This won't end well 😕 I am still not recovered from the last "improvements"

I’d consider myself more a freeloader than customer. I’m less concerned about the ”upgrades” than the bugs. Regression testing doesn’t seem to be their forte.

Yup~ Just got on my chromebook and after perusing a few sites, I came here and when I saw that big green stripe at the top I thought uh oh................. I guess we shall see.

For starters, I see your posts and I seem to be able to comment and post.

Here are a few:

• There's a bug where if you edit a post, it may not always repost. Instead I have to wait awhile and then reload the page to see if it posted.
• There is no way to distinguish the links from the text...no color change, no underscore, nothing. Makes it difficult to know what's a link
• I haven't been able to use the 'houzz photo' link to post a photo from houzz for years
• there are waaaay too many topics. Someone should cull out the ones that are empty or unused or archive them.
• there is no way to link to "the kitchen table" if you start a thread in another topic. It doesn't appear in the scroll. Used to be that "home dec conversations" wasn't in the scroll but KT was. Go figure
• Why is there no 'like' button for the OP?
• The search function for old threads is the worst ever. It doesn't sort properly by date or by relevance, seems to overweight by thread title without searching properly within the threads, and one should be able to search by poster.
• The color on the 'like' button used to change once you 'liked' something. Instead, I now have to 'like' it again and see if the # of likes goes up or down to know if I've already "liked" it.

And it's not right that it should reject a post because of a trigger word and not tell you. There have been multiple times that I can see my post but no one else can. Well how can I fix it unless I know there's a problem?

Another bug: when you followed a link to a post from an alert (indicating an update to a thread you're participating in), it used to take you to the first new post, so you can see what the updates are. Now it just takes you to the top of the thread, and you've got to read along to find out what's new.

Thanks foas....I never noticed that!

I am hoping now that censorship is not a thing internet social communities have to fear they will reinstate Hot Topics.

Houzz could start a forum called "Warm Topics" which would allow politics, etc to be brought up but keep it "warm" so it doesn't come to a boil. Worth a shot, nyuk.

And what is this business where people are unable to use their handles anymore and are stuck with the ridiculous HU-#########??

I hope they restore color to links. But I’m sure they are just doing something internal that we will never notice. or it will throw the site into a tailspin that they have to backtrack on.

Restoring colors to links would be nice, but in the meantime I wish folks would just be smarter about how they link. Some people are being creative with symbols making it abundantly clear, and that's great, but isn't it also easy to simply paste in the url rather than try to add it inline? Since we know it doesn't work well?

Nicole/Black Forest Colorado Z5A

I can "see" my old account, receive & respond to messages there, but I can't post replies or start threads with it. I asked to have the account deleted. The HU account won't let me change MY name or post a photo icon or receive alerts when messages are posted, because you can't list your email on two accounts. ??? It's a mess.

Reminds me of when I was still working and received the dreaded email from the I.T. department about improvements and upgrades.

”It will be so much better and you will love it,” they said. Yeah sure. NOT.

It is sure to be an improvement — I believe Elon is in charge. ;-)

I’m just up this morning & just noticed the big green bar. My first thought at reading it was - Ohh nooooo, not again!! @foodonastump your tips are great! I never noticed that the like changed to liked once a person did like a post. Cool! I did the same as Annie. I also never thought of just posting the URL instead of some creative text that is shorter & doesn’t give a clue it’s a link. What I’ve just noticed is that my Notifications bell at top right of screen is gone. It was there when I first opened my iPad & looked at the page. The green bar wasn’t there - it is covering up what should display at top instead of being above or below the usual page top banner.

KW - Since you like my tips, here’s one to temporarily get rid of the green bar if it’s in the way of something. This is for Safari, since you said you’re on iPad.

Last step is to click that Done button.

Green bar very annoying — takes up too much space.

" Would be nice if they talked to their customers on occasion to find out what would make the place nicer. "

I've never known this to be done for any site. Have you?

I think there's an obvious reason why.

The green bar is a masterpiece of poor planning. When I came to the site just now, I found the green bar blocks the Sign In link. I got to where I needed to be by making a pretend comment to a random post and it said to me the essence of - You Need To Sign In First- and it then took me to the sign in page.

Food, I cannot find that option (using ipad). How did you get to this option? I tried the ”AA” at top, nope.

”We’re making improvements!”

Not yet in my Orwellian dictionary or thesaurus.

I made a comment it will not post. ETA:,

It was not good for their side.

@petalique - do you see the symbol I circled in my first screenshot? If not, are you on latest iOS? I believe this may be a newer feature, or, it just wasn’t as prominent before. Again, this is Safari.

You mean this icon you circled? NO.

I cannot get that; do not see it. I get the AA below.

I am running Safari, but with an older operating system. I am very reluctant to upgrade iOS because when I updated my iPhone, I got locked out of GW-Houzz.

I’m concerned that if I update my iPad iOS, I will lose the only way I have of getting access and being able to post. On the other hand, not updating my iPad exposes me to who knows what.

Petalique, it took me a bit to see it. I'm using a tablet too and the placement is at the top left of my screen rather than the bottom. Thanks Foodonastump! I vaporized the green thing.

Thanks, donna, but I only see the AA at the top left in the URL field.

I wish Houzz would get some programmers with experience. sigh. What Elmer said about the green banner and placement. That reveals the lack on thinking things out on the part of the inexperienced coder or programmer. But, novice, inexperienced workers cost less. Look at you morning news….

Did the banner just disappear for everyone else or just for me 2 mins ago?

I was opting for ”show dektop website” ”show mobile website” when obstrucive green banner poofed.

Yes. It's gone.

"Elmer: "Would be nice if they talked to their customers on occasion to find out what would make the place nicer."

I've never known this to be done for any site. Have you?"

Yes.

Including this one IIRC.

nothing looks different to me.

FOAS - thanks for tips! I do have the icon you circled - it’s in the left of my URL box at top. I had seen it, touched it & wondered what distracting items I needed to hide so haven’t used it. But, now I know! Thanks! That annoying green announcement banner is gone though & all that was hidden is back.

ETA- I just checked & I still cannot pull up a person’s prior activity by selecting their icon which jumps to their page. Select ’Activity” & still 404 nonsense. It was so helpful to find a posters prior comments & postings when needing clarification on a current post. I viewed it as a timesaver since seeing past activity answers so many questions.

I don't have the green bar at the top. Everything looks the same here.

Yes I think that sas the improvement: No green bar! 😉

Kevin - When you click on someone’s activity page and get to ”sorry, we didn’t find any results,” simply teplace the gardenweb in the url with hpuzz.

foas - that was me that commented about the inability to see another poster’s activity. So, I just did what you suggested & what comes up is houzz advertising links not the activity of the poster whose icon I tapped to see their prior posts & comments

Oops sorry! Also sorry you can’t see the activity. Not sure why, it works fine for me except iirc on so-called pro accounts.

I've been having trouble sharing my projects, but maybe that has been fixed.

Can you view this project?

Can you access it from my profile?

A few months ago, this was not possible, but this they may have fixed. Back then, only my ideabooks were viewable.

I might add some "before" photos to my kitchen #2 project, if people can see it.

I can see it on your profile, Lars, but can't see it via the link.

I am grateful to Houzz for maintaining this site, regardless of its problems. I find this and other Houzz sites very entertaining, and would regret it if they disappeared. There is no reason as far as I can see for Houzz to host them, since they are free, don't have advertising and the commercial side is hidden from the casual viewer.

I can see your photos, Lars, by clicking on the "this project" link.

^^^^^^What Stacey said, I was about to post. Although I haven't posted in the past on this forum, I've been active, off and on since 1999. I read this and DC daily and feel fortunate to

have the privilege without cost. in spite of the irritations. (Take that how you will).

I think if we bite the hand that feeds us they will send us all to the pound.

" I find this and other Houzz sites very entertaining, and would regret it if they disappeared. "

Both things can be true at once - enjoying the site and being annoyed by it.

I know little about how these things work, but suspect we help them by driving up traffic numbers which feed into ad rates.

They definitely benefit from the traffic, which helps them be found by search engines and also helps with ad revenue, as Annie indicated. The traffic is probably the main reason they bought Gardenweb, and if they did not maintain it, the traffic would go away.

Hmm, this is interesting: I’m on my iOS device. I have a GardenWeb ”favorites” on my home page, where I stay logged in. Today, I was logged out and it was Houzz. Fortunately, I left a GW tab open last night so got here that way. I’m going to see if adding this right now to my home page gets me here next time.

Oh good, it worked.

Thankfully all I had to do was change my password today. I was deathly afraid I'd be another HU.