Website updates and collecting feedback

[jensrichard77]

Sorry Tapas but i did try.
That popup menu is getting on my nerves. I really tried to get used to is... But it is just ignoring. On mobile web and desktop

[akemikae]

Just go back to the old design, and add the things you've been wanting to add that were good in the new update. Less work on your hands, isn't it?

[invayne]

We continually promote series within the staff picks to help bring more awareness to a diverse range of stories - we've featured over 100 series with less than 100 subs in this section this year alone. We also have the New & Noteworthy section which updates at a more rapid rate. Please relax with this narrative - we are and have always been supporters of up and coming creators.

@michaelson You could add 2 dailyupdates sections on the front page for novels and comics. This will give exposure to novels and comics who update daily. They will get promoted once or twice a month or every two months. these two sections would get refreshed after 24 hours with a new batch of novels and comics. Coming from Webnovel as an author that has many contracts with them this helped alot with exposure to lesser known novels. I also suggest a tab on the search for both comics and novels as well for recently updated novels and comics. it would get updated once someone updates their novel or comic. this will fix exposure issues for all lesser known novels and allow for authors and artist to get more views on their novel it self. while still keeping the other major sections that give better exposure for more popular novels and commics. It would be a win win for both creators and staff in this way.

Also you should not hide the subscribe button that is a killer to every one. it should be more visible.

[TSSL]

Oh, here's another change, which I don't remember anyone mentioning. When you do bring up the sidebar with the list of episodes (which I really would prefer be visible by default, as before), it doesn't give the date anymore, just the episode number and title. Even for a scheduled comic, it doesn't say when it's scheduled for. This was useful and should be back too.

[eleoza]

I'm also going to express my worries for completed comics. Are they going to dissapear in the void since searching genres by subs and likes is now gone?

[jensrichard77]

Here is a mobile user experience.

The popup menu on the mobile web is a dark color and it flashes in and out.

The same size popup menu on the mobile app is white and smoothly rolls in and out.

Somehow I feel the screen on mobile web smaller because of the dark color frame. And I feel the menu gets in my face because of the hard way it flashes in and out.

I prefer the mobile app over the mobile web.

And about color. The withe menu works better on mobile. I’m not talking about the desktop.

Edit. Somehow when I scroll quick up on on app. I get the menu. This seems logical to me because when I typically need to scroll up is because I'm looking for the menu. I don't get that on mobile web

[sartinjacqueline05]

Is anyone else trying to get on on their phones and its just flashing and freaking out?

[jensrichard77]

Is anyone else trying to get on on their phones and its just flashing and freaking out?

Yea... The new heavy loading time makes it flash and jump around.

[Cavechan]

how dare you take away our banners! I want my banner back T_T (I lost all my files on the labtop and now you deleted it

They probably still have it stored somewhere and not completely deleted. You might be able to email their support and ask if they can find it for you. If, y'know, it would take too long to just remake it.

I've had time to collect my thoughts on this more. Here are my main three concerns with the new site:

-No banner
-No scrolling
-Nav bar disappearing/reappearing

Obviously, scrolling has been addressed and will supposedly be available again soon. But the other two issues have yet to be addressed (from what I could see. Too many posts ;_;)

There are some benefits to the new site. I do like how the comic is centered on the page now. I also like that it hasn't been resized poorly and is the same as before (this was the main reason I left SJ after the update. They squished pages down into a really tiny width). I do like the options available ON the nav bar. I just hate the functionality of it.

Fourthly, but more minor, I really don't like all the extra clicking, like when I click an update in my notifications it should bring me TO THE UPDATE and the continue button shouldn't bring me to episodes I have already read. I also shouldn't have to click around to find a description of my comic. It should be right there for some to read and see what the comic is about. Especially since I have a content warning in my description and people can now easily miss it.

If all these things are fixed, then I think I would be satisfied with the new site.

I'm going to speak frank here again. This new layout was rolled out extremely prematurely and it's obvious from all the bugs and loss of features that it was rushed. From these things, plus the "I can't comment on why I can't roll it back", it really does not help anyone have faith in Tapas's future. There's some other deadline... someone else that this update was for. It was not for the users because there's no way they would have rolled out something riddled with so many bugs.

And if that is the case (where it was for the users), then I am extremely worried about the competency of Tapas staff. I'm sorry, but it's true.

Like when I worked at a job before, I wasn't supposed to write three exclamation marks in an email for fear the customer might interpret it as "yelling". But Tapas thinks it's okay to roll out a whole new, drastically different layout without fear of community lashback?

Sorry but I am simply not buying that. Unless if you're really stupid. I mean like... flat Earth level stupid.

[sartinjacqueline05]

Omg. I really hope this gets fixed soon. I'm trying to be patient but good lord. It actually made my entire phone freeze.

[jensrichard77]

Edit. Somehow when I scroll quick up on on app. I get the menu. This seems logical to me because when I typically need to scroll up is because I'm looking for the menu. I don’t get that on mobile web

I’m starting to like the app better and better. Things seem so logical from a mobile perspective

[jensrichard77]

From these things, plus the "I can't comment on why I can't roll it back", it really does not help anyone have faith in Tapas's future. There's some other deadline... someone else that this update was for.

This is not a new thing in the business world. And I have seen this so many times before. Over and over again.
Like when you are selling a house and make some fancy looking changes that gives no functional meanings. Just to make it look good for the sale.

But let’s not conspire on this. We can’t control stuff like that. But what we can do is make the new fancy stuff functional again.

[cleo_san]

Fourthly, but more minor, I really don't like all the extra clicking, like when I click an update in my notifications it should bring me TO THE UPDATE and the continue button shouldn't bring me to episodes I have already read. I also shouldn't have to click around to find a description of my comic. It should be right there for some to read and see what the comic is about.

THIS.
Wholeheartedly yes.

[Birbmagadon]

From these things, plus the "I can't comment on why I can't roll it back", it really does not help anyone have faith in Tapas's future. There's some other deadline... someone else that this update was for.

This is not a new thing in the business world. And I have seen this so many times before. Over and over again.Like when you are selling a house and make some fancy looking changes that gives no functional meanings. Just to make it look good for the sale.

Going to play the devil's advocate here, but the main reason might be (not saying it is, but it might be) that the dev team worked on it for, say, 4-6 months (random number, I don't know how long these things take), were paid accordingly, etc. You don't cancel 6 months of global efforts from a whole team because the website is a bit glitchy. You work to improve on what you've built.

Imagine the message sent to their dev team if they just rolled back to the old version asap: "sorry guys, 50 users complained on the forum so we have to cancel 6 months of efforts on your part, as well as toss all the funds we put into this to the trashcan." It'd be a social, professional, and economical suicide, in a sense. They wouldn't go bankrupt but would lose trust of funders and workers, I guess.

Again, I don't know what the true reasons are. But if it falls close to this, then it makes sense they did not want to expand on it for it has no bearing in regards to the "getting feedback" discussion. "Saving a team's efforts" is no argument in the face of "it's not really working!" and would probably trigger more tension. Do you see what I mean?

We won't get the old version back, 99% sure of that. However, they seem okay with getting feedback and improving from there, so this version surely is going to improve toward something functioning imo. We should just keep on sending suggestions and wait for them to do their magic, I guess.

[jensrichard77]

You don't cancel 6 months of global efforts from a whole team because the website is a bit glitchy. You work to improve on what you've built.

If I was a delivery man and have an old functional car. If I was driving the old car to a car sale, buying a new car with no wheels (italic tex) then I will take my old car back to deliver my stuff to the costumers and let the car sales man call me when the wheels are back on the new car.

[Birbmagadon]

Fair, but here the car has wheels. Technically, it functions for the most part, and one may argue that italics, paragraph layout, glitchy popup menu, and all that are but minor adjustments that need to be made.

Your car has wheels. Perhaps it has no light. All is fine while you're still driving during daytime, but as night cripples in your driving will have to slow down and down and down until you stop by the side of the road, waiting for the sun to go up again. That will happen when most people leave, if the "minor" adjustments don't get solved.

It is no harsh exodus that will leave tapas blank and livid all of sudden. If anything happens, it'll come gradually, much like Deviantart when the porn (among other blatant issues) started to grow bold, and all they did to solve it was to color the car blue and call it a brand new name. It'll die slowly, super slowly, and when people notice the damage, it'll be too late.

Someone need to write a book about this.

[BobbyjoeX]

no joke, when i noticed the banners were gone, the first thing i did was go thrrough several Premium comics to see if they had banners, i swore to god if i saw they had banners i would shit

[BobbyjoeX]

i noticed that yesterday, i was so pissed i nearly threw my computer out the window

[Iris-Grimoire]

I mean, they could try reaching the best of both worlds by having the banner fill up the colored bar, but slightly blurred out like when we used to reach the "liked (comic)? subscribe to see new episodes!" area. Though that might still be pretty bad for most of them.

[mariusthered]

@michaelson
I also dont want to be the start of rumours, but this whole thing is bugging me and leads me to one big question.

It's almost the start of a new tax year and suddenly tapas turns into a webtoons clone? and when asked by 80% of us why it cannot be scrolled back the answer cannot be given???
I might be totally wrong here but my conclusion is one company has bought the other?
if this is so how secure is our comics as i dont want to waste more time on something that might be scrapped at the whim's of others.