Linda, go to Your Houzz at the far right, at the top, edit profile or personal preferences and uncheck all of the boxes where it says to send an email.

Thanks for the reminder to turn off the instant emails. They really do not show up in my gmail inbox unless I look at "all" mail - otherwise I only see mail from people I know, and so I had to check my "all" mail to see if the notices were there, and they were. At least now I have them turned off so that I won't be bothered.

I do not like the link with facebook, and so I will never click on that, and I do not have a twitter account and will never get one - my messages are way too long for twitter, and I'm not interested in reading what people who have little to say end up saying. I also do not "text" on my phone, even though it has a qwerty keyboard.

No one likes change Linda. But give it a chance. Once you start to post you won't find it any different. It looks different, but it is still easy to post a comment. And I like how easy it is to upload photos.

I agree - it looks funny, signing up was a PIA but photos are easier and no pop ups taking over my screen

Ì think I will get to like this format. What I don't like is the glaring white background. It hurts my eyes.

They promised they wouldn't change the format. They lied. I hate this format. I hate that I had to confirm my email. I hate everything about this other than the members of this and the other forums I visit. It's such a shame. I agree with you, Linda. Yes, I can "get used to it," but why should I have to, especially since they said they wouldn't change it?

Sally

Sally, I've found that "we won't change it" means that they will only change it to suit them, in whatever way is most profitable. After all, Houzz is a business and their function is to make money. It's much less personal and lot more invasive, although it's easy enough to post and I turned off all the notifications. I don't like the white background either, but I doubt my opinion matters much.

Like Lars, I don't Twitter or Tweet or use Facebook, and I don't text. Since we moved out here, there is no cellphone service, so that's pointless. I do have internet via radio waves or something using the towers also utilized by the cell phone providers. Why the internet works and the phones don't, I have no idea. I don't even really know how the internet works, but it does.

Annie

I don't know how the internet works, either. To me, computers, much less the internet, are magic.

I don't think I'm getting notifications. I'm not even sure what that's about.

Sally

It's being said that GW went to Houzz and asked them to save the forums. I think this is better than the forums disappearing entirely. It looks like some previously banned people are able to get back too.

I clicked on every option under the "your houzz" a t the top. Found no boxes to uncheck. Whatever....it is what it is.

You missed some. :) your houzz, edit profile, advanced settings.

Foas beat me to it, I found advanced settings and every single box was checked by default so that I would receive every notification possible. I unchecked them all

Annie

-Each other and forum members have been a bit more helpful than the houzz staff. On all the forums. It has been hard for long term members, especially the garden,tomato,veg,plants folk. I shrieked a bit that day last week when looking for something...but knew it would be short lived and familiar again soon. (still trouble with the dainty faint type and passive weak format).

Another forum i've been on way longer than this did the same a few years ago...pale blond weak print, on white. Hard to read and even harder blown up....and it is a design forum. Just takes a few days like getting behind the wheel of a new car. It is better, just new, and not at all familiar.

I prefer the old comfort, but that is not possible so must be accepted.

-I found the boxes and checked off...but still have some e-mails i need to figure out how to deal...

I'll take 'plain' over dancing critters and large avatars with sparklers and quote boxes paragraphs long...

I do think making the type 'bold' would help.

Never mind, I checked the email account I use for this, and found that I not only had notifications in my inbox, but in my spam folder, too. When I have more time I'll do what I can to fix that.

One thing I might like about this, is that there are times I've come to here after being on Facebook, and I've wanted to check a like button. Now there is one. But, I wonder what happens if I do that? Will it be on Facebook? What happens with the bookmark button, also? Is there somewhere they have instructions for this new format? Oh, and the preview page is missing. If we mess up can we edit? So many questions. Duh, I just saw the edit button, so I've edited it to add this.

Sally

No, your activity here won't be on Facebook unless you're linked to Facebook. You can check under "Your Houzz" then "Edit Profile" and then "Social Media Settings" and make sure it's disconnected. Disconnected is the default so you should be ok unless you registered via Facebook.

You can also fix your email while you're there by clicking on "Advanced Settings" (under "Social Media Settings") and putting "never" for all the email options.

Bookmarks are like the clippings that GW used.

If you read on the Kitchen Table, they have all sorts of member-generated threads with solutions to issues. They might be on the second and third pages by now though.

If you find the font too small, just zoom! In my browsers (Firefox and Chrome), bigger is CTRL+ (hold control and plus at the same time (it can be the plus on the typing keyboard, or the ten key). Use CTRL- (control and minus) to zoom out (smaller). On Mac use the command button with plus or minus.

Sally, yes you can edit.

If you check a "Like" button, people may be able to see what you "like", and I personally do not like the like buttons, and so I almost never use them. They love to "like" things on the decorating forum, but I find mostly things that I do not like there and almost nothing that I like.

I did add a project here, to show what I am doing in my back yard, with regards to landscaping and adding lighting, and so I "like" being able to do that. I'm not sure if it fits in with their guidelines for a project, but we hired an electrician on Thursday to get some of the work started. To relate it to cooking, having more light in the back yard will allow us more time to spend cooking outdoors, and it has been unseasonably warm lately - so much so that we have had to use the air conditioning, which I feel I should not have to do in February. However, Kevin said that it does not affect our electric bill that much, and I just wanted to lower the indoor temperature from 78° to 75° or 74°. I turned it off before going to bed, and the outdoor temperature dropped to the mid 50s last night, and the indoor temperature for the north side of the house was 68°, but my bedroom (on the south side) was still 72°. At this point I will open some windows. Anyway, the weather is very pleasant for barbecuing outdoors, and so I will plan to do that this week-end. I mentioned to the electrician yesterday about another fixture that I want to install outdoors, to put a spotlight on the fountain, which is in an otherwise dark area of the back yard.

Thanks for the tip about the zooming! I had forgotten about that!

So thanks for the direction, I found the boxes and they are all "unchecked". Not sure how that happened, I didn't do it!

Linda

I actually had to zoom the previous format of Gardenweb. I haven't done so with this because it's not the size, it's the font. I'm sure I'll get used to it.

I downloaded Stylish for Chrome and it makes this site so much easier to read and look at.

• I was bummed when I had trouble logging in about six times it kept getting back to updating my login. This format is so foreign. I always liked to know what the subject was about and how many posts were available. This is not a friendly appearing web site any longer, I'll check it out for a while to see if it gets any better. I don't do facebook, or any social media, life is too short to waste on such frivolity.

Hi Terrapots - I'm sorry that you're having trouble logging in. Unless you have your browser set to do so, you shouldn't have to sign in each time. If you do wish to log in with each visit, make sure you are clicking on the 'Sign in' link in the top right corner and not the box that you might see that says, 'Confirm your account'. If you were seeing that banner, I've removed it from you page.

The information that you wanted about the posts is available on the main page of the forum and I've made a screenshot that I hope will help explain. I think you'll find that everyone had some concerns in the beginning, but once they've found their way around and the Houzz dev team made updates, it's starting to feel like home again. Just ask for help and I'll be happy to answer any questions -- as will any of the members. They've been terrific at jumping in with tips.

Tamara, Thanks for being there for us. I am gradually getting the hang of the different options available. I just noticed the "Bold, Italics, Bullets" all things I use in posts.

Somewhere I saw a post about how to scroll down to the last post by clicking somewhere but I can't find it.

Debrak,

You can click the "Comment" button under the first message and it'll take you to the message box, whence you can easily scroll up to the last message.

Also, if you look at the top right red box in Tamara's screen shot (made blurry, unfortunately, by the 500 pixel width limit), you can see the arrow pointing to the middle mode box on the message list. If you click that, you'll see fewer listings per page, but with how slowly things are moving just now it's enough, and you'll also see a preview of the last message posted.

Click the preview, and it'll take you right to that last message.

(BTW, the middle mode also shows you a picture from the OP post, if there is one, which is kind of cool, though big enough to also be kind of annoying at times.)

Thank you!