New Work Page!

Continuation Note

This topic has a LOT of commentary and discussion. Some has been overtaken by changes since we introduced the new work page. The topic is restarted and continued on https://www.librarything.com/topic/368057

Original Post

Hold on a moment while we finalize the push and put up the blog post.

Blog post: https://blog.librarything.com/2025/01/new-work-page/

Some sample links:

• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
• James by Percival Everett
• The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy
• Go to a random book in "Your Books"

As posted on the blog, the major changes are:

• "LT2" — Work pages join most other LibraryThing pages in being consistently formatted, fully "mobilized," and accessible.
• Your Books — The "Your Books" part of work pages is much improved, with better editing and the ability to choose which fields you want to see.
• Quick Facts — We created a "Quick Facts" section on the right, with some of the key details, including publication year, genres and classifications. It works something like the info boxes on Wikipedia pages.
• Side Bar — Besides "Quick Facts," we've improved the right side panel with a popularity graph, a links section, author info and an improved share button.
• Reviews — Reviews are now displayed and sorted better, with reviews from your friends and connections first. After that, we're sorting reviews by a quality metric, incorporating thumbs-up votes, recentness and member engagement. Ratings have also been added to the reviews section, in a section after full reviews. Altogether, we think reviews will prove more useful and interesting.
• Sections — All work-page sections can be collapsed and reordered by members, and a special "On This Page" area lays out what's on the page, with links to jump there.
• Classification — We fronted something LibraryThing is best at—library data—by giving classifications a prominent place in "Quick Facts." Work pages now also include a "Classification" page with detailed information and charts about the work's tags and genres as well as positions within the library classifications DDC/MDS, LCC, and—a new one—BISAC, the classification system used by publishers and booksellers.
• Member Info — Hovering over a member's name now pops up a quick summary and preview of their profile page, much as hovering over a work pops up a summary and preview of the work page. We're testing this out here, but will expand it across the site.
• Helper Hub — The works page now has a Helper Hub, listing everyone who's contributed to the work, and a separate Helper Hub page, listing contributions by type.
• Member Descriptions — A new type of member description field has been added on the “Community” page which includes the current haikus, but also has added options for adding five word descriptions, emoji descriptions, and “bad” descriptions. As enough of these are added, they will be included in TriviaThing!
• Speed — Work pages now load faster.

As I said in the post, most of the credit here goes to @conceptdawg and @knerd.knitter—a lot of work.

Let us know what you think, what questions you have, etc.!

I like that I can customize the page now, hiding the 50% or so that I never looked at, and reorder the sections. But I'm pretty unhappy the Member Recommendations have become such a minimal feature, I've put a lot of contributions into those over the years and find those of other members more valuable and interesting than the LT generated ones.

For books I've catalogued, under Quick Facts, there's a link called "Work". It doesn't go to the work-only page as I expected, but to the book page for my copy - the very page I'm on. Is this some sort of bug, or is there a use-case I'm not seeing?

>3 AndreasJ: It doesn't go to the work-only page as I expected, but to the book page for my copy It should go to the work page. And then the section on the right should have a "Book" link that would go back to your book view.

So it doesn't change the url?

>4 knerd.knitter:

It does now. Either there was a glitch or I was being more than usually confused. Thanks.

I can't seem to click between languages on CK anymore. Is there a new way to do that, or just a bug?

I've tested a member review by opening one and saving it. It updates to today's date. A stubborn reviewer could therefore keep opening and re-saving their review to keep it at the top of member reviews?

I'm getting used to it, and I definitely like that I can reorder the sections, but I'm not sure how I feel about the tags shown underneath the review. It makes my tags feel more public, so I might be hesitant to use them for personal tagging.

>8 sturlington: We had a discussion about this exact thing in a staff meeting. Thanks for the feedback. We will, obviously, continue to evaluate all of these changes.

Is there still a way to share reviews with Facebook? If so, i cannot find it....

The cover in the ULC shows up only about 50% of the time. Just FYI. Not sure if this will sort itself out or if it will need a nudge from a human.

Is there an option for the empty sections NOT to be hidden? Finding how to add a book to a series is hard enough already for new users; the section not even being searchable from the browser itself is making it so much harder :(

>11 Bookmarque: The pics/cover servers are our weak link right now. They are having quite a time today. We're working on updating that part of our infrastructure, but as you can imagine there is no quick fix. Today they will likely be a little suspect.

So what happens to the longer, detailed community member descriptions that don't fit into the four cute little description headings --Haiku, Five Words, Bad Description, Emoji Description -- now being pushed? I see that the content descriptions I added have not carried over to the new format.

Also, there is no option for adding a description that is not one of the cute ones. What about us dull people who like boring descriptions full of actual information? Can "Fuddy Duddy Description" be added to the drop-down?

>12 AnnieMod: New users not being able to add items to series: feature or bug? Hard to tell.
(I joke)

Ugh!

Looks like we've just completely undone ALL of my accustomed utility on a work page ...

>15 conceptDawg: Right? :)

More seriously though - I understand why empty sections look better collapsed, something to assist finding them will be extremely useful. Maybe a secondary list on "in this page" box? Or something on the left?

Wasn't there an option to turn off descriptions on books we own? Did that get removed/discontinued?

>18 gilroy: There is that option. We'll check to make sure it's correctly obeying that commandment.

>12 AnnieMod: There's a "Show empty sections" button at the bottom

Is there a way to remove whole sections I don't want on a work page, for example 'On This Page', 'Author Information', either to entirely delete from my customisation, or at least move to the bottom of the page?

Can we shuffle the order of the sections? I can't drag-and-drop the sections on the work page, or the titles in the 'Customize' window?

>17 AnnieMod: I noticed there’s a toggle to “Always show empty sections” on the Customize View page, but since it apparently defaults to off, new users aren’t likely to find any sooner than the “Show Empty Sections” button on the work page.

>20 ablachly: Sure. But if you do not know that there is a Series section and the browser (Ctrl+F) cannot find the word series, how would a newish user (or newly returning) know that they need to do that? :)

>22 Charon07: Ah, let me go check that. But yes - new users won't know to look there either

>21 Cynfelyn: Is there a way to remove whole sections?
Look for "Customize View" button.
It'll be at the bottom of the right-side bar on desktop views, or at the bottom of the entire page on mobile views.

>18 gilroy: Wasn't there an option to turn off descriptions on books we own? Did that get removed/discontinued? It did not; I just missed some logic; sorry about that. Should be fixed now.

Of course I hate the new works page. I hate all changes, on general principle. I expect I will get over it.

However there is a bug. When I am combining editions, on the page where it asks me to confirm, it still tells me that there is a series notice, and it tells me to read the series notice, but it does not show me the text of the series notice. There is just a yellow box where the actual information ought to be.

I haven't tried one with a disambiguation notice yet, but that may be broken, too. I am using Firefox, if that helps you to test.

I LOVE the ability to customize the contents of the Your Book Information! Now someone will tell me that it's always been there and I've just never noticed it before. But I don't care, I love it!

>26 AranelST: When I am combining editions, on the page where it asks me to confirm, it still tells me that there is a series notice What was the work you were combining?

>26 AranelST: There's a bug
Yep. That sounds like a bug.

And to be clear, there WILL be bugs in this update. It's inevitable.
We changed 531 files (and over 70,000 lines of code) over the period of a year to bring this update to you. To say that we might have made a mistake or two in those changes is probably an understatement.

Then again, the old work page was 18 years old and STILL had bugs...so just think of these as new, young bugs that replace the old, grizzled ones.

>28 knerd.knitter: I just hit that while bringing in a stray copy into https://www.librarything.com/work/9353302

It says there is a series note but it is just the yellow bar (like when you have a spoiler tag in a comment) but unclickable.

>30 AnnieMod: Did you do the combine?

>31 knerd.knitter: Ah, found it; fixing.

There is something odd about "Work Title" in the "Your Book" section at the top of the work page. When enabled, it seems to only show the work title if there is a Canonical title set (for the LT people who can look at my catalog - compare https://www.librarything.com/work/431093/book/279610151 and https://www.librarything.com/work/31049286/book/279854959). The old box showed the work title even if it was not set via the canonical title. Can we get that behavior back please?

>31 knerd.knitter: Yes. Sorry - I decided to go through and see what happens (and then to come let you know - did not see the problem already added above or I would have kept it separate so you can look at it).

>32 knerd.knitter: Ah, good :)

Overall I love, love, love this new feature. I'm having a few problems which might be me, or might be bugs:

1. Customize View allows me to reorder sections (yay!) but I don't see a way to remove a section from the view.

2. Conversations have disappeared. They used to be in the left navigation pane. The new Customize View shows "Talk Discussions" as a module but I don't see it anywhere on the book page.

3. Cover images not loading, might be due to the change or a recurrence of a recent issue. I've noticed the image appears if I customize my view and save changes, but it's doesn't appear when I first load a book.

>33 AnnieMod: "Work Title" in the "Your Book" section not displaying
This is likely a bug. It should be showing for you. And, in fact, it DOES show for both of those works when I look at them (as not-you). We'll look into that.

>33 AnnieMod: When enabled, it seems to only show the work title if there is a Canonical title set On the new page, we're actually only showing the Work Title if it's different from your book title. It doesn't have to do with canonical title.

I discover this new work page.

Good Job.
hanks

I took the opportunity to translate from English to French

But I also adapted some original terms for better understanding.

Example:
In the "Quick Facts" block
Original English (literal translation) => Adaptation française (traduction littérale Anglaise)
- Quick Facts (Faits en bref) =>Eléments en bref (Elements in brief)... I hesitated with general data
- Publication (Publication ) => Date édition originale ** & ****
- DDC/MDS => Addition of "Classification"
- LCC => Addition of "Classification"**
** nb: Explanation: This is clearer, especially for foreign members

In the "Author Information" block
- For the "Some Editions" theme, I have instead entered "Autres contributeurs et/ou éditions" = "Other contributors and/or editions"
This still needs to be improved but is clearer

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

I will look more and better but it is good work
Thank you

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

Note:
****: Concerning the date of the original edition and more generally the essential dates of the works (beyond adaptations, abridgements, illustrations...), I have long used the following distinctions:
- Date of writing (for posthumous works for example)
- Date of original edition (in the source language or not). Ex: See Zhivago / Pasternack, written in Russian, translated before the 1st French edition or Voltaire/Zadig, written in French, published in French in the Netherlands the 1st time // Roald Dahl or the Countess of Segur for rewrites)
- Date of the 1st edition in the language of translation (and country according to)
...
...
In no database (gov or academic) can you find these data quickly and simply (in 2/3 clicks).

Also, maybe LBth could indicate and/or add a day in the "quick fact" box:
Original language (writing)
Original publication date / Language / Country
1st translation and edition date for the language concerned / Language / Country

This would be a world first if access was easy

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In either case, thanks to LBth and all the members.

Yes GOOD JOB

>35 lauralkeet: Conversations: It is now a submodule called "Talk Discussions" which is by default hidden (you can unearth it from the "Show Hidden" at the bottom.

>29 conceptDawg:
See >38 JMK2020: Good job, Tx

>37 knerd.knitter: Ah, I see. But that is very confusing :( Why won't you just show it if I specifically enabled the field? I understand not showing it if you do not enable the field but if I enable it, it is because I want it there, no? :)

>35 lauralkeet:
Customize View
No, there isn't a way to completely hide sections. Although you can move them to the bottom and then collapse them and it effectively hides them since it remembers whether each section is open/collapsed.

Covers not loading
Our pics/covers servers are a bit overloaded right now. They are our current weak point in our infrastructure but we are working on that. For today they are going to be exceptionally overworked due to hundreds of thousands of new cover sizes having to be built for the new work pages.

>41 AnnieMod: The thought was that it was just duplicate data when it matches your book title. We will consider changing the logic.

>35 lauralkeet: Conversations have disappeared The touchstones list has been moved to the bottom of the Community page.

Just want to say that I love the new page! I love how it looks, I love the font size, I love that I can collapse sections. I even love the exciting new bugs—the old gnarly ones were getting boring.

Love that reviews are now Featured for Friends and Connections. Huge benefit for me, especially for works with 25+ reviews.

>44 knerd.knitter: Conversations have moved; "About" discussions have not. Here's an example page: https://www.librarything.com/work/1240917/t/Yellow-Peril

>35 lauralkeet:, >39 AnnieMod: Talk Discussions
I see this listed as a module when Customizing and figured that it replaced the old Conversations. However, I don't see the "Show Hidden" at the bottom of either the book page or the customize view page. What am I missing?

>42 conceptDawg: thank you!

>47 timspalding: Weird that I see Talk Discussions on the page Tim linked to, and not on my book pages.

Thank you for working on the problem with the series notices on the combine page! When I have had it happen, I have gone ahead and combined the works with no problems. (In all cases, the notice was for the first entry on the page, so nothing was gong to be lost if I went ahead with it.)

I am also have a terrible time with loading images on the new covers page.

>49 AranelST: Covers
Yes. Covers will likely be loading slowly today. Our system builds images the first time they are requested and the new work page is requesting images at sizes that the system has never seen before. Now that thousands of people are hitting these pages at once it is requesting hundreds of thousands of images today. The servers that deal with pics/covers are a bit overloaded. But they will recover as the new image sizes get loaded.

Looks like we now have a new section called Find It for online databases & other sources. Google Books is missing strangely. I used it all the time (along with WorldCat which is there) to find info and pub dates. Weird that it's missing. Also notice that ThriftBooks isn't there at all either and I wonder if it was (I just started using this vendor).

>47 timspalding:
> See 40 (and 38)

Merci Tim, really (Giant ? ;-) ) good job

It's unfortunate about the cover image sizes. This never came up in testing because the system easily handles making new images when its just a few. Having hundreds of members banging on this changed the calculus.

>51 Bookmarque: That Find It section is, more or less, a rebrand of our old QuickLinks system. I don't think we are done with this new version of Find It though.

I dislike it overall, it's a shock to the system. I'm sure I'll begrudgingly have to get used to it. Or is there an option to still use the "classic" view?

One thing I'll greatly miss, and maybe I'm the only person who does this, is that I liked seeing which of my favourite members/top 100 similar members had the same book as me. That was a neat little bit of info. Is there a way to still show that on the page?

I like that unpopulated CK is now invisible, only opening for Edit mode. No more scrolling past rows of unfilled form on every work page.

I do not like how CK Quotations are all run together with semicolons for separators. They need line breaks.

>50 conceptDawg:
Thanks, I thought it might be a loading issue. I will wait for it to sort itself out. :)

>56 paradoxosalpha: I do not like how CK Quotations are all run together with semicolons for separators. They need line breaks.

Urgh, yes, that has to change!

Thanks! for your hard work keeping LT updated.
I was taken aback when I went to edit a book this morning - and went looking for the update info.
I've edited several books and am finding it easy to get used to but what I am doing is pretty straightforward. I uploaded a school library earlier this year and have been making corrections and adding covers and tags. I'm not always a fan of change to my work routine but am finding this fairly painless.

The laptop version is fine.
I hate that the phone version gives so much space to a cover rather than the title.

I've looked both on the Community page and the Main page, but still no Talk Discussions or whatever we're calling it now. Bummer. Tested for a book that I've mentioned in two different threads recently.

>61 Bookmarque: I just looked at a book that should have conversations and indeed they are missing :( The Section is there but empty.

Looking at https://www.librarything.com/work/5332/t/Leaves-of-Grass - it shows the ones where the title was added in the About section but not all the touchstones for it. Which is a pity indeed - I found these useful very often.

Is it deliberate that date acquired and date read format no longer allows the dashes to remain?

The story I read today has the date shown as 20250128. I read the same story 10 years ago, and it still shows 2015-04-18. The latter is MUCH easier to read; otherwise I have to stop and parse the numbers.

>63 amysisson: Is it deliberate that date acquired and date read format no longer allows the dashes to remain What book are you looking at?

>62 AnnieMod: See the bottom of this page: https://www.librarything.com/work/5332/social

Another difference between the old and new Book box: Work title used to be Work title + Work author. The new box is just the title.

Any chance we can get the author back in there (or somehow get the work author into the box)?

>65 knerd.knitter: Aha! Missed that :) Thanks!

>2 Cecrow: But I'm pretty unhappy the Member Recommendations have become such a minimal feature, I've put a lot of contributions into those over the years and find those of other members more valuable and interesting than the LT generated ones.

I'm confused by this. To my eye "Member Recommendations" have more real estate and focus than before. Before they were just long lines, now they have little boxes each with a cover image. LT's own recommendations are more prominent—we upped the cover size—but I don't feel like "Member Recommendations" have been demoted. What am I missing?

I've tested a member review by opening one and saving it. It updates to today's date. A stubborn reviewer could therefore keep opening and re-saving their review to keep it at the top of member reviews?

Reviews have two dates internally--the original date and the edited date. Changing the latter should not change the review's value in the sort.

>8 sturlington: I'm not sure how I feel about the tags shown underneath the review. It makes my tags feel more public, so I might be hesitant to use them for personal tagging.

Thanks for your input. What do others feel?

>10 jeffome: Is there still a way to share reviews with Facebook? If so, i cannot find it....

Yes. Each review has a date at the bottom of it. As on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms, that date is clickable to get a page devoted to that review.

Example:
* The Graveyard Book https://www.librarything.com/work/4479754/t/The-graveyard-book
* My review of the Graveyard Book https://www.librarything.com/work/4479754/reviews/47289086

This URL can be shared to Facebook. Just cut and paste it.

That said, I think we could put a "share" link on reviews, where we have the "report" link. @conceptdawg, what do you think?

So what happens to the longer, detailed community member descriptions that don't fit into the four cute little description headings --Haiku, Five Words, Bad Description, Emoji Description -- now being pushed? I see that the content descriptions I added have not carried over to the new format.

I'm going to start another thread about this.

>16 jasbro: Looks like we've just completely undone ALL of my accustomed utility on a work page ...

Like what?

>18 gilroy: Wasn't there an option to turn off descriptions on books we own? Did that get removed/discontinued?

Ah, yes. It's on https://www.librarything.com/settings/other. We'll get that working again.

>23 AnnieMod: But yes - new users won't know to look there either

I wonder if we can figure out some in-between way. When a book doesn't have much information having section on section on section with "No information" or whatever is a real joykill. It looks ugly and ignorant, not inviting.

>27 r.orrison: I LOVE the ability to customize the contents of the Your Book Information! Now someone will tell me that it's always been there and I've just never noticed it before. But I don't care, I love it!

No, it's new. Thank you!

>38 JMK2020: I took the opportunity to translate from English to French

Awesome! Thanks!

>45 Charon07: Just want to say that I love the new page! I love how it looks, I love the font size, I love that I can collapse sections. I even love the exciting new bugs—the old gnarly ones were getting boring.

Thanks for the positive feedback. Can't wait for you to experience all the young, heathy, vigorous new bugs!

>51 Bookmarque: Looks like we now have a new section called Find It for online databases & other sources. Google Books is missing strangely. I used it all the time (along with WorldCat which is there) to find info and pub dates. Weird that it's missing. Also notice that ThriftBooks isn't there at all either and I wonder if it was (I just started using this vendor).

We thought we'd cleaned the section up, but it's clear we need to do some more work.

>55 kmcmahon: One thing I'll greatly miss, and maybe I'm the only person who does this, is that I liked seeing which of my favourite members/top 100 similar members had the same book as me. That was a neat little bit of info. Is there a way to still show that on the page?

We did indeed take this away. I could see putting it back—only for the Members section, not the reviews section. What do other peope think?

>56 paradoxosalpha: I do not like how CK Quotations are all run together with semicolons for separators. They need line breaks.

Good point. We'll get on fixing that.

>60 2wonderY: I hate that the phone version gives so much space to a cover rather than the title.

What do other people think about this? I'm inclined to be on your side here, but @conceptdawg may feel differently.

>62 AnnieMod: @knerd.knitter can you look into this?

>66 AnnieMod: Any chance we can get the author back in there (or somehow get the work author into the box)?

I think I agree with this. @knerd.knitter?

To try to clarify this:
On the main work page, the section "Talk Discussions" shows talk posts where this work is in the About.
On the Community subpage, the section "Mentions (Touchstones)" should show talk posts where the book is just touchstones in messages.

If you see these sections missing or empty on something that should have it, please post the specific work.

>55 kmcmahon: kmcmahon: One thing I'll greatly miss, and maybe I'm the only person who does this, is that I liked seeing which of my favourite members/top 100 similar members had the same book as me. That was a neat little bit of info. Is there a way to still show that on the page?

>68 timspalding: We did indeed take this away. I could see putting it back—only for the Members section, not the reviews section. What do other peope think?

I, personally, also liked this feature and would like to see it back.

>69 knerd.knitter: I am not sure why we needed two separate sections and I find it confusing but now I can see them at least.

>8 sturlington: I'm not sure how I feel about the tags shown underneath the review. It makes my tags feel more public, so I might be hesitant to use them for personal tagging.
>68 timspalding: Thanks for your input. What do others feel?

I'm definitely ambivalent. In most cases, I don't think my tags add much to the review, and I didn't create them for that purpose. I don't get any satisfaction out of seeing other users' review-irrelevant tags like shelving info.

On principle, it seems strange for tags to be so conspicuously attributed to individual users in a way that they haven't been for lo these prior decades.

A possible plus is that the tags do link back to the tag pages, so there's some aleatory browsing opportunity there.

I'm near tears over how much I hate the new work page, but I know I will just have to suffer it.

I really don't like tags being attached to reviews. To me having them so publicly displayed defeats the purpose of tags being a personal thing.

I'm not seeing any way to edit the Find It links to show libraries and bookstores near me. All the links are for places thousands of miles away from me.

>66 AnnieMod: Adding it back in.

>73 amanda4242: Yeah, I really do not like the tags under the reviews either - they imply categories while tags can be a lot of different things... For example I use a tag showing which library I got a book from. Showing that under my review is... weird (see https://www.librarything.com/work/26850629/ for an example).

>74 knerd.knitter: Thanks! :)

>73 amanda4242: I'm not seeing any way to edit the Find It links to show libraries and bookstores near me If you click "More" in the Find It section on the right, you can get to a page where you can search for and star links you would like to see.

Member Descriptions

Tim, you said you’d start a separate discussion on this.

I read a lot of old books and have spent a lot of effort adding descriptions that would be meaningful where the system doesn’t supply anything.
I would hate if that all just disappeared. It was one of the very best features.

>73 amanda4242: tags being attached to reviews
Yes. This was an internal debate we had, and for just the reason you give. Certainly we will continue to debate this and this feature could change. It's not like we launch these things and ignore feedback. What you say is important.

Find It
Right now that feature is in a kind of transition period between what it was and what it will become. It had lots and lots of spam destinations, bookstores, links, etc. and we are trying to clean those out and rethink the feature. We have disabled editing of Find It items in the meantime.

>73 amanda4242: I hate it, too - this has ruined my day.

1. Overall I really like the changes, especially the book info box. I'm very glad we retained the ability to move sections around.

2. I do NOT like my tags showing up under my review. (>8 sturlington:, >9 conceptDawg:)

3. I am not seeing the touchstones list on most works, ex: https://www.librarything.com/work/29983695/social, https://www.librarything.com/work/31080054/social, https://www.librarything.com/work/31585982/social, https://www.librarything.com/work/30222828/social, https://www.librarything.com/work/15133301/social
I do see touchstone lists for a few works, ex: https://www.librarything.com/work/1116874/social, https://www.librarything.com/work/816613/social, https://www.librarything.com/work/3093889/social
It seems like maybe more popular works have touchstones and less popular do not? The ones I do see are ones I picked from the Zeitgeist, the ones I don't see are ones I picked from my own catalog or my friends'

4. I really hate the recommendations section. It's too long and I'm going to accidentally click the "add" buttons a million times, which look ridiculous compared to the tiny checkmark next to the books I actually have. Could we get it changed back to ~5 works per column and an option to not show the "add" buttons? (I'm not sure I see the use case for those anyway. Who is adding books directly from the recommendations section of a different book without bothering to even hover over the title?)

>68 timspalding: >70 hoolyaa:

I agree that it's not important in Reviews, but I'd like it on the Work page. Very few people have libraries at all like mine; it's sometimes nice to see familiar names there. :-)

On the whole I think I can live with most of the rest, but I'll have a much better idea when I add some new books. Much of my life is spent adding Common Knowledge data, and I've nothing to add at present. :-)

Does anyone like the tags under the reviews? Does anyone find it interesting or valuable—for themselves or others. It's new, but, if we take it away, will you care?

>79 conceptDawg: I know you guys do pay attention to feedback and I am deeply grateful for that, but nothing will change the fact that I think the new work page is just bad. I feel like I did when Verizon stopped supporting the phone I loved and sent me a POS flip phone as an "upgrade" and then wouldn't let me return.

Thank you for the info about the Find It section.

>Hate the way it looks. So much more confusing than it need be.

How do I tell it to skip 5 when entering a title beginning with The? There are only 2 options and neither appear to be numerical.

>65 knerd.knitter: I feel like the social page is lacking on some touchstones:
https://www.librarything.com/work/22013853/social/276485758

I know this book should have AT LEAST 1 touchstone mention (because I made it in a group I am a part of) yet it doesn't show up.

>81 norabelle414: I really hate the recommendations section. It's too long and I'm going to accidentally click the "add" buttons a million times, which look ridiculous compared to the tiny checkmark next to the books I actually have. Could we get it changed back to ~5 works per column and an option to not show the "add" buttons? (I'm not sure I see the use case for those anyway. Who is adding books directly from the recommendations section of a different book without bothering to even hover over the title?)

Yes! 1000% agree!

>85 DalkeithLibrary: Select "manual" and then pick the letter you want it to start with

I really hate the recommendations section. It's too long and I'm going to accidentally click the "add" buttons a million times, which look ridiculous compared to the tiny checkmark next to the books I actually have. Could we get it changed back to ~5 works per column and an option to not show the "add" buttons? (I'm not sure I see the use case for those anyway. Who is adding books directly from the recommendations section of a different book without bothering to even hover over the title?)

Aaah! I see. Your problem is that your looking at in the columnar way, not as covers?

If that's what's going on, I could see cutting the number way down in that view, presumably with a "see more."

>89 timspalding:

I wonder if perhaps this is a setting carried over from the old work page. Maybe we should reset the setting, since it's not clear to me the choices are entirely the same.

>Thanks.

Next question: Is there an option to save at the top of the page? I only see Save at the bottom or the record but I often save a record and then go back in to add the cover manually (for old books). Doing that, the top is closer than the bottom.

>79 conceptDawg: Yes. This was an internal debate we had, and for just the reason you give. Certainly we will continue to debate this and this feature could change. It's not like we launch these things and ignore feedback. What you say is important.

Please do reconsider this!

I did not agree to have my tags displayed with my reviews. I wouldn't have written reviews in the first place if I knew that was going to happen, it's a privacy concern. Either tags will be much less useful for me, or else I will stop writing reviews.

Edit: In general, I would like to see ways to make my account more private, not ways to accidentally share more than I intended. With increasing pressure in some areas (e.g. book bans), I would think this would be a common concern.

>86 gilroy: Here is the touchstone in situ: https://www.librarything.com/topic/356630#8682196 (linked properly, shown on the right and all that so it is a valid touchstone)

I do not see it in Social either.

>83 timspalding: I like it a lot now I've noticed it - it's subtle and easily ignored, especially since lots of people don't tag, but I find it interesting.

>Another question and this is not a new concern. Time and again, when I add a book via ISBN, the ISBN is changed from the 13 digit to the 10. (Sometimes, with older books, it goes the other way). I always save the ISBN when searching so I can re-enter the ISBN but it should not be necessary. I have been cataloguing long enough to remember 8 digit ISBNs, then 9, then 10, now 13. Presumably, the powers to be decided that the longer numbers were better. I try to use what is on the book. Why aren't you?

Tags on reviews - not a fan. Too many i just looked at were highly idiosyncratic, not particularly useful.

User descriptions - I really would love these to get more love. I've been relying on them especially with older books or where the top description has a bunch of marketing goop at the beginning. The public domain books I've been reading have often received a Hathi Trust or Project Gutenberg link, too, which is super useful when I'm trying to track them down.

Mobile view, changing the module order - this is perhaps a tricky one, but it was very difficult to scroll the page to sort the boxes. I had a tiny tiny zone on the edge that might scroll, but mostly it tried to select and move a box. Once i got to the middle, i couldn't get back to the top or bottom to save.

(This is related to, but not the same as, some difficulty I have with the custom catalogue view on mobile, so I'm not sure if it's just a sad mobile problem or if an adjustment could help.)

But on the whole, I know how long you've been working on this, and I'm so happy to not have to do zoom-scrolling anymore! I can't use a regular computer these days, just a phone, so I almost never see the full width site anymore.

>89 timspalding:, >90 timspalding: Yes, I'm looking at the text column view. Previously, this view showed ~5 per column with an option to "see more". If I clicked that I would get more like ~30 per column, which is what it seems to be now.

I’m going to agree with those who dislike the amount of space the LT recommendations take up compared to the members recommendations. The cover images of the LT recs are 4-6 times larger! I’d suggest making the covers smaller and only having one row instead of two. And remove the “Add” button. It makes the make look like a pop-up window trying to sell something.

I've added a Talk topic about the Member Descriptions issue. My apologies for not solving this issue—which we debated internally for some time—before going live:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/368010

>92 AranelST: I did not agree to have my tags displayed with my reviews. I wouldn't have written reviews in the first place if I knew that was going to happen, it's a privacy concern. Either tags will be much less useful for me, or else I will stop writing reviews.

Okay, but if your library is public, the tags are public. So while the tags are perhaps more visible they were not private before. Did you think they were?

Edit: In general, I would like to see ways to make my account more private, not ways to accidentally share more than I intended. With increasing pressure in some areas (e.g. book bans), I would think this would be a common concern.

Understood. What I want to do next is a private-except-to-my-friends feature. Next.

>93 AnnieMod: Here is the touchstone in situ

@knerd.knitter I suspect that what's going on is that it's using a summary table for touchstones to be faster. I don't know and haven't looked, but that's my guess. Perhaps the summary table is not getting updated.

>97 norabelle414: Yes, I'm looking at the text column view. Previously, this view showed ~5 per column with an option to "see more". If I clicked that I would get more like ~30 per column, which is what it seems to be now

Got it. I agree with you. @conceptdawg, let's do something here.

>95 DalkeithLibrary: The ISBN is being changed by whatever source you're using to add the book, not LibraryThing.

>101 norabelle414:

Well, it's more complex than that. Generally sources give us BOTH. This however is not the place to talk about this. >95 DalkeithLibrary: you are free to start a new topic, with more details, such as a specific book you had this happen to.

fwiw, the recommendations section looks fine to me on mobile. Switching to titles/column does seem a bit odd, like the text is too small next to enormous green add buttons? But it could just be the alignment or something. (everything feels so big now that i don't have to zoom!)

I keep forgetting that the tan bar is a secondary menu drop-down that goes to specific sections. I'll love it once i get used to it, lol.

>81 norabelle414: Recs
I'm assuming you are looking at recommendations in the list style (there is a cover view also). There are columns but you may only be seeing a single column if there isn't room to show two (or more) columns. We could look at removing the + there.

>86 gilroy: I know this book should have AT LEAST 1 touchstone mention I will check if we're caching or using a summary table or something.

Tags after reviews
Based on feedback here I have removed the display of tags within reviews. Executive decision!

>100 timspalding: Okay, but if your library is public, the tags are public. So while the tags are perhaps more visible they were not private before. Did you think they were?

My library is not public.

>106 conceptDawg: Thank you!

>100 timspalding: Got it. I agree with you. conceptdawg, let's do something here.
I was already working on this.

>104 conceptDawg: I am seeing two columns in the columns/list style, but they each have 25* items and the section takes up an entire page. I would love it if the + could be removed there, it would look so much nicer

Another note about the recommendations section: Previously it used to collapse all recommendations that were from the same series down into one item, but it does not do that anymore, which leaves the recommendations section useless for books in long series (see: https://www.librarything.com/work/1044440 )

__________
*ETA: infuriatingly, it seems the left column has 25 recommendations and the right column has 24

>106 conceptDawg: :(

>93 AnnieMod: Here is the touchstone in situ

Thank you for the example! I was able to find the problem. Fixed!

>72 paradoxosalpha: "aleatory" browsing

Thank you for a new word to describe one of the bonuses I like best about Library Thing, which is the closest virtual simulation of rummaging through the physical stacks at a brick-and-mortar library.

>106 conceptDawg: Thank you!!

>112 knerd.knitter: Thanks! The works in >81 norabelle414: are all showing touchstones now too.

>112 knerd.knitter: Figured it will be useful in troubleshooting so went and found it (search is great when you know who posted something and what to look for). Thanks for the quick fix.

One request - as this is one of the MAJOR things that moved, can we maybe add a link in the Talk Discussions main tab to that secondary tab under Social (or to Social)?

>106 conceptDawg: Where is the champagne when you need it ;) Thanks!

timspalding (#68):

What do others feel? (about showing tags underneath reviews)

Not a fan. My tags are for my own personal use and searchability, and while I'm happy to have them surfaced in my catalog and in a statistical context, the review isn't the right place for them.

We did indeed take this away. I could see putting it back—only for the Members section, not the reviews section. What do other peope think? (about the favorite/similar members who have the book being shown)

I loved that feature and found it one of the most useful parts of the work page especially for works I don't have myself. Please consider adding it back if it isn't computationally prohibitive.

>106 conceptDawg:

Screencaps of the what tags under reviews looked like, for anyone arriving too late to New Work Page to see them:



Although they might be invisible with how pictures are loading today...

>110 norabelle414: Recs
I've updated that view slightly, removing the + buttons and limiting the output to just 24 items so it's not a sea of text. I'm looking into getting a "see more" there but because of how we are displaying those it's not an easy task.

it used to collapse all recommendations that were from the same series down into one item
Ah. Yes. We can look into that and see if we can reinstate that filtering.

In general, I like the new look and functionality. Haven't noticed any features that are gone and some existing ones have been improved, most notably the ability to customize 'your book info'. No more opening book details when I need to see ISBN, other call number or reading dates. Hooray!

Speaking of reading dates, would it be possible to make them editable in this box directly, just like collections, tags and review?

Among grievances, I'm in the camp that would prefer sections to show even when empty (and in their designated place), both for consistency and usability. If I need to enter a work relationship, I'd rather the section appears where it normally does, than hunting it down at the bottom even when 'show hidden' is on. Collapsed and greyed out when empty in its normal place is the way to go IMO. It is clear it is empty, it is merely one line to scroll, but it is a reminder that perhaps it needs to be added to a series or awards, that it has no media reviews and could benefit from adding some, etc.

Finally, I have a personal request that would potentially be useful to many others. Would it be possible to add 'meta properties' to fields from 'your book info' box? Currently, there's a handful of them for work level data such as title, description or image, but I'd like my book data to be labelled in the same way so that I can easily import that data into my note app via its web clipper. I have no idea whether this is a small or major feature to ask, but anyway labeling my ISBN, tags, publication date and media as metadata properties would mean I can create a note for that book with a single click once I set up a template, as opposed to copying that data manually to those fields in the note app as I do right now. (FWIW, aside from meta variables, the clipper can read and parse schema.org and selector variables too, but since meta ones are used already, I'm asking for those). There is an RSI about syncing LT with various other apps and I can link to it later if desired, but the main point is some kind of meta labeling would be useful to anyone who has need to transfer their basic data to some other app too.

Regarding missing major quick links now, the one I noticed immediately when trying to set up mine is ISFDB

>119 SandraArdnas: "Among grievances, I'm in the camp that would prefer sections to show even when empty (and in their designated place), both for consistency and usability"

There is a slider/checkbox on the Customize page to do exactly that :)

Talk Discussions, again

>69 knerd.knitter:

To try to clarify this:
On the main work page, the section "Talk Discussions" shows talk posts where this work is in the About.
On the Community subpage, the section "Mentions (Touchstones)" should show talk posts where the book is just touchstones in messages.

If you see these sections missing or empty on something that should have it, please post the specific work.

When I navigate to a book from my library, it takes me to the book page. I was expecting to see Talk Discussions on that page, but they are not there (despite being in the Customize View section).
https://www.librarything.com/work/30633637/book/279060965

Here is the corresponding work page. No Talk Discussions there either:
https://www.librarything.com/work/30633637/

>121 lauralkeet: Talk Discussions is only for the threads where the title is added to the About section.
The touchstones are under Community ->Social now. (Correction: It is Mentions (Touchstones) NOT Social).

>121 lauralkeet: Do you have a specific thread that was marked as About that book? Otherwise, it's on the bottom of the Community page as Mentions.

Though leads to my comment: Can the subpages be rearranged like the main work page? I don't see the point in having Talk Discussion and Mentions so far apart on the community page. They work together.

So about TAGS and REVIEWS being close together, I don't have an issue with it. Anyone who clicks on a book from my library has always had the ability to see not only both of these things, but anything else as part of my public catalog. Seems like the change of placement has people aflutter.

>119 SandraArdnas: Speaking of reading dates, would it be possible to make them editable in this box directly
This is something that I'd like to tackle. We'll see how that goes. Reading Dates are a feature that we need to concentrate on a little more at LT. We've talked about various ways to do that. So...I can't commit, but we'll see what we come up with.

would prefer sections to show even when empty
You can do this. There is an option on the Customize View page.
It responds just as you describe.

Custom metadata
I'm not entirely sure what you're asking for here. But I'll reread this a couple of times and see if I can come up with a lucid answer. :)

>120 AnnieMod: Thank you. I can't even cite not enough coffee as my excuse :)

Review: WAY too many changes at one time. WAY too busy. Do not like at all!

>126 SandraArdnas: There is never a time you cannot use that as an excuse (and if it is that time somehow, just call it "too much coffee" instead) :)

PS: I did not notice it either until it was pointed out. :)

>124 Bookmarque: Sorry, it's not about tags and reviews being close. Earlier today we had tag information WITHIN each review. So each review showed what tags the reviewer had on their book. We've removed that since then, although somebody left a screenshot of it above.

>124 Bookmarque: >129 conceptDawg: See >117 Aquila: for the display.

You can do this. There is an option on the Customize View page.
It responds just as you describe.

Maybe we should make it stick? I'm not sure.

>131 timspalding: Maybe we should make it stick?

It already should stick. If it does not, that's a bug. I think people just don't know where to find it.

>122 AnnieMod: Okay, I finally understand Talk Discussions aren't what I thought they were. Thanks for being patient with me. I don't see Community --> Social, but I think I found what you're referring to under Community --> Mentions (Touchstones), all the way at the bottom of the Community page. Is that correct?

The Community page includes a "Customize View" button but it's not specific to the Community page. It would be really nice to be able to reorder sections of that page and other pages under Work. I think this is what @gilroy also asked about in >123 gilroy:.

>133 lauralkeet: Yep, it is Community --> Mentions (Touchstones) - sorry :) We were calling the Community pages Social above and my brain slipped (see the above comment about coffee for an excuse ;)). There was a bug earlier that was quickly fixed but now all the touchstones should be driving the link into that new section.

>107 AranelST:

If your library isn't public (I just looked, and indeed it isn't) then nobody sees your reviews or your tags, together or apart.

I like all new changes. Please carry on!

"Like the seasons, change reminds us that every ending is a new beginning."

Sorry, I don´t like the changes.

>95 DalkeithLibrary:
I agree:
The only ISBN that is worth it is that of the publisher and that of the edition concerned: transforming an ISBN 8 / 9 / 10 into 13 can only be a convention but we must not forget the original ISBN. it is even a heresy if unidentifiable...
Some publishers have succumbed to the ISBN 13 and I am not talking about Amazon which indicates ISBNs 10 and 13 without however indicating which - or which - are the right ones

>125 conceptDawg: Re custom metadata: it is entirely possible I'm not very intelligible because I have a rather vague understanding of the matter, haha. My understanding is that there are various ways in which metadata is 'embedded' into html of the page, one of those being 'meta variables'. Eg, on https://www.librarything.com/work/816482/summary/185858097 I can see it already has meta:property:og:title Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut
meta:property:og:type book
meta:property:og:url https://www.librarything.com/work/816482/book/185858097
meta:property:books:isbn 0307567362
and a host of others.

I'd like those to include something along the lines of meta:property:tags, meta:property:publication date etc, so that data from those fields can be recognized as tags, publication data etc. Meta:property:books:isbn exists already, but it results with a 10-digit ISBN, rather than the one I use. For details on variables that can be used and how, this is the documentation page https://help.obsidian.md/web-clipper/variables

>118 conceptDawg: Thanks for removing the enormous green Add button from the LT recommendations. However, now the icons for if I have the book catalogued is obscuring the title of the recommended book.
Also, in cover view, the covers are still absolutely massive (particularly compared to Members Recommendations) and because they’re two rows, take up a huge amount of space.

I'm just peeking at this during my break at work. I did a search on this page and didn't see this asked; forgive me if I missed it somewhere. Where is the Will you like it? feature? Am I the only person who uses it?!?
Thanks in advance!

I think I'll get used to the new format/layout pretty easily, but I don't have anything more specific to say yet.

Ugh: https://www.librarything.com/work/13958805/editions is... weird. I like that I can order by title/ISBN but I really miss the "look at the whole thing at a glance" where I can use a browser search.

I like the Share Work to Bluesky option.

>142 AnnieMod: Yes, haven't checked the editions page before, but not having all editions on a single page makes finding those that need separating a nightmare now.

Ok, sorry about not realizing the tag and review thing was over with.

I've played with customizing the blue work info card at the top and date acquired doesn't appear to be working. Reading dates, From where and Media does. That's all I've messed with.

Edit - Ok, it's showing up on another book. Let me play with it more.

>144 SandraArdnas: There's a dropdown for Show All entries, on the editions page?

A little annoying that grabbing a cover link from the web now takes two clicks. The real estate looks to be there so it's a bit weird.

Also, it took me WAY TOO LONG to find how to edit my catalog entry. Used to be able to do the covers on the same page and now it's more clicks too. Hm.

I like the redesign on the title sort character, it feels like it will be much clearer for people who haven't previously encountered the concept.

>146 Aquila:

I missed that one. OK... it still is a lot harder screen to read than what we used to have for very long lists like for this book. And it does not stick so you need to remember to click it every time...

I've been working with the new format today, and there is something that was never there but I wish it had been added.
I'm doing a very large inventory/storage project, and it would be really useful if the inventory button was on the new page, especially since everything else is there (and I do like the "empty grey boxes" option).
"Inventory done/not done" is one of my tags for this project, and going out to the list to look at the inventory button is an extra step before I can set the tag, which also takes a lot of loading time because of the size of my library.

>146 Aquila: True, but it doesn't stick, plus lots of space between each edition and larger font are still bad. It's basically only navigable by search, unless you want carpal tunnel from all the scrolling

>139 SandraArdnas: Work page metadata
Ahhhh. Yes. I understand what you are saying now. Funny you should mention that but we previously HAD this data on work pages and it was somehow lost in the transition. It was in COINS/OpenURL format and was embedded as metadata on the page so that citation software (originally, Zotero) could read it directly. I'll see about getting that reinstated.

>140 PawsforThought: Recs display
Hm. Seems like the update only got partially pushed out. I'll check it again. What browser do you happen to be using, if I might ask?

>147 Bookmarque: Cover link
I'll be putting the little cover expander thing back on the main cover. That feature was just left off before the release. I think that's what you're talking about here anyway.
We'll also be adding more cover features. We just have a LOT more planned on that front and didn't want the work page release to wait on what is going to become a large feature in itself.

>150 librisissimo: Inventory button
That's a great idea. We'll talk about it tomorrow and see what we can come up with.

>149 AnnieMod: & >151 SandraArdnas: Editions view
We could probably have that "All" setting stick if that would help.
And while it is different than what it was before the new list actually gives you much more power, allowing you to search and, more importantly, to sort by various columns to find items and outliers. Additionally, it's now grouping them by ISBN so that it's a MUCH shorter list for many large works, as well as much easier to jump to outliers because of that grouping. I think if you give it a chance you might be surprised by the capabilities. And obviously, it depends on your screen size too, so maybe we could help there.

Recs list text size is tiny. When i switch from cover view to title view, both in Overview and Recommendations, the list of titles is maybe -1 or -2 smaller than other text.

Previously, I thought it was the green + that just made it look smaller, but it really is. It seems to me this is opposite to why someone would choose the title view rather than covers (ie. legibility)

I'm guessing the list is using the same font size as the titles under the covers, just changing what elements are displayed? But can the font size change, too, so it's the standard in list view?

ETA: grabbed a screenshot to demonstrate the size difference.

>154 conceptDawg: I may have an idea...
On works with combine potentials, we have "Combine/separate potential work combinations…". Give me an easy way to open that interface if there is nothing to combine i.e here: https://www.librarything.com/work/31378220/editions/ - I know I can open the author combinations but that can be... long. And even when there are possible combinations, just opening the single work in a page like that will be useful for separations.

I can work with that.

PS: Not that I cannot do it via the URL when I am on the laptop ( https://www.librarything.com/combine.php?work=31378220 ) but... that is hard to get to from other screens when I am doing some adhoc fixes somewhere.

>154 conceptDawg: All sticking would be really useful for those of us who do a lot of combining.

Will look forward to exploring the new sorting.

>147 Bookmarque: In re covers -- the extra clicks are probably something that has lots of computation background "under the hood" so to speak; however, I would like to also see the + sign (which appears to have replaced the former magnifying glass which gives the details of a particular cover) on the cover I'm using, even if I have to go to the new page to do it.
Sometimes I just need to remind myself of the source/details for my current choice, and don't want to go through the whole process of looking at the options available to find it again to click the icon.
Especially if I have to scroll through a LARGE collection to find the one I'm currently using, which takes a lot of time (A Christmas Carol, for instance), and then may not be "highlighted" as it sometimes is (I've found that to be iffy even in the old format).
Very often, especially for older popular titles & classics, the difference between the exact cover and one not quite identical is as small as the price printed on the front, or something similar. I would rather use an existing cover than add to the stash that has to be waded through with a new upload.

I see that ConceptDawg addressed this issue while I was typing!
Thanks

Yeah the + sign is missing for that. Grrr.

And where the heck have you hidden Genre information???

Ok I found it. Can't call it Genre? Classification is better. Oy vey. I'm just getting more and more annoyed and I'm usually not on the Change is Bad bandwagon.

>152 conceptDawg: Chrome on iPad. Safari on iPhone looks better (slightly smaller covers) but there’s still A LOT of covers to scroll through on a small screen (4 rows with 3 covers in each). Half would be enough.

OK, I've scrolled though the thread, and seen that folks are missing the Conversations link, as am I, and while I've seen a couple of descriptions of where to find them, I am just not seeing the links being described or where they are. I very much liked the old system of having a link to this along the top. I liked being easily able to discover the groups I'm not a member of wherein folks are talking about a particular book. Sometimes I find new groups that way. Also, although the Bestsellers Over the Years Group (https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/2847/Bestsellers-over-the-Years) is no longer particularly active, the Conversations function is an easy way to discover whether a book I suspect might be listed in one of the years actually is.

Here is the page for The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. Can you explain again where I'd find the Conversations?
https://www.librarything.com/work/28558380
No matter where I run the search for this book (via my own library or via the "Search Librarything" field, I go to my own copy of the book. (The column on the left is headed by Overview, Your Book, Book Details . . . ) and nowhere do I see Talk Discussions.

If I go to War and Peace, a book I do not own, believe it or not, via the Search Librarything field at the top left, I go directly to the book's general page, (column to the left headed by Overview, Work, Reviews, etc.) and here I do see Talk Discussions.

Just for the record, and I know I'm only one person, I don't really care about seeing Awards on that top line of links (although it doesn't particularly bother me, either). I'd much rather go back to seeing Conversations there. Again, just one LT member.

>161 rocketjk: Under Community which opens https://www.librarything.com/work/28558380/social (here is the social that keeps tripping me up), go all the way to the bottom.

Talk Discussions are when the thread is set as About.
Mentions (the new page) is when it is just a touchstone.

Over the years, I have appreciated the ongoing commitment of the LT team to constantly seek to improve the site. However, that said, I'm very frustrated and disappointed that the previous availability of Main Page seems to be gone. When adding my review, I spent a lot of time adding Original Language, Publication Date, Dedication, Epigraphs, First Line, Last Line, Important Places (not sure if I remember that heading correctly), etc., and they seem entirely gone. Why? I not only added this for other members/readers, but I also used it personally to help me when I was coming back to look at my books read and make recommendations to others on social media platforms, and answer questions as a librarian (retired).

>163 FerneMysteryReader: A lot of that can be made less opaque by going to the Customize View button on the right and toggling on the Always show Empty Sections on the top.

>163 FerneMysteryReader: It’s all still there. Scroll down to Common Knowledge and click on Edit. You can add everything you mentioned.

>1 timspalding: Is there any way to return to the previous view? This new look is horrendous! I may be getting up in age, but the format takes up too much space and is just.... not good.

>55 kmcmahon: Yes, I would love to see the classic view as an option as well. Thanks!

Thanks for making the work page new external links show up in the Zeitgeist/Helpers Log, though I found a bug with it, posted details at: https://www.librarything.com/topic/368017 to avoid derail here with a technical wall of text.

>25 knerd.knitter: Wasn't there an option to turn off descriptions on books we own? Did that get removed/discontinued?

Where does this live? I was trying to figure out why I'm not seeing descriptions - I must have turned it off at some point!

>154 conceptDawg: Ah, true, haven't really explored all the sorting options now. That will certainly be helpful.

Regarding the see-all option, I am not even sure who or when needs to see less than all. Does the search work on all even if it is showing only 100? If so, perhaps it doesn't really matter how much is shown and I'm just hung up on limitations of using browser search to find things on editions page.

I'd still prefer a smaller font and less padding, but perhaps it looks better on a bigger screen. I'm on 17 inch laptop and see 10 editions without scrolling. OTOH ISBN now includes both 10 and 13 digit one, which is also a huge help for combining, so I'll stop complaining now. :D

Edit, while I was writing this, editions page suddenly got a new look. ISBN column got large enough to show both in a single line and I can now see twice as much on a single screen.

>169 Aerrin99: It's in Home> Settings> Other Settings https://www.librarything.com/settings/other

No idea how it interacts with the current pages but it probably does.

>155 keristars: Recs view
Ah. A previous update didn't get rolled out fully. I've kicked that process and it should be going out momentarily and will correct what you were seeing there.

>163 FerneMysteryReader: Items missing
I assure you that we did not get rid of those items. They are all still there and those are all items within the Common Knowledge section. By default, the CK section is now shown in a cleaner read-only display mode: only showing the items that have content in them. But you can simply change that to "Edit" mode to show all of the items and make them available to edit. And certainly any content that you previously added will be shown in both modes.

>170 SandraArdnas: Editions view
The search does, in fact, search ALL of the items, regardless of whether you are viewing 10 or 1000 items. And maybe we just default it to showing All and remove that selector completely.

I've made the display within that table much, much tighter so that more can be displayed on screen at one time. Hopefully I didn't go too far.

Minor gripe: The new page reset my selection of the "Helper Hub" showing on the right side of the page. It would have been nice not to lose choices made before the redesign...

I just made a change that fixes tag sizes on many pages. Basically it was a calculation error, where a function expected the tags to be sorted in descending order, but they weren't. Here's a before and after for one book:

Before:


After:

>173 conceptDawg: The table now no longer fits width-wise on my iPad iPadOS 16.7.10 (it did earlier today) using DuckDuckGo browser, with no way to scroll horizontally. It looks fine with Safari.

>172 conceptDawg: Beautiful ! I just refreshed the page and the text is much more comfortable. Thanks!

The display adjustment for Editions is also greatly improved. It doesn't feel like a table cell got shifted to the next line anymore. :)

>173 conceptDawg: Better but... any chance we can make the columns selectable/removable? Media and Notes have their use but 99% of the cases they are just blank spaces taking half the page. And "Copies" is way too wide... (because the word Copies is too wide I guess).

Maybe a double view of some type? One with just the basics (title, author, ISBN, copies - although I don't even need that one), the rest behind a link; one with all we have.

>172 conceptDawg: Thank you, it looks much better now that ISBN column is wide enough to display both number in a single line

>179 SandraArdnas: Not on my screen - I have 3 lines in that column here for example: https://www.librarything.com/work/4817/editions/279548177#
i.e.
8402061184
|
9788402061188

But I know I am working on undersized for the century screen... :)

PS: Down to two now:
8402061184 |
9788402061188

Never mind - it is 2 or 3 depending on what I am seeing on the page - in All above I see 3 lines, in 25 or 100 I see 2.

>173 conceptDawg: >176 Charon07: Spoke too soon—it’s a function of how long the title is. Editions table doesn’t fit in either browser (DuckDuckGo or Safari) if the title’s too long.

>178 AnnieMod: oh, this is interesting. I can't see copies or notes. https://www.librarything.com/work/22290395/editions/276115810 is the work I'm looking at. I can only see title, author, ISBN, media.

I think it's what >176 Charon07: is describing. I'm using Firefox on Android, but I'm not sure if there's more to it.

oops, nix. yeah, the work in >180 AnnieMod: only shows 3 columns now. it's a function of the length of the title, as >181 Charon07: says.

>141 HeathMochaFrost: Where is the Will you like it? feature? Am I the only person who uses it?!? Thanks in advance!

We did remove it, after some discussion at https://www.librarything.com/topic/357974 . I might consider bringing it back at a later point, but the calculation is onerous.

>142 AnnieMod:

I too find this annoying. Click to show "All" entries to get that, however. Maybe it should stick? Now I see @conceptdawg proposes this too.

>159 Bookmarque: And where the heck have you hidden Genre information???

It's at the top right of every work page, far more prominently than before.

A bug.

The list of languages at the top of the CK section of the new work page does not seem to be working. The clickable list of languages with CK content in both The hobbit and The bookseller of Florence is not responding to clicking, in either English (UK), German or Welsh (changing language through the module at the top right hand corner of the screen).

ETA: A echo of message >6 MrKusabi:

>181 Charon07: So you do not see the separate button at the end of the line?

I see "title, author, ISBN, Media, Note, Copies" and the separate button.

>183 timspalding: It's at the top right of every work page, far more prominently than before.

it's at the very, very bottom of the page on my mobile screen :(

it's one of the ways mobile "friendly" design really sucks, the way it switches from multiple columns to just one.

>180 AnnieMod: For some reason, that one shows all editions in 2 lines for me too again since ISBNs again always take 2 lines. I wish it would prioritize showing those in a single line at the expense of less useful and less populated fields

>55 kmcmahon:
>I liked seeing which of my favourite members/top 100 similar members had the same book as me.

>68 timspalding:
>We did indeed take this away. I could see putting it back—only for the Members section, not the reviews section. What do other peope think?

Is the Members header section functioning? I expect to see the information that was on the old page: Recently added by... which I can get to via the Community sub-page, but the Members heading seems only always to be blank.

>188 Nevov: I see "Your Friends" and "Legacy Libraries" in the Member Section here: https://www.librarything.com/work/4817 for example. Do you see the Legacy Libraries on this one in that section? and a link to https://www.librarything.com/work/4817/social which has the rest of the pieces.

>183 timspalding: Re Genres, is the ability to edit them gone? We used to be able to edit, as well as flag if deemed egregiously wrong.

Eta: found it, editing is in the classification module now

Interesting!

I like the Your other edition box.

I don't need a cover in the series area. Takes up too much space and is distracting when it isn't my cover.

I did like seeing who had how many and what books that I also have, sometimes, but maybe it will show up somewhere again.

The customizing options are great. I like the quick access to the Common Knowledge without having to leave the page.

Delete book is a little too prominent for my worry-wart self, but the layout there looks good. I'll just have to be careful. :)

Appreciate that where it matters (to me, on my ipad) Quick Facts is simply below and doesn't take up real estate on the side.

I can tell a lot of work went into this. Congrats on making it to Release Day. Now to get through the comments and reactions, right? ;)

>118 conceptDawg: I've updated that view slightly, removing the + buttons and limiting the output to just 24 items so it's not a sea of text. I'm looking into getting a "see more" there but because of how we are displaying those it's not an easy task.

That's so much better! There's less space between the items on the list because the Add+ button is gone so it's even shorter. Thank you!

>189 AnnieMod:
Thanks for the example link, yes Legacy Libraries shows up there so I'd in that case just also expect to see Recently added by in there too (basically maintaining any sections that used to exist on the old Members heading).

Edit: The social link goes to the same page as the Community sub-page in the left-hand links, so it's findable there through either method, at least.

>183 timspalding: I meant to edit. Everything now means menu diving. Great.

>190 SandraArdnas:
>Re Genres, is the ability to edit them gone? We used to be able to edit, as well as flag if deemed egregiously wrong.

It's there still, look for the genre edit button under the Classifications heading.

>193 Nevov: Yes - /social and Community are the same page :) So yes - the same page.

The recently added and so on was redelegated apparently - like the "just" touchstones list got kicked out from the Talk Conversations lists (which now only show the "About" ones on the main page)

>195 Nevov: I was just about to edit my post to say I found it, but thank you. It will take some time getting used to some features being in a different place

Also, thumbs up for the cloud/text view of tags now. The text view sorts them by number

>1 timspalding: I should say something complementary. After all, you put a lot of effort into this. And it would be mean to start with my unhappiness being faced with an unfamiliar user interface. Sadly, I can't actually think of anything positive to say.

I might have been happier if I'd seen this posting before trying to add a book, and being surprised by an unfamiliar page. All I _noticed_ other than the unfamiliarity was that everything's more spread out, several UI elements require more clicks than the same task used to require, and there seems to be no way to enter reading dates with a keyboard.

I've just read and reread your list of advantages, none of which I noticed when faced with the reality. Unfortunately, most of them have nothing to do with the data entry page reached from "edit book" on the "add books" page.

The only one that *might* be applicable is LT2. It's possible that the breakage of the date entry field on desktops is part of being fully "mobilized", since sometimes the best way to enter dates on a keyboardless device is in fact to click multiple times on an image of a calendar page, first stepping to the month and then selecting the day of that month.

Or perhaps there still is a way to enter dates using a keyboard, but it no longer involves starting with the year. The old page showed the date format to be used; the new one doesn't bother, and once I type 2024 it accepts no farther characters.

I'm using Safari 17.5

Perhaps other desktop browsers don't enforce the use of a click-on-calendar UI, or automatically show the desired format.

At any rate, please tell me if it's still possible to enter reading dates - and other dates for that matter - without using a mouse - and if so how to do it.

I'm particularly interested in the "add book"/"edit your book" page - that's the only one I need to use. (If you've dis-improved pages I use to contribute to the site, such as adding common knowledge or creating/correcting relationships between books and works, I can simply take the hint and stop doing those things.)

"Reviews — Reviews are now displayed and sorted better, with reviews from your friends and connections first. "

Can I turn this off? I don't want to be helped to climb into a bubble.

Editions
I've made some more changes to the Editions page.
The Notes and Media columns are, by default, hidden. There is now a column toggle at the top of the data table if you want to show those columns—or hide others—though the setting is currently not sticky.
The Count column is now much tighter since I'm using the # symbol as the header.
The column names are now properly translated if you are using a language other than English.

Note: if you are using a smaller browser size then you may see a green + icon on the left side of each row. This means that the table data is too wide to fit naturally on your screen. The + allows you to expand that row. This allows the data to be as tight as possible while browsing through but still have all of the data available once you dive in to do something. Mobile screens just have so little real-estate in the horizontal that it makes dealing with data tables a challenge.

>> Or perhaps there still is a way to enter dates using a keyboard, but it no longer involves starting with the year. The old page showed the date format to be used; the new one doesn't bother, and once I type 2024 it accepts no farther characters.

The UI accepted 12/24/2024 and 1/28/2025.

These dates are unambiguous - they can only be mm/dd/yyyy. But many dates *are* ambiguous in that format. I preferred the prior, always unambiguous representation, at least once I got used to it. I grew up using dd/mm/yyyy.

What choses the date format now accepted? Is it the computer or browser's localization settings? Or is it always the US date format?

It looks like, when you're showing reviews, that you now show way LESS of each review, leading to tons and tons of clicking each review open if I want to scan through them quickly. It sucks.

I always want to see MORE WORDS and information, not more weird spacing around people's names. Is there any way to to show more of each review when displaying all the reviews in a list? Please?

The rest of the page looks pretty good.

>12 AnnieMod: What AnnieMod said.

Making information completely invisible, because it's not set yet, teaches many people that the fields in question simply aren't available. They won't try to set it, just learn that LibraryThing doesn't support that kind of information.

>202 ArlieS: >199 ArlieS:
Dates
We'll take a look and see why keyboard entry is a problem.
It should be using your browser's localized settings. If not then it's simply a bug.
We'll have some minor bugs to work through in the first few days. Remember 70,000+ lines of code were changed. Feel free to let us know about them when you see them.

Old vs. New
We get this EVERY time we release an update to a page. It's actually a compliment to me that people always think it's nothing but "white space!" everywhere...even though the pages are almost always nearly equal in page length vs the older versions. We compare them continuously throughout development for this very reason.

Keep in mind that the new version on the left is using the LARGEST font size available in our Styles selector. If I choose the smallest setting (The Lorax) then the new page is considerably MORE compact than the old page.

Obviously things change when we release an update. Otherwise what's the point really? And the old work page was nearly 20 YEARS old! That's prehistoric in internet terms.

I would like to be able to delete entire sections of the Overview like "Recommendations" and "Member Reviews" ect. and not just reorder them.

Is there a way to do that?

>205 conceptDawg: I mean, the version on the right displays more words in a more compact area, which is what I prefer. Shouldn't my setting of text size stay the same as I had it set before? And therefore display ore information? For example, the list of legacy libraries is longer, with more information, on the right. On the left there are multiple huge white spaces where you can click a button for more, but I don't want to click a button. I want it there already.

So, is there a way to show more lines/text of each review so I don't have to click open each one individually?

>22 Charon07: You mention a "Customize View" page. I saw nothing of the sort. I then tried an in-browser search.

The browser says there's one occurrence of this phrase, somewhere on https://www.librarything.com/work/edit/279924249?referpage=addbooks.php But clicking to jump to that occurrence doesn't take me anywhere.

At a guess, it's on the page, and I could find it with "view page source", but not actually displayed.

I'm still using Safari Version 17.5 (19618.2.12.11.6)

--

Found it. It's almost at the bottom of the right hand column of stuff. If I manually scroll down, it's highlighted/selected, but the browser can't/won't autoscroll it, for reasons beyond my knowledge of web page programming.

>39 AnnieMod: On the other hand, "show hidden" is *not* found by the in-browser search function.

This will take some getting used to for me, (especially with how widely spaced everything seems to be now; I much preferred the more compact look of the old 'edit book' page,) but overall I'm happy with it. I especially love that I get to control what shows up in the 'Your book information' panel.

I do have one question/concern. I see in this post that BISAC got added as a classification. This is very exciting to me!! However, for some books, I am not seeing that information, or any way to add it, neither on the new work page nor in the new edit book page. Is this information only on select books, and where is it coming from? (Bowker? Publisher? Some library somewhere?)

>206 amweb: If you close those sections they will continue to stay closed upon further page loads. We don't currently have a way to completely remove them from the page.

>207 reconditereader: "Your" setting of text size was never a setting. It just happened to be what LT1 used (as it happens, 12px Verdana), which is considered very small by todays web standards (16px Helvetica or similar typeface is the current default). LT2 defaults to 14px Verdana, so still much smaller than most web pages. The new page DOES use your LT text setting available in our Styles picker. Feel free to use the Lorax or the Verdana Small setting and it will be the same as the old page, with Lorax having tighter spacing in addition to the smaller fonts.

Content length
We have to make choices about how much content to display on screen before showing things like "See more." It's a judgement call. Because there are some pages that have almost no content, some pages that have ludicrous amounts of content, and many in between. We do our best but we can't make everybody happy, that's for sure. Usually it comes down to a conversation that ends something like this: "I get that we might want to see some similar libraries for this work. Maybe 5 to 10 of them. Does somebody really want to see the 24th most similar library? If they want to get that deep into the data then they probably want to see all of them." So we say let's show 10 with an option to see more.

I'm impressed with all the work that went into the new page! I'm another one having problems with entering dates however, in that the new page doesn't let me use - as a separator. Before, I'd type dates in YYYY-MM-DD format, so 2025-01-28 for today, but now I can't. I have to put 2025/01/28. It will display it as 2025-01-28 after I save, but I'm not allowed to type that in the box. (The box in this instance is the Date Finished box. I haven't tried the other boxes that accept dates.)

>209 ArlieS: Show Hidden
"Customize View" button (accessible from the bottom of the right-side bar...which is as the very bottom of the page on mobile browsers)

Once on that page you can reorganize your section order.

There is also a toggle at the top of that list: "Always show empty sections"
If that is ON then you'll always see every section on work pages, even if they have no content.
If that is OFF then the page is smart about what it shows, putting the empty sections in a folded section at the bottom of the page so you can still get to them. Just click on "Show Empty Sections" button at the bottom of the main page content.

>212 coprime: Date display
Thanks. We'll be taking a look at those date boxes in the morning.

>185 AnnieMod: Editions table with long title:



and with short title:



Edited to add: Whoops, sorry! I see that >201 conceptDawg: added the green arrows to expand the row that I’m just now noticing!

>210 GraceCollection: BISAC
We are currently not allowing editing for BISAC. It barely made it into the release and we're not quite ready to deal with editing of BISAC from a data standpoint. But maybe soon? Tim will have more to say on this. There might be a bigger reason that we're not allowing it. Not my department. ;)

>215 Charon07: long titles on editions
Thanks. I'll see why it's ignoring my column sizing. Probably won't be until tomorrow at this point.

So I clicked on "Customize View". I'm now on a page that is clearly about a particular one of my books. https://www.librarything.com/work/28541742/reorder/279924249

Looking at this page, I get a strong impression that I'm customizing my view, not for all work pages on library thing, but for this particular book.

I hope this is only a matter of bad UI design - the page really applies to all examples of the book detail page.

But the URL also tends to suggest that it's single-book.

--
I'd also be a lot less confused if I could see an example of the new book detail page while also trying to customize one. What on earth is the "On This Page" section that I can apparently reorder?

--
I dealt with that by cancelling my customize, then using the browser's "duplicate this tab" and "move tab to new window"

That doesn't completely solve the problem. I then needed to duplicate again, since while I went to customize from edit, the fields shown are *not* the ones on the edit version of the page.

Maybe it's not possible to customize the edit page? (What a pity - I'd love to reduce the list of categories to only the ones that apply - unless I click "show all". And after achieving parity with the old page, I could then move the sections I never use down to the bottom.)

--
Yes, I'm coming at this sideways. I'm *just* trying to get "edit my book" working as well for me as it used to. It might be weeks before I can face relearning how to use everything else you've changed.

This is, by the way, my normal approach to any change. First, restore everything I used to be able to do. Only then look at whatever has been added. I don't think I'm alone in this. There are *no* improvements from my POV until I can once again do everything I previously knew how to do.

>188 Nevov:. "I liked seeing which of my favourite members/top 100 similar members had the same book as me."

Me, too. And I also got a kick out of seeing the Legacy Libraries, if any, that included the book.

I have not yet set any tags on my example book. But now that I've turned on "always show empty sections" I have a section named Tags with lots of content, and varying fonts and text sizes.

I eventually noticed that I *also* have a Tags line in "Your book information". That one contains the information I have - or in this case have not - set.

I dislike having two different things on the same page with the same name.

And I really don't like having other people's tags more prominent and visible than my own.

And the "tags" quicklink in "On This Page" should obviously take me to my *own* tags, not the tags section ;-) After all, they are more important to me.

>1 timspalding: "Member Info — Hovering over a member's name now pops up a quick summary and preview of their profile page, much as hovering over a work pops up a summary and preview of the work page. We're testing this out here, but will expand it across the site."

I'd really love to see this for authors... photo, birth/death years, most famous work(s), maybe even nationality, gender, and how many of their works you have, if there's enough room for that info. I know there's an 'about the author' blurb, but I don't see those quite as often as I see the other information I've listed, and I don't think it's as helpful as that info, either. I'd much rather see:
"Ray Bradbury, (1920–2012)
Author of Fahrenheit 451
You own 6 books
male / USA"
than:
"Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois on August 22, 1920. At the age of fifteen, he started submitting short stories to national magazines. During his lifetime, he wrote more than 600 stories, poems, essays, plays, films, television plays, radio, music, and comic books. His books include The (show more)"

And furthermore, I would definitely rather see:
"Anne Ganteführer-Trier, (1965-????)
Author of Cubism
You own 1 book
female / unknown"
than:
"Anne Ganteführer-Trier
{blank}"

But perhaps... an author hover summary is already in the works...? ;)

>183 timspalding: Thanks for the reply, Tim, and for that link to the Talk thread. If only I'd noticed it a year ago, I could have weighed in! :-(
It's true that "Will you like it?" wasn't always accurate, but I valued those occasions when it predicted "you will love!" this book. It also helped me decide whether to buy a book, and also whether to keep one that I'd owned a good long time but hadn't gotten around to reading. If the calculation is "onerous," though, and most people weren't using it, it made sense for you to cut it. I enjoyed it while it was there, but of course I can live without it.

I still haven't poked around the new work pages enough to know if I'll like the changes, but I appreciate the time and effort I know the team put into it. Thanks much!

>211 conceptDawg: ""Your" setting of text size was never a setting. It just happened to be what LT1 used (as it happens, 12px Verdana), which is considered very small by todays web standards (16px Helvetica or similar typeface is the current default). LT2 defaults to 14px Verdana, so still much smaller than most web pages. The new page DOES use your LT text setting available in our Styles picker. Feel free to use the Lorax or the Verdana Small setting and it will be the same as the old page, with Lorax having tighter spacing in addition to the smaller fonts."

Aha! I had no idea this was controllable for some pages on LibraryThing.

But then, I love LibraryThing's 20-year old user interface style - including the font sizes. It's comfortable and homey to me, rather than some aggravatingly modern imitation of a frustrating cellphone UI.

I'm sad every time you modernize.

Edited to add: I have just one question: where is your styles picker?

Second Edit: perhaps it's labelled "change style"? I found it at the bottom of my profile page - maybe it's part of a common trailer - though it rather weirdly popped up a UI at the bottom of the right hand side bar.

Is there a way to hide the member ratings in the member reviews section? I really don't want to see what someone rated a book they didn't review in the section for reviews.

See https://www.librarything.com/work/18214669 for example

>214 conceptDawg: I was able to enter a date without punctuation, so you might want to look at the hyphen for the bug.

>205 conceptDawg: re: spacing/compactness
I really notice this with the side-by-side. It took me several page visits earlier today to notice the # members/reviews/ratings bar at the top. I was a bit perplexed that something felt wrong, that an important element was gone. And it's the way it's formatted, all in a row, black. The old style with the table and bit of color took up more room, had more whitespace, yes, but it doesn't feel that way because of how it was used.

I'm not saying this is good or bad, just that it's my theory for why we feel like it's too spread out. The old boxes created the illusion of less empty space. (also, the "show more" buttons reinforce the idea maybe)

I really feel it on the Edit Book page, where we don't have the background color grouping similar sections, and with the dates and languages vertical instead of in a row. I don't notice it as much on the Work page. And, frankly, it's something I've thought about with every other LT2 page and eventually chalked up to the necessities of responsive design.

I honestly find the update more good than bad. Something to get used to, like all changes, but having been a mobile-only user for a few years now,, well... i don't want the catalogue spreadsheet to change too much, i love my long rows of data too much, and the layout itself is fine. But every other change so i don't have to choose between hoping to hit the right link or zooming in, to get accurate clicks while still being able to view everything, that's pretty great.

>224 amanda4242: I was thinking the same about ratings in the reviews, but they kind of are a mini, wordless review, and I wasn't sure if I could think of a better solution.

>219 rocketjk: after poking around more, I agree that i really miss the top similar libraries and legacy libraries on the overview!

>220 ArlieS: re: twice tags sections
The Book Details page doesn't show the tags module, and the Work Overview distinguishes the details about just your copy in a blue box. Is the blue too faint/not distinctive enough for you?

>222 HeathMochaFrost: Like HeathMochaFrost, I used and liked the "Will you like it?" feature.

I'm sorry to discover that it's gone.

Please reconsider restoring it. IIRC, you had to click somewhere to get it to do those calculations, so if it wasn't being used, it wouldn't be causing much load. Or if I'm misremembering, it could be restored the way I misremember, so as to have that effect.

Possible bug: Not sure if this is a bug or feature, but flag colors aren't showing on flagged reviews. You can still select red or blue flags, but it just shows as gray.

>226 keristars: You write: "Is the blue too faint/not distinctive enough for you?"

Nope, I'm just not good at guessing what some UI feature *means*; my default is that it's just someone's idea of aesthetics.

In this case, if blue means "your own info," why is the author but not the title blue, for me on https://www.librarything.com/work/28541742/279924249, and why are all the "on this page" links blue? (They aren't information; they are hot links.)

--
I'm also extremely confused. How many different "works" pages are there, each with different contents, and which one does "customize view" affect?

edit your book takes me to a page with book details highlighted on the left side bar, URL like https://www.librarything.com/work/edit/279924249?referpage=addbooks.php

I can then select "view" rather than edit. Same URL. "book details" still highlighted in red.

I can select "overview" on the left, making it highlighted in red, and get the firehose - all fields from "customize view", with a small section labelled "your book information" at the top. That section is not blue, but has a blue title bar, which includes a customize button. URL like https://www.librarything.com/work/28541742/279924249. I can go from there to "edit book" which takes me back to book details, with edit selected. But if I click "cancel" the result seems to be the same as selecting "view" - doesn't take me back to "Overview".

That I guess accounts for why I thought these were 2 pages not 3 - cancel doesn't go back where I came from, and customize view refers to a field list that isn't on either "book detail" page, even though the "customize view" link is available on that page.

-
While I'm here, "overview" does not mean "all the information you have about this".

There are also a bunch of other links in that left bar, under Work. These mostly lead to sections from Overview, displayed as single pages, sometimes with extras.

>162 AnnieMod: "Under Community which opens https://www.librarything.com/work/28558380/social (here is the social that keeps tripping me up), go all the way to the bottom.

Talk Discussions are when the thread is set as About.
Mentions (the new page) is when it is just a touchstone."

Thanks for that, Annie. I finally see it now. I preferred having the link right up where it was easy to access, but I will muddle through, I'm sure.

>205 conceptDawg: Thanks for posting the comparison image, I have been poking around areas of the wiki/etc to try and find an old image so I can replicate the order on the new page headings as they were previously. And it's just nice to see old vs new like that.

May I ask, is there a significance to Helper Hub on the left now being in faded text? I'm not grasping that, if it's contextual for something.

Small bug: in English (UK) language, under the members heading, 'Legacy Libraries' shows up as untranslated string (yellow), but translation into English (UK) is not accessible like other languages, so I don't think this is something we can fix as standard users. Although the same string is fine on the Community sub-page so could be something wrong on the main page. I've not found any other untranslated strings but Pride and Prejudice from your screenshot @@conceptDawg might be a good one to try it on since I can see you have all the sections in the members bit.

>222 HeathMochaFrost:
>I still haven't poked around the new work pages enough to know if I'll like the changes

We need a feature 'Will I like it?' for updates/changes :-) Calculates the outcome based on our past posts to updates threads.

>220 ArlieS: I'm sorry to tell you this, but none of this is different from the old page. All of the things you mention here are exactly as they were before the update. (except On This Page which was added as a quick way to get to the sections on long pages, which you previously had to scroll down to find)

>229 ArlieS: I am confused with most of your confusion about the new work page since most of what you list hasn't changed in any significant way. To take tags as just one example: as before your personal tags are in the Your Book Information box at the top, whereas a tag cloud aggregating tags from all members is in its own module further below. Aside from position within or outside Your Book Information, they are also still clearly distinct by the fact that yours are just list with the edit button next to it, whereas the tag cloud is a cloud with varying font sizes depending on how often a tag is used.

If it is the On This Page module that's confusing you, it is just a list of shortcut links to modules below. Move it to the bottom if you don't like or use it, move the rest of the modules to the order you're used to and most of the page will functionally be the same as before. Once the page has the modules ordered as you're used to, it should be far less confusing and easier to notice what's actually changed in more than cosmetic way. Reordering the modules was the first thing I did since I couldn't make heads or tails of the default view after being used to my custom order for years.

>221 GraceCollection: That was/is the plan. In fact the original plan was to have authors before the member hover popup. But the new reviews section on the work page made us think that it would be nice to have a little info box popup when you hovered over the member there. So it became a thing. Authors are probably next. But I'm also a little weary about having things pop up on every item on a page. Restraint is needed.

>234 conceptDawg: Restraint??? Why?? Why not have things pop up for every item!!! Maybe >234 conceptDawg: can have a pop-up that gives a summary of the comment 234, and the 'Talk' link at the top of the page can have a pop-up of what talk topics are being discussed! We can put pop-ups inside other pop-ups! Let's go totally overboard!!!

Speaking more seriously about pop-ups, they have been invaluable in navigating this site for me. I'm thrilled that the recommendations on the new work page now have pop-ups, where previously they either didn't have, or they didn't work for me.

>223 ArlieS: Styles Picker
It's in the footer at the very bottom of every page. Click on "Change Style" and you'll be presented with a small picker on the right side that will give you some choices.

Once you make a section it will apply to every LT page that you load after that point except the Add Books page, which happens to be the last remaining original LT1 page on the site.

>224 amanda4242: There is no way to hide ratings within reviews. Sorry.

>237 conceptDawg: Just to be clear, I don't want to hide ratings that are part of reviews. I want to hide ratings in the review section that don't have reviews, and you're saying that's not possible, correct?

>231 Nevov: Faded Helper Hub
Ah. Yes. If the item is faded that means that there is no content there. You can still go to that page but it's a small indicator that there's no point in going there. To be honest, I thought we had disabled that faded feature. So don't be surprised if we "correct" that tomorrow. ;)

Translated strings not translatable
Thanks. We'll have to look into that.

Will I like it?
That feature is likely coming back. It just had some technical debt that we need to figure out before releasing it again.

>235 GraceCollection: Let's go totally overboard!!!
You'll be sorry you asked for that....

I must admit that when I logged in today, and saw the new work page that I had to learn to use all over again, and had trouble finding things that I spent hours putting in, I began to wonder: if I deleted my account, would all the work I contributed also disappear - I hope.

I've calmed down not.

>240 conceptDawg: Well, someone might be sorry I asked for that... I'm not certain I'll be that person...
I, for one, welcome our pop-up overlords.

On traditional Chinese site, the (primary, secondary, original) language lists shows the site language "traditional Chinese" which is not support by the site IIRC.
It appears to function the same as selecting "Chinese".


The same issue is also on the simplified Chinese site.

>68 timspalding: kmcmahon: One thing I'll greatly miss, and maybe I'm the only person who does this, is that I liked seeing which of my favourite members/top 100 similar members had the same book as me. That was a neat little bit of info. Is there a way to still show that on the page?

We did indeed take this away. I could see putting it back—only for the Members section, not the reviews section. What do other peope think?

That that was the first thing I noticed and searched for. It'd be nice to have it back.

>198 SandraArdnas: Also, thumbs up for the cloud/text view of tags now. The text view sorts them by number

Thanks. I forgot we added that.

>210 GraceCollection: However, for some books, I am not seeing that information, or any way to add it, neither on the new work page nor in the new edit book page. Is this information only on select books, and where is it coming from? (Bowker? Publisher? Some library somewhere?)

Yes, we don't currently have any way to edit in new ones. I'm wary of that, since BISACs are almost by definition added by publishers. We are indeed getting the data from Bowker, who gets it from the publisher.

>221 GraceCollection: An author pop-up is indeed being considered

>241 PuddinTame: I've calmed down not.

Now?

>244 prosfilaes:

I believe we've all agreed to put the Top 100 members back, but I'll have to check with the team in the morning. But we're only going to do in the "Members" section. For a time we had the Reviews section fronting those people, and that just didnt' feel right.

>70 hoolyaa: Me too.

The reworked Editions page is fantastic.
The TamperMonkey add-in to display a sortable grid has finally been made redundant.

>191 Cathery: I agree, the Delete Book button is way too close to the Save button for comfort. I’d prefer Delete be on the right hand side, as far away from Save as possible.

I have issues with hand-eye coordination, so despite trying to be careful, it’s inevitable that I’ll tap Delete instead of Save.

Edit to add: I really like the updates otherwise, everything looks so nice and the customization options are fantastic. The buttons to change the view on the Edit Your Book page are brilliant, no more scrolling down to reach the Reading Dates section.

Also great to be able to enter Links for a work.

A few brief thoughts:

I liked "Will you like it?" and wished you'd develop it further. I wish I'd seen the thread from early last year when it was current.

I also liked the list of connections and similar libraries that had a work.

The "Your Book Information" box is too big. The best fix would perhaps be showing only one line of my review? I can hide the review entirely, of course, but I dunno if I want to. Oh, and it bugs me it says things like "Media: Ebook". Ebook is a medium, not several!

I dunno if this is caused by the redesign, but an apparent bug: when I look at book pages (but not work pages), additional main authors are not shown at the top of the page.

On mobile, the cover image is too big. A lot of my covers are really boring! The title+author should be at the top, they uniquely identify books in a way covers do not necessarily do (quite a few of mine don't show the book's title).

Oh, and while I don't exactly disbelieve conceptdog about LT2 hewing closer to current Internet standards, I do note that LT is the only page I routinely view at 90% size on the laptops. If the text isn't bigger, it sure feels bigger than on most sites I use.

Impressive! I like it! Thank you!

There is no longer a way to flag a cover as being incorrect for a work.
Will this be part of the imminent new project on covers in general?

It would also be very useful to be able to identify which specific edition(s) a cover is being displayed for, so that incorrectly combined editions can easily be identified for separation.

It would be marvellous if tag translations are used on all LT2 pages. They are not on the new Work page, on the Series page, on my tag mirror page, on the Groups Home page, and several more pages (I haven't made a list).

>254 kleh: You click the magnifying glass at the bottom of a cover on the covers page to get to the cover details pop up, which include a flag this cover link at the bottom just like it did before.

Covers question. I used to be able to click on the cover image and it would show me the cover in a popup and the source of that image. That appears to no longer be present. I also used to be able to save the cover image from that view, and again, that's now missing. Or if it is there, I can't find how to get to it.

Okay, I've now had a look on my work desktop and the cover view of LT recommendations looks pretty insane there too. On my (admittedly very large) screen I now have 22 covers (2 rows, 11 in each one) and that section takes up nearly the entire screen. I can see the very top of the "Member recommendations" (title and author) but nothing else fits. I really think you should cut down the size of those LT rec covers and make it a single row. I have no issue with there being many covers in the row - it's to be expected with a large screen.

Otherwise, am I the only one reacting to the placement of "Original language" in the CK section? I have no memory of where it was located before but having it almost at the very bottom, squeezed in between Blurbers and Canonical DDC/MDS feel weird. I woud put it higher up, just below original publication date (before Characters).

>251 AndreasJ: Oh, and it bugs me it says things like "Media: Ebook". Ebook is a medium, not several!

Sure, but you can have the book in several different media, and then the grammar makes sense. This also makes it better connected to the Media in the Statistics sections, where it lists all the media the book has been catalogued in on LT.

Oh, and I miss the magnifying glass in the corner of the cover image (the one in the top left corner). It was really helpful when I wanted to copy the image address to use in a Talk thread. Now it seems like I need to go into the Covers page and click on the image there to get to that.
And there seems to be a bug on that page. On the covers page of this book: https://www.librarything.com/work/38632/covers/173719587 it says there are 102 member-uploaded covers, but I only see 30 and there is no "view more" button - and the cover I've uploaded and am using isn't visible. Under the Amazon covers, there is a "view more" button for Amazon ASIN covers.

>256 Aquila: Thank you. The magnifying glass image was so tiny, and on a dark background, that I hadn't spotted it.

I would like tobe able to see ratings up with other useful matter, (preferably in a small box on the side) and be able to close up all this new stuff that I do not want to see. I certainly do not want to have to scroll past things I don't want to get to the bit I use constantly.

>259 PawsforThought:

But if I do look at a work that I have in several different media it still only shows the medium for the particular book I'm looking at (and it does not appear to be possible to set multiple media for a single book - I guess this could be a RSI because it might make sense for e.g. paper books that come with a CD; I've got a textbook or two like that).

I'm not sure how it makes anything better connected to the Statistics pages.

Another thing: is there a good reason LT recs and member recs are formatted so differently?

Just here to let you know how much I dislike this pseudo-modern and "mobile first" re-design of the "work" page. It's almost as bad as GR's "new book page". It wastes screen estate due to all those sections; the previous design was simple, easy, and efficient. Now it's fluffy and I have to click to switch areas like "Minimal", "Details", etc. whereas before I simply scrolled down.

Also, the "Will you like it?" feature may not be perfect but I used it every single time. Now I hear "it was discussed" and found a thread that's a year old - why didn't you put something next to the feature about its planned deprecation?! I'm not here for discussions about the site but for *using* it but I would have *loved* to chime in on this particular change. I just never got the chance. :-(
(Was it mentioned on the newsletter? I read that.)

Really, really unhappy about all of this. How about a "classic design" switch or something like that? Yes, by all means, make it unsupported, freeze its features for all time but all I've wanted from LibraryThing since 2008 is simplicity and efficiency and until this change, I got it. :-(

>265 philantrop: I agree with pretty much everything. The new style is clumsy and cluttered and restless and it's really hard to find anything.

>258 PawsforThought:
I noted too for original language. And it will be a good thing

Ex :
Un conte de noël (traduction française)
https://www.librarything.com/work/1549/book/272940906

A Christmas Carol (Original anglais-UK)
https://www.librarything.com/work/1549/work/272940906

>262 MarthaJeanne: It took me a bit because they look different, but i think ratings are in the same places in the very top and on the side that they used to be.

They're using the same bar graph style as the Statistics pages now, on the right. And at the top the stars are black instead of yellow.

>252 AndreasJ: this whole "mobile-friendly" thing is such a headache! The font is comfortable on my tiny screen. :( i totally understand the gripe about it on regular screens, though - it's one i used to always have. The style choices do help, though. I've adooted the Lorax just to get smaller padding to make more use of what screen i do have.

(edited to clarify: i only switched to The Lorax halfway through the day, and only because I'm a PowerUser who likes to do Helper things, which is trickier on a small screen. The standard size was perfectly fine until i was reminded that i could change it.)

Bug ?
I can't translate some parts or words (not in the list or no incrementated)

https://www.librarything.com/work/41564/t/Voyage-au-centre-de-la-terre-%5Btexte-...

Example :
Your Friends // (Vos amis)
Your Interesting Libraries // (Vos bibliothèques d'intérêt)
Legacy Libraries // (Bibliohèque patrimoniale)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On the same subject (Translation), some parts as resume (book / author) remains in english. Is it to consider an automatic translation) /// cf google

>263 AndreasJ: Each individual work can of course only be in one medium, but you can catalogue several different copies with different media. I'm assuming that's it.

>270 PawsforThought:

But as I was saying, the "Your Book Information" box only shows info for one book, even if I have multiple copies in different media of that work (each book gets its own box).

>269 JMK2020: Indeed, some strings show up in yellow but are not to be found on the page with all untranslated strings.

>258 PawsforThought: "Otherwise, am I the only one reacting to the placement of "Original language" in the CK section? I have no memory of where it was located before but having it almost at the very bottom, squeezed in between Blurbers and Canonical DDC/MDS feel weird. I woud put it higher up, just below original publication date (before Characters)."

"Original language" is where it was before the change. But I agree, it would be better associated with "Original publication date", and within shouting distance of "Original title".

Sorting Editions by title is useful, I had been wondering about investigating TamperMonkey to add that.
Looking at them however, column widths don't seem to adjust as I'd expect when removing one. Title stays almost the same width after removing Author.

When choosing covers the magnifying glass symbol is easily missed. And the colour blocking on the bottom of the image permanently obscures a significant portion of the image. Enough to have blocked text useful for differentiation of editions.
I would prefer that hover on a cover image reverted to the "Information" and "Change Cover" options.
I am undecided on the use of those colours to differentiate quality, especially when it seems more an indication of size.

Work Relationships - don't display the "(indirect)" as consistently as I remember. (https://www.librarything.com/work/3618950 shows individual seasons, and then the individual discs for the third season, but not the "indirect" notation)
Editing those relationships seems easier though, that's good.

on Series pages I'm seeing duplicate icons for ownership. noted only because it seems to have happened since this update.

ETA: Oh, and how long are other's book titles? Height sufficient for three lines of text seems excessive when editing. (I nearly got to line two with one thing today.)

I'm generally happy with the changes even though I'm still learning to find my way around the new layout. The one thing that annoyed me, though, is that a number of book haiku I composed and posted on the relevant works pages have been attributed to other members, and there's no way to change the author name; it's impossible to tell how many are affected. I noticed a few on the haiku page, including one where I was erroneously attributed as the author, but there are other works I picked at random where this is the case too. I'm someone who regularly contributes book haiku and I take some pride in them; quite a few hours have gone into silently counting syllables for the several hundreds I've posted since joining the site.

It would be great if this could be fixed, as I'm certain I won't be the only one who's affected by this.

Well, I've gone exploring and just popping back to ask: I assume you're still working on the Series pages? I notice that:

a) I have two green ticks (or blue books, or whatever) for whichever books I have in a series rather than just one;

b) the word 'Order' appears in bold on every line, in front of the number (or date used or whatever). The toggle for 'Publication order' seems to have disappeared.

PS: and the link from the home page to this Talk page just goes back to the home page.

>255 anglemark: "It would be marvellous if tag translations are used on all LT2 pages. They are not on the new Work page ..."

I think this is a bug, along with at least one other language aspect of the new page (see >184 Cynfelyn:, which still don't work).

For example, the English (UK) site displays tags for The hobbit as you would expect: "adventure / Bilbo Baggins / British / British literature / children's ..." Change the language 'site' via the module in the top right-hand corner of the screen to German, Welsh or Russian, to pick just three, and you get French tags: "Aventure / Bilbo le Hobbit / Bilbon Sacquet / Britannique / Classique ..."

>277 Cynfelyn: I hadn't noticed that yet. Très chic! However, the tag translation bug has been with us for at least a year, I've reported it before.

Overall I like the new work page, but the covers in Recommendations are huge. Please make them smaller (or only one row of covers).

Actually, since the whole Recommendations section is about *other* works and not the one I am currently browsing, I would move it at the bottom of the page.

Speaking of LT recs, I get four rows of them on the phone (vs two on this laptop), which feels decidedly excessive if they're to be this big.

Maybe I'm old school but I see a decline in usability and a confusing layout. Rating is now way above the page from review, which I would submit typically go together. Tags are misplaced, too - below the review? Huh? Edit has disappeared from the menu on the left hand side entirely to be replace by a button at the bottom of the page ...

One bug (can't tell if it's been reported): if I change any author's role (e.g. from none to Editor), I get the "Please enter a role for this person" pop-up that normally only appears when I select "Other...". If I hit Ok or Cancel, it still captures my change.

One bug (or feature request): did the site used to let you click on the cover image to see an expanded view? I recall that but am not sure.

Not sure if it's a bug: if I own a work, the header only lists the main author. If I don't own the work, the header lists any co-authors. I think the latter is preferrable - give the co-authors their glory! :)

Overall I'm liking the changes, especially the mobile-friendliness. It will take some getting used to, but the customization features are well done.

>281 dhaxton: There is a button below the fold that allows you to organize the page to how you want to see it. Look for Customize View on the right column as you scroll down.

I have just entered this book England: a natural history by John Lewis-Stempel. The author information is for someone called Jon E. Lewis, a rather poor search fit. There is an edit button, which opens to something quite irrelevant, about 'other authors'.

I'm sorry if this sort of problem (two problems?) is reported above, but there's too much of it for me to scan.

>284 affle: If you scroll down the author page, there's a note that Jon E. Lewis is a pseudonym for Lewis-Stempel. The two names have been merged into a single author. Presumably, Jon E. Lewis is (or was ?) the most commonly used, thus the author page.

An oddity I noted: under "Statistics" for The Almoravid and Almohad Empires the it says "Media: Paper, Audiobook" - if this is supposed to be a list of the formats the book has been catalogued as something is wrong as my copy is catalogued as an "Ebook".

>285 keristars:
Thank you very much. I know he is a man who writes far too many books, but I have just a handful of his relatively serious books about natural history, and was unprepared for his potted biography to make no mention of that aspect of his work, only his pseudonymous stuff.

1. Is there any reason to have “Author Information” in two separate places on the Work page?

2. There used to be a “?” link in the “Published review” field (now “Media reviews*) that explained what was considered a published review and what wasn’t (for instance, no Amazon user reviews, no personal blog reviews). It’s now gone, which sucks because it was very helpful when trying to explain to someone why the review they posted was deleted.

* Why the change?

I will probably have more comments at a later point, but for the next couple of weeks I’ll have to be using my iPad, which I don’t generally do. When I am home and back at my desktop, I’ll know better what I think about this. And I’m sure there will be more changes in that time.

>287 affle: My curiosity got the better of me and i tried to find a list of the works with author displayed. How odd that I had to go into combine/separate to get that information! I'm not sure i ever noticed that before, when working with author pages recently.

Anyway, Lewis-Stempel writes SF as Jon E. Lewis, and someone has catalogued just about every short story individually, and there are a lot. That's why the pseudonym is prevailing.

(Exasperated love for our little idiosyncracies here. I'm glad that i can be distracted for ages or too ill to participate much, and come back to LT and Talk and the same people are upset with the site changes, or doing some important-to-them cataloguing that causes confusion for other users. Never change! ♡)

>262 MarthaJeanne:

Ratings are in the very top box in the center, along with copies, review count, and awards.

>249 DandelionCottage: I agree, the Delete Book button is way too close to the Save button for comfort.

To discuss with team.

>255 anglemark: It would be marvellous if tag translations are used on all LT2 pages

Huh. Okay. I saw the code and thought it was working. That's on me.

>256 Aquila: >254 kleh: >257 Helenliz: We need to bring back the magnifying glass on the main image. Or something similar. This got lost in the shuffle.

>258 PawsforThought: I really think you should cut down the size of those LT rec covers and make it a single row.

We are indeed playing it up more than before. Perhaps we can make it one row if your screen is very wide, because then you're going fairly deep on it. To discuss with team.

>264 AndreasJ: Another thing: is there a good reason LT recs and member recs are formatted so differently?

Yes. Member recs have recommender(s) and explanations, which LT recs do not. So the format is there to provide space for text, not just an image.

>265 philantrop: Just here to let you know how much I dislike this pseudo-modern and "mobile first" re-design of the "work" page

Can you describe what you're using LT on—mobile or web, small monitor or large, etc.?

>270 PawsforThought: Media I'm persnickety, but I draw the line at this. "Media" is used in such contexts as a general term for format, ignoring the fact it's a Latin plural. "Medium" would suggest that the choices are air or water.

>274 Avron:, tangent off

The main book title at the top of the page does not, I believe, get smaller with very long titles. It used to. To discuss with team.

>275 passion4reading: that a number of book haiku I composed and posted on the relevant works pages have been attributed to other members, and there's no way to change the author name

Yes. The old system was within Common Knowledge, which, being about facts, was open to all. Our new system could do better. To discuss with team.

>276 humouress: Well, I've gone exploring and just popping back to ask: I assume you're still working on the Series pages? I notice that:

Nope. Put it elsewhere—a new topic, anything. This topic takes serious engagement for us and it's nearly 300 comments long. We're drowning. Take other issues elsewhere! :)

>279 Moloch: Actually, since the whole Recommendations section is about *other* works and not the one I am currently browsing, I would move it at the bottom of the page.

Recommendations are one of the core strengths of LibraryThing. They are also one of the most-interacted-with elements. We made the covers larger because cover size across the internet has increased, and the new size is much more typical.

@Conceptdawg can perhaps speak to this better than I can, but the size of the text has increased for the same reason. The core driver of things getting larger online is that people have much better, larger, higher-resolution screens now than they had in 2005 or 2010. So we make windows bigger, sit farther from them, etc. I'm a big fan of data density, but LibraryThing is not going to design for the screens of twenty years ago.

>280 AndreasJ: Speaking of LT recs, I get four rows of them on the phone (vs two on this laptop), which feels decidedly excessive if they're to be this big.

Fair. I need to look at some sizes. To discuss with team.

>281 dhaxton: Maybe I'm old school but I see a decline in usability and a confusing layout. Rating is now way above the page from review, which I would submit typically go together.

I don't understand your point about ratings. The ratings are in the top bar, as before. Far from separating reviews and ratings, we've actually moved ratings into the review element.

Tags are misplaced, too - below the review? Huh?

I'm confused—this isnt' true. The order is Tags, Recommendations, Reviews. It used to be Members, Tags, Recommendations + Member Recommendations, Lists, Will you Like it, Conversations, Reviews.

Can you back up and explain what you're saying?

Edit has disappeared from the menu on the left hand side entirely to be replace by a button at the bottom of the page ...

Hmm. You must have a very small monitor. It's on the (better) "Your Book Information" box—the edit next to the content you're editing.

However, to discuss with team. Maybe too many people are used to the edit there?

>286 AndreasJ: An oddity I noted: under "Statistics" for The Almoravid and Almohad Empires the it says "Media: Paper, Audiobook" - if this is supposed to be a list of the formats the book has been catalogued as something is wrong as my copy is catalogued as an "Ebook".

Thanks. It's cached, so that may be the problem.

To do: Re-run it manually and see if his problem goes away.

>288 lilithcat: Why the change?

To discuss with team.

There used to be a “?” link in the “Published review” field (now “Media reviews*) that explained what was considered a published review and what wasn’t (for instance, no Amazon user reviews, no personal blog reviews). It’s now gone, which sucks because it was very helpful when trying to explain to someone why the review they posted was deleted.

Yes. Good point. To discuss with team.

Is the thumbs up animation on reviews new?

I just had a reason to look at reviews and was pleased that the most helpful for me were at the top. I thumbed them and got a cute little animation.

I also really like the "read more" cutoff.

Overall, very pleased with how the member reviews module behaves now. It's a nice improvement!

One very small cosmetic comment:

I think probably including the "Group" from the Series page along with the number the book is in the series is unnecessary, context-less information on the Work page. Like, at the top of this page: https://www.librarything.com/work/148366/t/Legion-of-Super-Heroes-Archives-Volum... I don't think we gain anything from including "Archive Editions" in the parenthetical "Legion of Super-Heroes: Adventure Comics (Archive Editions — 247, 267, 282, 290, 293, 300-305)"; I think that really only makes sense if you're looking at the actual Series page.

>290 timspalding:

Why the change?

To discuss with team.


Just curious about the reasoning.

Also, the Helpers Log still says “published reviews”. Whichever way you decide to go on this, the two should be consistent.

>292 Stevil2001: That is a clunky example, but it's not new, I don't think.

I find it pretty useful to see the series number up there, especially since I'm on a small screen and can't have a window open off to the side with the series listing.

>135 paradoxosalpha: If your library isn't public (I just looked, and indeed it isn't) then nobody sees your reviews or your tags, together or apart.

Oh, huh, that's not what I expected, either! I expected reviews to be public, because otherwise, what's the point? It would be great if it were possible to make more specific choices about what is and is not shared. I would like for people to be able to see my reviews, but not my whole library. (Indeed, this is how reviews normally work just about everywhere. If I write a review on Amazon, no one gets a link to my whole purchase history.)

Number of copies and Number of Volumes used to occupy the same row. Now they are two separate rows. I'm okay with that.
BUT
When I look at the Edit Book page, Number of Volumes has a short input box, while the Number of Copies has an input box that spans the page.

Do you expect to have that many copies in that box or does that create space for another potential update?

On my screen, on the editions page, the "author" column is now very wide, and the title column is all squished together on the left side. On this particular example, in one case, the title is taking up seven lines. Since the title contains way more relevant information in most cases (the author is usually not that variable), this makes it really tough to scan for things that don't belong.

When I change the size of my window, it looks like what is happening is that the columns are all fixed in width except for the author column, which expands and contracts to suit the size of the window.

(The same example as discussed above, for reference: https://www.librarything.com/work/13958805/editions )

Thanks, I guess... I hate it. Where's other authors - just a for instance. (I'll still keep using LT for my own things, but this way I'm pretty much done with providing any common knowledge)

>184 Cynfelyn: The clickable list of languages with CK content...is not responding to clicking This has been fixed.

>295 AranelST:

I expected reviews to be public, because otherwise, what's the point?

Many people write reviews for themselves, because they want to get their thoughts down, because it helps them remember their reading, etc.

And, here, on LibraryThing, your privacy is respected. So it is assumed, reasonably, that if you want your library to be private, LT should not carve out exceptions to that.

But perhaps you could request the ability to have your reviews, but not your library, visible, as an option. There is a group for that: Recommend Site Improvements: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/559/Recommend-Site-Improvements

Is the new page only showing primary author at the top, not even other main authors? Is that as intended?

>301 JBD1:

Apparently, it’s intended. But it’s wrong, particularly as there isn’t even an indication that there are other authors.

The sort character in the Manual Adding of books is messed up - when switched to manual, it does show the letters but they are not clickable (Firefox on Windows).

This is now fixed :) https://www.librarything.com/topic/368033#8746090

>302 lilithcat: Yeah, that one doesn't make sense to me.

Also is there no way anymore to get to the "work-only" work page?

>301 JBD1:, >302 lilithcat:

Weirdly, the other main authors are shown on the work page, just not on the book page. But yes, they really need to be put back at the top of the book page.

>304 JBD1:

Click "Work" under Quick Facts.

>304 JBD1: There is, up right corner among Quick Facts

>305 AndreasJ: Ah, thanks!

And yes, I agree, other main authors (at minimum; I'd prefer all main and secondary tbh) should be back on the top of book pages as well.

>306 SandraArdnas: Thanks!

>70 hoolyaa: I like this feature.

>301 JBD1: +1 from me to reinstate author listing at the top as it used to be. Currently, there is no way to see 'other authors' one has entered on the main work page. It isn't shown at the top, it isn't among the options to include in Your Book Info box. Only opening Book Details shows whether or not there are any

>232 conceptDawg: I'm not entirely surprised that I'm re-noticing things I didn't want or need, and had learned to ignore. And of course "On this page" brought the tags thing very much to my attention. Given that there are links in the left side bar to individual sub pages of overview, why have "on this page at all"? Unless of course there's a different set of things in the side bar and in the "on this page" section? (Yes, I know "on this page" links to the sub page *within* the firehose page, and some of what I call sub-pages have a few extra bits. Still, the two groups of links are basically mutually redundant.)

Going along with the authors issues...

There seems to be a glitch where if you edit the authors and click "recalculate," it will add another iteration every time you click on it.

Also, there does not seem to be a way to add a primary author anymore if there isn't one (particularly important on much smaller works, IMO).

I hope the slowness of load things like changing collections is not related to the new work pages.

>233 SandraArdnas: At least part of my problem is with the way to refer to a page.

It would be nice if the page that developers referred to as "foo bar baz" had a title at the top with "Foo Bar Baz" in bold, had hyper links to it labelled "foo bar baz", set the Title(?) field of the web page to "LibraryThing: Foo Bar Baz", and even had a URL like "https://www.librarything.com/.../foobarbazz.html".

This *was* customary back in the dark ages of web development, but has long ago been superseded just about everywhere.

Net result: when a developer refers to the "foo bar baz" page, I don't know if it's the one with "foo" as a hyperlink, or the one with "baz" in the title, or .... and that's if I'm lucky; sometimes none of the tokens in the developer name are used anywhere at all.

Note that this is absolutely not specific to LibraryThing. It was a common problem when I worked at Apple, only somewhat alleviated by me having access to some source code and development documents. I took to writing bug reports with phrases like "the yellow button in the upper left corner of each window" - sure, it had a common name, no longer available to the user even as a tool tip, but I preferred to write bug reports in terms of what the user could easily see and know. (It does not help at all that the function provided by that specific button at one point had *different* names in Windows, Mac, and X-windows ;-( The person reading my bug report might have internalized different names from those standard at Apple.)

>239 conceptDawg: I'm glad to read that "will I like it" is probably coming back.

>256 Aquila: WTF? The magnifying glass normally means _search_, not _give me details_, let alone _give me additional UI options_. People won't think to try this.

>300 lilithcat: You write: "Many people write reviews for themselves, because they want to get their thoughts down, because it helps them remember their reading, etc."

For what it's worth, I use the private comments field for that purpose. I presume it can't handle as much length as the review field, but it's long enough for my purposes - and for some of the less useful reviews I see posted.

>51 Bookmarque: Google Books is missing, Also notice that ThriftBooks isn't there

If you click "More" on the section on the right side, you'll go to a page that lists more, and you can search on that page for Google and Thrift, both of which came up for me when I searched.

>316 ArlieS: Seeing as the purpose of a magnifying glass is to make objects appear larger, I think it’s quite natural to have a magnifying glass as a symbol for “please make this image larger”.

>91 DalkeithLibrary: Is there an option to save at the top of the page?

The save button is at the bottom of the page, but it should be sticky to the bottom of your screen so you don't have to scroll all the way to the bottom to get to it.

Using 'Author Information' / 'Edit' / 'Add', to add an author. Having entered a name and clicked search, you can click into the 'Role' box to get the same drop-down menu as in LT1. So far so good.

But having clicked on, say, 'Contributor', you get a black pop-up window asking 'Please enter a role for this person' with a blank field. The best thing to do with this pop-up is click 'Cancel'.

What is the point of this pop-up, which doesn't seem to add anything to the process except a road-block?

>320 PawsforThought: You expect the net.icon.language to make sense? In a world where a vertical stack of 3 dots is called a "hamburger"* - and means "menu"?

The icon that looks vaguely like a magnifying glass got claimed for search long ago.

* OK, called "hamburger menu", I let my appreciation of a good phrase run away with me.

All my messages have disappeared. ??? My home page has been total gobbledegook for almost a month now. It corrected a few weeks ago for about an hour, then returned to unreadable/unusable. ??? Help, please.

>300 lilithcat: But perhaps you could request the ability to have your reviews, but not your library, visible, as an option.

Thanks, I just did that!

>302 lilithcat: Apparently, it’s intended. But it’s wrong, particularly as there isn’t even an indication that there are other authors.

Honestly the whole "primary author" thing is awkward. Many books don't have a single primary author, and not being able to credit co-authors is an issue in some fields where, for example, you might have more women (or just more new writers in general) being co-authors. This may be unavoidable from a coding point of view, but at least having all the actual primary authors visible at the top of the page helps to mitigate the issue.

>256 Aquila: You click the magnifying glass at the bottom of a cover on the covers page to get to the cover details pop up, which include a flag this cover link at the bottom just like it did before.

The issue that I have with the magnifying glass is that it is part of a rather large bar which hides the bottom of the cover. Some covers are different only at the bottom, so this is hiding necessary information. I now have to click the magnifying glass to bring up the full-size image every time, to make sure I'm not getting something I don't want.

>323 ArlieS: A hamburger menu has three lines one above the other, three dots is a kebab menu.

>293 lilithcat: Just curious about the reasoning

Honestly I think it was the earlier name. It's the internal name for sure. Still haven't discussed, but will, and will change, I think.

>301 JBD1: Is the new page only showing primary author at the top, not even other main authors? Is that as intended?

No, bug. It certainly SOMETIMES shows the other authors, but something is clearly not quite right. Will fix.

>302 lilithcat:

No, it's not intended. There should be no change from before.

I can't get over how nice it is to go to a work page and not have to zoom-scroll my way around anymore.

I've been using LT on mobile *only* since 2021, and each new LT2 section has truly been so nice for me. I keep trying to get people to visit LT when they're talking about GR or Storygraph, as the data-nerd option, but I know the old work page was really putting people off who saw me say "online book tracking for spreadsheet warriors" and thought i was giving them a unicorn.

I've had a few little things that I thought could use adjusting, and sympathy for everyone who hates change, because I do, too, and after 18 years I will have to get use to some of the new locations/names (and will I ever remember about the secondary menu that appears on narrow windows?) - but truly, honestly, this update is a huge plus for me as a mobile-only user and for appealing to others who primarily use their phones.

Thanks :)

We heard members' feelings about the Recommendations section having too many, too-large covers. Chris (@conceptdawg) is working on a revision that should make you happier.

>323 ArlieS: I know it’s used for search, I never said it isn’t. I just pointed out that LT using a magnifying glass to indicate that you can see a larger version of an image is not as mad as you’re saying it is.

>330 timspalding: Thank you! Like I suspect a lot of LT users, I put more trust into the members’ recommendations that the algorithm’s recommendations, and I’m not a fan of massive images popping up right in my face. So having the cover images in the recommendations be a bit more toned down would be great.

>328 timspalding: Thanks!

>294 keristars: I don't mind the series number (and I agree it's useful); it's the inclusion of the Series "Group" heading "Archive Editions" along with the number that seems like too much.

>319 knerd.knitter: Ok. Then the idea that Show All actually shows all is not correct. That's where I stumbled. I took it as read. Thanks for the clarification.

1. I've made this appeal many times before to no avail and I'm making it again and I'm not stopping. Please make LT remember the user preference to always show titles instead of covers. The new work page is otherwise fine but the Recommendations section now shows covers by default.

2. The top of the new work page shows a summary of how many people have catalogued the work in the form (as shown on a work page I opened at random) "22 Members (1 Connection)". The "22 Members" and "1 Connection" have separate links. When I click on the "(1 Connection)" text, nothing happens. It's not apparent what "Connection" even means.

>110 norabelle414: recommendations section useless for books in long series

I have made a change that should help the Recommendations on that page be less useless!

>333 Stevil2001: ah ! i see what you mean now. I'm not sure how i feel about it, but that really is a clunky example to highlight the question.

>298 Nicole_VanK:
However, it is much clearer, organized with always the same mines of information of some wells of science.
I was quite delighted at first glance even if I often remain skeptical if it is only a question of marketing (Marketing.... I know (among other things) to the point of selling wind or air... but that is for the pittance)
...
... I have nothing against change if it is constructive and brings a great added value
...
I am quite conservative (in the sense of heritage) After 48 hours of practicing the site, I found my bearings.
Maybe take a little time.
As a contributor, it would be a shame if you did not find even more satisfaction... And then few sites if not none, private, commercial, Gov, Academic offer as much qualitative richness when the CK are reliable
....
Come on, I am your first supporter ;-)

>249 DandelionCottage: the Delete Book button is way too close to the Save button for comfort

Can you tell me where you're seeing them close together? Because on the Book Details page => Edit view, they are on opposite sides of the screen.

>307 JBD1:
If there are 2681 translators, 1753 illustrators, 258 abbreviators and 7853 editors, that's going to be a lot
;-)

>330 timspalding:
A site for readers with books, it's first the words and then the image.
....
There is a people magazine in France that had this advertising slogan "The weight of words, the shock of photos" (Paris Match) Le poids des mots, le choc des images"
The image is more even if expressive and demonstrative
So, small size for covers (enlargeable according to)

Rire audible

>274 Avron: Work Relationships - don't display the "(indirect)" as consistently as I remember

I never even knew that was a thing! Getting it added back in.

>340 JMK2020: Well, on main work pages just primary and main at the top makes sense (and on book pages, whatever you've entered on your own book) ... which is I think how it was?

>330 timspalding: Thank you. I always want more information density, which is to say, more WORDS and fewer pictures! Making the font huge and covering everything in pictures and graphics means I can see less information at a time. I hate how everything is so huge and preschool-like these days.

So thanks for changing this!

>322 Cynfelyn: you get a black pop-up window asking 'Please enter a role for this person' with a blank field

That is a bug. I am fixing it.

>282 feldamundo: Is this what you were talking about as well? I couldn't find any other role field that was doing this.

>298 Nicole_VanK: Where's other authors

Other authors are now displayed inside the "Author Information" section and the button for adding more is there.

>344 reconditereader:
It really makes a difference for those of us who are mobile-only, though. or with very high resolutions on huge screens.

I haven't been able to see how bad(?) the covers are on desktop, but they're very nice on mobile, not too many or too few, a good size. :)

Hopefully the Style option helps for text size, at least.

>347 keristars: The recommendations covers on mobiles are decidedly smaller now than they were before (I’m guessing a change has been pushed through).

I do still think there are too many. On mobile, there are three covers per row with four rows in total. Two rows take up a full screen so that two full screens of cover images. Too much.
On iPad, there are two rows with five in each, the two rows taking up the whole screen. Again, too much.

I like images, I really do, and I’m more likely to recognise whether I have a book or not by it’s cover than it’s title, but as others have said - this is a book site so focus shouldn’t be on huge pictures.

> 209 Can you describe what you're using LT on—mobile or web, small monitor or large, etc.?

Not @philanthrop but the thing that feels "mobile-first" to me about the new Work page design is the increase in vertical space everything takes up. E.g.:

• The headers are almost 60% bigger by default (27px previously, 43px in Verdana Standard) and the customization options don't really affect that (Verdana Small = 38px, Lorax = 41px(!!)). There are also more of them (moving Description under its own header doubled the amount of vertical space the section takes up on ConceptDawg's example).
  
• The centered "capsule" links at the bottoms of sections ("All Members >", "More Tags >") add a minimum of 45px per section (in Lorax), and create huge areas of whitespace on either side. Some of these have been moved there from the headers and others are in addition to existing links in the headers. Putting them all in the headers would mean less scrolling.
  
• In ConceptDawg's comparison above, the Tags section more than doubles in height from 122px to 313px to show the same 30 tags. Even ignoring the space taken up by the capsule link that's more than double the height for the same information.
  

Also while the Style settings can shrink the type, they don't restore the data that the new design abbreviates to accommodate the larger default size (e.g. seven vs ten friends in ConceptDawg's Members section, etc.).

None of this is catastrophic but it does reduce the amount of information onscreen which inevitably makes the page harder to use.

>205 conceptDawg: My problem isn't with this portion of the layout but with the Book Details page. I wish that I could add a pic of the screen capture but this is just Too Much wasted space and I completely loathe this new layout.

>349 LazloNibble: Yes, this! The headers are huge and intrusive.

"Also while the Style settings can shrink the type, they don't restore the data that the new design abbreviates"
yes.

>327 Aquila: I've seen the same term used for both. But your version is funnier.

Just so this isn't all negative: one piece of the redesign that I hope to see more of is the way "your other editions" deals dynamically with changes in the window size (wrapping to two lines when needed, etc.). It doesn't necessarily make sense for that specific piece of information, since most of the time you'll only have one or two additional editions if any, and the fixed width means lots of unused space to the right for those works, but if I could take sections that are virtually always going to be 80-90% horizontal whitespace (Author Information, Series, even Classifications and Statistics) and display them side-by-side in 2-up or 3-up configurations, it'd make me a lot happier with the redesign.

I am surprised no has mentioned the repetition of having two Author Information sections, especially as one is merely a subset of the other.

It is nice to see that at least the Author Information does a reasonable job of acknowledging joint authorship see e.g. https://www.librarything.com/work/24634518/t/Old-Thiess-a-Livonian-Werewolf-A-Cl... (the system can't find a touchstone for this fyi)

It would be nicer still if this also happened on other parts of page. (I'm aware there are limitations built into the system around this but it still bugs me in cases, like this, where it's flat out wrong to credit it to a single author: it's a 'comparative perspective' it can't have one author).

>348 PawsforThought: For some reason, I thought I was only getting 2 rows of 4 covers, but I've looked just now and it's 4 x 4. It's still feels like a comfortable amount to me, not an excessive amount of scrolling to hide the section or get to the next one. But I know that's hugely subjective. :)

But Recommendations are one of the places where I think covers are especially important. So the current size and number feels good to me. I like the medium thumbnail with title below, in particular.

Chris has not yet pushed the new recommendations design.

>353 LazloNibble: That's what it is! On the right hand side of quite a few of the sections, there is just a lot of empty space and it will never be filled. For the Your Book Infomration section, all of my info is aligned to the left. Now for others who maybe use more information, that might not be the case in that particular section.

That being said, I've grown less annoyed since yesterday. The ability to see which other members have your book has been added back in, so thank you for that! Additionally, the tips to change the style to Lorax and to rearrange the modules has made things look a bit better on my side on my desktop. I'm gradually beginning to not mind it as much.

>356 timspalding: Well, something has changed since yesterday because it’s different than it was.

ArlieS (#323):

Actually a vertical stack of three dots is a kebab menu. Three horizontal lines stacked vertically is a hamburger menu.

>80 Bookwomble: Same.

I would like to change the display order on the right hand column eg. the ratings bar chart is first.

I would like to be able to selectively hide sections, if they have content or not; and selectively include certain sections, if they have content or not.

Please can someone kindly put me out of my misery and tell me where the add to series option has gone???

...Is it just me or is all the key information I want to look at on the page now obscured by a storm of edit pencil icons and edit / delete buttons and 'low lighted' in blue?

Seriously the most stand out thing on the whole page is a massive blue bar saying "Your Book Information" - I had to actually rescan the page to spot the title (even though it is right on top and in a font four times the size)

And why an unnecessary garish yellow flag for interesting libraries? (Good to know, maybe, but not the most important part of the page)

I guess this is LTs answer to the dreaded "New and Improved Recipe" label - which is a sure sign someone has just rendered one of your all time favourite products inedible...

Is the date acquired and entered information still in there somewhere...?

Sorry about the gripe, I'm sure I'll have to suck it up and get used to, just feeling kind of "wrong footed" right now.

And why an unnecessary garish yellow flag for interesting libraries?

What's the garish yellow flag? Where?

Please can someone kindly put me out of my misery and tell me where the add to series option has gone???

Yes. It's on the bar that says "Series."

If the book doesn't have a series, it's one of the hidden sections—the idea being that if something doesn't have a series, recommendations and so forth, the it shouldn't show up—unless you click "Show Empty Sections" at the bottom of the page.

I think we're going to be changing this, and bringing back all the empty sections, probably at the bottom of the page, but visible. We're discussing it. It's a bummer to have section after section on a book be "No data" or whatever. But members aren't finding sections they want to see—even if they are empty.

How does one create a series? the option to edit series doesn't show on page unless there's already a series present.

Added: Never mind, I just read the entry above. But it's confusing.

>364 timspalding: I'm seeing the yellow shading around the words Interesting Libraries, Private Libraries and Similar Libraries that you get when they aren't translated - I'm set to English (UK) so I suspect there's a confusion somewhere in the system about those words not being "translated" from US English.

>366 Aquila: Huh! Will look at.

<364> Trying to type a response and thank you but connection keeps crapping out.

Found series under empty sections as informed, had not spotted that earlier, possibly would not have clicked on it anyway (well its empty innit guv, nothing to see there)

Collapsed fields populated, empty fields not, no series added yet, thus empty.

Point about visual noise distracting from relevant information, may seem obvious where everything is to you because you put it there, not so much to random bods unexpectedly stumbling around in confusion in once familiar terrain...

Cosmetic though, just harder to extract the meaningful stuff (don't get me started on see through wipe boards)

Just think all the little pencils and what not it looks like someone has added annotations across the actual text in a book rather than putting them in a margin or adfing them as a foot note as a footnote...

Anyway, Thank you, Series found, Yellow flags duly flagged

Can't remember how to tag post responding to.

Re translated words/alt languages and yellow... I am in UK but sometimes notice that random books display the word AUTHOR (in the author field) in an alternative language, usually french (incase that is relevant to the language glitch theory) and more frequently, but I think previously discussed, the canonical title is often populated from another language site and sometimes means the title is showing in whatever language that is...

May have no relevance to discussion in hand

So glad to hear from ConceptDawg that "Will you like it?" will be back in some form -- thank you!!!! I kept wanting to check it last night for various books and having to remind myself it wasn't there.

This evening, I pulled up a work page on my phone (Android , Chrome) to confirm the book's genre, and it took me a while to figure out it was under Classification. Below all the sections/modules, I saw "Quick Facts," and sure enough, Genre is one of those things. If I'm recalling correctly from yesterday on my computer, Quick Facts are in the top right corner. It kind of sucks that it's close to the BOTTOM of the page on mobile. I edited the layout so Classification is higher, but I really wished I could move the Quick Facts section up --- of course I didn't see that option, it's probably not there b/c QF is technically in the sidebar, though at or close to the top of the sidebar. Anyway, I can see Genre being part of Classification since it's one more way to group books together, but I wish it could be more visible in the mobile view.

Just keep in mind how a lot of us feel when arriving in our regular supermarket only to find management have moved the entire shop layout around and now we can't find the teabags / coffee... Its that sort of reaction, keeps the whole hububb in perspective.

Some updates...

Reworked recommendations:
* Smaller max size for covers.
* Smaller text.
* Text is lighter.
* Just one row of recs.

Edit page
* Tighter form controls on edit page.
* Many, many changes to layout, formatting, mobile view, button layout, etc.
* The Save and Delete buttons are farther away from each other at every possible view size, device variation, and element flow.

Other changes
* Tightened up the leading on tag clouds and made them look a bit better on mobile devices.
* On the book information block: The Save and Delete buttons here are also farther away from each other at every possible view size, device variation, and element flow.

Other comments....
I think we should make the default setting for "Always show empty sections" be On/True. This should alleviate the complaints about not knowing where to find something, or not being able to add items like Series, etc.
And if somebody doesn't want to show those sections then they will at least know WHY they aren't seeing them: because they had to turn that off at some point.

>372 conceptDawg: Oh, gosh, I just had a look at the Edit Book page on my phone and it's gorgeous. I thought it was nice on mobile before (such an improvement!) and now it feels comfortable, too.

I can't remember if the floating save button was there yesterday? i love it so much.

Just browsed a few classic children's books and it's all so much easier on my phone.

>364 timspalding: >366 Aquila: And why an unnecessary garish yellow flag for interesting libraries?

Thanks for the report. Fixed.

>372 conceptDawg: I think we should make the default setting for "Always show empty sections" be On/True

Agreed. Let's discuss in the morning. I feel like maybe we still put them at the bottom? Or something else to make sure that low-copy works aren't a forest of empty sections.

On my phone, I think the “Edit Book” and “Delete Book” buttons are too close. But at least when my fat finger hits “delete” by mistake, I get an are-you-sure type of pop-up, so that’s good.

>376 Milda-TX:

@conceptdawg maybe we can make it a "…" on mobile, with the delete hidden under it?

Just a huge thank you for putting the delete and save buttons a mile apart, using mobile devices on some sites is nigh on impossible because something else clashes with a delete button in a confined space...particularly when the formatting does not adapt properly to the device you have.

I am missing the description of a book, besides a review or haiku. This book has no description and how would I add one ? Sweat by Emma Healy. Thanks.

Maybe I missed this, but the books that I click on that are *not* in my collection (e.g., the Sarah Maas book) show "No Title" at the tip-top in the large type.

(Thought there was a way to add a screenshot, but either there's not or I forgot ....)

>349 LazloNibble: Not @philanthrop but the thing that feels "mobile-first" to me about the new Work page design is the increase in vertical space everything takes up... None of this is catastrophic but it does reduce the amount of information onscreen which inevitably makes the page harder to use.

I agree. Especially on the 'edit book' page, where, for example, 'Lexile measure' has jumped down from being next to classification to now having its own row, and the 'number of volumes' and 'number of copies', which previously shared space, now each have their own row (and the text boxes are comparatively huge for something that realistically will almost never have more than 2 digits). This is besides how scaled up everything is, and how absolutely massive the textboxes are. I am working on a computer, but I feel like I'm looking at an iPhone screen, with huge boxes so that fat fingers can't miss them. It absolutely feels 'mobile-first'.

I very much enjoy the increased utility in the new redesign, with more hovering pop-up information, BISAC info, customising 'Your book information,' etc., but strictly in terms of aesthetics, this feels like downgrade. I'm getting to see less information at once and having to scroll further to get where I need to be.

Just a question because I just notised it: is there a reason why the number of user reviews is set to 7? It seems like an odd number to use. (I know it’s a “magic” number but I’m guessing that’s not the reason why.)

>354 tallpaul:

I am surprised no has mentioned the repetition of having two Author Information sections

>288 lilithcat:

>371 Littlemissbashful:

As long as they still have my favorite tea!

>371 Littlemissbashful: Most of us customized the order of the modules on work page before and now it has been reset to default and is very confusing at first. Going to 'customize view' at the bottom of the right sidebar and reordering them back to your liking makes it look familiar again and you notice only changes beyond reordering.

The initial post should perhaps point to customize view as the first step for anyone who did not use the default order of modules before.

Found it, never mind, sorry.

>374 timspalding: Which also was the bug that we thought was translatable strings in English that couldn't be translated (see >269 JMK2020: and >272 anglemark:)

>380 lquilter: "No Title" at the tip-top in the large type

I was about to report this as well. Example https://www.librarything.com/work/25109781/t/Crown-of-the-Continent-The-Wildest-...

The page tab shows the correct title; there's only one edition, which has the correct title; and recalculate title/author does nothing.

Someone mentioned book description; those seem to have disappeared. I find them useful in deciding if I want to read a book and I don't want to look at reviews incase of spoilers/ there are no reviews. (Of course, it depends on the quality of the descriptions - the ones that scream 'No. 1 bestseller, chart topper. So and so says the author is the best thing since sliced cheese ...' and fill the available space in the field before getting to any actual description are worse than useless.)

I also notice that in the Related Works; Contains section, if I have a related work, the (grey pyramid) icon is sliced in half.

Safari Version 18.0.1 (19619.1.26.111.11, 19619)

Laptop : Mac iOS Sonoma 14.6.1 (23G93)

>388 r.orrison: No examples needed, it's site-wide and affects all books that you don't have in your own catalogue.

>339 knerd.knitter: Can you tell me where you're seeing them close together?

It appears the page layout was updated after I commented. Previously, it looked like this:

|Save| |Cancel| |All|Minimal|Dates|Review|
|Delete|

The Delete button was directly below the Save and Cancel buttons, with little space between them, and the filters were also at the bottom.

Now, Delete is a rubbish bin icon at the far right side, and the filters are at the top of the page. I definitely prefer this current arrangement, it’s less likely to accidentally delete a book now. :)

I'm not sure if this a dumb suggestion but perhaps rather than having a button saying 'Empty Sections' you could try a header choice labelled 'More Options' (which I think appears more commonly when there is an extended menu of options not ideal immediately visible)... and just have in exactly the same place as the other headers, so if a scanning down the column its is clearly visible as an option?

>385 SandraArdnas: - I live and learn!

>384 lilithcat: - Just enjoying a Twining's Breakfast brew as we speak.... (can't be doing with all that fancy loose leaf malarkey)

>370 HeathMochaFrost: Yes, I get that on mobile the multi-column look of a desktop has to become a single column, but I feel like Quick Facts should be first or second on mobile no matter where it is on a desktop; seems kind of pointless to have it so far down.

>299 knerd.knitter: "The clickable list of languages with CK content...is not responding to clicking This has been fixed."

Thank you. It's much better. But not entirely fixed. You can click to all language CKs from the various language sites I've tried (English (UK), English (US), Welsh, French, German), except that from all of them English (UK) remains unclickable.

Well, something happens, in that CK content in other languages is highlighted, e.g. 'Information from the Welsh Common Knowledge. Edit to localise it to your language', but there is no target language in bold, and any additions or editing is credited to 'English', which I guess here means English (US).

>380 lquilter: books that I click on that are *not* in my collection ... show "No Title"

This has been fixed.

I noticed that if you have the lists in "Stacks" view there is no way to show the hidden lists. But if you switch to "List" view, you see an option to show more. See: https://www.librarything.com/work/75977/book/278366663

>292 Stevil2001: I really like having the group displayed. It's very useful to be able to see at a glance, that although a work is part of a series, it is not in the core group.

>275 passion4reading: a number of book haiku I composed and posted on the relevant works pages have been attributed to other members

Can you give me a couple examples? Thanks

>288 lilithcat: There used to be a “?” link in the “Published review” field

Added back.

now “Media reviews”

Changed back.

>296 gilroy: Number of Volumes has a short input box, while the Number of Copies has an input box that spans the page

Oops, yeah, that shouldn't need to be that long. Fixing.

>335 defaults: the Recommendations section now shows covers by default

But when you switch to the title view it should remember. Is it still going back to covers when you refresh or hit another work page?

When I click on the "(1 Connection)" text, nothing happens

It should be going to the Members section lower on the page. It is people you are friends with or have marked as interesting libraries or contacts, etc.

>312 MrKusabi: There seems to be a glitch where if you edit the authors and click "recalculate," it will add another iteration every time you click on it.

Can you explain this more?

does not seem to be a way to add a primary author anymore if there isn't one

Do you mean when you used to use Other Authors? The section is probably hidden at the bottom of the page under "Show Empty Sections" and there should still be a button to allow you to add authors there.

>395 Cynfelyn: English (UK) remains unclickable

That shouldn't even be in the list, so we're removing it.

>380 lquilter: Maybe I missed this, but the books that I click on that are *not* in my collection (e.g., the Sarah Maas book) show "No Title" at the tip-top in the large type.

Sorry about that. A bug from a bug fix last night. Thanks to Lucy for fixing.

>383 lilithcat: I am surprised no has mentioned the repetition of having two Author Information sections

I mean, there's a number of places where data is repeated. It's up at the top because it's information you may want immediately. The author section far down the page is for other reasons.

>402 knerd.knitter: the Recommendations section now shows covers by default

This was true before. Change it and it will stick.

>389 humouress: Member descriptions are still in discussion on another thread.
Bowker provided descriptions show depending on your settings in Settings --> Other Settings -- > Work top page descriptions.
And the link to up vote or down vote/flag descriptions is still in the left column. Third from bottom.

I just started a new thread (https://www.librarything.com/topic/368058) for bugs related to the new work page that I'd like us to try to use so that this thread can be more for reactions in general instead of individual bugs.

>55 kmcmahon: I vote for Classic view option. Mobilized ok, but don't abandon PC users.

>402 knerd.knitter: It should be going to the Members section lower on the page.

It doesn't when the number is 1.

Probably relatedly, the number seems to be consistently one too high: probably "1 connection" is shown when there isn't actually any connection to show, and that's why it doesn't work.

>409 mrbudyhed:

Every time a website says it’s going to be more “mobile friendly”, I know it’s going to be screwed up for those of us who use desktops.

>371 Littlemissbashful: Yeah. _All_ the supermarkets keep doing the same annoying thing, and we have to eat, so we can't vote with our feet not to use supermarkets which do what we hate. Maybe we need to start picketing them?

I hope LibraryThing doesn't modernize itself to the point of having zero advantages over Goodreads, at least to those of us who _liked_ its 20-years-out-of-date (per one of the devs) design.

>345 knerd.knitter: Correct - that's what I was referring to. Thanks!

>349 LazloNibble: >381 GraceCollection: They obtained this effect by changing the page to use one's personal style selection, which defaults to something with excessive space. Older pages didn't use this personal style - and were spaced the way you and I clearly both prefer. At some point LT brought in the personal style, with a button to change it at the bottom of every page.

When you click on that button, you get a selection of names, none of which mean anything to me, or, I presume, to you. Maybe it's documented in the wiki.

If your preferences are similar to mine, you'll like "The Lorax", or possibly "Verdana Small".

Be aware that this will change the way lots of pages look to you, including the discussion group pages. I'm still getting used to that side effect.

Per one of the developers, the extra space is "more modern", and possibly more usable on mobile. (I wouldn't know; why would I use a virtual keyboard and a tiny screen for any task involving lots of text, not to mention lots of typing, unless I was so unfortunate as not to own a any kind of personal computer?)

>408 knerd.knitter: Note that it can be very difficult for a user to distinguish "this is a bug" from "this is a feature that the developers created intentionally". As an example, at least 75% of UI modernizations register with me as "this is newly broken". After years of reporting bugs at Apple, I got good at guessing what sort of disimprovement bug reports would be rejected, but my first reaction after "wtf?!" is still "this is a bug".

See, for example, the change to date input that localized the input format. (No more 2024-10-27) What I experienced was "when I try to enter a date, it stops accepting characters after the first 4".

>411 lilithcat: This!

>414 ArlieS: Please don't confound these changes that are accessibility-focused with mobile-focused. The fact that they work better on mobile devices is a bonus side-effect.

There are millions of people out there (with various abilities) that we must design for. Not just you.

>415 ArlieS: We have mentioned multiple times that the date input is a bug. We are trying to rely on the browser's local settings for date input (which is the standard, and what every person should WANT) but there is a bug there that we are looking into.

>417 conceptDawg: Once again, it's hard for a user to distinguish the purpose of a change specially when they only see it on one browser/os combination.

I wouldn't consider myself to be entirely able bodied. I have issues with vision and with precision mouse clicking. The modern habit of hiding controls so you have to position the mouse correctly to even see the control, and only then use it, causes me more aggravation than just the waste of time waiting for the control to appear.

I also have issues with hearing, and with recognizing faces. You can imagine how much I appreciate "documentation" taking the form of a video, without the option for seeing the spoken words as text - or with such an option, but accomplished by a risibly poor process of computerized conversion.

That said, I don't know what accessibility issues you've been addressing with these changes. The old style wasn't biting me, and I can't remember it clearly enough to determine exactly what changed - particularly as the changes have been ongoing, not a once-and-done.

In general, I do appreciate accessibility-related changes, including those that don't help me personally - when I recognize them.

>418 conceptDawg: I think there were at least 2 date issues. The only problem I personally experienced was the intentional change to use the browser's locality settings. Net result: the old format didn't work any longer. The new format *did* work, but the page didn't tell me that there'd been a format change.

I understand that others had different issues, but I never saw them or had a clear idea of what they were. I think at least one was that the character "-" was not, in the opinion of their browser, a valid component of a date in their selected (more likely defaulted) locality.

>419 ArlieS:

You must have missed my reply to you in the new thread. Because I pointed out that the update is overwhelmingly positive for me, and why that is the case.

You are not the main character of the universe and the development team is not changing things just to irritate you. If you can't think of a reason why changes were made in LT2, especially after Chris has explained that they're for accessibility, perhaps you need to go read some recent UX studies and learn what the best practices are these days.

Maybe you could also listen to someone who DOES need these changes? That is to say, someone who has been a heavy user of the site since the early days and is, as you put it, "too unfortunate to be able to use a real computer".

>417 conceptDawg: Please don't confound these changes that are accessibility-focused with mobile-focused. The fact that they work better on mobile devices is a bonus side-effect.

Okay, but your changes for accessibility that happen to improve the site for mobile users are making it less accessible for people using desktops.

>404 knerd.knitter: Apologies for just now seeing this. When you open the window to edit author information for a work as a whole rather than just your own and click "Recalculate from members' books," it generates a list of authors from members' books. This is okay. However, if you happen to click it again, it generates those same authors again rather than realizing they've already been generated. This can be continued endlessly, creating a crazy long list of identical author generations.

As for the primary author issue, I was talking about that window (not my individual work page). I mean that it allows you to add "main" authors in that window, but the edit allowing you to add "primary" no longer exists. If I'm trying to touch up a work I do not personally own but know the information for, there is no longer a way for me to edit that.

I apologize if the has already been asked/answered, but have you completely removed the "will you like it" feature or just moved it. It has been a tremendous help to me for the last 18 or so years and I use it all the time.

>423 phlegmmy:
Latest: https://www.librarything.com/topic/357974#n8747306

Thanks for the quick answer!!

>409 mrbudyhed: A second vote for this!

>426 reconditereader:

We are not going to maintain two different views. They depend upon shared code, which has changed. If you have specific changes you'd like to see, let us know what they are.

Everyone complaining that the changes make it worse for desktop users -- WTF?
I only use LT on a desktop and don't see a major difficulty in any of the changes.
YES, I have to rearrange the page to how I like it since the old settings are gone.
YES, I have to relearn where a few things are hidden (or adjust a toggle so they show.)
But there is nothing wrong with that.

I find the redesign decent. I won't say wonderful until I'm more used to it, but it holds almost all the same information, maybe presented differently, or in an unaccustomed format, but it's all there. And when we point out something major, we hear "Oh, that wasn't supposed to go away." and the admin fix it.

The desktop experience is NOT ruined. It's adjusted.

>414 ArlieS: Yes. I changed to 'The Lorax' immediately on suggestion earlier in this thread, and tested out 'Verdana Small' as well, but the textboxes on 'edit book' are still disturbingly large.

I wonder if it would be terribly difficult (of course after all the new bugs are squashed and server fires are put out) for devs to make a style that suits us old fuddy-duddies who much prefer an 'outdated', 'old-internet' interface over these new-fangled 'mobile-friendly' ones. My email server has some settings such as 'comfy' (what I would call 'mobile-friendly' or 'too big'), 'classic', and 'compact' (which is what I use and allows me to see the most information at once). I would love a 'compact', 'antique', or 'traditional' style that looks (again, my only complaint about this update is the aesthetic, I enjoy it a lot otherwise) like the 'old LT'.

(I wouldn't know; why would I use a virtual keyboard and a tiny screen for any task involving lots of text, not to mention lots of typing, unless I was so unfortunate as not to own a any kind of personal computer?)
Couldn't agree more. I don't use this website on mobile, my workflow trying to put details into all those textboxes would be terrible.

>429 GraceCollection: That's exactly what The Lorax is. We probably won't be doing more than that. Supporting all of the existing styles is enough for our tiny staff—and in this case, for site styling, it's basically a staff of one.

>428 gilroy:
I think the same thing by also using one (or more) PC screen(s) rather for action and the smartphone rather for consultation (it is a general principle: Each tool has its most efficient destination)

Yes, the work done by the team is quite fantastic and from the first glance, I appreciated this "redesign". This is all the more so since the listening and the reactivity to adapt the ergonomics are exemplary.
So yes, it takes a little time to adapt with the new version and customize your own space.
Question of learning.

Let's look at a site like Facebook (where I am not), and its evolution... Between 20 years ago and today, the difference is monstrous but the objective well known and far from that of libraryhing it seems to me.
....
In summary, I adhere and support the fantastic work done.
This is all the more so since having been
- a client to build databases (billions of products and big business that is very commercial with millions of consumers), I know how difficult it is to find compromises but easy to make money.
- having - out of passion - always been concerned with books in particular and having had many "relationships" with DNB, BNF, europeanna, Persee, isni, idRef, Viaf, ..., LoC, Wiki various without counting all the so-called collaborative sites and commercial sites (we could add archive and genealogy sites), I see how many there are (even academic or governmental) that do not meet my expectations**

** My expectations are multiple but simple in fact for books: What is there to read? Who reads? Where? When? For what reason? What appreciation? .... Libraryhing brings me part of the answers without having to navigate between 1000 ressources.

Then, I dream for example that one day, we will have a world map (like Google Map) for geography and a cursor for time (history). Let's imagine a query (or several) on the choice between style, genre, author, reader, editor, language, original edition date, translation date, place and time of action... It would be extracted from the "writings" then by rebound an access for example to the dates of translations/editions/broadcasting in different places. This in synthesis on a page (with other rebounds on descriptions, reviews, receptions...)
... But hey, I may be a big dreamer.

In the meantime, Librarything opens me partly to the world (the forest) and to individuals (the tree).
I appreciate the tree and the forest. I appreciate Librarything and all (each of) its members.
As they say around here: "Plus on est de fous, plus on rit", in other words, the more individuals involved and active on Librarything, the better and deeper our "pleasure" will be.

As many I prefer the old page, but probably as that is what I was used to. However, I often add my own covers of my books and I was able to check the dates via the search (magnifying glass) at the lower right side of the old image. Now that is no longer showing nor do I know if my image has uploaded. Would you kindly check this for me. This might apply to others that upload their images as well.
https://www.librarything.com/work/16771309/covers/280093347

>432 LLoLaguayasaminaj: This just needed a cover refresh.

Message moved to the new thread.

>1 timspalding: Love the new look! Thanks for constantly innovating.

>435 IrishSue: Thanks!

>255 anglemark: It would be marvellous if tag translations are used on all LT2 pages. They are not on the new Work page, on the Series page, on my tag mirror page, on the Groups Home page, and several more pages (I haven't made a list).

I am looking at this now and I see the translations. For example, using the French interface on https://www.librarything.com/work/80675, "animals" is "animaux." Are you not seeing this?

>437 timspalding: At the moment, French is used everywhere! Look at the same pages in another language. This is something that broke this week.

>437 timspalding: The trouble is, the tags are always in French whichever non-English interface you use.

Certainly in the example you use, https://www.librarything.com/work/80675, in Arabic, Finnish, Armenian, Dutch and half a dozen other languages I clicked on at random.

>438 anglemark: >439 Cynfelyn:

Crazy. I had no idea because, of course, I test in French! I have not time to fix it now, but I'll get to it before tomorrow morning if I can.

>167 CrazyGayUncle: Totally agree.

For the recommendations section, when I click to show it in list form, I don't get to see all of the recommendations (on the main screen or when I click into Complete Recommendations). I'm looking at The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin and there are maybe a dozen more recommendations I can see when I look at the covers view instead of the list view. Should there be a 'Show More' button for the list view? My preferred format is to see it in a list, and it's not clear to me that it wouldn't show the exact same titles as the cover view.

>441 ReneeGKC: Classic version of this page
Just to put this to bed: we will NOT be offering a "classic" or "old" version of the work page. For both technical and support reasons.

>437 timspalding: Thanks for fixing the "French" problem and making tag translations work on the Work page. That leaves the Series page, the tag mirror page, the Groups Home page, and all Group tags, as far as I can see.

Not impressed by this change, very much not. There’s a horrendous waste of screen space.
The “classic” user interface design was much to be preferred.

Specifically today:
1: Having ‘Delete book’ as the button positioned at bottom right of the screen page is I think a major interface error.
Intuitively IMHO this is the position where one expects to find a “Confirm” button, not a “Delete” button.

2: When a book has an author and the same author has written an afterword and this fact is specified then the Edit book page “headline” shows {Book title} / {Author name} (Afterword)
where it should show {Book title} / {Author name} (Author).

>442 lottpoet: I'm guessing the "Show More" button missing on the list view of Recommendations was an oversight. I'll let the developers know, thanks!

>445 DouglasAtEik: Can you tell us about your browser/OS?

Can you give me the book you're having the afterward problem with?

>447 timspalding: Using Safari under MacOS 15.

Book in question: 'Land næturinnar' by Vilborg Davíðsdóttir https://www.librarything.com/work/31918847/details/280264115

>448 DouglasAtEik:

Fixed. Thanks!

>443 conceptDawg: Goodbye

>450 CrazyGayUncle:

I'm sorry to see this fellow go. The fact is we're still working on these pages, and members will like many of the changes in the works, which reduce screen space and generally imporve things. We've said this, but I don't think most members are reading the 1,000+ messages we've posted.

>451 timspalding:

I dunno, Tim. It looked to me like he was intractable and unhelpful. Of course, he nuked his account, so I can't see if he was someone who had lovingly crafted a 5,000-book catalog.

>1 timspalding: Im enjoy that it's all running a lot faster in most places, except for the cover stuff. Any updates on when that will be resolved?

>228 amanda4242: Possible bug: Not sure if this is a bug or feature, but flag colors aren't showing on flagged reviews. You can still select red or blue flags, but it just shows as gray.

This has been fixed to display the flags in color.

>453 KevDS: This should be resolved as of right now. All images should be loading now, albeit slightly slower than peak speed. But we'll get that solved within the day.

>411 lilithcat: To whom it may concern:

Is there a way to get back to what works pages USED TO look like on my phone? I don't want the mobile site view if I can avoid it. I can't find a way to change it back.

Please and thank you.

>457 ReneeMarie: Is there a way to get back to what works pages USED TO look like on my phone

There's a "Desktop View" button at the bottom of the screen that will zoom the page out if that's what you want.

>457 ReneeMarie:

These changes are permanent (after staff get done adjusting things based on member feedback). See message >443 conceptDawg:

>312 MrKusabi: >422 MrKusabi: There seems to be a glitch where if you edit the authors and click "recalculate," it will add another iteration every time you click on it.

This should be fixed now. Good catch!

>460 knerd.knitter:
That's solved something that has been a very long standing bug, if wanting to zap some bug reports I can offer:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/205146
https://www.librarything.com/topic/298886

>433 knerd.knitter: Many thanks.

>456 conceptDawg: Super. The covers in the "Your books" section have loaded more quickly and completely today.

Hello there! I'm having problems. I can't access my library on "your books". Please help.

>464 AntonioGallo: What do you mean? Are you logged in? Are you saying that you see no books on the your books page? A common problem is a user has accidentally set it to show only a specific collection

>465 jjwilson61: Thank you. I've solved my problem.

One thing that I really like about the new workpage is that my collections show in a grid rather than a list.

I reiterate my earlier comment https://www.librarything.com/topic/368002#8751185 relating to the placement of the “Delete” button on the work edit page https://www.librarything.com/work/nnnnnn1/edit/nnnnnn2 .
In UI design my personal conviction is that at bottom right of the page we expect to find a “Confirm” button, not a “Delete” button.
I reiterate my earlier comment now because I had a real-life instance of this confusion today, where my instinctive, spontaneous action did not correspond to the web page design.

Vide inter alia
https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/confirmation-button-placement-c32292fab848#
https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/1072/ok-cancel-on-left-right

>469 DouglasAtEik: I happen to agree with you. This is an ongoing battle though and not solved today.

>470 conceptDawg: I agree too.

>470 conceptDawg: You have my sword.

>470 conceptDawg: >472 bnielsen: And you have my bow.

>473 amanda4242: >470 conceptDawg: >472 bnielsen:

May I throw in a shield or a dagger?

Or maybe a plumed helmet, for a valiant knight?

You have my impenetrable software specification.

>470 conceptDawg: >471 ocrhdlg: >472 bnielsen: >473 amanda4242: >474 waltzmn: >475 AndreasJ: Since I have nothing to add, I guess I'm just here to concur and for the thrill of it ...

I do not expect a "confirm" button in the bottom right corner, so does that mean I have to be Boromir???

>477 AranelST: Yes.

>477 AranelST: I do not expect a "confirm" button in the bottom right corner, so does that mean I have to be Boromir???

More serious question than >478 amanda4242:: Are you bothered by the Confirm button there? If (say) 30% expect it there and 70% don't care, then it's the right place to put the Confirm button. But if 30% expect it there and 30% expect it not to be there, then there is a genuine problem. :-)

>479 waltzmn:

I would be frustrated by having to constantly look for the confirm button. I expect it to be at the bottom left, as God and nature intended. (...or, okay, as Windows style has conditioned my brain to expect.)

I see a lot of argument about what is more "natural", but (1) Windows style has conditioned a lot of people because Windows is so much more common, and (2) in English writing, it is just as "natural" to skip back to the left at the end of a line as to read from left to right. To find a button in the bottom right corner, I have to move my eyes back across to the right, because my default is to move down and left (to the start of the next line).

>480 AranelST: I would be frustrated by having to constantly look for the confirm button. I expect it to be at the bottom left, as God and nature intended. (...or, okay, as Windows style has conditioned my brain to expect.)

OK, reasonable answer. I use Windows only occasionally, so nothing ever seems to conform to any pattern for me. On Apple devices, it's reliably on the lower right, so that's my personal default.

I guess that says we really ought to conduct a poll. Though how one gets a representative sample of LT users is beyond me.

Either that, or the web site should poll the device and adjust the location accordingly. Which is possible.

>480 AranelST:, >481 waltzmn:

I’m a Windows user, and if Windows has conditioned me to anything it’s not to look for a confirm button but just hit enter.

>480 AranelST: I'm a lifetime Windows user and, for whatever reason, I still expect it to be bottom right.

All this being said, it's not like Apple themselves (or Microsoft either) conform to their guidelines anymore. Gone are those days, unfortunately. That's how we get apps like Xcode and iTunes from Apple. Hell, Apple can't even get their own NAMING scheme correct for Xcode. Shouldn't that be xCode to conform to iTunes, iPhone, iMac, etc.? Or at the very least, just "Code" to match their new naming schemes.

So it's all a really pedantic exercise. But I would love to standardize on LT. Problem is that I want to standardize one way (and have valid reasons for it) and Tim wants to standardize the other way (and, like always, is clearly wrong in every way). ;)

>484 conceptDawg: I suggest having a style called "The Tim" which makes everything right-aligned :-)

>485 bnielsen:

But left-aligned in languages read RTL, of course.

>481 waltzmn: we don't need a poll, I'm sure the devs can just look and see what OS most people use to access LT.

>487 reconditereader: we don't need a poll, I'm sure the devs can just look and see what OS most people use to access LT.

Yes, but note that some Windows users are saying they don't have expectations, or don't agree with the button-not-on-the-right convention. Or they might have multiple inconsistent devices. So to know their actual preference cannot be ascertained from their devices.

>487 reconditereader: Certainly. But the most used OS doesn't mean that it's correct. Or even standardized in today's software world.

But the idea behind Apple's reasoning is that BECAUSE western languages read left to right then you are already on the RIGHT side of a window or panel when you are ready to make your decision. The right-most item should be the default action button. The cancel button should be just inside of that. And any destructive buttons (delete, for example) would be on the other side of the panel.

We hold true to most of these but we often reverse them due to our discourse. But then we also have some legacy code where everything is pell-mell. And some new code that was mindlessly converted from legacy code and not un-pell-melled. And some new code where we tried to un-pell-mell and people threw a fit about it because "change. bad."

So yeah. I don't think we solve this here. :)

>489 conceptDawg:

I think Apple is just wrong about that. Because we read from left to right, we automatically shift back to the left at the end of a line (to read the next line).

Let's make everyone equally unhappy by randomising where the confirm button is every time. Maybe sometimes it can be at the top of the page, or in the middle, or hidden at the very bottom under the footer. Like a little treasure hunt!

>490 AranelST: But when we've finished reading we're at the bottom right, so that's where we should be when we're looking for the button to save our finished work.

>491 GraceCollection: It should look different each time, too: sometimes square, sometimes round, sometimes a random emoji...

>492 amanda4242: But if there are buttons underneath, then we're not finished reading!

(...I'm pretty sure we're all just rationalizing what we're used to.)

>493 amanda4242: This is the way. Then everyone will be too busy hunting for the button to complain about anything! Or do anything productive. Oh well...