Thanks for mentioning the profile settings. They want to send scads of e-mails related to every single little peep or post!! The "never" option is the only way to maintain peace and quiet.

Mind you, the ability to say yes to being alerted when there are comments is one of the better things about the change, but it could be a bad surprise if one doesn't edit the Advanced settings to one's liking!

I tried changing my name as mentioned above, but nope, didn't work.

Sooz

You can change the name the Public sees, but not your Username if Houzz already has it in use.

I had to change my name from grainlady and changed it to grainlady_ks via the e-mail they sent me . This is a test.....

Sometimes three L's is an advantage. :)

Ha!

You can "like" you own post, only once. :-)

Then you can "unlike" your "like"

dcarch

There are six other "dcarch" usernames (dcarch7)?! Aw!

but there's only 1 on GardenWeb. Truly, one of a kind

This is certainly a change for the worse. We've gone from a user-friendly environment to one only a high school child would like.

I like the new format! Esp the preview option (upper right) so you see the start of the latest comment and don't have to click in to see if you've already read the latest. Where did Conversations go though? Not that I really ever go there much anymore. They're still "there" if you search, but I don't see the link.

Interesting. I'm now johnliu_gw, which I can live with. I'm still figuring out the new interface. FOAS, where did you find the "Conversations" section?

I didn't find it per se, I just was able to get to individual conversations indirectly by way of looking at individual user's activities (click on their user name) or searching for something I knew was out there. But once there, I couldn't figure out a way to go up a level to see where I was.

Thanks Maddielee. I was able to change back to Ann_T.

~Ann

Not sure what my name is anymore, since I was already on Houzz and could not get into the email that I was sent regarding my account from gardenweb. I guess I can get it at home

I see my name is J Robert Scott now! That's not good, and that's not my name - that's my employer, and I use Houzz at work for research projects. Somehow I'm going to have to figure out if I have a dual identity.

I am happy to finally be posting in the cooking forum. I've lurked for YEARS!!! But I never paid to join.

It is easy to change . Just do as Maddie directed and go to Your Houzz at the top right and select Edit Profile. Then drop down past your Account Information, and go to Profile Information and type in the name that you want displayed publicly.

~Ann

Joanninpa, it hasn't been a requirement to pay for many years. That was just for a one or two year period back in the early 2000's.

I like Houzz but not when it messes with GW CF. I validated as requested however, I get rejected on my kitchen PC...well I've only tried 8 times.

Good to see you here Maddielee.

I changed my user name in my profile, but I'm not sure it changed here.

It didn't!

it wouldn't allow me to change back to dcarch. Told me that name has been taken.

May be I have a split personality I did not know about?

dcarch

Trying to see if my change took. This is not pleasant . . .

Let's see who I am now.

Same old Lars. :)

This may take some time to get used to. It wouldn’t let me change my to partst so now I’m partstt and do change your advanced setting or you will be getting email all day long.

Well that didn’t work don’t know where that name came from

partst

You can change the name that is displayed, not if you're Pro, I think. Go to edit profile and change your first name, which will SHOW (not yelling, emphasis) you as your username, but not change your username.

Just know that someone else is ALSO (still not yelling) using your name on Houzz.

Just to add on to what Rob said, I've added a screenshot below. I'm a visual person; pictures always help! Speaking of which -- if you haven't tried to upload a photo, it's SO easy! I think you'll love that feature.

I had another username for Houzz, so when I went to change it to mitchdesj it was refused to I added a 2 at the end. I hope we all get used to this real quick.

One thing that I'm loving is that many of you are adding your photo to your profile. It really is cool to put a name to a face!

Not really my face.

So far, I'm not liking this at all, it totally stinks! Conversations is gone, for all practical purposes. (Not that I ever went there very much, but it was nice for those of you did post there regularly.) The color change for already read posts is gone. The totally white page with small font is hard on my eyes, but maybe in time I'll get used to it. Seems html is also gone. I haven't found a way to preview a post before it is posted. So far the only good thing (and it's relatively unimportant) is the fact that we can change the name the public sees to something besides our user name.

Nope, not liking this at all. . . . .

Rusty

Rusty, you can easily increase the appearance of the font by using CTRL and + (plus) together in most browsers (CTRL with minus to make smaller). This zooms the whole page. On a phone or tablet, you should be able to change the font size or just two finger pinch out. GW was all white except for the background picture (which was pretty new). My zoom level remained after the changeover, and the font size is bigger than I had it set for on GW. I checked on my tablet, and it's also pretty big, so maybe you accidentally zoomed out (smaller)?

If that doesn't do it for you, you should be able to force your own color scheme using your browser options. That usually changes everything for everywhere you go, however, so you might want to get a secondary browser just for your GW colorscheme. Alternatively, if you have Firefox or another browser that takes add-ons, there are plenty of add-ons that let you customize the appearance of a single page.

I'm not lovin' the new digs, but I'm trying to be patient....

Apparently there was another lpinkmountain and also an lpink, so I am now "orginalpinkmountain" but y'all can call me OPM for short, :)

I told it to display my GW username. Let's see if it works....

I can't seem to figure out how to stay in the Rose forum. Whenever I type something in "search", then type something else in "search" (something that I do often when researching) it searches every forum on Houzz instead of just the Roses forum. This is very frustrating. The pure white background is also hard on my eyes. I hope these issues get fixed soon.

Nope, it shows my Houzz one *sigh*.

Wow. I don't stop by for a few days (weeks?) and...wow. I like to play with new websites, though.

It is hard on the eyes. Am I remembering correctly that when GW changed their look it was bright white at first and they toned it down? Doubt that will happen if houzz has always been this way. (I had never heard of houzz...my house is decorated in Early American Thrift Store.)

This is sort of like my little local bank...got absorbed by a larger bank and it's slowly becoming, well, big. Sigh.

Hi Rosecandy -- I'm seeing your GW name, so it's working!

When you are searching, watch the box when you type in your query. It will allow you to search in different areas of the site and the first selection is always the forum where you are when you are searching. If you look at the screenshot below, you'll see that I typed in 'spaghetti' and if I click on the 'Cooking' result it's going to just pull up related posts in the Cooking forum. If I click on 'Advice', it will pull up threads in all the forums. If you don't specify and just hit return, it defaults to all forums, too. I know that it's different than the way you searched on GW, but I think that when you get used to it, you'll like it.

Let me know if you need any further help!

Plllog, I guess I have reached that ripe old age where I am resistant to change.

I see color of headers for threads that have no new posts is now changing.

A small step in the right direction.

I also see where are a number of others on other threads

Who also find the glaring white, the pale gray and light green uncomfortable to read.

I will try to be patient.

I don't post here a whole lot, anyhow, but will miss 'lurking' if it comes to that.

Rusty

Rusty, my first reaction when I saw it was NOOOOOO! It used to be cozy. The new design isn't. The white is good for contrast, especially across devices, though I can understand why it would be too bright for some.

Things you can do if it's worth it to you:

1) Adjust the brightness of your monitor down a little so it's not so glaring

2) Get an add on that lets you toggle the background color to one of your choosing.

3) Set the background color in your options--this will apply to all sites you visit that don't have graphic backgrounds, however.

Re the pale gray text, on my screen it's plenty dark.

1) Try calibrating your monitor's colors. It might not actually be as pale as you think.

2) Find someone who's good at this (I can do it but not well enough to talk you through the tech part) and put a line in your browser's user file to convert that pale gray color to one of your choosing. This will apply to all websites, but only the one color, and you should comment it well so you can find it again and change it if need be.

3) Set all the text to a single color of your choosing in your options. Applies to all sites you visit but can be undone by checking the box in Options to use the site's colors again.

Or just be patient. They've already given us back the visited links dim out, though I don't know if the threads reset yet. It didn't look like it but that might just be because of what I have cached, or it may require a system reload or something. Your issues with the white and pale gray are being discussed in other forums too, so those may be on the list for fixing too.

I love GW and have received so much more from it than I can repay. If GzzW becomes too different, that'll be that, but I'm trying to keep at it. Come talk to me about pizza in my new thread. :)

So, I step away for a few minutes and you guys go and do this? Aaahh! I used to be Bobby aka Vacuumfreak... had to change change because my original Garden Web email address was hacked years ago...

Just a trial to see what happens. Thanks for mentioning the settings. I switched everything to Never.

It works. Logged out. Checked profile - I'm still mysterious! Nobody knows I have Whiskers!! Checked Gmail - so far nothing. I had to check SPAM and not Inbox, having relegated houzz to spam.

I'm really uncomfortable with this format.

I like VacuVirgo though Bobby!

Thank you Tamara. I still can't find this actual thread (I lost it, haha), but I found this in my profile. That's good to know about search; hopefully I'll get used to it and it will be more useful than annoying. I'm not one who takes change well, and I admit I lost my temper a little yesterday, but I will try to be more patient. I found a thread that mentioned the "first name" trick, which is how I have Rosecandy displayed. Am I correct in believing that other users can see all the recent threads I looked at? If so is there a way to stop that? I like my privacy.

...and now I found the thread, *whew!*

I fixed my name finally. Your "Name" is separate from your "Username" which is OK I guess. I dunno though, I kinda liked "originalpinkmountain" but seriously I have to get back to work and a life to lead!!

Hi Rosecandy - I think most people are pretty resistant to change, don't you think? I think you're doing great!

If you allow it in your profile settings, others can view the discussions you post in, not the ones you visit. The privacy settings are pretty broad - you can allow as much or as little of your Houzz life as you'd like to share.

I was already on Houzz...so it's great to have an excuse to come back. It's going to take a while to get used to the new format. For some reason though, it won't let me upload an account image. Hmmm...

Ok, awesome. I don't really mind them seeing the ones I've posted in (they could find them anyway, if they really wanted). I just noticed when I went to my profile it showed the recently visited ones, and I didn't know if the public could see that. Because I don't want the public to be able to see them, that was very important for me to know.

Thanks for the encouragement ^_^

Good to see you back, lpink, even if there's a space in there. Somehow OPM, which I read as "opium," didn't fit you so well. :)