Bad new design of source page when coming from "Search Records" is hard to work with.
Please don't make this change! I noticed it starting March 6-7, 2021. When I click on a source from the "Search Records," the page that comes up is an assault on the senses. Why is that dark banner even necessary? The page design was fine before.
More important, I feel that this format makes it harder to get a feel for the record as a whole because the person of interest is separated from the other names in the record. In a census record, for example, I would rather see the whole household (as it appears in the source) because it is easier to see relationships between people.
Answers
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Hi there!
I'm interested in this but when I first looked, everything seemed to be as I was used to. However, upon further examination it appears that a new type of view has been added. I wonder if this is what you are seeing.
When you look at the search results, on the right hand of any given row there are usually 2 or 3 icons. If you click on the little document icon, it will show you the indexed data and the information about the source where it was derived from, usually including a link to an image of the source that the index data was taken from.
However, it used to be that clicking anywhere else on the row would ALSO open the same window as the little document icon would. What seems to be new is that now, if you click in the row but not on the icons, you still get that same image as with the document icon, only in this case it opens in a Modal Window.
The Modal window puts a grey shaded overlay on the rest of your webpage that is not already covered by the modal window and locks it all down so that you can't do anything with it. Is this what you are seeing? If so, you can get back to the way you were used to by clicking EXACTLY on the little document icon.
So you still have the ability to access the data without a modal window.
In general, the way modal windows get used in the FS website has always been a nuisance. However, in this case the modal window comes with an additional feature. When you open the data on one of the search results, you can walk through the details of all of the results just by clicking on the left and right arrows on each side of the modal window.
This looks like it might be really useful for SOME folks. I'll reserve judgement until I've tried it some. However, I still do not like how modal windows block you from seeing or accessing things on the original webpage. But at least, the original discrete window display is still there and can still be used.
I will probably not be using the new capability since it is more cramped of a view, and you cannot open two or more sources on the results list for comparison purposes. The the modal window, it is only one or nothing.
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Hi there!
I'm interested in this but when I first looked, everything seemed to be as I was used to. However, upon further examination it appears that a new type of view has been added. I wonder if this is what you are seeing.
When you look at the search results, on the right hand of any given row there are usually 2 or 3 icons. If you click on the little document icon, it will show you the indexed data and the information about the source where it was derived from, usually including a link to an image of the source that the index data was taken from.
However, it used to be that clicking anywhere else on the row would ALSO open the same window as the little document icon would. What seems to be new is that now, if you click in the row but not on the icons, you still get that same image as with the document icon, only in this case it opens in a Modal Window.
The Modal window puts a grey shaded overlay on the rest of your webpage that is not already covered by the modal window and locks it all down so that you can't do anything with it. Is this what you are seeing? If so, you can get back to the way you were used to by clicking EXACTLY on the little document icon.
So you still have the ability to access the data without a modal window.
In general, the way modal windows get used in the FS website has always been a nuisance. However, in this case the modal window comes with an additional feature. When you open the data on one of the search results, you can walk through the details of all of the results just by clicking on the left and right arrows on each side of the modal window.
This looks like it might be really useful for SOME folks. I'll reserve judgement until I've tried it some. However, I still do not like how modal windows block you from seeing or accessing things on the original webpage. But at least, the original discrete window display is still there and can still be used.
I will probably not be using the new capability since it is more cramped of a view, and you cannot open two or more sources on the results list for comparison purposes. The the modal window, it is only one or nothing.
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It's been a few weeks now, and I'm seeing some sources with the new design and some with the old. (Or maybe it just depends on how I access the source.)
Thank you Jeff for your reminder that I can get to the better format by clicking the icon on the search page. I'll have to get into the new habit of doing it that way.
Honestly, I find it so hard to get a "feel" for the sources in this new format that I have started searching in ancestry.com FIRST, then using the FamilySearch source linker only after I have determined that this is a source I want.
I have always loved the Source Linker function, but this is really a step backwards and makes it less usable.
It's especially bad when sources have been attached incorrectly and need to be fixed. I tried to do that yesterday. The "Edit" button was only for editing the indexing. The only way I could figure out how to look at the whole source and change attachments was to go through the (incorrect) person's source page and click "Review Attachments." It's just so much more cumbersome.
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I'm totally on board with those who find the new format for viewing source data to be both ugly ("assault on the senses" is not too harsh a characterization, IMO) and more difficult to use. This is one of those situations that I think falls in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." category.
Moreover, the ability to edit incorrectly indexed information has become much more difficult with the new format, which limits the fields that are available to edit depending on from which person who appears in the source you may have accessed the source information. For example, in the Württemberg, Germany Lutheran Records database, it appears to me that that to be permitted to edit the date of a marriage, you much be working on the source that for which the groom's own name is in the heading. By contrast if you come to the same source through the name of the groom's father, that father's name is the ONLY field you can edit--which is very cumbersome because if a father's surname is incorrectly indexed, it is highly likely that the groom's surname, or the bride's maiden name will have the same indexing error in.
It would seeem much more logical to allow making corrections to all editable fields from the same source link (which is the way it used to be until someone decided this needed "fixing.").
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