Well, apparently it's All Meta Week here at RBE!
Back when the new interface was introduced in the spring, I tried it out and reverted to the familiar one, figuring they were still working on getting the bugs out, particularly since the implementation was pushed back. I didn't dislike the new interface aesthetically - yeah, it's incredibly bland and kinda ugly, but so what? I don't go to my blog dashboard to be visually stimulated.
But I expected at least the same level of functionality.
With the old interface, my post list page included a list of all my tags/labels, so I could click on one and bring up all the relevant posts. Now, that feature is gone. Tags show with individual posts, but there is no list or cloud of tags on my post page, meaning I will probably need to locate a widget instead, further cluttering up the main page.
I miss being able to view posts from my post list page as well. Remember the little arrow? Click it and the post becomes visible, with links in the page actually active? I used that a lot, as opposed to preview, which is slower to open and doesn't include live links.
And I can't remember exactly how they were positioned before, but in the first eight or nine months I managed to click the Publish button instead of the Save button exactly once, With the new interface, it's now happened three times already.
Early on on expanded my composition window to full size for my desktop monitor, but it's annoyingly large when viewed on my laptop, and I can't shrink it down again, on either computer - neither dragging the corner nor double-clicking it allow me to make the window smaller.
Finally, my reading list disappears more often. It happened a couple of times with the old interface, but now it happens more frequently, and for longer times - the other day my reading list was gone for more than four hours that I know of.
All of this pales in comparison to the ultimate sin, of hitting Publish and have a post disappear altogether into the ether, never to be seen again. Fortunately, it was a Cinematic post with nothing but a YouTube link and easy to replicate - if it was anything else, I'd probably've ended up on Google's doorstep with a torch and a pitchfork in my hands.
And of course no amount of feedback sent ever merits a reply from our Masters at Google.
I've read other bloggers complaints about Blogger, but honestly I never encountered much in the way of problems before the new interface was implemented. I'm generally not someone who objects to change for the sake of change - I like new and improved as much as the next guy or gal, but if you promise new and improved, you'd better friggin' deliver the on improved.
I've worked with the new interface for a couple of months now and I'm about as thrilled as you are, for much of the same reasons.
ReplyDeletePreview really sucks (come on, live links, it can't be that hard) and my reading list is AWOL a lot of times. My biggest beef is that I cannot enter a date for a post manually. I have a lot of posts behind the scenes, play by mails ect. that I dated 2001 for something. This would now take an insane amount of clicking.
There is a list of all tags, though, a drop-down menu in the upper right above the post list ("All Labels", it says). I liked the old list better because I could open tabs with it, but at least it's there.
Y'know, I tried the pulldown menu a while back and nothing happened when I clicked on the tabs - now it works.
DeleteI got fed up with blogger several years ago and, between that frustration and having nothing of note to say, quit blogging.
ReplyDeleteWere I to resume it, perhaps in the context of gaming rather than socio-cultural commentary, I'd probably opt for Wordpress and my own domain.
But, for right now, I'm content to comment and not bother writing my own posts, building an audience, etc.
Wordpress and your own domain is a good way to go. I've been very happy with it ever since I made the switch back in February.
ReplyDeleteIt's tempting.
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ReplyDeleteTag list is at the top of the page list as noted above.
Hover over a post title in post list for view/delete/edit/share options.
Tag cloud is a widget, so yeah, side-bar (or top/bottom bar).
I've never had a post vanish on publish, and draft-saving seems very aggressive.
The edit window is annoyingly unfriendly size-wise.
Hovering over the post gets me Edit and Delete; the old View appears to be gone.
DeleteOne of my Cinematic posts disappeared when I clicked the check box and hit Publish from the list of posts. Gone, like it never existed.
Posts disappearing into the aether was a chronic problem with Blogger way-back-when. I'd heard it was fixed these days but, apparently, the problem has returned. *sadface*
DeleteHuh. That's... odd. Hovering over the post gives me Edit, View, Share, Delete. Out of curiosity, are you using a Blogger profile or a Google profile to manage your blog? I switched over to Google quite a while ago, maybe that's the difference?
DeleteSorry, I wasn't clear - when I select Draft posts there're only Edit and Delete. View is an option for published posts, but all it does is take me to the Edit screen.
DeleteI finally figured out that you were talking about non-published posted. View on published posts, for me, takes me directly to the full post page though. Weird.
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