DZ-Aladan

OK people, today I want to voice my opinion about this and I'm going to be blunt.

But it won't be about Eclipse itself as much as the uproar about it. For starters, let's make something clear: Eclipse is FAR from perfect.

It's missing several features and some of the things don't work that well, like:

• Sorting favorites relies on a window appearing for a split second, and sometimes not appearing at all, forcing me to unfav and re-fav something so I can properly sort it;

• The selection by dragging the mouse has been removed;

• "Select All", for deviations, only works in the "Deviations" inbox, instead of "All".

Just to name a few.

In its current state, it's mostly just pretty to look at.

That said, however, I've been on this website for well over 10 years and trust me when I say this: every single time the website changes, people start complaining and/or protesting.

Every. Single. Time.

And this feels no different.

Sorry to say, but I know how it's going to end already: people protest, will want the old site back, then they get used and everything is fine again.

This until the next change. Rinse and repeat.

Some of these complaints are fair (missing and broken features), some are because people don't know everything about what happens "in the backstage" ("I don't like it").

I understand changes are annoying, but people... they happen. It's literally how the world works.

If it can reassure you, in any case, the old version of the website was also the result of features being added and removed across the years. The same can happen here.

Wouldn't be better, instead of asking to keep the old site up, insisting to add features you want? If you keep them going, they'll have to give in eventually.

But you just cannot ask DeviantArt to keep two websites running.

However, as said, you can ask for the new version be better.

Let's dwell into this.

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The website was working fine before! Don't fix what's not broken!

True. But... stop for a second and see it from another point of view: how is the code running the old website? It works fine on the surface, but are the inner workings just as efficient?

Sometimes it's better to start all over again from a blank slate, because with time a website can became a messy bloat of code containing some parts that probably don't work anymore, but cannot be removed because there's a chance that some elements may depend on them and end up broken if deleted.

Can't they keep the old website running as they are doing right now?

What they are doing right now is just a mean to make the transition smoother, but the two versions aren't coded the same way. Keeping alive an old version means using resources and workforce to maintain two websites.

A practical example: imagine you own a store. With time, you decide you want to move to a new place for whatever reason (the previous one is in a building that's either too small, broken or anything else).

However, your customers prefer the old store and are complaining that you are moving. What are you going to do? Keep two stores at the same time, which means you have to keep both stocked, pay employees + taxes for both and so on? What if the money you get is enough just for one store?

This is mostly why old version of websites end up scrapped: it can double the costs to do the same thing for the same device.

Can't they keep just the old design, then?

Fair enough, but... would you do it?

If you are renewing something, you probably weren't happy anymore with the old one. Would you remake it by keeping 1:1 to how it looked before or would you rather give it a fresh coat of paint, since you're starting anew?

Again, as I said, I'm aware that there are some functions that aren't working properly, as I'm aware that the Staff is not prone to listening. That's why you should, together, insist for specific features, instead of each person asking for something different.

For example, I saw this pretty good proposal for the Eclipse design (by Fairloke):

Which is a good combination between old and new (info in the Deviation description).

You can attempt to request Eclipse to look like this.

Fair warning, though: it may require the staff to do quite a big rework of the code, and since Eclipse is pretty much nearly finished, they're less likely to do it right away.

And... well, let's be honest: people are probably going to complain about the layout change again once they get used to the new one. In any case, if a feature ends up HEAVILY requested unanimously, the Staff will have no other choices but to listen and make Eclipse more functional for the users.

What if they still don't listen?

First of all, keep in mind that some features can't be restored.

There are several reasons they may not want to do that: it can be that they were too costly to keep, there's no good way to properly implement them without breaking the website, they were just not as utilized as you think they were, et cetera.

That said, if the features you ask are fair and can potentially be implemented...

Might be hard to do, but... well, deactivate your account.

I know, you will literally lose years of hard work, but on the other hand, if the Staff notices that they're hemorrhaging users (= income), they'll have to comply to not lose more.

It's not "blackmailing", in case you're wondering: if you're unsatisfied with a service, it's withing your right to drop it.

I think that an account can be reactivated while keeping everything (I don't remember), but if it doesn't, save your best works to reupload later whenever you'll want to make a new account.

But, again, don't use this to demand the old site back. I already explained why, and they won't do that for sure, because it will cost them far more.

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That's pretty much it.

Anything else that grinds your gears? Let's talk about it in the comments, in a civilized manner, please (no attacks, insults, or anything else that's not polite).