Browsing Literary Works: Thoughts?

So, I'm having second thoughts about the browse area. Thus, I need your input.

The browse area is currently a two column format, and I think it looks nice, but I'm worried about how easy it is to actually browse. On the other hand, I know that the forums are very easy to browse. So, would you prefer to keep the current layout of the browse area, or make it look more like a forum?

I like how unnusual the current format is, though I do miss being able to see who the most recent reviewer was. More for the cool screen shots and bragging right, if I'm honest.

I really like the little speech bubbles and the very obvious genre tags. To be honest, I find it pretty easy to navigate and find what I'm looking for so no problems there. I'll have a sleep on it and let you know if I think of anything else in the morning.

I really like the new layout. Really, the only thing I feel it need is some way to arrange it into things like least reviews to most reviews, by Author, and by Title. That would make finding a specific work or not letting pieces miss out on reviews a lot easier.

I really like the Browse section. It's very clean and sleek looking, unlike forums which essentially look cluttered no matter how you put it. It's also not hard to navigate, unless you're trying to go back to a specific date (for example where we have loads of works with not loads of reviews from the last few months).

The only really problem I see having right now is the inability to see works with 0 or 1 reviews. And maybe an ability to see works from a specific month? Mostly I just want my 0 and 1 review lists back xD

I'm with Heather. I definitely prefer the new browse section to what we had before in browse; However, I do really miss the forum setup sometimes.

Navigation is much easier than it had been previously, and I really like that I can just tag a poem as "poetry" and not have to categorize it further - that's why I loved the "other" forum so much. It also makes it way easier to deal with short stories/chapters/novels, too, I think, but that's just what I've been seeing. I don't use those filters/forums much, so I can't comment on much beyond that it appears to work better than the forum setup had been before.

It looks really good, yes!
And the comment speech bubble is lovely.
Browsing is pretty good, with the genre-wise classification. And I like the format and the easy-on the eyes feel.

One thing though is, I did really like having a novels page. It was a nice way of organizing the longer lit works. And as Lauren mentioned, I miss the 0/1 reviews. I used those a lot when I was reviewing. These are the two main things that I miss while navigating.

The current setup is awesome. I think it'd be great if we could muster what you had programmed in the old Review Queue, though. And really, that could possibly solve a lot of the "Which works haven't been reviewed" issues, I think. The following is in spoilers because it's just me dreaming. ;)

Spoiler

I just took a look around again, and it looks like the current filters run on these lines:

1. No filter--shows all literary works in order of most recently posted.
2. Show Only Following
3. Show Only Mine
4. Literary Type Filter
5. Genre Filter

So. One would think that the things that remain missing are:

1. Time Filter (select by months, or a custom range if possible)
2. 0 Reviews - 1 Review Filter
3. Show Review Filter

And then a search function would tie everything together. But oh man, if we could layer filters? I could go searching for an unreviewed lyrical-religious poem from March 2012. Hnnng.

Well, I guess if anyone doesn't like it, they're keeping their peace, haha.

Anyways, I did make some changes that I think organizes it a little better.

I don't like the color of the article type "Poetry » Narrative, Dramatic" being a bright green up against the white background, but otherwise it isnt all that hard to navigate or read.

For works with 0/1 comments, I would have the reddish comment images, instead of just the regular white ones. That would make them stand out more. I also really like Lumi's idea of unreviewed works being a tab. That would be way cool.

I like the idea of having a section of works that were posted since you last visited, kind of like perusing through the recent posts topics, but for just literary works. Not sure how feasible that is...

This is probably too complicated, but remember how we had "works recommended to you" on the front page in the last edition based on your friends' likes, etc.? I would have a section of works that were recommended to you, based on the same thing. That would be awesome, albeit probably ridiculously hard to code.

And, this has only the littlest to do with the literary works, however I think it would be cool to be able to be notified if someone comments on our comment or review of a literary work.

I quite like the two-column structure, and I'm over the moon about the comments-so-far count being back. (but I'm with Heather in missing the forum set-up sometimes).

I agree with Enigma about the green being out of the colour scheme, but that's minor.

(Even more minor is the fact that the comment-so-far count is not vertically aligned to the centre of the speech bubble. I need to stop being nitpicky about pixel-perfect aspects of design...)

This is a teeny nitpicky thing that's been bothering me:

Is it possible to switch the title and genre positions?
It's just that the genre being allcaps and green seems to overshadow the title. My eyes take a few seconds more to see the title?

It'd be nice to interchange the positions and maybe reduce the size of the genre-text, since we have a browse function on the side anyway.
EDIT:
Opera was messing with it.
Looks great on FireFox.

I love it! The only thing that's negative about it is that the Times New Roman doesn't really fit with the rest of the site though.

I like the green though. Makes a slight change from all the blue and white.

It looks like it lets more work last long enough on the first page and you can see who isn't getting reviews. That way you can help people out more easier. I like it.

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