paste to give me the 10 books in "Your books" list view:
i.e. 218852092 OR 218887073 OR 218887087 OR 218887094 OR 218887132 OR 218887880 OR 218993283 OR 218993333 OR 218993455 OR 218993506

I don't think I can get that using the LT web pages*. But I can easily find them one at a time going to either Home or Add books. The list view is very handy when I want to see if I've forgotten to edit the Media Type, Dimensions or some of the other fields. Maybe an idea for @conceptDawg for some other day?

ETA: * I was wrong since I can just sort "Your books" by Book_Id and look at the latest additions.

(i) 'All collections' has disappeared from Collections, so getting to All collections is now a two-step process. Visiting a member's libraries, you're much more likely to be interested in the contents than the internal organisation. Please return 'All collections'.

(ii) Please delete 'and' from Collections, Tags and Groups. (a) It's not use consistently over the page, with Clouds, Media and Similar Libraries sticking to entirely comma-separated lists, and (b) it's not localisable on the non-English LT sites.

(iii) Please derandomise 'Random Books' to the extent that it only show books with proper covers, and not 'default covers'.

The page flow on mobile is much better!

While the graphical version of 'Random Books' looks pretty, it's not currently accessible. The alt text for the cover images is 'Cover Image'. The alt text in each case should be the title of the book (especially since the cover images link to the work pages, so the alt text is acting as link text in a nonvisual environment).

>90 Cynfelyn: (iii) Please derandomise 'Random Books' to the extent that it only shows books with proper covers, and not 'default covers'.

That would also do the trick for me. (I still think a toggle would be nice, though.)

>80 Crypto-Willobie: If you go to JimElkins profile page and click on Connections Lists in the top right action area, you can remove the connection.

Recent Activity appears to have been transposed; it used to go top-to-bottom, left-to-right, now it's left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Intrinsically unobjectionable, but confusing when you're used to the old way.

timspalding (#73):

That is a majority of what LT2 is about: responsive design, laying the groundwork for better accessibility, readability

I'm not even remotely front-end, so I perhaps don't know the context of some of these terms vs. what they mean to a non-expert. But to me "responsive design" would suggest something that can figure out whether you're on a phone or a laptop and respond accordingly, rather than returning something suitable for a phone no matter where you are?

Similarly, I'm 100% in favor of accessibility and readability. But for me the font-size changes have made LT less readable. Is "readable" here just short for "large print"?

This is not at all a huge deal, just a loss of function; if that loss of function is a necessary part of making LT usable on phones, well, I suppose that's necessary. But I'd have naively thought that "responsive design" would mean making LT usable on various sizes of screens, rather than switching from "looks good on a laptop, horrible on a phone" to "looks good on a phone, horrible on a laptop".

>95 lorax: Uh, >73 conceptDawg: wasn't Tim responding...

>73 conceptDawg:

Thank you for:

a) removing the mini-gallery
b) making the Random Books covers rectangular (though, frankly, I'd rather have text)

It looks much better today, with the mini-gallery removed and the book covers now rectangular. And since I didn't mention it before, thank you for the pronouns.

Still too much whitespace, but I know that's one where I'm in a grumpy minority, so I'll just have to deal.

>93 knerd.knitter: That did it. Thanks.

Is it just me, or does 'Change Style' (right at the bottom of the screen) / Atkinson result in all the text on a profile page disappearing? Also on a talk page, bar what's in the 'Add A Message' box. Basically on all of the chocolate brown pages; the salmon pink pages appear immune.

>97 lilithcat: One step at a time.

>98 lorax: There is now a new style available for tighter spacing everywhere: "The Lorax" (I liked it because it's uhhh...fitting....and it has literary reference anyway, so it works).
Find it in the style picker at the bottom of the page.

For reference: this is the same font size as LT1 pages were (12px) and just about half the "whitespace" of LT2 pages (probably even tighter than most LT1 spacing, but LT1 was a circus of spacing and none of it is the same, even within individual pages...which is also one of the things LT2 is fixing).

>100 Cynfelyn: That is not the case for me. It is possible that your browser isn't loading the custom font file correctly. If all else fails you can delete the cookies for LT and sign in again. The style-selection is stored in a cookie on your browser.

>90 Cynfelyn: The 'and' in the lists is now translatable.

>90 Cynfelyn: (i) 'All collections' has disappeared from Collections, so getting to All collections is now a two-step process. Visiting a member's libraries, you're much more likely to be interested in the contents than the internal organisation. Please return 'All collections'.

I 100% agree. We'll get on that.

(ii) Please delete 'and' from Collections, Tags and Groups. (a) It's not use consistently over the page, with Clouds, Media and Similar Libraries sticking to entirely comma-separated lists, and (b) it's not localisable on the non-English LT sites.

Agreed.

(iii) Please derandomise 'Random Books' to the extent that it only show books with proper covers, and not 'default covers'.

Give us some time on that.

Similarly, I'm 100% in favor of accessibility and readability. But for me the font-size changes have made LT less readable. Is "readable" here just short for "large print"?

Even with the changes, LibraryThing's print is smaller than most websites. And you can change your font to make it smaller--see the bottom of nearly every page.

Thingerprint name suggestion:
subjects palette

• All Collections is restored within the collections list. Sorry, it was not an intentional removal.
• 'And' has been removed....along with all joy in my life for the details.

>102 conceptDawg: Thank you! This new style looks much better on my desktop.

>107 conceptDawg: I thought "and" was a nice touch--sorry to see it go.

>37 conceptDawg: Just to confirm: "Books to borrow", which I wasn't able to see before, has now appeared for me. Thanks! (Safari, MacBook and iPad)

>109 thorold: Thanks. This is an issue that I've pawned off on to Tim. This has something to do with recommendations generation and caching. Recs are one of Tim's things so I don't want to dive into them unless he takes a look first. But if you see it disappear again let us know. (or if anybody STILL doesn't see it on profiles, let us know too)

>102 conceptDawg:

I like The Lorax. I’ll probably settle on it or Verdana Small for phone use.

>110 conceptDawg:

"Books to borrow" is still invisible to me. Windows 11, latest FF.

Speaking of fonts (and not really to do with the profile page), I still can't get the font I choose (System Standard) to stick - either on desktop or ipad. Every so often it auto-changes to Verdana Standard. And I've cleared caches to see it that would help, but no.

Now, back on the official subject, while others have expressed wanting fewer images and more text, I would love for the "Currently reading" section to feature covers. And I think I'm going to go hide now so I don't get hit with stones.

Forgive me if this has been asked but I've skimmed thread a couple times & haven't seen anything mentioning how to get a simple text-only list for books shared with another member, one that doesn't need messing about changing a display style showing covers. As is, seems an unnecessarily time-consuming & fiddly way to take in the list. Cheers.

>110 conceptDawg:

I had been able to see "Books to Borrow" (see >19 lilithcat:), but now I can't!

MacOS Sierra 10.12.6, Firefox 101.0.1.

Can't see it using Safari 12.1.2, either.

>115 lilithcat: Thanks. I don't really know what's going on with that. I could guess but I'll leave it up to Tim to comment because my guess would likely be completely wrong.

>114 bluepiano: Book Shared is text only on the bottom of the profile.
The random books is covers and from the user's library.

>114 bluepiano: You can get a complete list of books you share with another user by looking at their catalog. There is a link at the top for the books you share with them. Obviously this isn't a "text only" version either, but it might be much more in line with what you are thinking.

>113 PawsforThought: The font/style selection is stored in a cookie on your browser. It's pretty fool-proof as long as you don't clear your cookies or have cookie storage turned off in some way.

>119 conceptDawg: And yet it keeps changing back even when I haven't cleared cookies and allow cookies from LT. About once every 10-14 days.

>120 PawsforThought: Any cleaning/protection software running on your browser and/or OS which is set to clear the cookies every 14 days or something like that as a security measure?

>120 PawsforThought: I set the style cookie today and it is set to expire very soon, in the year 2050. :)
I'm with @AnnieMod here. Are you running any sort of privacy/cleaning software that removes cookies after a set period of time? What browser?

>121 AnnieMod: and >122 conceptDawg: Nope. There's protective software on the laptop but nothing that clears cookies. And as I said earlier, I tried manually clearing the cookies of my ipad a while back which didn't do a lick of difference.
Desktop is a PC (Dell) on Chrome. Ipad is also Chrome.

>117 gilroy: Well, thank you. Gratitude for your post balances out exactly my embarrassment over not having spotted that. I saw 'books you share' and read 'currently reading'--a bit like a cautionary example in the chapter on perception in a Psych 101 textbook.--Can I take it that that list like the old one is ordered from books least often listed on LT to most often, do you know?

I'm not ignoring any of your requests here, I'm just on a mini vacation for the next few days starting now. Hopefully nothing burns down while I'm gone.

>125 conceptDawg: Have a good mini vacation! I hope the code is neither combustible nor flammable :-)

For Spam patrol, you’ve created a frustration by eliminating the flag option on provisional new members.
Sometimes it’s just obvious to human eyes, and quicker to eliminate than your algorithm.
This one from yesterday:
https://www.librarything.com/pic/9170778

There’s another this morning.
https://www.librarything.com/pic/9172436
https://www.librarything.com/pic/9172279

>127 2wonderY: I don't think that was an intentional removal; I've added it back in.

>128 knerd.knitter: Bless you. I’m newly impressed by how responsive y’all have been to member opinions and suggestions in this thread.

>110 conceptDawg: >107 conceptDawg: • 'And' has been removed....along with all joy in my life for the details.

I live to hurt Chris.

This is an issue that I've pawned off on to Tim.

Yeah, sorry. I'm busy preparing to go to the American Library Association meeting tomorrow, so it may have to wait.

>128 knerd.knitter:

Thanks!

>1 timspalding: The very first image on my Random Books grid I saw is of a cover that Amazon stripped and I haven't fixed yet. Sigh. Only a few ten thousand more to go of those!

I don't like the way the Random Books pop out. I'd prefer a static graphic. Or the ability to just turn this off.

I don't care about the MDS Spectrum graphic. Can people opt out of this?

I'm really disappointed the parenthetical number of books in common has gone.

I *really* don't like that my favourite authors, friends list, and interesting libraries list are now all truncated. I really liked seeing the complete list of favourite authors on other peoples' profiles too.

On the whole, the changes are mostly cosmetic, but unappealing -- there's less information in more space, and I find the design harsh and glaring. LT seems to now mostly spend time on features I'm not that interested in, and I'm in my little cataloguing corner so it doesn't really matter, but those are my reactions.

>38 thorold: "The nine-cropped-squares thing really is a waste of space and doesn’t convey any intelligible information about the library, while the old five text titles were something I found myself looking at quite a bit. There probably are more “text people” than “image people” on LT, things shouldn’t keep defaulting to cover images."

After looking at them some more, I really don't like the rounded book covers and I really agree that the old text titles were more interesting and informative. And the way the cover pops out to a different larger cover is no good.

>43 Cynfelyn: "I use my profile page as my home page, and frequently look at other peoples' profile pages. I very rarely look at the 'Home' page."

Yes, I consider my profile page my home page too. I think that's why this is getting more pushback than usual.

>1 timspalding: The right side has a "MDS Spectrum." ... It shows the member's library by its Melvil (Dewey) Decimal System code/color
>40 AndreasJ: I do like the MDS Spectrum, but I dislike the name
>75 amanda4242: The MDS Spectrum. Awful name and not at all helpful unless you already know what it means.
etc.

My suggestion: Subject Spectrum and replace the MDS with Melvil DS

>133 civitas: I like your suggestion. (And it made me think that maybe a Genre Spectrum would say more than a Subject Spectrum?)

While you've got the bonnet up on the profile page, please can I put in a plea for profile pages to be made localisable across LT's various language-sites?

Originally asked for in https://www.librarything.com/topic/172062

Some recent LT2 modifications have seen LT become increasingly www-centric. This would be a powerful corrective.

The Profile Page may be new, but in my opinion, it is not improved. I only use LibraryThing on my computer, so I don't like the new PP.

I hardly ever visit my profile page; I use the home page much more. I can hardly tell the difference between the old and new profile pages.

I prefer the text info over the image info also. I also liked seeing more of the similar libraries without having to press "see more." The former page seemed more elegant. Pretty much I agree with everything >131 the_red_shoes: said.

I do like the MDS graph.

I haven't read past the first 20 messages. I really dislike the new Profile page because there's nothing but loss of information. Junk spread out everywhere but not what we used to have at our fingertips. I hate that everything's now hidden behind "and" and then even that doesn't recover previous info.

For example--the Connections lists have lost the numbers showing title overlaps between libraries, which led (once clicked) to book lists. Now we get nothing but links to bunches of Profiles! I don't want to constantly go to people's Profiles when all I want to see is what books we share! Since you're already chucking stuff behind "and", would it kill you to restore the overlap numbers and their link to books?

Connections between libraries was what LT was supposed to be doing, remember? How could you kill this of all things?

It's even worse: now we can't see AT ALL what books other people share with people on their lists?!

>139 LolaWalser: Per >33 timspalding: the number of shared books is coming back soon
"Yeah. So the plan is to link to a much more detailed page of such info. In the space provided adding (XXX/YYY) was making most users a single line, which is icky. So wait for the new page and tell me what you think. Oh, BTW, you can see the number if you hover over the user's name. It's the "alt text.""

>141 norabelle414:

Thank you very much. So wait and see, I suppose...

Suggestions.
Under "Media, paper book", add the type of binding (Perfect, Sewn sections, single section) and the covering (Dust jacket, Slip case. neither)

>143 lcl999: You can add any media type you want by clicking "Add media" on the media drop-down for a book. As for the profile page you can change how many levels are shown on your profile under "settings" > "media settings"

>139 LolaWalser: Since you're already chucking stuff behind "and"
You'll notice that we no longer have "and" at the end of comma-separated lists. We are constantly listening. Even if it kills my soul (and textual syntax) in the process.

You'll get a new page with shared library stats soon. We want to do even more exploration of shared library statistics, not less. But we need more breathing room to do this feature so it needs its own page. You'll still have the abbreviated stats on the profile.

Did you mean to make the “block” button (at the bottom of the page, next to the “flag” button) permanent? That button disappears rather than fading. The flag button remains and can be used again to undo a flag. Not the block button; which makes little sense.

>146 2wonderY: after you block, the top right area then contains a Blocked button that can be clicked to unblock.

>147 knerd.knitter: Ah. I see it top center. Why would you change is location? Counterintuitive.

>148 2wonderY: It's replacing the buttons that allow you to friend them; it's supposed to make the fact that you've blocked them more noticeable

>149 knerd.knitter:

Yeah, I think it makes sense. Blocking is a rare event, but if you've done it, that needs to take over the place reserved for friending them and so forth.

As of today (with what seem to be some changes since the start of the thread) ...

Liking: Mobile adaptivity. Scoreboard heading. Cover images in the Random Books, with the ability to toggle them on and off!

Not Liking: Rounded corners on cover images in Recent Activity. These make the books look like buttons or tablet/phone screens, rather than books.

I really wish you'd bring back the number of common books/total on the "Similar libraries" section.

Also, and this is something I'm not sure if it's new, but I just noticed. Yesterday I changed the collection of a couple of books and now they appear on the "recent activity" as "ScarletBea rated book X": so it looks as if the 'recent activity' is the rating rather than any other change. Doesn't make much sense :/

>152 ScarletBea:
I think Recent Activity has been a little buggy like that for a long time. I often notice it showing books where I have done a catalog edit other than the one specified.

>151 paradoxosalpha: I also really like the cover images in Random Books

>152 ScarletBea:
The exact numbers in Similar Libraries show up by holding the mouse cursor over each username, in the hovertext that pops up, mentioned in >33 timspalding:. Possibly mobile/touch screen devices won't have that, if they don't use a cursor.

In the "Connection Lists" menu for adding and removing another member, the highlighting is so faint that I can barely tell which lists are selected for that profile. I would appreciate a more distinct color.

Confirmed, I can't tell the difference in which list/s are selected in Chrome.

Has the change to Profile done something to the ability to use HTML? I used to have a ticker on my profile and it was working fine, but when I tried to add a new one (for the new year) the profile doesn't show the ticker, just the HTML code.

>158 PawsforThought: When you're in the text box that has the ticker HTML, make sure you're entering/viewing it in the "View HTML" option, by clicking the "< >" button in the top left of the text box. This will make sure your HTML is structured properly.

>159 kristilabrie: Clicking on the "" button changes the HTML (adding symbols that weren't there originally). I deleted it all and added the original HTML again, which seemed to help.
I don't quite understand why that is necessary, though. Adding the correct HTML once should be enough.

>160 PawsforThought: I'm guessing it's something to do with adding HTML in the non-HTML mode... could just be the text editor used. Thanks for using the HTML mode, though, that should do the trick!

>161 kristilabrie: It did do the trick, thanks.
This is new/related to the profile update, right? Because I didn't have to go through this last year, and the HTML for that was working just fine until now.

>162 PawsforThought: We did update the profile settings last year with a new rich text editor, so yes. I think that's the change you're seeing.

>157 kristilabrie: The highlighting color on the connections list selector is now well visible. Thanks for the fix.

>164 eromsted: Ah, great! Guessing that was @conceptDawg who made the fix.

We’ve lost the option to invite someone to a group. There used to be a box on the right column that would open and give the inviter all of the groups they themselves are associated with. Can you bring that back, please?

>166 2wonderY: That was on the profile page or the group page?

>166 2wonderY: Ditto what >167 gilroy: is asking. If you can let me know where you used to see it I can dig/find answers!

It was on the profile page: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/HelpThing:Profile/OtherProfiles

Thanks. I think that was intentional, but I'll double-check. You'll just need to send someone a link to the Group page so they can request to join, if it requires approval.

I'm having trouble updating the About Me field on the new profile page. I've tried with three different browsers, but clicking Save Changes doesn't do anything except scroll the page back to the top. Is this an issue that anyone else has reported or is struggling with? Thanks for any info you can provide!

Like you, I find saving doesn't take you out of the edit page. Have you tried going back to your profile page and reloading it? Works for me.

>171 funkyplaid: >172 Cynfelyn: This is a known bug they are working on:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/351801

>171 funkyplaid: Please create a bug report with this information (https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/897/Bug-Collectors)

>171 funkyplaid: Didn't know till now this was a problem for others. Discussed @ https://www.librarything.com/topic/351801 but no fixes there, either. Irritating problem but I'm relieved that at least the text not showing on profile is still there on settings page.

>171 funkyplaid: The problem you're having may have to do with bad data in your Also On section. Try opening that section and save and see if it shows you any errors.