Hacker News Reader

Comment by Timothee | Hacker News Reader

And Reader is pushed further and further away…

It was in the black bar initially, between Photos and Web, but for whatever reason, was pushed down the "more" menu to be replaced by "Sites", which I'm pretty sure nobody has ever ever used.

From the video (which by the way, sometimes has Reader in the black bar, sometimes not), it looks like Reader is relegated to the second column of the "more" menu. So went from one mouse movement and one click from Gmail, to two mouse movements and two clicks to, now, three fairly wide mouse movements and one click. Fantastic.

They should just be more straightforward and just write a blogpost titled "We don't want you to use Reader, but why don't you make a webpage instead?".

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Yet they continue to make improvements to Google Reader, based on user feedback. For example, I just noticed yesterday that they gave each item a container with borders and margins, which makes it much more pleasant and separates the content better.

As I've said elsewhere in the thread, why don't you have other, faster ways to get to your commonly used pages/apps? I have a shortcut on the new tab page, for example. (Two clicks: new tab, shortcut; never moves unless I move it.) I also use an extension called site launcher so that my most common apps are just a keyboard shortcut away. Alternatively, there's the bookmark bar.

I don't use bookmarks and like my UI as uncluttered as possible, thus I don't have the bookmark bar displayed.

I typically go to websites by typing their URL and Chrome completes it. It works for most sites I visit: for example, I can type "m"+Enter and go to Gmail, or "n"+Enter and go to Hacker News.

But some Google sites/apps don't work as well because the name is after google.com. E.g. Calendar is https://www.google.com/calendar/, Reader is http://www.google.com/reader/ and typing "reader" doesn't actually complete it, just suggests it below the location bar. Meaning: I have to select it in the drop-down. So having the link in Gmail was working pretty well for me in my routines: check my email, click the link, check Reader.

I've also become completely blind to what is displayed in the new tab: apps/shortcuts and most visited sites.

But you're right, I could probably find better ways…

edit: thanks to all of you who replied! My life is forever changed :) Just tried it, it works and Chrome already knows what to do…

reader.google.com will redirect. I've gone there enough that chrome will take "rea" and send me to reader ("r" and "re" go to reddit...)

I think you're stalking the way I use Chrome.

FWIW, I use “http://reader.google.com” and “http://calendar.google.com” which both redirect to ”https://google.com/[service]”, but allow me to type “r” and ”cal” (respectively) as shortcuts in Chrome’s omnibar.

This is what I do. I love that Chrome has a pretty solid idea of what I want, it's like a really fast launch tool.

Using chrome: for me, typing rea- completes to reader.google.com.

What's frustrating is that you can "break" one letter prediction by accidentally typing (for example) f\-enter (added a backslash) instead of f-enter for Facebook. After doing that once, it breaks the prediction permanently thereafter, from what I've seen.

Shift+Delete on those entries (or Shift+Fn+Delete on a Mac) to remove them. :-)

I noticed they added the yellow highlight to the currently opened item, and it makes it really hard for me to concentrate on the article I have open. I liked the design revamp, but that little highlight they added a few days ago throws me.

I too find that very distracting. After all, they use(d?) the yellow highlight for messages at the top of their screen (eg "Loading..." or something) so now I'm constantly thinking something important is happening above the text I'm reading.

Google has not fixed the fundamental problem with this latest release of Reader. It is as if the people redesigning Reader don't actually use Reader to ... you know, read things. On my 16:9 screen, the top buttons eat up most of the readable, vertical space. Scrolling through items is an eyesore. This new search bar will not help things. Google continues to definitively demonstrate its incompetence at visual design and usability.

One of the effects of this design is to disadvantage frequent users of any non-core Google Products. For instance, if you visit Docs or Reader every day, multiple times a day, you're going to spend a lot of time hovering and cursing.

Solution: let logged-in users star their frequently-used apps, and surface them at the root level menu (or even better, on the bar itself... almost like a Dock?).

Alternative: like the Chrome New Tab page, automatically surface a user's most-used apps.

The reason I never noticed the increasing subordination of google reader (a product I use daily, or even hourly), is because I have other shortcuts for products I use that frequently. In fact, it's a little strange to me that someone would go to the google homepage in order to navigate to reader through the nav menu. That would never even occur to me. If I was already in the location bar, I would simply type in the url for google reader. Why would you type in the url for google homepage instead?

I think there are more people who have their browser's home page set to google.com, where every new window or tab opens that page automatically. When that's the case, why have bookmarks for other Google properties when they're already available on your default page?

Granted, I'm in the minority of users who set their homepage to "about:blank" so that it's up and ready as fast as possible and focuses the location/search bar by default. I use bookmarks to open new tabs for just about anything I visit on a regular basis.

The alternative is definitely the way to go.

Everyone's freaking out about Reader already but it could already be setup to function like this for all we know.

For instance, if you visit Docs or Reader every day, multiple times a day, you're going to spend a lot of time hovering and cursing.

I just have it as a pinned tab in the browser, along with Mail and Calendar and other essentials. Frankly, I'll be glad to have the extra screen real estate back; of late there have been too many toolbars, and on the Chromebook I started to feel like they were eating the top 20-25% of my screen.

Perhaps the intention is not to facilitate the needs of Google "power users", but instead help ease others into the core products that they're focusing on.

I, like others here, have shortcuts to those items in which I use frequently - but even then that's too much effort at times. Sometimes it's just easier to type "rea" in the url bar and let the browser fill in the rest.

The positioning of applications in the menu is based on their popularity, and the sad truth is that Reader is not particularly popular.

But really, is the position that important? Do you actually rely on this to get to Reader?

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