General Chat

HUH? What's happened? Last time I looked things were normal, now this...can't say I like the new tree either. Am rather confused by it all, will not renew next time, it is too unsettling...As Henry ford said ,"if it (they) ain't broke, don't fix it"...the earlier tree version was okay, so why change it? Will not even comment on the threads, they are too strange to waste words on. Thanks GR, great job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

contacted GR
this sites colours are affecting my eyes.
I have eyesight problems, as do quite a few of us.

they said nfortuntely the colour cannot be changed, but they will read all comments.



:-P

I was advised by GR that, if the brightness of the background continues to be a problem for many people, then necessary changes would be made.

Love it , and no ads down the side ..

Can anyone tell me what the beta site is please .
Hazelx

I sent an email to GR

Guess what I got?

Generic response.

Yes, they care!!!

I'm NOT paying for a site I can't SEE!!!!! twenty days to go

I hope I haven't made too many typos, everything is blurry now

Hazel, the Beta site is what you can see now when it was in its testing stage

I've been trying to compare the colour scheme with one of the competitors. They graduate the background colouring from light at the top to a darker grey at the bottom and possibly use a slightly creamier colour for the profile or tree view background. The graduation 'might' help.

Off to use 'feed back'.

Strangely if I view the site on my IPad it doesn't glare as much.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your ongoing feedback.

Everything we do to the site is done with the aim of making it better and easier to use and as I have told those who have written to [email protected], if the light background continues to be a problem for our members, we will make necessary changes.

We reacted to the first round of feedback from members using the beta site and as a result made the background off-grey instead of white and made the text a size bigger and a shade darker. We will continue to react to your feedback now that the new design can be seen by all members, however, please be patient, we are collating feedback from hundreds of members and want to make sure we make the right changes.

Please, if you have feedback, email [email protected] - It is quite a challenge to keep up with all the posts on the boards, but this email address is monitored daily by myself and Estelle.

Thanks

Katie

Really don't like what has been done to my family tree. Hate the way it all looks and acts right now. I think I might take my business elsewhere. Why mess with a good thing? What exactly am I paying for??? :-P

aivlyS.."Love it , and no ads down the side .." errrr no they're still there :-(

Everyone else...time to vote with your wonga...GR just do not get it. They do what they want, they allege they read everything and then send out something that is obviously from a computer not a person.

I was wavering...I hate the new tree but I WAS wavering...now white fright has decided me. And like everything else it's a case of we've done it like it or lump it.

Well there is a third choice, don't like it, don't lump it, don't pay for it

Jude

it would have been better and easier to read if the print was bold but I don't know how to change it.

Caz

Jiminy...no it's not whiter than Family Search but how much subs do you pay for that???

It's much whiter and brighter than A. And the text on A is better and, in the case of the name, bold black.

It's not just the whiteness of the white (and boy is it white) it's the insipid light blue text elsewhere.

Knowing that a majority of people hate the new tree why dump even more on those people with such a poor choice in colour scheme? Why change it all? Please don't tell me they polled people and listened ha ha??

It's just another case of the dictat that seems to be GR.

Incidentally Friends reunited is exactly the same in their attitude to members. Only difference in that is that it is a free site. Perhaps GR will be free to use :-)

Hi DetEcTive ,
thank you .
Hazelx

eeeee it does make me giggle when they change things, and everyone goes monkey nuts, :-D i remeber when they changed it before, and the time befor and the tme before that, everyone hated it everyone was leaving, demanding to know what they pay for ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and were all still here,


altho its seems a bit clean n clinical, its now modern and bright,

i still have ad' too, but they dont bother me lol

will have to have a proper look around i think ;-)

Kitten...I have been a member since 2004. And I never complained before because the changes before - to me - weren't radical weren't contentious.

These changes are. For months and months since they introduced the new tree a majority of members have railed against it. Partly because it did not work. They introduced it before they had sufficiently tested it.

So meanwhile they had more and more complaints and all they have have done is put their hands over their ears and ignored everything that was being said. And it's that that annoys me most of all.

I DO hate it. I will not be leaving but I will not be paying for the site any more. I am not demanding to know what I am paying for. I KNOW and it's not worth paying for any more.

I don't know about modern but it's certainly bright. I am not sight-impaired but it hurts my eyes after a very short time.

Ads don't bother me as long as you steer clear of them so they don't lauch :-)

Stray - my thoughts exactly. Last time, people were complaining that everything was 'too dark' :-D :-D


I've had a play around on the various functions and it's fine for me. :-D


So, I'm happy with things. :-D

If it worked and was awful it would be a matter of personal choice, but it's awful and doesn't work...take my tree, well someone has...unless I go on chrome...it's there yes, but to be able to read it and the boards I have to be at 100% or 125% zoom...but you can only use the save button to add data etc at 75% otherwise it is off the screen. OR I can change the font type to bold, but that throws everything off the side of the page...I can change the c0lours but that then has to apply to all other sites...

I'm thrilled for those who love it...but so far they seem to A, be in the minority and B, use the boards once in a blue moon.

Jiminy - FR - that's why it's free now because it's rubbish compared to sites like FB.

Don't disagree with the comment "drab dirty green colour" but there are degrees of change....and this isn't it. Your (cricket's) eyes probably cope better being compound ones :-)

And as I say, for me, it's not about how the new tree performs...it's just that I do not like it. It could be the best performing family tree in the whole wide world but it's not a format I like or find easy on the eye.

And a lot of members agree with me it seems - certainly more seem to complain about it than support it. But if we can't have both I accept that only the new all-singing-all-dancing tree can be supported. For GR's sake, I hope they retain enough paying members to justify their leap of faith.

The look n feel is set up using something called a .css file. Gru will download their css files into yr computer. The browser then takes instruction from the .css file for colors, fonts and layout. Different browsers and versions will not all "render" the .css / html in the same way. That is why the emoticons have vanished from IE8.

All browsers offer the possibility of assigning to any site a custom .css file which will override the site settings without affecting any other sites. The details of how to do this vary from one browser to another. In any case it does not involve overwriting the site css. These custom css files are kept in the User folder for the browser.

Opera offers a set of built in alternative styles. One of these has white-on-black instead of b-o-w and another is for visual problems. However both of these stop the tree being displayed at all.

If you have anybody with enough know how to create a modern web page (from scratch, not using a point n click tool) then they'll be able to set up a suitable .css file for setting the colors / fonts to yr liking fairly quickly and add it to yr browser..

Another approach is to use one of the many customisation add-ins.

Unfortunately posting .css files here is fraught with problems. I myself override the native css for sites such as Ancestry and this one which at least makes for a quiet life.

The browsers themselves have bugs of course. Firefox has one going back a long way which causes small graphics to disappear when the site css is overridden. Relevant in this context as it stops the M/F pix being displayed on the tree..

Changing the colors for Gru themselves is a trivial exercise. Offering (say) three alternative color schemes would also be very easy. They could even build in some wonga type sliders for color and intensity without much effort. It is just that they seem to have a certain obstinacy so they don't.

Something like 70% of the membership are over 50 - FH is not something that appeals to most younger people and those 30-60 tend not to have much time for it unless they are at home a lot. This is exactly the age segment who dislike trendy difficult to read displays in print or on the net. They are also likely to have a display at 1024x768 rather than the larger and widescreen displays now popular.

It is simply not possible to please all of the people all of the time on something like this. As it is easy enough to offer a choice that is the obvious solution. It is maybe not a great business decision to get so many paying users upset when a fix is so easy to do. Especially not after 9 months of chaos and bugs and especially not when there are plenty of issues still not sorted.