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Update - the theme and layout is now live for everyone.

Thanks for your feedback in this process. If there's additional feedback, please feel free to add to the answers below.

As part of implementing the new unified themes across the network, we're gradually rolling out updated site themes for each site. As of today, we have enabled your updated site theme for testing.

If you can't see it right now, that's by design! We're hoping to get feedback from you before rolling it out to everyone permanently. If you'd like to review it, here's how:

How do I enable it?

Click here and check the "Beta test new themes" option. This will turn on the new theme for all sites that have one in testing, including this one. Here's more info on how to opt in. You can uncheck the box to revert to the older theme until the site is live for everyone (note, it will take a few minutes to go into effect).

What type of feedback do we need?

On this post: Bugs related to this site's design elements

Please help us look for issues/bugs related to the theme design and how we have mapped the old theme to the new. This needs to be done within the limits of the new unified theme.

On Meta Stack Exchange: General concerns about left nav or theming

If you have concerns or issues regarding the left nav or the overall approach we are taking to theming, then this Meta Stack Exchange post is the right place for feedback.

As you may notice, there are some unique design elements like voting arrows and tags that are being standardized in this process. Keeping these custom elements makes our ability to maintain the sites too complex and, while we're very sad to see them go, we're in a difficult position of needing to make the site designs work together so that we can continue to address feature requests and bugs that will make your Q&A experience better. This is addressed in a Meta Stack Exchange post if you want more detail.

What new themes?

If you're like, "What the heck are you talking about?", then you should read the Meta Stack Exchange post entitled Rollout of new network site themes (and maybe the posts it links to for the full background).

Thanks so much for your constructive feedback!

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Is it correct I only see minor differences between the old and new design? I already had the nav bar on the side disabled in my SO settings. \$\endgroup\$
    – Mast Mod
    Commented Aug 31, 2018 at 17:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ Did you have the preference set to see testing turned on already? It's a different setting. \$\endgroup\$
    – Catija StaffMod
    Commented Aug 31, 2018 at 17:59
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    \$\begingroup\$ Yes, I got it on. Left nav and top stickyness was already disabled. Honestly, the changes aren't that noticeable. It's all a bit off, sure, but that's due to being used to the old theme. Hard to put the finger on what exactly unless you keep toggling that box, so that's how similar the new theme looks to the old. If it's working correctly. \$\endgroup\$
    – Mast Mod
    Commented Aug 31, 2018 at 18:02
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    \$\begingroup\$ Is there a list of anything in particular we should be looking at? \$\endgroup\$
    – Mast Mod
    Commented Aug 31, 2018 at 18:03
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    \$\begingroup\$ Thanks to the designers for adding a "Disable Responsiveness" option, which makes the new layout usable on a phone. I'd just like to point this feature out, since it is an obscure link in the footer. \$\endgroup\$
    – 200_success
    Commented Sep 3, 2018 at 21:20
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    \$\begingroup\$ OMG Welcome to Code Review, new contributor! I hope you find us nice and welcoming! \$\endgroup\$
    – Raystafarian
    Commented Sep 4, 2018 at 2:39

4 Answers 4

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A quickly thrown together list of what changed, please expand as you find things that changed:

Overall

  • The Logo (and site name) got larger
  • The top bar got smaller and the horizontal links were moved to the left-nav
  • Site section headings lost their bold, their teal color and got quite a bit larger
  • Grey font colors were replaced with black across the board, except on tags (and the tags page)
  • Links are now not only blue, but also underlined

Tags Page

  • Not definitively sure, but the Tags page has slightly larger font?

Questions page

  • Tagged Questions page now includes the name of the tag
  • Tag wiki and tabs ("info", "newest", ...) on Tagged questions "switched", Question counter moved to the main container.
  • Because the switching sufficiently separates the tag excerpt, it's no longer in a box outline (also editing the tag wiki is linked from tagged questions)
  • Responsive design is in effect.
  • Voting buttons have been changed to the standard triangle instead of the angle in a circle

Users page

  • Minor change in placement of search box and the design of the overall tabs.
  • The Filtering box lost its "Type to find users:"
  • Profiles have a little less horizontal spacing between the left-bar and the main container
  • The "accepted" color on the post pages in user's activity now matches the (darker and more saturated) reputation graph color (which didn't change).
  • The Answers counter on the user's question details now gets a border when there's more than 0 answers instead of just a font-color change. (Also colors have been unified). (Also applies to favorites & reputation)
  • The colors for the view counter seem slightly darker (which improves readability)
  • The user actions (in activity) seem to have gotten changes as well:
    • The "Accepted" marker for accepts is now dark background with white font, instead of light green background and dark green font
    • the "comments" in activity are now with properly black font color (not only for bold) and a slight decrease in font-size
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    \$\begingroup\$ I didn't get around to all the nooks and crannies (revisions page, post timeline, review queues, ...) \$\endgroup\$
    – Vogel612 Mod
    Commented Aug 31, 2018 at 18:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm fairly certain that this fixes the i -> l bug we've had for a couple years now. Which is great :D (Not adding as I'm not sure) \$\endgroup\$
    – Peilonrayz Mod
    Commented Sep 4, 2018 at 22:29
  • \$\begingroup\$ Voting buttons have been changed to the standard triangle instead of the angle in a circle . Its told in the question that arrows are standardized for this testing. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nouman
    Commented Sep 9, 2018 at 17:21
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As noted in the comments, because all of the Stack Exchange sites (everything that isn't Stack Overflow) have to have the same top bar, moving this would require the entire network make the change which would be very hard on sites with more distinct designs.

Maybe it's just me be the logo & site name now standing on its own without the old fluff (that is now moved to the left nav) just feels odd.

I noticed that, on SO it has been moved into the top bar in lieu of the stackexchange network link. Which makes sense since we already have access to it through a dedicated icon.

Maybe doing the same here would feel better?

Move logo to top bar

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm not sure that this would fly with the rest of the network sites, which generally want the headers. On sites where the headers are more designed, they're very much in favor. With the goal of keeping the them unified for all of the SE sites (excluding SO), I don't know that this is an option. \$\endgroup\$
    – Catija StaffMod
    Commented Sep 4, 2018 at 1:52
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Catija Yeah, that's what I feared. Sites like WorldBuilding or Arqade for instance would have much more to loose from that. Maybe adding margins to the logo in order to keep the old spacing back would feel better? \$\endgroup\$
    – 301_Moved_Permanently
    Commented Sep 4, 2018 at 7:29
  • \$\begingroup\$ It's not impossible for us to put something other than the texture there, I think... but I don't know what. If y'all think of something that goes with the site, we might be able to get the top bar a bit of decoration. \$\endgroup\$
    – Catija StaffMod
    Commented Sep 6, 2018 at 3:07
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At this point, since it's existing, we're going to leave this as is. The colors haven't changed, as you said. If you would like to propose an update to the main site color scheme as a separate Code Review Meta design request, feel free to and we'll look into it after we're finished rolling out all of the site updates. ~Catija

Catija, I see you are a new contributor here on Code Review, Welcome!

I noticed something that may not be related to this theme change, but since it is garnering attention I would like to mention that the color differences between Main and Meta are not very distinct, and sometimes I have a hard time realizing that I am on Meta sometimes.

Maybe we could add a little more Color to Code Review Main's Theme?

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    \$\begingroup\$ On that note: I'm missing a little bit of a highlight color based off the logo. Originally we had a bright blue for the t-shirts and link-colors. Would it be an option to get the dark blue from the logo into some places to discern it from meta or is the difference too little? \$\endgroup\$
    – Vogel612 Mod
    Commented Sep 4, 2018 at 16:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Catija doesn't look like a new contributor - rather a god-moderator ;-) It's the new stupid label that is now added to every new or low-rep user and that was severely criticized on the main meta site. I see despite its uselessness it's been added anyway. \$\endgroup\$
    – t3chb0t
    Commented Sep 6, 2018 at 11:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ And/or change the blue to grey in the "Code Review meta" logo? \$\endgroup\$
    – 301_Moved_Permanently
    Commented Sep 7, 2018 at 10:02
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The Ask Question button on the top of user profiles is lost.
The font is now a basic font and its not wide as it was before.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ The User Profiles will have to be reworked in order to comply with responsive design, whether or not this will be added when that happens, I'm not sure. Many pages no longer have the ask question button because it's no longer in the banner. :) I'm guessing that this is by design, though. \$\endgroup\$
    – Catija StaffMod
    Commented Sep 13, 2018 at 21:43

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