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New in Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing

googlereader.blogspot.com

41–50 of 127 posts

Re: New in Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing

#41
post #12
post #10

The new design is definitely cleaner and consistent with other Google products, but it is not a design focused on providing a great reading experience (as the product name "Reader" suggests). It is basically the Gmail layout and interaction model, just different content. I wish Google had taken an approach that deeply focused on the content first (as Flipboard does).

KEEPING IN MIND that I generally hate people who whine every time every thing changes, as someone who is fairly invested in Google Reader, it pains me that this has been a UI step backwards. It's lot less usable; defaulting every link to black, like the rest of the interface, makes scanning for links really painful, and there's still a good 130px of useless interface chrome that is taking up space for no good reason.…

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stylish/

I haven't set up a style for google reader (yet) but Stylish extension for Firefox does a good job letting me customize sites. I don't use it on every site, but places I view regularly I tweak.

I have a style for news.yc http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3085416

Re: New in Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing

#42

The no-sharing/discovery thing has hit me hard. If anybody out there has a social RSS reader start-up, feel free to reply to this and advertise your service. I will drag my friends to it along with me. (Yes, I use Twitter, Instapaper, news aggregate sites, etc. Yes social software has changed how i would otherwise discover links/news. But I still need an RSS reader, and the passive sharing in old Google Reader is a l…

Well, create a Tag, get that Tag's feed from its Details and Statistics page, then your friends can subscribe to it as any other feed.

Re: New in Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing

#43

The no-sharing/discovery thing has hit me hard. If anybody out there has a social RSS reader start-up, feel free to reply to this and advertise your service. I will drag my friends to it along with me. (Yes, I use Twitter, Instapaper, news aggregate sites, etc. Yes social software has changed how i would otherwise discover links/news. But I still need an RSS reader, and the passive sharing in old Google Reader is a l…

Well, create a Tag, get that Tag's feed from its Details and Statistics page, then your friends can subscribe to it as any other feed.

That's not the same. You still can't add a note and your friends can't comment on the item, for starters.

Re: New in Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing

#44

The no-sharing/discovery thing has hit me hard. If anybody out there has a social RSS reader start-up, feel free to reply to this and advertise your service. I will drag my friends to it along with me. (Yes, I use Twitter, Instapaper, news aggregate sites, etc. Yes social software has changed how i would otherwise discover links/news. But I still need an RSS reader, and the passive sharing in old Google Reader is a l…

Well, create a Tag, get that Tag's feed from its Details and Statistics page, then your friends can subscribe to it as any other feed.

Thanks for this cool idea :D I will set it up at least for now.

But it doesn't solve the discovery part- having a place where I can see everything my friends are sharing- unless they do it too.

Re: New in Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing

#45
post #39
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can press +1 and then share to google+ in the lower left corner.

Isn't that public sharing only?

You can click +1 and then click on the grey "Share on Google+" to select to which circle you want to share.

Re: New in Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing

#46

Back in 2007 I built a social RSS reader called Feed Each Other ( http://feedeachother.com ). It was actually pretty good, but I had to give up on it because I ran out of money, Google Reader was slowly stealing all my features, and I found it very hard to convince people to switch from GR. It had stuff like: - "Circles" aka, letting you group your contacts however you like and see what each group shared with you and…

I've been looking for something similar to what you're describing (and hoping to stay away from Google & Facebook). However, before you turn your site back again, are there any other smaller fish out there already filling your niche?

Re: New in Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing

#47
post #21

Took me a while to realise that you had to click the share button in the far top right to share the currently viewed item. The physical separation between the item you're sharing and the screen element you have to click to share it strikes me as rather counter-intuitive.

I don't think this button exists if you've resisted the G+ vortex (I know, I know, a separate discussion :D...).

Re: New in Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing

#48
The lack of contrast between read and unread items ridiculous. The following custom CSS makes it bearable:

#entries .entry .card-common { background: #eee} #entries .entry .card-actions { background: #eee }

#entries .entry.read .card-common { background: #fff} #entries .entry.read .card-actions { background: #fff }

Re: New in Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing

#49
post #27
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sharing works. Sharing just does not work without publicly +1 the reader item. (This is a big -1 for me).

As the current top comment notes: You click the "Share..." button on the G+ (black)bar.

Oh wow. UI fail. I missed that completely. Thanks for mentioning it.

Re: New in Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing

#50
I must say, this new design is much less readable. I'll probably end up abandoning the web interface altogether and reverting to using Google Reader simply to synchronize my feeds across platforms.

Back when I used WIndows, I used FeedReader, but I'm not sure what other programs are out there for Linux or Android that sync with Google Reader.

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