FTI: Google Reader interface update
Google Reader Minimalist Interface
The change in interface at Google Reader came as a shock unlike the WordPress upgrade. Unlike the hype that has been built around the new wordpress interface among developers, the Google Reader interface change was somewhat a quite affair.
The new look, like WordPress 2.7, focuses on a much more cleaner and minimalistic look, and in doing so, ” make Reader act and feel more speedy and responsive”. The navigation is now customizable, taking on igoogle’s widget like behavior, allowing the user to minimize it to take up less space. Moreover, navigation is also now separated into three “widget like sections: “All items”, Friends’ shared items” and “Subscriptions”.
For those of us who subscribe to news feeds and thus have unread counts which can rocket to 1000+ just after a day, it is now possible to turn off the unread count. This is really great as I am sure it would cause less stress not to know the number of unread entries… As for me, I think that disabling unread count would prevent me from going into a fit every time I come back to my computer and Google Reader after a few days’ (and sometimes up to 10 days) hiatus from civilization and internet..
Another change which is none-interface related is the creation of RSS “bundles” which users can subscribe to. According to the Google Reader blog:
“…. Feed bundles are small sets of feeds related to a topic that you can subscribe to all at once. Historically, these were done “by hand” by the Reader team, but this just wasn’t working out. So we’ve written a program to make “bundles” for us – no more manual editing of bundles, and a much richer and interesting set of subscriptions for you to choose from….”
However, I really wonder how the program does the selection. Maybe it selects based on the number of subscriptions are maybe the PR of the feed? It’s really hard to guess.
Anyway, though the interface change definitely made the Reader easier to read, one point I felt that they should have done is to put the “Refresh” button from the subscription list back to its original prominent place rather than the current location which is in the Subscriptions options menu.
However, as with the WordPress upgrade,I am sure this layout may not go down to well with some people. I wonder if Google Reader will suffer a backlash similar to what iGoogle experience when Google implemented the canvas interface for iGoogle…
Overall, in my personl view, I think that both Google Reader and WordPress Teams have taken a step in the right direction in this update.
FTI: WordPress.com interface update
Screenshot of different WordPress Versions
Since there was an announcement 2 days ago regarding upgrade of WordPress.com blogs, there was a feeling of anticipation when I logged in to try a live roll-out of the new interface.
As with the previous major 2.5 release of WordPress, WordPress.com has rolled out the new interface before the WordPress.org release after the software. Prior to this, developers were able to run the beta release from WordPress.org.
The new layout is definitely cleaner and more pleasing to the eye. Color contrast between the background and the navigation text, something which I didn’t like in the previous layout, has thankfully been improved.
The dashboard is now customizable, with the ability to re-arrange the dashboard modules as well as hide them. The navigation is also collapsible, allowing the blogger to increase screen space when blogging.
What struck me at the dashboard was the QuickPress feature and the Recent Drafts module. Probably due to the manner which I blog, just this 2 features have already saved me quite a few clicks. That’s a god-send especially when I on most days, I am in a location (I can’t say where!) which has mutiple proxies and slower internet connections.
Another long-awaited addition worth mentioning is a file-uploader which can now be found under the “media” section. Previously, I had to go to “create a new post” in order to upload files to places like the sidebar. Having the uploader in the “media” section would save the hassle.
Its also worth mentioning that in this current iteration of wordpress, the development team has added quite a few “quick editing” features. Besides the aforementioned QuickPress feature on the dashboard, the post pages also inherited the ability to quickly edit post tags, time-stamp etc. Quite a nifty feature especially if you want to add a new tag and don’t want to load the full editor just to do it…
Other than the interface, the speed at which the admin interface loads caught my attention. The time taken for the dashboard to load definitely feels alot faster. Although I can’t back it up with real statistics here, I am quite certain on that.
Anyway, I am sure there are still many under-the-hood improvements which I haven’t seen, but I can safely say that the day-to-day blogging experience has been improved in my personal opinion. However, the changes may not have gone down well with everyone. Looking through the announcement thread, you can see a couple of people voicing their displeasure. I can only echo Matt in saying that we should give the new interface a few days and see how it goes.
As for me, I am satisfied with the improvements with the current WordPress. Thanks to the WordPress Team and Matt!
Now its just a wait for the WordPress.org version to be released so that I can continue with my web developments.
FTI: Compact Calendar Creator
In September, I posted an entry about the excellent Compact Calendar from David Seah. Well it seems that the compact calendar also caught the attention of another blogger.
In an email sent to David Seah about a month ago, Yoshiomi Kurisu said that he had created an Online Compact Calendar Creator based on David Seah’s design.
The online creator is quite a neat little application, allowing you to find your country’s holiday from Google Calendar and then generating PDF files for printing… If needed, you can add in additional dates which may be set aside for holidays or maybe events. For students, you can add in the dates for your school holidays etc.
