For The Love Of Port

Eric presents the features of his new site in a 7 minute video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVfKCSpmDTI

I appreciate the time that the programmer has put into this, and the time that the he has spent patiently responding to queries (and criticism) in other forums, but personally i still greatly greatly prefer the classic mode and am really thankful for the fact that it has been retained alongside the new version (as a casual user, i find the site indispensable in choosing wines outside my area of knowledge and probably visit it at least every other day, but i do not post myself so understand my views should have no real standing).

I would actually like to use the site for recording my cellar, but my experience on the previous iteration was that it was still quite limited in terms of customising the categorisation of wines (no option, as far as i could see, to categorise wine by different storage sites, whether a wine is held in bond or duty/VAT paid, or individual characteristics such as identity of the bottler, bottling date, or separate columns for notes re: fill level, storage history etc.). Then again, i am a sucker for a meticulously constructed excel spreadsheet...

I also much prefer the classic version and struggle with the new one. I guess I like the density of information that you get in a spreadsheet format!

David Spriggs wrote:I also much prefer the classic version and struggle with the new one. I guess I like the density of information that you get in a spreadsheet format!

+1

I made a mistake while putting in a recent purchase, and it took me about half an hour to figure out how to fix it. The new format is prettier, but its information delivery is less dense and at least to me it is less intuitive.

I clung to the classic version for a while, but after getting used to it, I'm finding nice things in the new UI as well. The information density in the classic is hard to beat - but if you really want that density, download the spreadsheet that he has on the site and use that as your primary means of seeing what you've got.

David Spriggs wrote:I also much prefer the classic version and struggle with the new one. I guess I like the density of information that you get in a spreadsheet format!

I've been struggling to learn the new site. The visual clutter and "hidden" hover links are confusing and take time to learn. I was told the other night of some other easier to use shortcuts, which if I haven't found them on my own as of yet needs some retooling to be more obvious.

Eric has done a great job overall with Cellartracker and I'm a huge supporter but I am about to give up the new format and go back to the classic mode. The new format is a computer programers dream but for those of us who are not computer nerds it is overwhelming and confusing.

I started using cellar tracker early last year, and went straight to the beta version, so I've never really looked at the old interface. Coming in cold, I haven't found the new one too hard to pick up at all, and I've been impressed with the design (both as an end user and as an IT professional).
So I think for most of you, it will just take a while to get used to it, mainly because you've become set in the way you use the application. Not too different from any other major software upgrade really.

I stayed with the old version until the recent change (where the main URL takes you to the new version). I now regret not having made the switch-over earlier. It has just caused me to miss a few months getting used to the new version. I suspect that as I learn the "tricks" of the new version that I will like it as well as the old.

Andy, if you would post some of the tricks you were shown (or post a source) it would help the rest of us learn the new version faster.

Andy Velebil wrote: The visual clutter....

Switching between the two versions, this is what i dislike most about the new version as against the clean and simple layout of the old version.