Any chance of getting the old-style Latest Breaking News column back on the home page?

[William Seger]

That's my most-used DU feature, by far; I've come to depend on it to efficiently keep up with what's happening in the world. It's all the way at the bottom now, and worse, the posting snippet isn't shown -- just a headline.

[EarlG]

1. What kind of device are you using?

Latest Breaking News text snippets do show up on larger monitors, but not on tablet devices. That's something I might be able to tinker with, but the layout of the whole page is probably going to stay the way it is.

[William Seger]

2. Actually, snippets are not shown on PC but they are shown on phone

Or should that be a bug report? Anyway, is there any chance of getting a dedicated News page, or maybe a quick link to that section of the home page without scrolling?

(Edit: BTW, they're perfectly readable on my phone.)

[EarlG]

3. Curious

It should look like this on anything larger than a tablet:



On a tablet, you would just get the headlines and not the snippets.

Do you know what size your screen is (the screen resolution)?

BYW, one way to get a dedicated news page is to simply go to the Latest Breaking News forum and click the table header "Start time" to sort by the most recently posted item. (Currently it won't remember your setting when you change pages, but that's something we should be able to fix.)

[William Seger]

4. PC is full screen at 1920x1080, phone is 2400x1080

I see what you're showing on my phone, but only headlines on the PC.

Yes, sorting the Latest Breaking News forum by start time solves part of the problem, but that doesn't show the snippet, either. It also doesn't show the source link, which is useful to know, and I sometimes go straight to those instead of the forum.

[EarlG]

5. Hmm

This could be tough to solve. At that screen resolution there is no reason why the snippets should be hidden beneath the headlines.

Can I assume that you're also seeing a three-column layout on the home page? At your screen resolution, there should be four columns displayed.

[William Seger]

6. Yep, three columns, center very wide, news in narrow third column - EDIT: It's Firefox

I just tried it in Chrome and it shows 4 columns, news with snippets and sources, near the top of the 4th column, so easy to find. (In Firefox, it's all the way at the bottom the the 3rd column.)

[EarlG]

9. Please see my reply to Yonnie3 below

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1320117#post8

You should be seeing the four-column layout on both browsers. If you have screen zoom set to something other than default (100%) that could potentially cause this issue. I'm looking into it.

[Yonnie3]

7. I'm having the same experience

With Firefox on windows 10, I see the three columns only at 100% or less zoom. For me, at 100% the text is too small for easy reading. 110% is my minimum and 120% is where I'd like to be. The LBN snippets also go away.

[EarlG]

8. Aha, so this is an issue in Firefox with the screen zoom on

That should enable me to at least replicate it and see if I can figure it out.

I'll have to get back to you.

[Yonnie3]

10. Thanks

I did check to see if I had fiddled with the font settings in Firefox, but it is set to allow websites to use their own fonts.

[EarlG]

11. Okay

I know what screen resolution William Seger is at, but I don't know what zoom level he's using.

Meanwhile I know what zoom level you're using but I don't know what your screen resolution is

This is related to the "fluid" design of DU4. It will show different layouts on different devices depending on the width of the viewable area. The three column layout is the "tablet" layout for smaller screen sizes, whereas the "laptop" and "desktop" layouts should show four columns.

I can replicate the issue in Firefox on my desktop (at 1920x1080) by increasing my zoom level to 150%.

I can also replicate it at a lower zoom level by reducing the width of my browser window. If the zoom level is 110% or higher, the layout will switch to "tablet" at roughly 1330 pixels wide.

Unfortunately, if you are both getting the tablet layout at a full screen resolution of 1920 pixels wide and at lower than 150% zoom, I'm not sure why that would be happening. I'll have to keep thinking.

[Yonnie3]

12. I am at 1366 x 768 - I meant to include that tidbit earlier

My settings menu says this is the recommended resolution and has no larger options. I am viewing DU with a full window on a laptop with just over a 15 inch diagonal display (13.5 wide).

[EarlG]

14. Okay this definitely makes sense

That is a small laptop, so at that resolution, if you increase the screen zoom then the chances are that you're going to end up getting the version of the site that's optimized for tablets.

Unfortunately this might not be fixable. Once you change the zoom in your browser you're using a sort of "non-standard" view and I'm not sure I can create different layouts that will anticipate all the many different ways people are customizing their browsers. That said, the tablet version is perfectly functional, it just looks a little different (it might actually even work a little better on a smaller laptop than the "laptop" version does.)

However, I'm not just going to give up on this -- I will be working on a larger-fonts option for DU4 shortly, which should allow you to view the site at the correct resolution without having to zoom. That might fix it for you...

[Yonnie3]

16. I will be upgrading eventually (soon I hope)

To me, this isn't an important issue. Now that I understand it, I can ctrl+ as needed for readability and ctrl- to see the whole page. No big deal for me.

Now to pen that note to Santa.

[William Seger]

13. I was also at 110% because of small font. 100% works okay, but I'd rather be at 110 or 120. (nt)

[EarlG]

15. For now, I think your best bet might be to wait for the "larger fonts" option

I'll be working on that soon, since it seems a lot of people would like it. With a larger fonts setting, you would have the option to just increase the font size, not the whole layout. So you should be able to see the correct layout and have readable text without having to use your browser's zoom function.

[Yonnie3]

17. A great work around is available on Firefox

There is a setting in general settings to zoom text only! If I do a zoom in, only the text enlarges leaving the format intact.

The tab text on a forum getting truncated is the only oddity I've noted so far.

[EarlG]

18. Oh, perfect

I'll still be working on a DU option for larger fonts, but I'm glad you found a workaround.

[Yonnie3]

19. Yes, I think you should continue on the fonts

(as if it was up to me )

because I don't see this option on Edge.

My partner uses Edge highly zoomed in on DU and couldn't see the Grovel Bot banner until I zoomed her out a bit. I think this would be an issue for her on DU4. I'll look at this when her system is available to me.