WineLovers Discussion Group

David M. Bueker wrote:Eric already knows I don't like it at all. The color scheme and fonts are lower contrast than they used to be, and it takes more clicks to accomplish basic tasks.

Not a happy camper. Not happy one bit.

Dale Williams wrote:While I've been sticking to the "classic" till now (I'm quite resistant to change), I'm now using with the new version. Some things I preferred about the old one, but as I get used to it I expect any annoyance will fade.
There are certain things that are clearly better in new version. If you are adding multiple wines from a single purchase at one time it's WAY faster. I just picked up 2 mixed cases from CSW. Only 7 bottles were "trackable", but entire entry took me about 2 minutes (included 4 different vintages of CFE in mag- typed "trimbach emile", clicked 4 vintage boxes, voila) - in old version would have needed to select CSW 7 times.
It's also great the vintage dropdown includes all vintages.
There are some things I like better, some I like less. But I'm pretty sure with time I'll get used to it and forget all about my mini-peeves.

David M. Bueker wrote:Eric has indicated that classic will eventually go away.

People have asked, I don't have a hard and fast timeline for how long we will maintain the old site at www.cellartracker.com/classic, and we are certainly not intending to yank the old site away in the foreseeable future. However down the line, especially as we add some deeper, new features (for example the way to predefine all of your cellar storage locations and capacities; or proper per-purchase currency handling with currency exchange; or the ability in any query to multi-select e.g. show me all of my Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Red Bordeaux Blend wines) it will take a LOT of extra work to not break the old site. In essence, over time the old site will significantly hold back what we can do in the new site.

So our plan is to play it by ear and carefully monitor how many folks are using the old site. In a year, if that is just a few hundred people or even a thousand people, we will have to carefully consider how long we can keep the old site around. Maybe that needs to be forever. I just don't know at this stage. To put this in perspective, in December about 1 million unique people will visit this (new) site, most of those unregistered and just using Google to find tasting notes and other information. Of the 250,000 people who have ever registered on the site, we estimate that about 100,000 are using the service to actively maintain their inventory on at least an annual basis.

Certainly I know that no one likes change for the sake of change. I know this is a VERY big change on the surface, although it is all of the same functionality and data (and a lot of new functionality and data as well). We feel very strongly that the new site is something we can build on, optimize, extend, translate for many years to come. The old site less so (and that extends to how it was built). There are just a ton of changes to how we are building the new site that will make it easier for us to maintain and extend, for me to bring on more programmers in the future. (I would love to add a 3rd or even 4th programmer down the line.) We could have spent a year making those changes under the covers on the old design, but we can't really turn back now.

Diane (Long Island) wrote:Voila! Thank you, Dale.

I can't tell you how long it took me to find it even after you mentioned it.

David M. Bueker wrote:Ok Eric - you didn't say it, but you sure as heck strongly implied it with the language about classic holding you back.