Hey Dag, wonderful new design taking my first stroll through it and so far am very impressed! Thanks to everyone who makes this site possible.

The only minor quip I have so far is, is it possible to remove the bounding boxes between each of the video/blogpost/etc, the clear white presentation was nicer I think and the lines between each video listed kinda ruin that.

The dupe finder is very key! Hopefully this will end the dupes, though I know multiple videos are usually posted multiple times by multiple users. But a amazing addition nonetheless.

I can't wait for it to go live!

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Almost forgot to mention a feature. Notifications for your submissions, so you can be mailed if someone leaves a comment, or the status of your post changes. (both off by default)

That blue might take some getting used to (are customizable visual styles a possibility?), but at least the paint bucket's no longer rusty.

Ooooo....preview if you click on the links! Can't wait to see it live!

I'm really glad you guys are keeping the sifter. It looks great.

You know in the long term I would love to see the top 10 brokedown to it's categories, say advertisments, comedy and so on.

I just think it would be pretty awesome for users to check the Top 10 Music Videos for example and see what the community liked in unison. Then you'd sit back and be exposed to a whole load of good music.

And err... shouldn't I get like a Gold Star for saving the Sifter?

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I should make clear that although it's a preview, I encourage you to use it, for posting, commenting, voting etc. This will help us find bugs.

It's the live site, not a dev site - so anything you do will be reflected on the old site as well.

The sift feels pretty, oh so pretty.

Awesome! I just tried a dupe and it works beautifully! I love this feature.

This looks utterly gorgeous.

Will SiftBot stay the same?

James, I can tell this vid was directly inspired by your above comment...
http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=10429

I think Siftbot will stay the same... inasmuch as an ever-evolving entity such as siftbot *can* stay the same. Savvy?

I like the new design. It succeeds in consolidating all the navigating links and tabs.

One thing I will suggest for the Front Page and Sift Talk is maybe some blue and/or gray screens (light tints) for the round cornered boxes to help differentiate them some. There’s maybe a bit too much white leaving things washed out.

*taking off my graphic design hat, putting on my typesetting hat*

Looking at the front page and the Sift Talk, the leading is a bit tight (vertical space between lines of type). The spacing between type characters is also a bit tight. It makes it harder to read.

The type on “About VideoSift”, “FAQ” and “Posting Guidelines” page doesn’t adjust when you change the size of the window. The length of the line of type is a bit long. I know the “alphabet and a half rule” for a line measure is not hard and fast (type structure varies), but having it so long inhibits reading.

On the front page, I want to suggest putting a little more space between the different links and the separation marks. It is a little difficult to differentiate between them.

One bug I did notice is a URL that stuck out across the border on the Sift Talk page of initial posts.

As for the Incoming tab . . . doesn’t that invite comparisons to Video Bomb? Does this mean that we will no longer refer to the queue?

Also, will there still be a sorting options for the new videos. I noticed that was not in the new design.

Back to sifting before I have any more graphic design/typesetting flashbacks . . . I survived grocery ads and hospital forms.

I'm pretty sure re-installing the queue-sorter feature is high on the to-do list.

I'm using preview mode for submissions and classic for queue sifting these days. Interesting observation re: "incoming". Change it to "inbound" or just plain "queued" perhaps?

Also, when I last looked the Last 5 discards weren't appearing:
http://www.videosift.com/preview/blog.php

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Thanks for the feedback dotdude and Krupo. Maybe we should just change it to "Queue" we certainly don't want to invite th comparison to VideoBomb. ;-0

>>Thanks for the feedback dotdude and Krupo. Maybe we should just change it to "Queue" we certainly don't want to invite th comparison to VideoBomb. ;-0>>

Maybe some kind of cooking/recipe term would fit - referring back to the pancake recipe discussion.

how about just "Siftables," although I suppose it lacks any inherent identifiers of what is actually going on in that area.

Brainstorming a list:
- Raw dough
- ingredients
- Sift-me's!
- the slate (too similar to slate.com though)
- tabula rasa (can it be any more esoteric)
- queue (mmmm... classic)

mmm purdy!

I'm guessing the comment summary idea got rejected for the new site?

Oh and um, I'm going to shut up after saying this i promise but.. does the sifter have to be blue?

keep up the great work!

First off: excellent.

I'll skip commenting on everything that's been discussed above. No need to jump on bandwagons. So what can I add?

First off, you guys are probably aware that the post-counts do /not/ appear to be using the live db table(s). 'nuf said.

Designwise, I believe there needs to be a contrasting key color pulled into the design. Right now the site is all steel blue and silver, which does a great job looking cool, clean, collected, and calm. On the other hand, the eye loses interest as the site fades into the background. Competing for attention over the videos isn't a good idea... but maybe there's a middle ground; a compromise.

How about using blue's contrasting color, orange, as a mouseover/hover color?

Let's take color a step further, to the tabs. The old site used different color for the secions. I'm a fan of that. Let's give each section a different color wash. And icons.

One more thing: I'd love to see racing stripes and a big old number on the side of the sifter. Dress it up to look like a 50's era car. Or at least add some blue to the sifter's handle - the pearl color looks washed out.

Kudos, it's time to pat yourselves on the back.

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Thanks oohahh, great feedback. You are right on that the monochromatic design is intended to draw attention to the videos.

We did try some orange, but it looked a bit jarring. If anyone would like to have a go at making orange work, we'd be happy to give it a look.

as per oohahh's suggestions
http://mwhite.slowchop.com/images/racingsift_blue.jpg
http://mwhite.slowchop.com/images/racingsift_bw.jpg
http://mwhite.slowchop.com/images/racingsift_silver.jpg
http://mwhite.slowchop.com/images/sifter_bronze.jpg
http://mwhite.slowchop.com/images/sifter_bw.jpg


To be honest, its going to be hard to find a nice contrasting colour with those shades of blue without being to jarring as dag says. I would have to go with the blackandwhite(sifter_bw.jpg) version being the nicest on my eyes.

Just a side note, i'm wondering if that image off google images of the sifter used on the current new site is subject to copyright?

what about xp'esque buttons for at least the next/previous line on the bottom, if not the numbers as well. i think it would help bring the site together... and you could use the mouseovers on the tabs and the next/previous to change to that orange that was mentioned before.

ren: nice pics! racingsift_silver.jpg goes with the theme quite nicely - way to go

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mmmm, that racingsift_silver.jpg is quite lovely. What do you guys think? I think that the image might be a tad dark - and I'm a bigot about dark drop shadows as well. Could we try lightening it a few shades?

Also, would it look good if the wooden handle bit had a blue tint - to tie the site together a bit.

I can slot it into the preview site then and see how it goes.

First of all, very well done. It is gorgeous.

I do have some suggestions for cleaning up the navigation. Every tab has redundant subheading links. The home isn't needed since the Front Page tab is there, plus you can always click on VideoSift main icon and banner.
(home | login/logout | top videos | tell me about VideoSift)

- login and logout/register and FAQ (tell me about) should all be pulled out and put above the search box. That will clean up navigation and make those things easier to find.

- (recent comments | submit a video) might also be put at top by search box since they are on every page also, but not necessary

- get rid of the dropdown selection boxes

- Incoming tab should have subheading links of
(tag cloud | submit a video | sorted by: newest | oldest | most votes | least votes)

- Top Videos tab should have subheading links of
(tag cloud | top users | top videos: 24 hrs | this week | this month | all time)

- Sift Talk tab should have:
(create new Sift Talk post | search Sift Talk comments | user profiles)

Another comment, the text doesn't scale well if you increase font size. For the "2.0" it should not be fixed to the page location, but can be part of the text "VideoSift 2.0" where 2.0 is the supertext attribute and smaller font size. This will fix the problem when you increase/decrease font size. The votes text also seems to be not centered in the votes graphic box. I think centering or making the vote boxes into RSS will fix their scaling.

There is an error when you click the Top Videos tab, the filled in square is for Front Page not Top Video.

A lot of the extra pages, like submit video or top users, etc. default to changing to the "Top Video" tab.

The comment history seems like the formatting is broken (right column is pushed to bottom) http://www.videosift.com/preview/member_comments.php?user_login=dag Also, I'd make the text smaller for "written by farhad2000 | 1 minute ago | [CH]"

Finally, you might consider putting the number of active videos next to front like you have for the queue. [Front (4037) | Incoming (137)]

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Really good feedback JD, thanks. We will incorporate most of that. The allowing for non-default text-sizes in the vote box might be a toughie, but I'll put it to our CSS gurus.

no worries dag ill send thru a revision after dinner

Damn JD your hired

http://mwhite.slowchop.com/images/silver_sifter_title.jpg (imposed on titlebar)
http://mwhite.slowchop.com/images/silversifter.png (large res transparent bg)

\0

It's lovely! The only think I noticed that hasn't been mentioned before is the 'top videos' tab doesn't fill in it's box when clicked.

I guess I'm most excited about the dupe feature. Yay!

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Thanks mlx, we'll fix that. I've put up the Ren Sifter. I think it looks really good. There's a bit of a white border on the drop shadow, maybe we can get rid of that.

yeah it got a little fiddly to do an easy border erase because of the light shades on the sifter and shadow, but i've updated the image with a better transparency(http://mwhite.slowchop.com/images/silversifter.png)

Maybe make it about 80% of its current size too so it doesnt look so large?

ren, it might look a little better if you sent it through a blur before they shrink it down. Also, I think a hard edge on the shadow will look better in the banner (transparent gif and all) (Or maybe a version with no shadow)

dag, actually, i look again, and it is centered for smaller fonts. I dunno how to fix since it uses graphic button.

upload failure first attempt, ill take a look at those ideas joe, pop one out with no shadow

http://mwhite.slowchop.com/images/silversifter_blur_noshad.png
http://mwhite.slowchop.com/images/silversifter_rt_blur.png

Preview looks fantastic, can't wait to use it for real. Great job to all those involved...

The hard edge on the shadow fixes the background problem.. but i'm thinking the blur has to be applied in GiMP or something. I'm not sure how they shrunk it down to look so good. Also, it appears the renderer has trouble with the edges of the sifter and making the background transparent. Maybe black background will extract edges better when background is made transparent.

Well done chaps!
The new site looks pretty frikkin sexy - loving the icy feel and the super-shiny sifter's a beauty

Can't WAIT to use the new site. I tell you, viewing the new site on my HDTV is just amazing!

problem with using the black background is the silver changes colour because it uses the background for the reflection.

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Hmm, OK I have updated the logo, I think though that my Photoshop skills are a bit lacking. I put it into image ready and did a diffusion on the transparency to remove the white border - it kind of worked but seems to have left some pixel artifacts and a bit of jagginess.

Perhaps someone else with better PS skills would like to have a go making the transparent gif.

Here's my go at it with the same dimensions of the current guy:
http://www.rommelsantor.com/ren_sifter-88x76.gif

Great work ren!

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Still looks a bit jaggy to me Lucky. Maybe we're all being too anal. It is a beautiful sifter.

I love my sifter, there are many others but this one is mine ...

haha yeah i think anal is the word
- squints and looks at it really closely - looks fine to me
I think everyone is probably tired of hearing about it by now too the website itself is the real beauty

nothing left to be said that already hasn't been said!! well done!!! bravo!!! *standing O* you should all be very proud of your achievements!!!!

*peace sign*

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My last comment on the logo - I've shrunk it a bit and gotten rid of most of the jaggies I think. Let's file this under good enough - and thanks for the great design ren.

One feature that seems conspicuously absent in the preview is the ability to sort the queue by age. I think many of us (well, me at least) periodically go to the older videos in the queue- especially the ones nearing the 4 day limit, and give them a quick once-over to either boost them to the front page or assist their demise.

One more thing that hasn't been mentioned.. under the Top 15 New Videos by Vote, the 'more top rated videos' link sends you to the old Videosift site... and just noticed the 'Latest Post from the Videosift Blog' (and the post link as well), the 'Drop us a line' (on both the langauge and bottom of the site) also links you back to old site.

Oh and I know I don't post videos or comments much, but I am a lurker, watching all of the top rated videos and sometimes the video queue. Now I might start posting a bit though, if I can find any good vids!

Very nice, indeed.
Holiday's over, Videosift's reborn. What's next ?

Uhhh what do i see?

I LOVE it!

This may just be a bug in my browser, but the righthand edge of every video is cut off. This isn't a huge problem, but it is distracting.

I like everything else, though. I was here for the very first videos and I lurk almost every day (this is my first comment). You guys have come a long way.

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Hi Morcae, what browser and resolution are you rolling with? If you have time could you send us a screen dump?

I'm using Internet Explorer on 1024 x 768. Everything comes up fine in Firefox, so it may just be me or it may be an IE problem. I just thought I'd mention it in case other IE users were having problems. I can email you a screenshot, if you'd like.

first impression looks good.