A couple of days ago I came to P0x to post as usual and immediately I noticed something had changed. I read and tipped an article and then went to "Write a post" and I was immediately struck by a new sidebar that occupied about a third of the page on the right hand side. So I thought hmmm... this is new and carried on.

Please note that throughout, unless specified, I am referring to the editor page

When I had written the post I did all those things that have to be done to finish it off, select which blog, upload a picture and add tags if you wish. So far so good and I liked that it was neatly packaged together, although it did mean scrolling back to the top of the page. I also liked the little bullet points that explain very clearly that the target blog and thumbnail image are essential prerequisites to being able to preview the post.

Not sure, because I use a more old fashioned "open file" approach, but it looks like the thumb might be possible through drag and drop as hinted at by the dotted lines that frame the space that is awaiting an image

There are however a couple of things that I think can be improved. As a consequence of the new sidebar the editing tools menu that runs across to the top of the post looks a bit untidy; although this might be down to my size settings. By the way is anybody actually using the widgets button (the green one)?

The other, and more notable thing, is that now the Save and Preview / Save and Return to Overview buttons are located at the top of the new sidebar, so one the blog has been selected, the image uploaded and any tags added it is necessary to scroll back up to select the button you want. For the sake of easy flow and user friendliness I think this should be retained at the bottom, once all the essential bits have been done.

There are some other changes too like the home screen and the dashboard (also now with a sidebar), but much of this is window-dressing and makes little impact on the user experience - although I do like the sidebar on the dashboard - somehow it feels more professional.

So the purpose of this article is just to provide an overview and some thoughts on what is happening on here and certainly not to criticise P0x or the team. People know I am a big fan and in some ways I hope my thoughts can be used (and others too) to drive further improvement and improve the user experience.

As always stay safe and well my friends.

I have just noticed the hero image option in the sidebar which i hadn't previously noticed so I will have a look at that in a bit. And btw that is not me in the header image, just in case you were wondering.