New Format for Reader/WordPress Website
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First off glad to see that see some things are being fixed (e.g. the possibility to report spam links, etc).
From what I gather from a staff response earlier in the thread they’re busy working on it.
From what I understand if you want an image to show then you have to use a featured image. That makes sense, and is fine as well. However some themes show featured images differently. So this can cause some problems with the layouting, depending which theme you use. I have some posts in the reader come by that look like they have multiple pictures, but not sure what is going on there.
One thing I do like about the new reader is that it is a lot quicker. Yeah. :-)
The layout is starting to grow on me, but pictures that are large in height still make it difficult to read. I don’t know but it does seem like some of the pictures have gotten smaller.What’s troublesome is that once your in the reader it is now impossible to navigate to other parts of WordPress. Maybe add a menu item ‘WordPress Navigation’ (I know that name could be way better).
Also the black color menu is a really neutral color. It is kinda confusing now that one page has
Just a tip for in the future, I think a lot of people, including me, were really surprised by this change. Hopefully this can be a good learning experience.
Maybe in the future look at having a testing group based from bloggers to look through the proposed changes to do beta testing, before rolling out broader across the community? Then some of these major glitches could have been ironed out.
Having done a few upgrades myself, sometimes it just doesn’t work the way you planned it. Hopefully it’ll get fixed soon.
Still loving WordPress very much, the surprises not so much.
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@hiddenlens
Hi there,
You and I are both on the same page.I try to keep my interaction with the Reader/WP homepage to a minimum, only using it to see what’s new. With the new format, I’ve reduced my interaction with Reader more so.
Me too.
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My apologies:
Also the black color menu is a really neutral color. It is kinda confusing now that one page has
Should be:
Also the black color menu is a really neutral color. It is kinda confusing now that one page has a no black colored menu.
Additionally:
On the point of being mobile/ tablet friendly. On a wide screen the layout can be really bright, almost painful to the eyes. It isn’t a comfortable experience.
But maybe other people’s experience is different in this?To end on a positive note I really like the reader navigation bar on the right, and how that works.
Good luck with the upgrade.
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I find it hard to understand why they are doing this so that people can use their phones for it. It has been my experience that WordPress has a generally older customer base, people whose eye sights are fading, mine included, and people who dislike change.
The younger generation are all on Tumbler, so why bring out about changes like this, unless they want to attract that younger crowd. I hope not, I have seen the crap the kids put on tumbler and I am not sure I want the reader blocked up with it. I like the mature nature of WP.
I just checked out the reader on my phone, and it does look better than it used to,but I don’t have the internet time to be able to do it very often.
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No one has claimed that the only reason for these changes is to create a touch friendly environment.
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I think it’s incredibly ironic that during this week of their responsiveness theme I can’t get my topics to load on my PC, never mind my phone!
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@lingeringvisions
The loading issue is a separate issue please click this link and start your own thread so we can help you with it https://en.forums.wordpress.com/?new=1 -
So, since there seems to be this argument that the reader has been changed to it is easier to use on smart phones, I decided to try it out on my smart phone, it does come up nicely, but only if I want to see the text, there are no images there at all. Could be because they are doing something else, have checked a couple of times, but will continue to do so.
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I have spent the past few days looking at other alternatives to WordPress. I already have gallery space on line at some photosites (NAPP, Nikonians, Cambridge in Color etc.). The advantage of WP is the larger blogging community, the opportunity to interact with people who are interested in a broader range of things than just photography. Or on the other hand have questions, or who I can query as a result f my blog.
I cross posted a picture from my site here to Nikonians. I got a flurry of comments on the cropping. I tried various solutions, then went to Cambridge in Color for more views, of which there have been several. This was a photo of a single bird!. Cropping is not always easy, it may be a question of taste. I posted a photo of juggler on one site and a famous photographer, took it upon himself to copy the shot and do a re-cropping. I was honored, but a little embarrassed.
My point is not that I am lousy at cropping, go to my site, judge for yourself. My point it that arbitrary cropping in Reader adds to an already complex part of the art of photography. Here its been taken to extremes, the top of the Eiffel tower cut off, a horse’s head missing, a boat without a mast.
I know this has been a long thread and I hope others share my views, I am told more will be done next week. But its important if the photography community with WP is to be taken seriously.
Thanks for listening
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@designdolphin
Additionally:
On the point of being mobile/ tablet friendly. On a wide screen the layout can be really bright, almost painful to the eyes. It isn’t a comfortable experience.
But maybe other people’s experience is different in this?This is definitely a problem I’m having with the new reader layout. So much white combined with that bright expanse of blue at the top of the screen is really painful.
I did notice that more and more photos are beginning to show in my reader, but I don’t know if that’s because people have discovered workarounds, or if it’s because things are actually changing.
I still don’t like the photo showing up before the title, with the name of the blog down at the bottom. It’s sometimes difficult to figure out who wrote what.
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Count me among the unamused. The idea of my images being cropped at some arbitrary point by a soulless script irks me to no end – there is a a way for WP to address this issue so that images are displayed as they are intended to be displayed and they should return to it.
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As a photoblogger I too want to object to having my art wrecked by your software cropping my photos. It misrepresents what I and others are presenting, and undermines the hard work we are doing.
I have looked back a week or too in reader and have seen several very fine photos absolutely ruined. They are ones that I looked at previously but would not be drawn to look at them in the partial way they have appeared here and would now skip over those posts.
However, I also want to say that it seems like the reader is no longer completely choking my computer as it has for a while now – I have been staying away from it as much as possible due to that problem.
I am hoping also that the new format only displays the “featured image” selected by bloggers, where one is selected, and otherwise only the first image in a post. I was extremely annoyed in the past to find that if I embedded a video, whether my own or someone else’s, that it
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ended up displayed in reader, even though there was not a single time that I put it above the fold, or marked it as featured.
Finally, in reader I not only look for nice photos and so on, I look for particular bloggers. The new form makes difficult to tell who is blogging and I fear I am going to miss posts of interest to me since I don’t have time to open them all.
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Is anybody having problems viewing galleries since the new reader was instituted? After I view a gallery in somebody’s post I get back to their post screen, but the screen freezes and the only way to continue is to get out – well, this is ok if I wasn’t impressed or moved, but if I want to make a comment, or read further posts by the same blogger, it’s a real pain … !
Also, am I the only person who can’t figure out how to get directly from logging in, to the black band where my blog’s utilities screen allows me to do things like get into my dashboard etc.? I’ve figured out how to do this indirectly, but again, additional steps
SEEMS THIS IS AN INELEGENT DESIGN THAT NEEDS A BIT MORE WORK.
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Oh yes, I know that feeling, I could never work out how to log in when I needed to, there never seemed to be a logical way of doing it, like facebook or any other site that would automatically come up with a log in at the top of page if you were logged out.
Enough said this thread isn’t for this and we will get told to start a new one. -
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Making changes is one thing, making mistakes is just sloppy. So many things do not work properly now – bad links, double clicking required, error messages and the list just keeps on growing while the reader remains just awful!
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As a result of the changes, I find myself avoiding the reader altogether. Shame, since I used to look forward to reviewing it. It sucks now…doesn’t work well on a PC or my Windows phone. Is this the plan? To turn us off and alienate us from each other?
I am pissed off for paying $99 a couple of months ago. You are cropping my photos for the reader and they look awful. I wouldn’t be enticed by the ‘tease’.
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The clipping problem maybe solved- but it was very noticeable this morning.
The remaining issues are the position and size of the title of the post.
The lack of indication of how many images may be on the website if not a return of the thumbnails.
The miniscule size of the author’s name and/or website name.
The unnecessary size of the tags, and their prominent positioning.
Some are complaining about the color scheme as too bright and about the menu being on the right.
As a list of issues, I hope this helps. -
head line / title at the bottom – come on – titles always go at the top – look at any newspaper
large pictures that don’t display – back to the smaller pictures so I can see what is on the blogs I subscribe to
monster type – takes up way to much real-estate and servers no useful purpose
the old size and format worked very well – why destroy things – does anyone bother to test these changes??
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