By Ray Wert

Welcome to the new Jalopnik 5.0!

You'll notice Jalopnik's front page looks quite a bit different today. There's this one big story taking up most of the page, and an infinitely scrolling list of today's headlines in a column down the right side of the page. The page itself is a lot simpler and lighter, which means it will load quickly. And at last we have a way to display big, gorgeous images and videos on the front page of our site. That's the point.

We realize that things have changed a lot, and we want to help you become master navigators of the new layout. That's why we've put together this helpful guide on how to make the most of our new design.

Why did you do this to me? Change is scary!

We wanted to make the front page lighter and simpler to scan, while also emphasizing big feature stories that we've written. The fact is that we spend a lot of time creating cool, original articles for Jalopnik — but sometimes they would get lost in that long, long blog scroll. This way, we can splash them as big as we want and not sacrifice load time. We also created the right-hand scroll bar to provide you the same reverse chronological format you're used to for daily news as it happens.

We also wanted to make things bigger, whether it's pictures, stories or videos. That's why our galleries are bigger. You'll see more of that later today.

For a more in-depth explanation for the redesign, you can read this post by Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton. (Gawker Media is Jalopnik's parent company.)

If you want to resist change, you can always view the blog via classic view, which gives you something that's a lot like the way the old site looked. And of course you can also read Jalopnik via your favorite RSS reader. But if you're willing to take the plunge into this brave, new world, grab a Soma and let's roll.

Scan through stories the new-fangled way

When you come to Jalopnik, usually you want to scan through a lot of stories at once. Now you have two ways to do that: Flipping through pages and scrolling through headlines.

If you like the experience of flipping through stories and glancing over the full text, video, and pictures for each one, you'll want to use our "next post" button. It's on the left side of the navigation bar at the bottom of the page. Clicking it takes you through the day's stories one at a time. You can even flip through the pages right from your keyboard: Just use the right and left arrow key to page through the day's stories, or use the "gamer's choice" navigation of the J/K keys. Try it!

If you'd rather just scroll through headlines, you can use your scroll button (or your touch pad, by using the two-finger swipe method) or up/down arrow keys to move through the stories in the right-hand column, which are displayed in reverse-chronological order. There is also a "next headlines" button at the bottom of that column, for even quicker scanning. At the top of the right-hand column, you'll see three icons: A house, a flame, and a magnifying glass. Click the house if you want to see today's stories. Click the flame for today's most popular stories. Click the magnifying glass for search.

What's in it for commenters?

If you're a regular Jalopnik reader and commenter, you'll notice right away that the site is lighter and faster to load. Just click on a headline if you'd like to read the story. The headlines will stay with you in the right-hand column no matter what story you're reading. No more clicking back to the front page when you're done reading a story. When you're done reading a post, you can go back to scrolling through the day's headlines, or start flipping through stories one at a time.

There's also a big, generous double-wide column space for your comments now — they're no longer scrunched into a small column. That means your commenter name is bigger, your comments are a lot easier to read, and there's more space for your pictures and videos that you've uploaded.

You'll also find that it's easier to change comment settings. The big navigation bar at the top of the comments section makes it a lot easier to choose whether you'd like to see all comments, or just one featured comment thread getting the most traffic from starred commenters and editors.

No, this is not the "Oppolockalypse."

Comment forums will also be much more readable and flexible, but the address you'll use to find them has changed — and for the moment they're not linked to on the front page. Here's how you get to Opposite Lock, our discussion forum:

Opposite Lock

Same goes for any other forum you want to reach:

Tips
Spy Photos

Right now these forums may be buggy — hell, the entire site will likely be buggy as we're the first Gawker Media website to go live with the new look — so we're aware that there are problems, and our tech teams in both the U.S. and Hungary will be working very hard this week to fix them.

Thanks to things being a bit buggy, our private messaging feature is undergoing an upgrade and will return in a week. The heart-click friend/follower function is also evolving for the future. Stay tuned.

Still need help? Have comments? Just want to say hi?

But, if you are experiencing problems with anything from comments to logging in, please mail our help desk at help@gawker.com. Somebody will be responding to your concerns at that address 24 hours a day. If you just have feedback about the crazy changes, email us directly at feedback@jalopnik.com. As always, if you have a tip or a story idea, email the editors at tips@jalopnik.com.

And if for some reason everything breaks down here— head over to our hidden bunker over here on Facebook for any updates.

UPDATE: Thanks to your feedback in pointing out that comments weren't expanding in-line, our tech team's fixed the problem. Keep sending us those tips because remember, like Captain Planet says, the power is yours!

Photo Credit: IDM Photography