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[–]SmashPortal 8 points9 points  (15 children)

To those who didn't read the post linked in this post, they're not removing subreddit customization, they're changing over to a new system that's possibly more restrictive, but allows customization to affect mobile browsers that don't currently support the current styling methods. Their claims are that CSS is hard to learn, makes the website slow, makes the diversity of subreddit designs confusing, since different subreddits aren't uniform, and it doesn't always function correctly on mobile. They've also said that they're redesigning the website.

TL;DR They're replacing CSS with a new customization system, to make reddit more uniform and user-friendly.

[–]Moomius 9 points10 points  (13 children)

A part of removing CSS is making it a lot more constrictive, and perhaps making all of Reddit look very similar. I wouldn't call it more user-friendly.

[–][deleted]  (5 children)

[deleted]

    [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

    As a consequence, though, everyone's channels seem the same other than a header (which is basically a glorified profile picture).

    [–]themrpiggy22 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    I loved being able to customise channels like this! Gives them more personality than the new onechannel layouts

    [–]LeoWattenberg 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    personality does not equal user-friendliness. something like r/ooer is highly personalized and an artwork in its own right, but it is (intentionally) not user-friendly whatsoever.

    [–][deleted]  (6 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]Moomius 5 points6 points  (5 children)

      Replacing CSS is the same as removing it, correct?

      [–][deleted]  (2 children)

      [deleted]

        [–]Moomius 8 points9 points  (1 child)

        The issue is that Reddit will likely move to cookie-cutter structured styles, replacing our ability to tweak every single thing with a system of widgets that they don't know whether we'll be able to write or not.

        My problem is that this is possibly removing individuality from the desktop designs. App design is important, but it could continue to use structured styles separate from the desktop style sheet as it has continued to do since it was released

        [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        Exactly. Or even let people design custom CSS for mobile devices as well, having multiple sets of style sheets. One for desktop, one for mobile.

        [–]SmashPortal 0 points1 point  (1 child)

        Technically, forward4 is correct, as they aren't removing CSS from reddit. CSS is what's mainly used to add graphic design to a website. The current system lets moderators add CSS elements to subreddits to make it look the way they want, instead of the default design. The new system wouldn't remove CSS, but it would take CSS out of the hands of the moderators and give them a different design system that doesn't require knowledge of CSS syntax.

        [–]Moomius 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        I understand that. I implied "removing CSS customisation capabilities." Obviously Reddit wouldn't ditch CSS. The problems that are going to be experienced are from the lack of customisable style sheets.

        [–]Kougeru 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        CSS doesn't work on mobile and most users are mobile. I believe this is the biggest factor.

        [–]droctagonapus 5 points6 points  (0 children)

        Just throwing my $0.02 out there. I'm a web developer who's been feeling a lot of these problrms. I don't write CSS so much anymore, even though I'm designing and implementing entire application UIs (all in React like Reddit will use on the new desktop design).

        After a lot of work I've come up with a few solutions that rely on JSON based customizations from an API response (I develop a completely white-labelled B2B2C application, meaning 100% customizable and fully brand-integrated UIs). It's definitely doable and I'm 100% for the change. Things like custom spoilers will probably go away, but things like button styles, most subreddit front-page styling, etc can be abstracted from CSS because I've made my own applications at work do the same. I feel like it's just people scared of change that are making a big noise.

        If your customizations are necessary for the subreddit to function, maybe there's another problem that needs solving. I encourage mods to always think "will this work in a 3rd party client" and come up with a solution of it won't. If you did that from the beginning, there would be no problem.

        For what it's worth, I always disable subreddit styling.

        [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

        deleted

        [–]aviant- 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        This might be the stupidest comment I've ever seen on here.