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New Format for Reader/Wordpress Website

  1. booksnobbery
    Member

    @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.

  2. marcelmason
    Member

    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.

  3. ehpem
    Member

    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

      always
    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.

  4. walabah
    Member

    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.

  5. leannewhatever
    Member

    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.

  6. walabah
    Member

    I wish they'd read everyone's comments and fix the problems!

  7. apetcher
    Member

    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!

  8. belladonichaze
    Member

    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'.

  9. rakmilphotography
    Member

    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.

  10. auxclass
    Member

    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??

  11. pearlsandparis
    Member

    Does WordPress have actual employees to contact in regards to this new layout? I'm extremely frustrated with this new layout - as time goes on, it's not easier for me to adjust. The way the Reader appears now makes me not interested in reading the blogs and the set up before was the reason I decided to go with WordPress when creating my blog. If I feel this way - I'm sure hundreds/thousands more do. I also feel like every time someone comments in the forum about the new layout it turns in to multiple users complaining instead of an employee responding. Why isn't anyone getting back to the users?

  12. myheathenheart
    Member

    Nope, not enamoured with the new reader format, either.

    It feels bare, like there's a lack of information, control and accessibility.

    Love WordPress to bits, but not the new format.

    If it wasn't broken, why 'fix' it?

  13. ianwalpat
    Member

    Not happy!
    Agree with belladonichaze comment.

  14. tribunsky
    Member

    With each "improvement" Reader gets worse and worse. This is sad. :-(

  15. noelinesmith
    Member

    If it aint broke don't fix it!
    As well as not liking the new Reader format for many of the reasons given above the drop down menu is hopeless and 'notifications' no longer works. It's all adding up to a very user unfriendly experience :(

  16. apetcher
    Member

    Quite right - drop down menu and notifications does not work - this is all very sloppy!

  17. ameliespp
    Member

    It looks like newer Reader complaints are being answered, although with the same nonsense. Will WordPress Staff eventually get back to this forum, or are they finished with us?

  18. liberatura
    Member

    Old login page in pt.wordpress.com have a google page rank 8. In Portugal 3 blogs in wp.com obtained a PR 6, you now what i mean? last year we lost this page rank.

    But worse, now we wave lost the top post of portuguese blogs, and I am not interested in the last english language posts...
    Topic tags is not the same. And find the link to this forum its not easy, for a beginner in wordpress...

  19. timethief
    Member

    NOTE:

    apeatling, Key Master
    In the Reader we only select images that are of a high enough quality to feature above the post (greater than a width of 465px).

    Since the image on your post is smaller, we can't show it as a featured image. We are working to allow smaller images in posts to be shown in the reader to the side of the post text. That way we don't have to do much resizing and we can retain the quality of smaller images.
    http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/image-not-showing-up-in-reader?replies=3#post-1123590

  20. thedixieflatline666
    Member

    In the Reader we only select images that are of a high enough quality to feature above the post (greater than a width of 465px).

    Oh great! So they're specifically looking for huge pictures to take up massive amounts of screen-space in the reader?

    I realise that several commenters on this thread are photography bloggers, but I have to say that I, and I suspect many others, produce and read mostly blogs where any images are incidental to the posts, not their raison d'etre. Those massive, space-wasting pictures are, to me, a major part of what's wrong with the new format.

  21. rakmilphotography
    Member

    This size issue explains a lot about the approach. Big bold, lack of detail and confusing. Only sending this because yet again I was dropped from relieving messages.

  22. timethief
    Member

    @thedixieflatline666

    Oh great! So they're specifically looking for huge pictures to take up massive amounts of screen-space in the reader? ... I suspect many others, produce and read mostly blogs where any images are incidental to the posts, not their raison d'etre. Those massive, space-wasting pictures are, to me, a major part of what's wrong with the new format.

    I'm with you on this. Do not need! Do not want! Hmmm maybe I should have SHOUTED!

    If Staff provide an option in the Reader to display only thumbnail size images on the blogs I subscribe to I will be happy. That sizing will motivate me to actually click into view the image at full size.

    If Staff force me to view large space wasting images in the Reader then my motivation to click into the blog, thereby creating a page view stat! is gone ... gone ... gone.

    Without any doubt I will be tempted to go to the reader edit page and unsubscribe from all image rich blogs.

    Those who read posts in the Reader and click the like buttons and share buttons there, without clicking into the blogs and creating page view stats are not on my happy making list.

  23. auxclass
    Member

    PS - large pictures seem to be cropped funny in many cases - and why penalize a blog that has optimized picture sizes? One blog I subscribe to has small images (funny cards with sayings) and they are now gone mostly - all in all a very bad experience - I guess there might be one or two photo bloggers that are happy - but why dump on the rest of the bloggers just to keep one or two people happy?

    How about a different reader for stupid big pictures?

  24. rakmilphotography
    Member

    The large size may explain why many people are re-posting to Reader - those I have looked at have small images. Without telling people the rules how can they be expected to follow them.

  25. thedixieflatline666
    Member

    @timethief

    Thank you! I was starting to feel kind of alone.

  26. rakmilphotography
    Member

    Maybe the diplomatic solution, the compromise, the half-way point is to go back to the way things were :)

  27. synapticcohesion
    Member

    To be honest, I started using WordPress before I even knew the reader existed. Maybe it didn't when I first started. Later, I noticed the reader and that WordPress kept improving upon it. So I guess I can't complain too much--I wasn't prompted to use WordPress because of the reader. As long as everyone is treated equally, I don't really care that much.

  28. rakmilphotography
    Member

    May be now its matter of equal treatment. But its also about common sense. Title at the top, authorship highlighted, people reading for the most part left to right, etc.

  29. timethief
    Member

    @thedixieflatline666
    I don't want full posts to appear in the Reader at all. If I can't have that I'd like to have an option for choosing the kind of minimalist Reader display I prefer.

    I would be happy to have an alphabetically ordered list of linked blog post titles with a single thumbnail and a 55 character summary.

    _thumbnail_ linked blog post title - 55 character intro excerpt to post

    _thumbnail_ linked blog post title - 55 character intro excerpt to post

    and so on ...

  30. rakmilphotography
    Member

    Full posts would not make sense. One medium sized shot and a line to indicate, links, number of images and likes as in the old days. Title at the top, menu bar on the left and human sized fonts.

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