A book by a VB programmer? Nah ... thanks ... I'll pass on this one.
Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader
21–30 of 36 posts
Re: Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader
#22Hey everyone, I'm Michael, a product engineer at Hyperink. Over the past month or so, I've been developing a rich, social reading experience for our content, freeing us from the stranglehold of MOBI and EPUB file formats. Today, Jeff Atwood generously granted us permission to release half of his book completely free on this Crowd Reader (paid customers get to see all of it there). The problem: paperback/print always…
This reading app has wonderful UX — my feedback is somewhat biased, admittedly, because it's ripped straight off from us (Inkling):
http://tinyurl.com/inkling-frommers-france
(yes, you have to create an account to view content, but it only takes a second)
Re: Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader
#23Solid Inkling ripoff. Well done!
Re: Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader
#24I have grown used to being able to click in the scrollbar background area to page up or down, which I tried to do when I determined the mouse wheel scroll down was going too slow.
And when the scroll indicator widget is over the dark part of the first graphic in the introduction, it is lost. Since there are no up and down arrow keys at the ends of the vertical scrollbar, if I did not know where the position indicator was, I am not sure I would be able to find it.
If it helps, the differential in the scrolling direction to click of the scroll wheel is two to one. Scrolling up one click covers the same territory as scrolling down two clicks.
Re: Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader
#25Hey everyone, I'm Michael, a product engineer at Hyperink. Over the past month or so, I've been developing a rich, social reading experience for our content, freeing us from the stranglehold of MOBI and EPUB file formats. Today, Jeff Atwood generously granted us permission to release half of his book completely free on this Crowd Reader (paid customers get to see all of it there). The problem: paperback/print always…
This reading app has wonderful UX — my feedback is somewhat biased, admittedly, because it's ripped straight off from us (Inkling): http://tinyurl.com/inkling-frommers-france (yes, you have to create an account to view content, but it only takes a second)
You guys really did create a wonderful UX for a very separate market segment. Admittedly, we did draw some conceptual inspiration from your reader. In my defense, I will say that UX/UI is very constrained by a set number of factors which make "sidebars" necessary/obvious/essential and the organization of them preferable over other organization possibilities (TOC on left, misc on right). I'll admit that you executed this arrangement visually much better than I did, in my attempt not to scalp.
I'm a big fan of Inkling, and you guys make me wish I was still in school so I could use your reader. Major props.
Re: Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader
#26A book by a VB programmer? Nah ... thanks ... I'll pass on this one.
Franzus, isn't this statement a little arbitrary? While I wouldn't claim to be a huge visual basic fan, I think (at least from my experience reading Jeff's book) there's a lot more one can get out of this resource than insight into programming languages.
For instance, Jeff has a great section on protecting users' data, writing test cases, and building community (like that of stackexchange).
I wouldn't be so arrogant as to presume I know what information you're interested in learning, I just wonder if not reading a resource by a smart programmer due to a programming language bias might actually work to your disadvantage?
Cheers either way!
Re: Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader
#27I have grown used to being able to click in the scrollbar background area to page up or down, which I tried to do when I determined the mouse wheel scroll down was going too slow. And when the scroll indicator widget is over the dark part of the first graphic in the introduction, it is lost. Since there are no up and down arrow keys at the ends of the vertical scrollbar, if I did not know where the position indicator…
And when I toggle the left pane open and closed, the text apparently reformats for the difference in widths, leaving me to have to scroll back up or further down to find where I was last reading. Any way to track current line and scroll to that point when the left pane is toggled on or off?
Re: Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader
#28I have grown used to being able to click in the scrollbar background area to page up or down, which I tried to do when I determined the mouse wheel scroll down was going too slow. And when the scroll indicator widget is over the dark part of the first graphic in the introduction, it is lost. Since there are no up and down arrow keys at the ends of the vertical scrollbar, if I did not know where the position indicator…
And when I toggle the left pane open and closed, the text apparently reformats for the difference in widths, leaving me to have to scroll back up or further down to find where I was last reading. Any way to track current line and scroll to that point when the left pane is toggled on or off?
That's a very good point. I've long considered tracking last-loaded position and using local storage to reload the last-unloaded scrollTop position. I could simply track that on the sidebar collapse to maintain it. Good feedback! Thank you!
Re: Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader
#29Solid Inkling ripoff. Well done!
Thanks, I tried soooooo hard!
Re: Show HN: Jeff Atwood's "Effective Programming" on Hyperink's new Crowd Reader
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
This reading app has wonderful UX — my feedback is somewhat biased, admittedly, because it's ripped straight off from us (Inkling): http://tinyurl.com/inkling-frommers-france (yes, you have to create an account to view content, but it only takes a second)
You guys really did create a wonderful UX for a very separate market segment. Admittedly, we did draw some conceptual inspiration from your reader. In my defense, I will say that UX/UI is very constrained by a set number of factors which make "sidebars" necessary/obvious/essential and the organization of them preferable over other organization possibilities (TOC on left, misc on right). I'll admit that you executed t…
The UX is so constrained that you had no choice other than to straight up copy: a) a control to hide the table of contents with a semi-transparent strip hover; b) a table of contents with a near-identical layout; c) a "next page" bumper with opacity-on-hover; d) an annotation stream in a third, right-handed column; d) a cute octopus mascot; etc. etc.
That's not to mention the store.
I mean...imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but I draw a line at copying Otto the Octopus.