All Changes page is difficult to understand

LegacyUser

Carolyn Roeth said: The recent changes to the "All Changes" page make the history of changes difficult to understand. I tried tracking changes to an ancestor and gave up.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: The change log is organized in chronological order, from the latest change to the oldest. The filters can be used to follow just one type of change in the history. But it is still the same change log with some additional formatting and the filter feature.

LegacyUser

Carolyn Roeth said: I'm sure it is clear to the programmer, but the presentation is not as good as the previous one. I've been using this feature for years and now find it not useful. Sorry, progress isn't always doing something new. Sometimes it is just staying with something that works and using it

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: A couple of comments here.

First, a number of us like the new format for the change log. We find it easier to use than the old format.

We like the idea of a collapsed set of changes, such as for a merge, but I've seen other instances, as well.

We also like the filter mechanism, although I have previously noted in its own discussion thread, that there are two filters that are missing. The new format needs some additional work, but for the present, it works well for me.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Finally, it took me less than an hour to test and like the new format. I'm 75 years old, but had no problems understanding the new layout.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Carolyn, a lot of other people on this board have expressed your concern and the fact that you find it confusing is all that is important here.

The software engineers on this site do intend to make it as good as they can for us and they have done a remarkable job over the past more than ten years. (It didn't pop up out of nowhere in 2012.) They have also been quite responsive to concerns brought up by users.

However, they can't fix anything unless they can see exactly what got broke.

If you could identify, in as much detail as you can, precisely what you found difficult with the new change log and what stumbling blocks made you give up, that will give the engineers the information they need to make changes for the better. Screen shots always help.

Take some time and really stare at the page and try to decide what it is that bothers you so that you can, for example, instead of saying "The page looks weird," say "Labels in the left hand column are so close to the same color as the outside frame and they are so near that frame that they fade into the background, making them very hard to read."



"The background frame should be lighter."



"Or the text should be darker."



Please continue to try to help them improve the site!

LegacyUser

Paul said: I have just been working through some incorrect merges and found my task would have been very much easier if "Merges" was included in the Filter options.

I know this observation is not new, but I can now confirm it really DOES need to be added to the change log asap.

LegacyUser

Don M Thomas said: I am with you Carolyn Roeth. I don't like the new merging, and is why I have STOPPED merging. Have decided that I must not be too smart because it all looks GREEK to me.