Silly changes to Reader
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What on Earth is the point of having themes and customisation, and attempting to make my blog look beautiful, if the Reader leads to a bland, every blog looks the same, only the text remains? The font is boring, the layout is boring, everything is ugly and boring. Fine for mobiles I suppose, but not for anything else.
On the old reader you could click xxx more words, and get to the blog rather than the bland. On the new reader, for one blessed moment there was a box to click to go to the blog, but it has now gone. Clicking anywhere goes to the Bland. The Bland is horrible! It looks dreadful!
So, OK, click the three dots. That is not at all user-friendly. It is not obvious what it does. Then a button appears, “visit blog”. This is unclear: it could mean go to the home page rather than the post.
You need a clear button to visit the post itself, laid out as the blogger desires. You need the forum better organised, so that feedback about changes is clearly visible: I know that lots of people have been pointing out how bad the new reader is, but could not find that thread.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Themes are still absolutely useful.
There are different people who want both a feed reader as well as the option to view a blog directly, it’s possible to both at different times for different reasons or to pick one or the other based on the reader’s preference. For example, I often use the Reader to read long-form content from my phone or view tag pages about photography or food (two of my favorite subjects) while I like visiting a blog directly to see it after a search online or if I want to find out more about the author (i.e. the About page) or if I just want to see the blog for the sake of seeing what was done with the theme. :) This is just one possible example. Readers are given the option to view content as they prefer. Also, they can do this already without the WordPress.com Reader as there are many other feed readers and apps out there that do the same thing in different ways. We hope, however, that people will like using the WordPress.com Reader and that we can connect readers to content and comments and likes all within the WordPress.com network if they choose this feed reader over the others available out there.
On the new reader, for one blessed moment there was a box to click to go to the blog, but it has now gone.
Please try clicking the link that says “visit.”
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Many of us put much effort into getting our blogs to have the look and feel we like. For WP to make the default view a barebones black on white in the reader is wrong. I feel like what’s the use of making the effort.
I think the default should be to ‘Visit’ directly to the blog post. Make the optional link go to the simple reader instead. WP got it backwards in order to accommodate the mobile phone.
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I think the default should be to ‘Visit’ directly to the blog post. Make the optional link go to the simple reader instead.
This is one opinion of many. Currently, the “visit” link does go directly to the blog post. And about it possibly being backwards, well, a mobile phone user, of course, (and others even) may argue otherwise.
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I don’t think you are apologetic enough. Honestly, you practically saying “It is all wonderful, you are stupid to object, you should see that you can easily get to the blog” just winds me up.
You have lap-tops and tablets, which people take out of the home rather than using mobiles for browsing, going to a default ugly text-only screen. Why not have “mobile-friendly version” as the wee link at the bottom, and let the default be the proper blog, as I designed it to appear? Most newer themes have mobile-friendly versions anyway. And when the messing-about with the reader started about a week ago, there was no “visit” button.
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I’m not saying that at all! I’m saying it’s a choice to use it and not everyone will make that choice but we hope that a lot of people will.
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Well, I follow blogs, immediately prevent them from emailing me- because the emails also have a bland look, rather than the formatting of the blog itself- and this is the place where immediately I see the blogs I follow.
While you’re here, why was the facility to add titles to pictures and links taken away? What good do you imagine reducing functionality does?
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There are still more changes that are planned for the gallery view in the Reader. Adding captions is on the list.
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No, Titles. “title” is the html. Text which appears when the cursor moves over a picture or a link. I find captions hideous and boring, and never use them.
Why did wordpress remove the ability to create titles from the edit post screen?
This is typical wordpress. You create this wonderful platform, my favourite social media: I can dash off 500 words and get responses from all over the world- and then you mess about with it, introduce changes without thinking them through, repeatedly lie- “This person will receive an email every time you publish a post”: not if she is like me, she won’t- and the line I hate particularly, “There’s now an easier way to create on wordpress.com!” No, there isn’t. It is bug ridden and horrible, and often it fails to save posts.
So. Why no titles? It is not that complex a question. If there were a reason, I would resent the loss less. It was a tool I like, and now I have to use a work-around.
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My apologies, I misunderstood your question about title attributes before.
In the context of adding title attributes for links, that was removed to simplify that interface and because the title attribute was determined to be more misused than not. Many people using it before were thinking that it’s good for SEO or accessibility, but it’s not helpful for either of those cases and the WCAG 2.0 (accessibility guidelines) actually recommends against using it. You can still add it manually by editing the HTML, however, it’s a bit of a pain to do it. If you take the time to add it, I would recommend making sure sure it’s something that’s really benefiting your readers if you can.
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Thank you.
I put in a brief quote from links I add. People may not need to go to the page if they read that summary. Or I use titles for foot-notes, things which would disturb the flow of the piece but still add to it. Changing to text view is not difficult.
I find the “link text” box silly, though. Who would change it? You write the post to flow well, and change it on the post if necessary. There is no need for that box at all.
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