Who likes the new layout?

jermani2011

Just wondering who does and who does not like the new Food Diary layout?

rlu1028

Too many differences in daily totals, do not match the totals produced by the previous version. I keep the totals in my own database and some entries do not match the totals I copied. Some indicate that rounding is different than previous, but not all.

Also, the date when selecting "Tools" only shows the month.

Suggestion: establish a user group in which changes can be discussed before implementation; this could help with accuracy assurance.

rlu1028

Also, all my water totals have changed; I enter as oz, which are "fl oz"; there should not be a conversion on an entry that really has no requirements.

Jthanmyfitnesspal

You're guaranteed that most people will like the prior one. That always happens.

I'm guessing most MFP users only use the app and never or rarely access the website.

naturemama68

I just posted a question about the diary, too. I HATE it! It's inconvenient to use and it's ugly. I don't understand why changes are made that don't enhance the site. Just because some programmer can???

AnnPT77

I clicked "other".

I don't care one way or the other. It looks different, but I can use it as I need to.

It now looks more like the food diary in the phone/tablet app, and over the years some people have complained that the two look different. Also, because they were different, those of us who try to help new users always have to ask which version people or using, or do two separate sets of screen shots to answer a simple question, which is tedious. MFP's documentation also had to have very different instructions for each version; now they can be closer, though not exact.

I suspect, but can't prove, that part of the reason for the new appearance is that they wanted to rewrite the program code behind the page. Older software tends to get patched together as changes are made, and gets messy, complicated, and more bug-prone over time as a complicated. Further changes get harder and more expensive.

Since many people complain that a lot of new capabilities are only in the phone/tablet app, I suspect they'd need to rewrite the web browser version from the ground up in places in order to enable doing that. Is that what they're up to? I don't know. I'm only a regular user like everyone else here, no special insight behind the scenes.

But I did spend around 30 years as a software developer and related stuff, and I'm very familiar with a process where old code gets so messy it's close to unchangeable (costs too much in people time to maintain, breaks easily with more changes). At that point, if something significant needs to happen, we'd rewrite the code with the baseline level of functions it had before. That's a better basis for moving forward with improvements. Is that happening here? I have no idea. Could be.

wheindl

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48662973#Comment_48662973

Your points are well taken; but it begs the question: Is it necessary, in order for the code to be rewritten/cleaned up, that the lines be double-spaced so only half as much data is viewable at one time? Does it interfere with cleaning up the code to have the meals separated with colored header bars? We're talking user interface issues here, not underlying code.

AnnPT77

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48662997#Comment_48662997

The user interface is an external attribute of the code, loosely speaking. If the code changes - and particularly if the technology used to generate the code changes - the interface will probably change to some extent.

But no, I wouldn't expect a new version of the code to inherently require double-spacing, particular use of separator bars, or that sort of thing. Personally, I don't care about those differences, but I hope I can state that opinion without anyone inferring that I believe everyone should feel the way I do. (I don't think everyone should agree with me. Diverse opinions are part of what making interacting with others interesting and fun, in my world.)

I do think that when a new version of code is launched, or a new version of a user interface, it will need some tweaking to fine-tune it. Things that look good to developers, maybe seem OK to beta-testing users, will not be satisfying to the wider user population. I think it's fine to suggest those changes via the Feature Suggestions part of the MFP Community, where the MFP staff will see them, or to use the Help function or email MFP support to make those suggestions.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/categories/feature-suggestions-and-ideas

I'm not speaking for MFP here for 100% sure, and I'm not even intending to somehow defend them or claim this is perfection. OP asked up what we thought, and I explained what I thought and why, that's all.

glassyo

No, it's crap. At least via a browser. I just downloaded the app on my android phone to check how it is there but it's reminding me why I don't use the app at all since it's not even letting me in.

Anyway, I don't normally complain about changes but it just seems harder to read and it cuts off the last two categories I track even in landscape mode.

I'm lucky I figured out how to even see the categories instead of just the item and serving size like yesterday.

Gisel2015

I am a web-version user and I totally hate this new Food Dairy layout. I don't find it visually appealing or motivating. Today the system double entered my breakfast, as populated from My Meals, and I can't delete or edit the entries because the "trash can" is not visible.

I haven't been logging too consistently lately (very long time in maintenance) due to personal reasons and lack of time and interest, and this new change is taking me further away from MFP.

We are living in a word where other people or institution are making all the erroneous decisions for the most part, about our lives, bodies, health, religion, personal choices, etc. it seems that MFP has joined them too. If this is a trick to force everyone to join the Premium program, well it is not working for me.

AnnPT77

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48663091#Comment_48663091

Premium is not different. I still have the same food diary appearance with premium as people using free MFP have. There are added features in premium, but appearance and basic functions of the user interface - web or phone/tablet app - are the same between premium and free. So is the food database, and the exercise database.

glassyo

Ok, checked the diary on 3 devices and this is what I got:

All are difficult to read.

Via chrome browser on my tablet, categories get cut off, even in landscape mode.

Via firefox desktop browser on a good, old fashioned computer, you can see everything.

Via newly downloaded app on my phone, none of the food I entered for today or ever synced but you can see all the categories.

Other than the forums, this is all I use mfp for.

Still don't like it ESPECIALLY since I use my tablets for most everything I do on mfp.

glassyo

nossmf

Guess I'll be one of the minority and say it looks fine to me. I use a laptop and the android app, and am still able to see/manipulate the same today as yesterday, and I actually prefer the laptop appearance of the diary now over what it was.

Now to brace myself for all the hate mail sure to be sent my way…

yakkystuff

For me, practically speaking, it is HARDER to see what the food item actually is - that could previously be seen easily.

This makes it difficult going back to look to see what I ate or to show to my RD during a visit. Went from a 10 (great) to a 3 or 4 (accurate but unclear.)

I use android phone, web version (not the app.)

Here is a breakfast picture.

(ETA) Also, no longer shows the sodium and fiber 'at a glance' that I seriously worked on for health reasons.

glassyo

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48663307#Comment_48663307

Awwwww, I miss Life cereal (I'm assuming that's what it is. And, if it's not, I still miss it. :))

I really disliked not having the things I was tracking per item right in front of me but, and I don't know how it happened, they showed up again. I THINK I clicked on an item, closed the pop up, and they came back.

yakkystuff

@glassyo

Was the popup during tracking?

The view I showed is what I see after posting, when I came back later to snap a picture.

The difficulty, upshot, is the limited display of the item - whereas previously the entire field was visible.

--yes, Life. It was a breakfast bar, limited choices. I hadn't tried soy milk before. Cereal was childhood memory but other choices were highly sweetened for kids

glassyo

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48663332#Comment_48663332

No, the pop up was when I was playing around with the diary after seeing a bunch of posts about the new format.

I pretty much eat the same things every day so I just "copy from yesterday" when I log my food for the day in the morning.

sscdrn1

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48663129#Comment_48663129

My food diary is different from what it was yesterday. I let my subscription expire so I thought that was the change, but even though I subscribed to premium, it is still not the same as it was. The totals being at the top and so much wasted space on the page, requiring more scrolling is not convenient. I am going to reduce the page to 70% to see if I can see the entire day at a glance. Overall, I wish the change had not been made.

sscdrn1

I don't like the changes at all. I find it less convenient to use. There was nothing wrong with the previous form. The totals were much easier to glance at and quickly see the info.

yakkystuff

Welp, for posterity…

Old version is back (temporarily?) - this is what my tracking looked old style

And this was a snag with the new style before it evaporated.

Old style was much clearer.

Android, website (not app)

AnnPT77

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48663363#Comment_48663363

Yes, mine changed, too. I'm not saying otherwise. I'm saying that what the new format looks like in free MFP (from seeing various screen shots of the new format posted on threads here) is the same as the new format looks in premium.

I was responding to a PP that said "If this is a trick to force everyone to join the Premium program, well it is not working for me." When the free version and the premium version have the same new food diary format, there's no reason to believe MFP changed the format to force people toward premium.

Alatariel75

I'm not a fan, but I'm generally not at all a fan of this move to change web layouts to tablet/phone friendly layouts with lots of extra space etc. I'm a desktop user for a lot of things, and having to scroll and scroll irks me. I do understand why they do it, because that's where tech is going.

My bigger issues are the less obvious loss on functionality. Being able to enter negative amounts on the desktop to remove the sour cream from the Guzman y Gomez entry I use a lot, for example, was handy. I also dislike that the only mention of my exercise calories is now up in the top header, and not down on the table.

Unlike many people apparently, I did still have notes - it's way down under the complete button. Another ugh for the extra scrolling.

Generally, I just wish MFP would actually work on functionality which would make me go "oh cool, been wanting them to do that for ages!" rather than stuffing around with things like this and the recent community changes, which actually reduce the available functions (I'm still dark that going to Recent Posts now defaults to "all" and not followed, so I have extra clicks and reloads to see recent posts without the chatty sections).

Gisel2015

Hopefully the old version is back for good.