This just in...

I logged in today and had a literal AAAAGH WTF. Startled my boyfriend something good.

What really peeved me off about the re-design is that I had no idea this was in the works; I'm signed up as a premium member and a beta tester...isn't this something they should've tested before pushing live? What the heck?

Go to DA's Facebook page and let them know. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.

I think the thumbnails on her page help people follow her acquisitions over the year. At a glance you can see what she got, when she got it, as well as what artists are in the pipeline. I get the sense this is something that people like about her page. It is redundant, but from a design standpoint redundancy isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, you often want to repeat the same information in several places and contexts to guarantee the kind of exposure you want.

The problem I'm having a lot is going to people's pages, and sometimes even my own, and not being able to scroll through the entire page. I've gone to people's sites and had the top half of their journal entry cut off with no way to scroll up. So it wouldn't suprise me if the problems Kat is experiencing are just crappy implementation of the new format, rather than a decision to limit people's journal content.

I just want to show as much of the art as I can to someone coming to my page. Who cares about my page except for the art? And since I am a collector, its lots of different art by lots of different people in lots of different styles. If I were an artist, maybe they could figure out if they wanted to see more of my stuff from a few pieces on the front page, but since I am not, I want to show as much art from as many artists as I can.

Meh there was already a superbrowse for anyone with firefox... it's called Cool Iris and it's waaaay better than the single row they have on DA... it's a full page of thumbnails you can grab and slide at high speed through dozens of pages in seconds (with out ever hitting next ) or slowly coast along one column at a time, see something you like and you can zoom in on it full screen it or go right to it's page with one click, plus it works with Google images and about a dozen other sites.
Granted you do need a decently powerful system for it to be totally smooth (it still works but it jumps to pages instread slowly gliding).

The only thing missing is the ability to keep the Iris open and save your spot while you open an image in it's dedicated page but that's minor.

One --> Artz Giveaway <-- To Rule Them ALL!

I will settle this. ORANGE FTW! - Ex Libris

Meh, that is like suggesting that because certain people who have a certain program can access things much better anyway, your preferred webpage layout is silly...in defense of a needless chance to that page's formating. Which is a silly argument.

Their hearts were in the right place, but the implementation is just terrible. I don't know what their beta system is like, since all of the issues plaguing people are so blatantly obvious they should've been caught. It almost seems like "beta test" is code for "Angelo and his ten friends."

I honestly do not care about the comments by other people; given the choice between those and the artist's comments, I'll choose the latter every day of the week and twice on Sunday. So hiding the artist's remarks annoys me. Losing the obvious and easy-to-find search function annoys me. Losing the icons for Gallery and Profile right next to art annoys me. Having DA load 4 or 5 times slower tips me past annoyance into anger. I once read that people will surf away from a page if it takes longer than 10 seconds to load... the many complaints about loading times means that less art will be seen over time and fewer artists will get the exposure they need.

And, in further news, I still don't like it.

I'm gonna have to use something else to make the thumbs for the voting thread for the FArt Competition because of it....

THAT'S JUST THE LAST STRAW *snaps dA in half*

I tried to like it, but i just don't. The interface now is so nonintuitive ><
No to mention i keep getting white blank banners which go over art pics sometimes.

I freaking hate it.

No search bar on every page? Why - because they 'want to encourage people to hit the front page to browse'. .... I'm not there to browse. The front page doesn't interest me for more than 10 seconds, and then I'm 'in' the site doing what I'm there to do. They want more people browsing, presumably, so that their ads get more hits.

And look at the size of the ads! Whee! Well, I don't, because adblocker plus has worked very well for me on firefox. But it's very obvious what they were doing in the last couple months. Making it harder for people to navigate, and hit the same pages over and over.

Not being able to browse at full size: they let that one slip out a few months ago, remember? And when there were 10 out of 10 new complaint threads about it sucking on their forums, they backed off and said, "oh well this is just in beta, we'll take that into consideration"... but they didn't remove it. They made it part of the premium package. A package I will never, ever pay for - particularly not if they've been giving it to me for free for 7 years.

Having to list your gender - now, while I don't mind doing so, plenty of my friends *don't* want their gender known to the world, or want to express themselves in a more specific manner than "male/female" allows. They should have kept the 'not saying'. Not sure why they bothered with this.

Separation of the deviations from comments - apparently they think this might have been a good idea now that everyone hates the new method. YA THINK?!

Cut off comments - suck!

I could probably think of a few more things, but ... the entire release is filled with fail.

... It's so slow, now, too. Slower than typical, I mean, and DA has never been 'fast' for me.

Oh well, I'm just a freeloading peon that's been on the site longer than most of their admin, I guess my ad space isn't worth as much as the other hundred million pages.

There needs to be an alternative to Deviantart. Some competition. Is there?

A while back, what I found that was similar to deviantArt, (thought I'm not sure how 'robust' it is) was Artician.

There's also this one: http://sheezyart.com. It's much smaller and seems like mostly amateur artists. DA has a presence of many of the big names, so I can't see myself totally leaving it, since I like seeing their works.


Edit: About forgot this one... http://www.comicspace.com/. I have a page there, and I know there are several pinup and comic artists there. It seems pretty dead, though, at least on the pages I've watched.

a billion years ago, Elfwood was where it was at - haven't visited it in a long time, but its apparently still there:

http://www.elfwood.com/

Used to be that it was kind of slanted towards Fantasy art more than anything else - don't know if thats still true.

Of course, there's always Heromorph. I've been on their site since before I was on DA. Several on my DA watch list also post there some, including our own Douglas Shuler. It's heavy on photomorphing/manipulating and 3d models, though, but does have all sorts, including home made comics and stories.