As you can see, we've made some changes to the layout at KnoxViews.
I was reworking some of the plumbing (rewriting the psychedelic template and CSS by hand using notepad, well actually TextPad, into something I can read and maintain while replacing HTML tables with CSS where possible) and went ahead and did some minor cosmetic surgery in the process.
The new layout is intended to make the front page more focused on content v. navigation and to relieve some of the congestion to allow for a little more white space that hopefully enhances readability. It should also load slightly faster without having to render all those complicated tables.
The login and navigation menus have been moved over to the right, and they have been tidied up a bit.
The main change to the menus, other than location, is that "create content" has been replaced with direct links to the kinds of content you can create, like "New blog entry," etc.
We'll be tweaking things over the next few days, I'm sure. Please let me know in comments if you find something missing or odd or not working, or just let us know what you think.
Thanks!
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Topics:
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Discussing:
- Are Chat bots a waste of time? (1 reply)
- Smith & Wesson noise problem (1 reply)
- Musicians dropping out of President's Freedom Concert Series (1 reply)
- It's time for new blood in Congress, Barnett in - Burchett out (1 reply)
- Burning Down The House... (2 replies)
- Behind Lege Lies (1 reply)
- Peace (1 reply)
- Speak your truth, fight and believe. (1 reply)
- Large banks have too much AI data center debt? (1 reply)
- GOP misleading on federal health care funding (1 reply)
- Feds indict civil rights group (3 replies)
- Georgia issues burn ban, first time in state history (2 replies)
TN Progressive
- Smith & Wesson not a good fit for Blount County (BlountViews)
- Pellissippi Parkway extension delayed again (BlountViews)
- Blount County early voting record turnout (BlountViews)
- Louisville, TN, town center coming soon? (BlountViews)
- WATCH THIS SPACE. (Left Wing Cracker)
- America As It Is Right Now (RoaneViews)
- A friend sent this: From Captain McElwee's Tall Tales of Roane County (RoaneViews)
- The Meidas Touch (RoaneViews)
- Massive Security Breach Analysis (RoaneViews)
- (Whitescreek Journal)
- My choices in the August election (Left Wing Cracker)
- July 4, 2024 - aka The Twilight Zone (Joe Powell)
TN Politics
- Local Tennessee officials are putting data center plans on ice to consider regulations (TN Lookout)
- Judge blocks Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization’ fund until government agrees it’s been dissolved (TN Lookout)
- Five laws passed by Tennessee lawmakers in 2026 face legal challenges, so far (TN Lookout)
- Tennessee’s “Nuclear Family Month” is a slap in the face of dads fighting for their children (TN Lookout)
- Firearms drive majority of veteran suicides, federal data shows (TN Lookout)
- Judge allows UFC cage matches to go ahead on White House lawn (TN Lookout)
Knox TN Today
- Famous DGG is out there, DeSean Bishop is here (Knox TN Today)
- Thomas Cole: New KFD Asst. Chief, 134th Wing’s Chief Master Sergeant (Knox TN Today)
- Chris Bryant + Winston Fellows + D-Day for Derek Dooley ++ (Knox TN Today)
- Meet Miley, Monday’s Parent-A-Child (Knox TN Today)
- Dr. Conrad Ivie performs first of a kind surgery in the state (Knox TN Today)
- Mission Monday: Today’s focus on YWCA Knoxville’s Victim Advocacy Program (Knox TN Today)
- 6/15 HEADLINES: News and events from Knox, World, USA, Tennessee & Historic Notes (Knox TN Today)
- The Knox County Sheriff Primary will stand. Here’s what the GOP board was really deciding. (Knox TN Today)
- Knoxville Street Medicine seeks to support the unhoused (Knox TN Today)
- Vols win 4×100 relay, team is third in NCAA track (Knox TN Today)
- PAT the play returns to the stage in June (Knox TN Today)
- Easy Bacon & Swiss Quiche: Breakfast meal prep (Knox TN Today)
Local TV News
- Pop-up clinics offer free medical care services in Knoxville, Del Rio (WATE)
- Road in Knoxville closes for 15 days of repairs (WATE)
- TBI releases statement on 5-year mark of Summer Wells' disappearance (WATE)
- Teen charged with murder in Roane County faces new charges after police chase (WATE)
- Low humidity through mid-week (WATE)
- Two missing children found safe after Knoxville Police ask public's help (WATE)
News Sentinel
State News
- Mark Steadman Obituary - Chattanooga Times Free Press (Times Free Press)
- Teen charged in connection with disappearance of Collegedale man - Chattanooga Times Free Press (Times Free Press)
- Chattanooga’s July 4 drone show needed federal approval due to Spanish national team - Chattanooga Times Free Press (Times Free Press)
- Losing Ground: Historic Black neighborhoods in Chattanooga face new pressures - Chattanooga Times Free Press (Times Free Press)
Wire Reports
- U.S., Iran reach a deal to end fighting, both sides say - The Washington Post (US News)
- Stock Market Today: Stock Futures Rally, Oil Drops After U.S.-Iran Deal - WSJ (Business)
- SpaceX set to extend rally after record Wall Street debut - Reuters (Business)
- KFC's The Colonel gets a subtle makeover in new rebrand - Creative Bloq (Business)
- FOX CORPORATION TO ACQUIRE ROKU, INC. - PR Newswire (Business)
- "They screwed us": Personality clashes sent Anthropic's models offline - Axios (Business)
- Mrs. Dow Jones: The American dream is 'very dead' for millennials and Gen Z - Business Insider (Business)
- US: Skydiving plane crash leaves 12 people dead in Missouri - dw.com (US News)
- 5 members to watch as the Freedom Caucus transforms - Politico (US News)
- Fed Chair Kevin Warsh and the FOMC Will Likely Take the First Step Toward Dropping the Hammer on Trumpflation This Week - Yahoo Finance (Business)
- Person rescued from vehicle in Austin flash flooding as dozens of roads remain closed - KUT (US News)
- Trump won't back FISA renewal without his SAVE America Act voting bill - Axios (US News)
- Meet Gwynne Shotwell, the engineer-turned-COO who runs SpaceX in platform heels and is now worth over $2 billion - Fortune (Business)
- Trump, 80, Gets Ultimate Birthday Humiliation on Fight Night - The Daily Beast (US News)
- In Georgia, Senate hopeful Mike Collins celebrates being Trump's latest 'MAGA' pick in GOP primaries - AP News (US News)
Local Media
Lost Medicaid Funding
Search and Archives
TN Progressive
Nearby:
- Blount Dems
- Herston TN Family Law
- Inside of Knoxville
- Instapundit
- Jack Lail
- Jim Stovall
- Knox Dems
- MoxCarm Blue Streak
- Outdoor Knoxville
- Pittman Properties
- Reality Me
- Stop Alcoa Parkway
Beyond:
- Nashville Scene
- Nashville Post
- Smart City Memphis
- TN Dems
- TN Journal
- TN Lookout
- Bob Stepno
- Facing South

Note to those who view
Note to those who view source and still see psychedelic HTML. Drupal generates most of that. The entire page template for this site is now 84 lines of HTML, and the style sheet was reduced to about 2100 bytes from about 13K before. The rest of that stuff is on Drupal.
Ignore user?
Can we block replies by those posting that we find tedious or offensive with this feature? I can only think of one that would qualify for this.
Interesting. I'm not sure
Interesting. I'm not sure about it yet but I like new stuff so have at it.
Beats the new look at the
Beats the new look at the KNS.
I like it!
I like it!
Visit us at:
The Home
First impressions
I like the new layout. I love the wide discussion summary and upcoming events. I like the order of the boxes in the double column section. I also like the tone-on-tone color scheme.
There's something I don't like about the font in the actual content section, but I'm not sure what. Maybe it needs to go down a point? Or maybe tighten up the line spacing? Also, the line that identifies the source blog and the the comment count just fades out. If you don't want to keep the bold, maybe go with the same color you use to flag new comments in the discussion summary?
The comment page seriously needs a separator between the comments or a greenbar layout or something. Note the similarity between the titles and the link in redmondkr's sig. Also, the "new" tag shouldn't be in front of the photo; it makes it wander left and right on the page when someone doesn't provide a photo.
I like it. Though I agree
I like it. Though I agree w/ mjw's last paragraph about the comments needing delineation.
Thanks for the feedback and
Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. Some tweaks made...
The change works well for
The change works well for me.
One suggestion:
On the Blog-O-Rama and Media Blogs side bars, it seems to run together. Maybe double space after each bullet?
The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present.
President Abraham Lincoln 1862
Thanks, Gary. Adjusted the
Thanks, Gary. Adjusted the spacing a little.
looks good
Drupal is a great platform.
Lots of people using it, including the White House.
Here's a look at it's penetration:
(link...)
I also love Textpad as an editor.
Not too much, not too little.
Oh, yes, the page loads much faster. Tables are so web 1.0! :-)
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?"
very nice!
I like the look.
I like it, but
I'm liking the change, but I wish y'all would go back to full feeds for RSS. It's a hassle having to come here to view it when I should be able to read it in Google Reader.
But I'm digging the sharpness of it, and it is definitely faster.
I like the layout of the
I like the layout of the stuff on the right.
It seems the left-hand content column could use something more to delineate individual entries. It looks just a little bit too plain.
Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.
Second Impressions
Really liking the tweaks so far. The boxes around the comments will be particularly helpful when nine and metulj go on so long in dialog that the comments end up about a word wide. ;-)
I was on the fence about the button bar below a post, but taking the buttons down a size makes all the difference. And I like the Shortcuts box. (I had just noticed those orphaned buttons last night, and now you've already fixed it.)
Good job.
Thanks, mjw, and everyone
Thanks, mjw, and everyone else for the comments and feedback.
Other tweaks this afternoon include rounded box borders for Firefox and Safari browsers, and a completely revamped events/calendar app.
I was looking at the Drupal code for the old events module to tweak a couple of things, and decided it was too ancient and bloated (like me) to figure out so I ditched it and recreated it using Drupal content types, CCK, date and calendar modules, and views.
I was also playing around with the Yahoo UI WYSIWYG editor module for Drupal that looks promising, but it's missing a couple of key Drupal things that I couldn't figure out how to customize without hacking a bunch of code that I don't want to maintain.
Anyway, I think I'm done for a few days. It's turkey time! (Wild and otherwise).
It looks better! Brian A.I'd
It looks better!
Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.
Navigation box
I think it is ok. I need to use it more to develop more of an opinion. Something that hits me from my usage so far, I use the navigation section pretty regularly and now I have to scroll to it a lot. Given my personal usage pattern that is an inconvenience.
Navigation box being Home, Contact, My Account, etc.
Thanks, jbr. What functions
Thanks, jbr. What functions do you frequently use from the navigation section?
Home, My Account, My inbox,
Home, My Account, My inbox, create content and I would group "search" in that category although I have always scrolled down to find the query text box before. I had not previously noticed search in the long list.
I like the different color used for the new comments in the topics list. That is helpful.
I use the mobile version 60%
I use the mobile version 60% of the time and I have noticed something in mobile that would make it work much more conveniently. In the recent discussions section, if I click on the new comment link it doesn't take me directly to the new comment like it does directly below the post. Therefore in a lengthy discussion it can take forever to scroll to the bottom. My bberry scroll ball would appreciate that tweak!
Excellent work! Way to go! :)
R. Neal,
East Tennessee is lucky you are here! :)
-- OneTahiti
@gdrinnen2, mobi should be
@gdrinnen2, mobi should be fixed for new comments, let me know...
@jbr, buttons added (clicking the KnoxViews banner at the top takes you to the home page, or if you are at the bottom of the page there is a 'breadcrumb' with a link to 'home').
Thanks!
awesomeness!
They work like a charm! Now if everyone provided this kind of customer service. . .