preLights gets an update

A (mini) makeover

You might have noticed last week that the preLights interface had a bit of an update.

When the preLights website originally launched, the navigation bar was designed to be a dropdown menu on the left-hand side of the page. This format is optimal for mobile browsing – and will continue to display this way on smart phones – but for desktops, the main menu will now show across the top of the page instead. You’ll still see the same tabs, but this layout makes it easier to find the pages you’re looking for when browsing on your computer.

In addition to the menu change, we’ve also updated our FAQs, News section, and preLists ‘About’ page.

As preLights has grown, we’ve received more questions from our community, preprint authors, and preLights readers, about issues relating to the scope of preLights and what our objectives are. To better address these, we’ve expanded our FAQs and split them into different sections. We hope that any questions you might have about contributing to the preLights community can be found here. If you have any other queries, you can still contact us at prelights@biologists.com.

Similarly, we’ve recently been expanding our News section to include more interviews with preLighters and ‘preprints by preLighters’ features. To make it easier to find the news features you’re looking for we’ve arranged these articles by category, which can easily be navigated to by hovering over the News tab.

Lastly, we’ve updated our preLists section to include a ‘What are preLists?’ explainer. If you’ve seen preLists before and wondered what they were, this should give you all the answers you need! And if you’re interested in curating a list of preprints – either on your favourite research topic, or from a meeting you’re attending – you don’t have to be a preLighter to contribute preLists.

Our newsletter gets a new look

Alongside the update to the website, we’ve also launched a new version of our newsletter which will be sent out every Thursday morning. This streamlined version shows all the posts related to the subject areas you’re interested in, as well as any News posts (including interviews and features) that have gone live in the last week.

An overview of our new-look newsletter

If you’re already a registered user and would like to receive our weekly round-up, you can opt in by selecting the ‘Send me weekly email alerts’ button on your user profile. Similarly, by registering as a new user, you can also choose to receive the preLights newsletter.

We hope these updates make our preLights website more user-friendly. We’re always looking for ways to improve how we interact with the preLights community and our readers, so feel free to get in touch at prelights@biologists.com if you have any comments.