There has been many changes made done to this website these past few days. Changes that were necessary to increase user-friendliness as well as cleaning out a horde of dead links in the side bar.
Some of you like the changes, others are not as thrilled.
Now is the time to give me your ideas, thoughts, or any other suggestions that may have in improving your reading and visiting experience when you visit this venerable website.
Comments are open now!
I don’t like the current preview- real boxy
Thank you for this opportunity. I have been close to dumping TAC from my list of news sources because of the exceedingly irritating format change. The original format (or at least what had been the format for, say, the past ten years?) was easy to navigate because the combination of text and thumbnails made it clear what you were about to click on. The penultimate format with the different sized blue “boxes” for each post was what almost caused me to dump TAC, until I clicked back the other day and found something (the current format) only slightly less vexing. This current format lacks the photos/thumbnails and I’m still on the fence about continuing with TAC, though I’m happy the date of the post is back on each “box”.
I’m always curious to know why a website, whose format was just fine for many years, decides to change. Please explain to your readers why you started to toy with a good thing…leaving you now with the task of doing this “survey” to (I assume) find out why loyal readers are ready to pull the plug on TAC.
Yeah, the current preview is very boxy but I appreciate that the number of comments to a post is visible on the home page. Thank you.
I am unable to identify any change that has increased user friendliness, with the exception of removing the links to defunct sites.
What about the search engine. I want to be able to look up previous posts.
I agree with the crowd, I liked the thumbnails and appreciate seeing the post totals on them, and as Greg mentioned, it’s been a while since we’ve had a working search engine.
… But the content is A+!
I rather like this format change. Usually, there are glitches which take some time for the moderators to correct.
==
What distresses me would be the disappearance of voices who have had something instructive to say both as posters and commenters. Not much you all can do about that.
I am ambivalent about the format change as now displayed. I still find it more difficult to navigate, especially on anything other than a laptop, than the prior design, but I can get used to it.
One thing I have wondered about over the years is, whether it is possible to identify upvoters (at least) and, ideally IMO, down voters as well. It’s more efficient than having to post a reply when all you have to say is “I agree.”
God bless all here, as always.
I will say that the front page as it is now is an improvement over its immediate predecessor–where the different-sized images led to different sized preview boxes, which looked really bad on a desktop–but not as good as the one that the site had had for quite some time before that. This is workable.
It would be nice to be able to access older posts that have scrolled off the front page, though.
Go back to the original format. Clean out the dead links, of course, but the original format wasn’t broken and didn’t need to be fixed.
Here’s some hopefully constructive feedback:
I’d second many of the comments that the homepage is more difficult to navigate at present. The boxiness or grid layout doesn’t bother me so much (and in some respects I like it), but the lack of thumbnail preview makes everything kind of bleed together.
I think the rest of the info presented in the boxes is good, but I’d also say that the current background color (the light tan) of the boxes feels visually a little dull, and the lack of differentiation in color with the text in that box adds to the mushy feeling that the homepage presents.
I was looking back using the Wayback Machine at some previous iterations, and what was from last summer (I’m looking at June 02, 2025 specifically) I think helped to present the various posts with a good visual hierarchy. Here are some notes as to why I think this:
A. The date in the pink or red circle on the left side of this iteration attaches the date to each box and sets it off from each other box from left to right, and the thumbnail next to it clearly distinguishes one post from another.
B. The bold, large black text for the title right under the date and thumbnail of that iteration also immediately associated it with the date and image.
C. The Read More button in blue was also great, as it was a color distinct from the red circle and immediately signaled what to click or tap. I think the duo-tone black and tan at present works, but I think the more visual distinction and hierarchy that can be built in, the better. I think the red circle and blue button also worked nicely because they matched the theme/branding of the site.
So my suggestions:
Hope that’s helpful! Thanks for all your hard work at this; I know it’s probably a rather thankless task and few know the amount of effort that has to be expended on the backend to keep everything working and looking good. We are grateful for you!
Thank you everyone for your input!
I don’t have much to say about the format. But I’d like to thank you for the hard work and interesting articles. God bless you and your family.
Clone Donald R McClarey, hire each of them, and pay each of them twice what you pay Don. Guy, Texas