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Ask HN: Please review my website

mathmaster.org

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Re: Ask HN: Please review my website

#11

Post by hh »

decadentcactus wrote: post #9
DanielStraight wrote: post #3

I think forcing a PDF download in order to have any idea what you're getting is a mistake. Some sort of HTML preview would be really nice. I find the configuration of the worksheets somewhat confusing. What do minimum and maximum value mean for reducing fractions? That is completely unclear until generating a few worksheets and seeing what it does, but generating a few worksheets and then tweaking the results is a pa…

> I think forcing a PDF download in order to have any idea what you're getting is a mistake. Some sort of HTML preview would be really nice. Second, and it would be helpful to view some demos on the front page. I realised I was going to download some sheets, but what did they look like? Shouldn't be too hard to screenshot a few as demos.

The reason why don't use HTML is because HTML cannot show complicate equations and layout without a lot of graphics. We will consider screencast.

Re: Ask HN: Please review my website

#12

Post by hh »

mailarchis wrote: post #4

The Home Page needs to be simplified. Try using less text and the ones that actually say what your site about like "A simple free site to generate maths worksheets". You can ask users to spread the word post worksheet generation. (Thats just a suggestion that might help making the home page less text heavy, but if its been working well for you, keep it) Great idea and am sure lot of people out there will find it usef…

Thank you for this feedback. We will implement it.

Re: Ask HN: Please review my website

#13

Post by hh »

DanielStraight wrote: post #3

I think forcing a PDF download in order to have any idea what you're getting is a mistake. Some sort of HTML preview would be really nice. I find the configuration of the worksheets somewhat confusing. What do minimum and maximum value mean for reducing fractions? That is completely unclear until generating a few worksheets and seeing what it does, but generating a few worksheets and then tweaking the results is a pa…

Minimum and maximum values allow you to control the difficulty level. You can use default if you don't want to adjust anything.

Re: Ask HN: Please review my website

#14

Post by hh »

tcrayford wrote: post #5

The register and login links shouldn't be visible on every page. Instead ask users to login when they actually need to log in (e.g. creating sheets). Contact us shouldn't be a big tab, instead something in the footer. Your "Follow Us" "On Twitter" part should be all one line, and perhaps be reworded to "You should follow us on twitter here (see http://dustincurtis.com/you_should_follow_me_on_twitter.html ) The 1px bo…

Really appreciate this. We are not a designer so this info is really helpful. Thank you.

Re: Ask HN: Please review my website

#15

Post by emmett »

hh wrote: post #11
decadentcactus wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think forcing a PDF download in order to have any idea what you're getting is a mistake. Some sort of HTML preview would be really nice. Second, and it would be helpful to view some demos on the front page. I realised I was going to download some sheets, but what did they look like? Shouldn't be too hard to screenshot a few as demos.

The reason why don't use HTML is because HTML cannot show complicate equations and layout without a lot of graphics. We will consider screencast.

Just include screenshots of a few sample sheets as images; there's no need for a screencast.

Re: Ask HN: Please review my website

#16

Post by justlearning »

I downloaded a worksheet and got a file without extension(named:download); I renamed the file to .pdf and opens fine. Would be better if I get a file name of worksheet-type.pdf

I also want to add - it would be nice to see the target age of kids based on the selections or select worksheets based on age, narrowing down to particular type.

fyi- the layout on the pdf is clean (and very kid friendly)

Re: Ask HN: Please review my website

#17

Post by DanielStraight »

emmett wrote: post #15
hh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why don't use HTML is because HTML cannot show complicate equations and layout without a lot of graphics. We will consider screencast.

Just include screenshots of a few sample sheets as images; there's no need for a screencast.

Right.

And the idea behind the HTML was the same. It doesn't have to be pretty, just some kind of preview. Giving sample images might remove the problem, but when you're trying to figure out how hard the worksheet is going to be by tweaking the configuration, it'd be nice to just see an instant update of what the problems will look like. You could just show a simple plain text representation of a representative problem based on the current input and that would be very helpful in my mind.

Re: Ask HN: Please review my website

#18

Post by hh »

justlearning wrote: post #16

I downloaded a worksheet and got a file without extension(named:download); I renamed the file to .pdf and opens fine. Would be better if I get a file name of worksheet-type.pdf I also want to add - it would be nice to see the target age of kids based on the selections or select worksheets based on age, narrowing down to particular type. fyi- the layout on the pdf is clean (and very kid friendly)

What is the browser you are using? The download pdf file does have an extension for us.

We will include the age targeted and grade based worksheets.

Re: Ask HN: Please review my website

#19

Post by nfnaaron »

Knowing whether I could generate anything more advanced than what was shown on the available worksheets stopped me from bothering to register. In other words, having to register in order to discover if "this is it or there's more" was an impediment to registering.

For example, my son is studying basic graphs and functions. y=3X + b. Would have been more likely to register if I had reason to believe I could generate worksheets for that type of work.

More generally, I saw no reason to register at all.

I liked the simplicity.

I also like the pdf generation, contrary to others. I liked seeing the results as-is immediately, and my browser (FF on linux) had no trouble opening the pdf for me in an external reader.

However, it would be nice to see an example graphic/screen shot somewhere: two thumbnails, leading to a worksheet graphic and its answer sheet.

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