I dont like it at all!

I don't care for it. At least now the headings are back in blue. When I first logged on this morning, everything was black print.

I don't like it. It was not an improvement, other than for the advertisers who now have more space for their "stuff".
Molly

I agree, but if you expand the page (on my Mac I just put two fingers together on the screen and spread them out), you can push all of the adds right off the right hand side and not have to look at them at all!

Jackie

I don't have any ads, just an empty area more than an inch on each side of the page; can't imagine what use that is.

Ingrid

Don't like it. I thought something was wrong with the com[uter.

Well, to the owners of the site, the purpose is to sell advertising, and the forums are simply the vehicle to do that. It probably makes sense to them.

We use this site free, and back in Spike's day when there was an attempt to charge a fee for it, only a fraction of the people paid.

Not that I'm crazy about it either. But it could be worse. At least it's not ugly.

Rosefolly

I contacted the "owners" earlier this morning. Tamora answered (promptly) that it was only a problem in IE--and they were working on fixing it.

Tamora recommended that we all switch to our other browser (?) until GW gets this fixed for the IE browsers.

Don't know about you--but I do not have another browser--but can survive quietly as long as I know it is a MISTAKE and it is being FIXED.

Thank goodness!

Kate

I use Chrome and have all the symptoms that everyone else has. At present the only the I will say is it "looks" fresh as it is new.

David,

I made the font size bigger and it eliminates the wasted space on both sides of the screen. I guess the wasted space is to make the site look better on tablets and smartphones? On my ancient computer you hold down the ctrl key and Fn key, and tap the Fn + key at the same time and the font gets larger.

I am using Chrome too

But I also understand the need to update forums before they get too far behind the times and crash with the result being lost information.

I use Safari and I see it too

I am using FoxFire and I truly dislike it. I do hope they change it back since the response has not been positive.

Lyn

I use Firefox, and it looks fine - different colors (I like the blue), different font, but not bad. The most important thing is that NoScript is still blocking the ads. :)

Anyone can download Firefox and use it until IE gets fixed. You might even like it better and not go back. :)

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

I use Firefox, and it is "OK." I'd like the type larger, but have no idea how to achieve that (and no desire to make changes that mess up the look of other sites that I visit).

But what I have now takes up perhaps only 1/3 of the page, leaving a vast blank white space. It's restful to the eyes, at least, but I can't say I like it.

Jeri

It does not bother me at all. I think it looks rather clean. I like the fonts and the colors.

Sammy

I don't like it.

If you use firefox, for sure, hold down the "ctrl" key and use your mouse wheel to roll up the size of your font.

Jeri, I followed hoovb's instructions above and it works; the whole page is filled now and the letters are huge! A bit too big for me, but it may be just right for your needs.

Ingrid

It works the same way in Safari, for those of you with iMacs. Hold Control and roll the little ball on the front of the mouse.

Well, hot doggies! That DOES work! A thanks to HoovB AND to Ingrid!

Jeri (who likes the type this way!)

Or, if your scroll wheel on your stinkin' mouse is broken, go to View, Zoom, and In. So, now the font is big. But I think the new format looks like we're a member BH&G now!

Melinda

I don't like this either. I use Firefox, and now the posts are about 6" wide and the rest of the page is wasted space. I also have Adblock, which might be why - I don't see any ads. But I don't like having most of the screen blank. I can use the control key and wheel to make it larger, but all that happens is that the type gets huge and there's still an equally huge blank space on the right, about half of the screen.

BTW, back when Spike was trying to get people to pay, it looked like this was going to become a pay-only site, so I left and didn't come back for years, and am glad to see that he didn't succeed.

eahamel, I suddenly had the wide space on the right this morning and followed hoovb's instructions again and it vanished. However, the letters are huge which takes some getting used to.

Ingrid

Well I am glad I am not the only one with these issues. I did the control, mouse wheel thingy. Still don't like this layout though.

(i like it). but perhaps the old way was set up poorly on my computer, and the type was two feet across per line, so i had to move the screen back and forth ! sure there is a cure for that but i didn't know it!

on my mac, i enlarge the screen as someone mentioned and it fits nicely!! the green is springy!

no issues!

and i agree, it's free...and believe me, other forums and websites (Cooks Illustrated) are terrible about charging for access, and upcharging for premium access!!

Do be careful with the zoom feature though. You can overdo it. Mine got stuck with a higher zoom than I liked, and it took me while to back it out to a comfortable level. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

R

Glad to see everyone. It seems hospital white to me. Hopefully there are improvements coming.

I miss the ability to edit posts.

@kittymoonbeam-- you actually can edit posts, just click on the little pencil in the top right corner of your comment to get to the editing page

Have been having a go at exploring this strange new environment... and trying not to panic - my usual response to any new technical challenge, due to old and sometimes impaired brain not seeming to be very adaptable to the massive quantity of strange new stuff we all now have to try to understand/put up with in order to do so many everyday things that used to be so simple.

However, we do also now have these wonderful new things we can do, like joining forums (although I still don't understand or somehow quite trust facebook). I was at least glad and rather proud to have become comfortable/confident using/ participating in the antique roses forum, but now it's changed and I feel ill at ease and uncertain again.

On another thread on another forum (I think it was still somewhere in the Gardenweb part of Houzz) folk were speaking of having pretty new backgrounds of clouds and grass, pale green background colour, etc. I don't have any of that; my screen is just white with pale grey surround to a white text area and grey-black type, with just tiny bits of green around 'submit' and 'like' and in the houzz logo. It looks impersonal and clinical. In comparison, I rather liked the old, familiar, slightly daggy look! But perhaps either it or I will improve with time.

I don't have the problems with funny sizings/faintness of type and page that some have had, and no ads/pop-ups - just plain white on the right half of the page. I've gathered the lack of colour and ads might be something to do with ad-blocking mechanisms we may or may not have switched on on our individual computers. I've no idea what's on mine, but it's a Google Chrome operating system. I did try looking it up, but as usual, became confused and completely at sea, with unfortunately, no techno-whizzo-type people around to help.

I agree with kittymoonbeam, I liked the the 'Preview' facility prior to posting, enabling much-needed editing. Also, can we still email each other privately via gardenweb? Every now and then this came in very handy...(!). I do hope not too many people will be lost to the forum now and that all the difficulties will be able to be ironed out...

Comtesse :¬}

Ah ha! Thanks k8, just saw your post. :¬)

Hmm, I'm not impressed with the new look but I guess I'll just have to get used to it. It does seem like there's a lot of wasted space.

I never much cared for the old layout but ugh...I don't like change! D:

Sometimes I wish that all forums could just be phpBB.

Pardon my ignorance, hoverfly, but what is phpBB?

You can also increase the size of the text by doing CNTL + (COMMAND + for Macs) and then - to make it smaller.

To me, the layout looks the same as GW, except for different fonts and colors. I don't see any blue.

I'm on iPad and don't have a problem with type size or ads, but I don't like the new look. It's a very clinical and boring look. We may never see Camps again if she has as much trouble getting on as I did. At least the Comtesse made it--love your way with words, comtesse.

comtessedelacouche

phpBB is a free forum software and I would guess probably the most popular choice with anyone who wants to start a forum without spending much money on it. I think it's great but that's probably just because most of the forums I have ever been on have been phpBB, so I know how to use it. :)

I get the feeling that this is trying to be some sort of social networking site. The "like" buttons and profile pages are rather facebook-like.

I forgot to say that perhaps we won't have the same issue with double posts appearing out of the blue. I haven't tried to post a pic. I wonder if we'll be able to post more than one at the time.

Why have some of our zone and location designations disappeared and others remain?

Floridarosez9 - I don't think that there is a way to have the site pull your zone and location and display it from separately stored fields, but you can go to 'YOUR HOUZZ' in the upper right of the screen and hover there, select 'EDIT PROFLE' and then in the First Name field, add location and zone after your name and it will display. I agree zone and location are important to gardeners. Bob

I hope some old friends don't leave. This is more tricky to use than the old site was. The like button I could care less about. I prefer a real comment not just passing lurkers pressing like. I remember when I first came. I had my first bands and was calling them babies. Karl didn't think that was right and wrote a long objection to it. It scared me a little but I stuck around a anyway. I miss Karl. He was a treasure and so selfless with his knowledge and experience. I hope you like the gardens in paradise Karl. You can grow anything you like forever now .

Kitty, What a sweet choice of words you used for Karl.

I, like you, am hoping that the regular posters don't leave because of this new format. I am not crazy about it, but we must give ourselves time to adjust and maybe they will make some changes that are suggested here. I am old and don't like change, but I am not leaving.

Suebelle

Hm. It *is* clean-looking, and seems fairly user-friendly. Right, I'm sure this format is to accommodate hand-held devices etc. (another case of the tail wagging the dog!) and to make room for ads. One thing that looks ominous--and *is* ominous--is the shopping cart hovering near the upper-right corner. At least we don't have that very non-antique apricot-colored rose greeting us when we stop by! I'll give it a chance. There is of course always the good old newsgroup r.g.r. standing by, for those who like Usenet!

Did not like how long and hard it was to figure out how to get on here again but I managed somehow. I hate change too and don't particularly like this look but, like most things, we'll get used to it eventually.

The only thing I really dislike is how hard it is to get from one forum to another. I was over in Roses and wanted to get here to Antiques and I had to go all the way home and find the garden forums and then find the Antique Roses, which wasn't under Roses but off separate. Haven't tried looking for any of the others yet but I think there really has to be an easier way. I regularly went to all the rose forums on GW and I really miss the row of links at the top of the screen we had there.

I did a test post of pictures and you can add more than one photo right from your computer. However, you have to add them one at a time into the post. You can just click on 2 or 3 at once and add them. One at a time is all you can do. It is possible to put text in between them but navigating around to do that isn't very easy either.

When you add a photo and then try to add text or another photo enter and using the arrow keys keeps jumping me back to the top of the post instead of going to a line below the added photo. Takes many tries to get it to go down instead of up to the top again.

I heard you could add up to 4 photos to one post. Let's see!

Three

four!

Shall we go for five and see what happens?

Nope 4 is it. When I tried to click on the photo insert icon it wouldn't open.

By the by, when you make a post with photos they come up smaller and when you run your cursor over them they enlarge. Later on that goes away and they just show up regular size in your post. Also when you post there is a small pencil icon that shows up in the upper right hand corner of your post that allows you to make edits to your post.