Probably the shortest blog I'll do.
Essentially, yeah. Much much better. Things fairly zip now. Only thing is the animations seem a bit jerky. One small UI issue I noticed - perhaps you might provide a more obvious way of deleting a link? Like leave the 'delete link?' text there permanently, instead of showing it on a roll-over?
Yeah. That's pretty much all there is to it.
7:10pm - 7:30ish, wasn't really watching.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Aaaaaand I'm back!
How are we all doing? Doing well? Welcome welcome welcome to another exciting post on the Laichasse blog, full of interesting and informative information of my usage of Apture.
So, with no further ado, lets get this started!
Tristan asks:
"What would make Apture more useful to you? What things do you expect it to do that it does not do? And what things do you expect it to do that it does differently?"
Well, my answer is pretty much nothing. I've spent a long time raving to Tristan about this software, and he knows I think it's pretty much perfect in conception. In execution, well, I've mentioned a lot of things that were broken and or UI issues. Perhaps somewhere in the middle, I might have something new to add?
I guess If reeeeally pressed, I'd say I'd like it to have bigger windows, and/or smaller text. I feel like the apture windows provide you with nibbles of information on the hotlinked items, I wouldn't mind having something meatier to browse through (hay, come to think of it, is there a text-size option? Or a way to drag Apture windows into something larger? Would love to love to see the both if they don't exist, although I imagine this is something for version 2.0). Continuing with the theme, I wouldn't mind it at all if the apture links were the main show and the blog/webpage behind it were in the background. Like you're reading, say, a techincal document, and you have all these open windows of technical terms and stuff. And could you apture link something inside of an apture link? Somethings to think about....
And:
"Is it still too slow on IE6?"
Oh yes. Yes it is.
I did indeed do a screen recording of it, and below are the results:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wchwaz (download it quickly, it'll only last a week...)
The full screen capture is six minutes, and I know that's a lot. I'm not sure if I could get you to sit through all of a six minute song that I might try to force you to listen to just because it's my song of the week, much less something as dry as a screen capture. So what I've done is broken it down into a bunch of key moments in the above attachment, namely a screen refresh that took over the entire page, the apture windows being drawn with a weird black shadow/border around them, and demonstration of how long it takes to link something in ie. Assorted other problems include the fact that double clicking a word results in the selection of a sentence instead of just a word (could be my fault). Can one select more than just one word for linking? If not, could be a good idea, if not because it would lead to irrelevant searches, perhaps allowing two words side-by-side might be worth permitting.
Most important quibble, of course, is the speed. Apture works best in an environment where you have zippy internet access, a fast machine, and probably we're thinking a mac. My machine's pretty old, though it's fast enough, my internet connection is pretty keen, and Apture works fine on Firefox for the most part, it's just that ie thing.
Assuming ie isn't even the problem, Apture's going to be used worldwide, where internet speeds and computing power aren't normalized. Perhaps having a low-fi version of Apture sans the animations and whatnots might be something to think about for version 3.0. Do you think that would speed things up, or it wouldn't change much of anything?
Anyways, must run to sign up for a piano course. Toodles!
hrs: 12:40 - 2:05
How are we all doing? Doing well? Welcome welcome welcome to another exciting post on the Laichasse blog, full of interesting and informative information of my usage of Apture.
So, with no further ado, lets get this started!
Tristan asks:
"What would make Apture more useful to you? What things do you expect it to do that it does not do? And what things do you expect it to do that it does differently?"
Well, my answer is pretty much nothing. I've spent a long time raving to Tristan about this software, and he knows I think it's pretty much perfect in conception. In execution, well, I've mentioned a lot of things that were broken and or UI issues. Perhaps somewhere in the middle, I might have something new to add?
I guess If reeeeally pressed, I'd say I'd like it to have bigger windows, and/or smaller text. I feel like the apture windows provide you with nibbles of information on the hotlinked items, I wouldn't mind having something meatier to browse through (hay, come to think of it, is there a text-size option? Or a way to drag Apture windows into something larger? Would love to love to see the both if they don't exist, although I imagine this is something for version 2.0). Continuing with the theme, I wouldn't mind it at all if the apture links were the main show and the blog/webpage behind it were in the background. Like you're reading, say, a techincal document, and you have all these open windows of technical terms and stuff. And could you apture link something inside of an apture link? Somethings to think about....
And:
"Is it still too slow on IE6?"
Oh yes. Yes it is.
I did indeed do a screen recording of it, and below are the results:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wchwaz (download it quickly, it'll only last a week...)
The full screen capture is six minutes, and I know that's a lot. I'm not sure if I could get you to sit through all of a six minute song that I might try to force you to listen to just because it's my song of the week, much less something as dry as a screen capture. So what I've done is broken it down into a bunch of key moments in the above attachment, namely a screen refresh that took over the entire page, the apture windows being drawn with a weird black shadow/border around them, and demonstration of how long it takes to link something in ie. Assorted other problems include the fact that double clicking a word results in the selection of a sentence instead of just a word (could be my fault). Can one select more than just one word for linking? If not, could be a good idea, if not because it would lead to irrelevant searches, perhaps allowing two words side-by-side might be worth permitting.
Most important quibble, of course, is the speed. Apture works best in an environment where you have zippy internet access, a fast machine, and probably we're thinking a mac. My machine's pretty old, though it's fast enough, my internet connection is pretty keen, and Apture works fine on Firefox for the most part, it's just that ie thing.
Assuming ie isn't even the problem, Apture's going to be used worldwide, where internet speeds and computing power aren't normalized. Perhaps having a low-fi version of Apture sans the animations and whatnots might be something to think about for version 3.0. Do you think that would speed things up, or it wouldn't change much of anything?
Anyways, must run to sign up for a piano course. Toodles!
hrs: 12:40 - 2:05
Friday, February 22, 2008
Links in and out of indexes
Really, short, but:
Essentials:
There's no problem. Only thing is that the icons might disappear, but they reappear in fractions of a second. So no big deal.
But:
ie is really slow and annoying with apture. So I couldn't saturate blogs with as many links as I'd like, even though I don't think I'll run into any problems on further testing. If you guys want to be proof positive nothing breaks with a thorough stress test, permission to use firefox, and I'll give it a more comprehensive run sometime this weekend. Yeah, i.e. is just really that painful. Fucking microsoft....
Below is a car crash of observations/suggestions. Enjoy...
Details:
Opera:
The welcome to apture thing should only appear once after you've been there before after clicking cancel on browser incompatibility warning. If this is an opera specific bug, you shouldn't allow apture period when you're in opera.
ie:
we need to figure out if by default, people want the linker panel to stay open. because ie is slow, it's becoming annoying.
some links blink, but appear in the right place, so no biggie.
should allow one to close the linker panel while the text on it for the first apture link shows. In otherwords, I should be able to close the linker panel and move on with adding more links to text, or just some way that if I only want one media item per link, I'm not being slowed down by the persistent linker panel.
linker panel switches place with the media window, and refreshes the entire browser window in ie.
Sometimes on selecting a link it searches and finds things, other times it keeps searching...
Don't know how to add successive end of paragraph links smoothly...
And do I have to preview the resource I'm trying to link to before linking? If I know what's already there, it slows me down to have to click view preview and then link item. Users should have a choice.
Read more section on an external link opens a new window. Is that how it works? If so, it should probably be re-worded to something more specific.
Can't double link (i.e. if there's already a link to a page, placing an apture link over it obliterates the one underneath it. Maybe apture could display the old link in a new window?)
Add link at end of paragraph feature shouldn't change the paragraph shape. It makes me miss links sometimes.
ps: Because archive links are sorted by month and not quantity, we'll have to wait a little over a week to see what happens with linking consistency in that aspect, unless you know a way of hacking it)
hrs: 8:30 - 9:20 (oh, and on Tuesday, it was 11:30 to 3:20 (creating blog articles) )
Essentials:
There's no problem. Only thing is that the icons might disappear, but they reappear in fractions of a second. So no big deal.
But:
ie is really slow and annoying with apture. So I couldn't saturate blogs with as many links as I'd like, even though I don't think I'll run into any problems on further testing. If you guys want to be proof positive nothing breaks with a thorough stress test, permission to use firefox, and I'll give it a more comprehensive run sometime this weekend. Yeah, i.e. is just really that painful. Fucking microsoft....
Below is a car crash of observations/suggestions. Enjoy...
Details:
Opera:
The welcome to apture thing should only appear once after you've been there before after clicking cancel on browser incompatibility warning. If this is an opera specific bug, you shouldn't allow apture period when you're in opera.
ie:
we need to figure out if by default, people want the linker panel to stay open. because ie is slow, it's becoming annoying.
some links blink, but appear in the right place, so no biggie.
should allow one to close the linker panel while the text on it for the first apture link shows. In otherwords, I should be able to close the linker panel and move on with adding more links to text, or just some way that if I only want one media item per link, I'm not being slowed down by the persistent linker panel.
linker panel switches place with the media window, and refreshes the entire browser window in ie.
Sometimes on selecting a link it searches and finds things, other times it keeps searching...
Don't know how to add successive end of paragraph links smoothly...
And do I have to preview the resource I'm trying to link to before linking? If I know what's already there, it slows me down to have to click view preview and then link item. Users should have a choice.
Read more section on an external link opens a new window. Is that how it works? If so, it should probably be re-worded to something more specific.
Can't double link (i.e. if there's already a link to a page, placing an apture link over it obliterates the one underneath it. Maybe apture could display the old link in a new window?)
Add link at end of paragraph feature shouldn't change the paragraph shape. It makes me miss links sometimes.
ps: Because archive links are sorted by month and not quantity, we'll have to wait a little over a week to see what happens with linking consistency in that aspect, unless you know a way of hacking it)
hrs: 8:30 - 9:20 (oh, and on Tuesday, it was 11:30 to 3:20 (creating blog articles) )
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Installed wordpress
Fairly painless, but like I said to Tristan, not a bad idea to mention that you can only install apture for a wordpress blog you're managing yourself, not the hosted solution wordpress.com offers. That's why I was coming to grief.
So, with no further ado, I'll mention today's servings of bugs...(frowny face)
1) The add link at the end of paragraph deal is shaky in ie. Either it just doesn't give it to me, or it takes ages and I get the bug below...
2) Even when bloggers turned off, I still got an option to add links at the end of a paragraph. To the title of the blog no less! I'm not sure if this is a standard feature, but I think links in the title of the blog might be a little weird.
Oh, and the highlighted sections don't turn off sometimes.
3) Just in general, ie cries when apture is turned on. I get the script error warning at the bottom of the status bar.
Here's are the lines of code in question (in this, it's the fifth line, I believe, oh and used parentheses, because blogger doesn't convert code in the compose view so it actually displays. Hmphff):
(span class="'fn'")Kweku(/span)
(span class="'post-timestamp'")
at
(a class="'timestamp-link'" href="http://www.blogger.com/'http://laichasse.blogspot.com/2008/02/continuation-of-yesterdays-posts.html'" rel="'bookmark'" title="'permanent")(abbr class="'published'" title="'2008-02-12T17:03:00-08:00'")5:03 PM(/abbr)(/a)
(/span)
And some weird cancel icons stay on the page after you closed it.
In general, I was getting the most of the above bugs when apture editing this very blog in ie, so it might have something to do with the quantity of text that apture is dealing with on this page.
4) Final observations:
I think including the script code in the wiki installation instructions could be cool. Either that or linking from the blog to the place where the code is hidden.
Oh, and pretty please can we have a search option in the add links panel? That would be soo cool, though strictly speaking not really necessary. But I wanted to go and search for links that didn't come up in the media options, and would have been cooler if I didnt' have to open a side tab and google the right terms...
And btw, I think in my first meaningful post in the wordpress blog, I'll have to admit that even though I only got two links in, I was having real fun doing so, and wanted to do more before ie tanked. Despite the kinks that come up once in a bit, I think you guys have a stellar interface going here.
hrs: 10:50-12:40 + 7:45-8:15
So, with no further ado, I'll mention today's servings of bugs...(frowny face)
1) The add link at the end of paragraph deal is shaky in ie. Either it just doesn't give it to me, or it takes ages and I get the bug below...
2) Even when bloggers turned off, I still got an option to add links at the end of a paragraph. To the title of the blog no less! I'm not sure if this is a standard feature, but I think links in the title of the blog might be a little weird.
Oh, and the highlighted sections don't turn off sometimes.
3) Just in general, ie cries when apture is turned on. I get the script error warning at the bottom of the status bar.
Here's are the lines of code in question (in this, it's the fifth line, I believe, oh and used parentheses, because blogger doesn't convert code in the compose view so it actually displays. Hmphff):
(span class="'fn'")Kweku(/span)
(span class="'post-timestamp'")
at
(a class="'timestamp-link'" href="http://www.blogger.com/'http://laichasse.blogspot.com/2008/02/continuation-of-yesterdays-posts.html'" rel="'bookmark'" title="'permanent")(abbr class="'published'" title="'2008-02-12T17:03:00-08:00'")5:03 PM(/abbr)(/a)
(/span)
And some weird cancel icons stay on the page after you closed it.
In general, I was getting the most of the above bugs when apture editing this very blog in ie, so it might have something to do with the quantity of text that apture is dealing with on this page.
4) Final observations:
I think including the script code in the wiki installation instructions could be cool. Either that or linking from the blog to the place where the code is hidden.
Oh, and pretty please can we have a search option in the add links panel? That would be soo cool, though strictly speaking not really necessary. But I wanted to go and search for links that didn't come up in the media options, and would have been cooler if I didnt' have to open a side tab and google the right terms...
And btw, I think in my first meaningful post in the wordpress blog, I'll have to admit that even though I only got two links in, I was having real fun doing so, and wanted to do more before ie tanked. Despite the kinks that come up once in a bit, I think you guys have a stellar interface going here.
hrs: 10:50-12:40 + 7:45-8:15
Thursday, February 14, 2008
My (Final) Version of the Apture Wiki
So, I know the wiki is the same thing used on the apture help, so I edited it as such.
General Views:
I think the shorter, the sweeter. Also, if you guys could throw in some pictures into the dashboard help, that would be a lot easier to glance and get an idea of how to get started. I'll draw up some pictures later on what exactly I mean.
I think some hyperlinks from with the blog text would probably be a good think in case users forget terminology, like Apture linker panel, or bookmarklet (still have no idea what that means)...
****
Getting Started
Welcome to Apture, the simple and easy way to enhance web pages with rich multimedia content from around the world!
Click *here* for an introduction to apture (probably have both a video option and a thumbnail snapshot/commentary option)
To learn how to add rich multimedia content to your pages with Apture, see Editing Pages with Apture.
Contents
1 Editing Pages with Apture
1.1 Adding links to words or phrases on the page
1.2 Adding related media items to an existing Apture link
1.3 Adding links at the ends of paragraphs
//
Editing Pages with Apture
To begin editing Apture-enabled pages, you first need to open the Apture Dashboard and turn on the editing mode.
Opening the Dashboard
This panel is probably already open in the top-right corner of your screen, but if you turned off the automatic display option, you can get it back by doing....
Turning on Editing
After the Apture Dashboard is open, you must log in to your Apture account before being able to editing the page.
Once the Apture Dashboard says "Editing On", you're ready to start adding multimedia to the page!
Adding links to words or phrases on the page
To add links to existing words or phrases on the page:
1. Ensure that the Apture Dashboard is open and editing is on.
2. Select any text in the page body. The Apture Linker panel will open, with a selection of
available media types.
3. Choose the media you want to link to the selected text.
4. Click "Link this Item", and the text is transformed into a link!
Adding related media items to an existing Apture link
Apture links can contain links to more than just one type of media (perhaps a link to an example?). To add another link to an existing Apture link:
1. Ensure that the Apture Dashboard is open and editing is on.
2. Open any existing Apture link on the page. An apture media window will appear.
3. Click on the (+) button near the bottom of the window. The Apture Linker panel will open.
4. Choose the media you want to link to the open Apture window.
5. Click "Link this Item", and the new link appears in the related links bar inside the open Apture window!
[edit] Adding links at the ends of paragraphs
You may add "end of paragraph" links to the page should there be something you wish to link that is not directly referenced in the page text. To add an end of paragraph link:
1. Ensure that the Apture Dashboard is open and editing is on.
2. Hover the mouse over any paragraph on the page. A (+) icon should appear at the end of the panel. Click it.
3. The Apture Linker panel will open. Now choose media you want to link.
5. Click "Link this Item", and Apture will ask you to title the end-of-paragraph link.
Tip: Because the new link is not attached to a phrase in the text, Apture recommends using a title such as "See Steve's Keynote" rather than "Steve's Keynote"
Hrs: 7:45 - 9:15
General Views:
I think the shorter, the sweeter. Also, if you guys could throw in some pictures into the dashboard help, that would be a lot easier to glance and get an idea of how to get started. I'll draw up some pictures later on what exactly I mean.
I think some hyperlinks from with the blog text would probably be a good think in case users forget terminology, like Apture linker panel, or bookmarklet (still have no idea what that means)...
****
Getting Started
Welcome to Apture, the simple and easy way to enhance web pages with rich multimedia content from around the world!
Click *here* for an introduction to apture (probably have both a video option and a thumbnail snapshot/commentary option)
To learn how to add rich multimedia content to your pages with Apture, see Editing Pages with Apture.
Contents
1 Editing Pages with Apture
1.1 Adding links to words or phrases on the page
1.2 Adding related media items to an existing Apture link
1.3 Adding links at the ends of paragraphs
//
Editing Pages with Apture
To begin editing Apture-enabled pages, you first need to open the Apture Dashboard and turn on the editing mode.
Opening the Dashboard
This panel is probably already open in the top-right corner of your screen, but if you turned off the automatic display option, you can get it back by doing....
- Hint: You can define a shortcut may be defined to open the Apture Dashboard in your user settings. By default, press the 'e' key on your keyboard. Be sure you click the body of the webpage before you press the 'e' key.
Turning on Editing
After the Apture Dashboard is open, you must log in to your Apture account before being able to editing the page.
Once the Apture Dashboard says "Editing On", you're ready to start adding multimedia to the page!
Adding links to words or phrases on the page
- Select any text in the page body. The Apture Linker panel will open.
- Choose the media you want to link to the selected text from the options provided.
- Click "Link this Item", and the text is transformed into a link!
To add links to existing words or phrases on the page:
1. Ensure that the Apture Dashboard is open and editing is on.
2. Select any text in the page body. The Apture Linker panel will open, with a selection of
available media types.
3. Choose the media you want to link to the selected text.
4. Click "Link this Item", and the text is transformed into a link!
Adding related media items to an existing Apture link
Apture links can contain links to more than just one type of media (perhaps a link to an example?). To add another link to an existing Apture link:
1. Ensure that the Apture Dashboard is open and editing is on.
2. Open any existing Apture link on the page. An apture media window will appear.
3. Click on the (+) button near the bottom of the window. The Apture Linker panel will open.
4. Choose the media you want to link to the open Apture window.
5. Click "Link this Item", and the new link appears in the related links bar inside the open Apture window!
[edit] Adding links at the ends of paragraphs
You may add "end of paragraph" links to the page should there be something you wish to link that is not directly referenced in the page text. To add an end of paragraph link:
1. Ensure that the Apture Dashboard is open and editing is on.
2. Hover the mouse over any paragraph on the page. A (+) icon should appear at the end of the panel. Click it.
3. The Apture Linker panel will open. Now choose media you want to link.
5. Click "Link this Item", and Apture will ask you to title the end-of-paragraph link.
Tip: Because the new link is not attached to a phrase in the text, Apture recommends using a title such as "See Steve's Keynote" rather than "Steve's Keynote"
Hrs: 7:45 - 9:15
Assorted UI Suggestions, part 4
Sorry for yesterday's break in transmission - but we're back today.
Here are a bunch of random UI suggestions I have. I hope you don't mind if I'm being too nitpicky, but I figure the more the merrier, and you guys can always ignore the not-so-helpful ones when you come across them....
I'm not sure Tristan got exactly what I meant by allowing users a delete site option, so I drew a picture of it below:
I figure once one clicks on the delete, uninstallation instructions come up, samples of which I will write up for your later perusal.
I think adding more directions, some pictures, and breaking everything down into a step-by-step fool-proof process would help. So in the image below you'll come across some of my suggestions.
And then finally,
The enlarged image below should be self-explanatory, but feel free to leave comments and I'll be happy to go into more depth.
Cheers,
Hassan
Here are a bunch of random UI suggestions I have. I hope you don't mind if I'm being too nitpicky, but I figure the more the merrier, and you guys can always ignore the not-so-helpful ones when you come across them....
Deletion
I'm not sure Tristan got exactly what I meant by allowing users a delete site option, so I drew a picture of it below:
I figure once one clicks on the delete, uninstallation instructions come up, samples of which I will write up for your later perusal.
Extended Installation Guide
I think adding more directions, some pictures, and breaking everything down into a step-by-step fool-proof process would help. So in the image below you'll come across some of my suggestions.
And then finally,A couple suggestions about the editing page
The enlarged image below should be self-explanatory, but feel free to leave comments and I'll be happy to go into more depth.
Cheers,
Hassan
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Browser Browsing
So, I forgot to read your e-mail properly, and test it exclusively on i.e., but I did come across a few firefox problems.
firefox:
Oh, if there was a way to allow users to share bookmarks across browsers, that wouldn't be bad...
Oh, I clicked close on the dashboard: See screenshot for the crash. Did it twice, same crash...
Finally, in firefox, when I scroll, the dashboard appears over the square of media playing as a white square. i.e. doesn't have this problem.
Internet Explorer:
It runs a little jumpy.
Biggest problem I'm having: my downloading program interacts with apture in a really big way. Every other time I click, I get a little download link icon pulldown, and it tries to download something weird. It's impossible to use apture under this mode, so I'll get rid of the program (no biggie, don't use i.e. in any other case)
Oh, the text in i.e. isn't anti-aliased as well as it is in firefox: see image.
hrs: 8:45 - 11:20
firefox:
Oh, if there was a way to allow users to share bookmarks across browsers, that wouldn't be bad...
Oh, I clicked close on the dashboard: See screenshot for the crash. Did it twice, same crash...
Finally, in firefox, when I scroll, the dashboard appears over the square of media playing as a white square. i.e. doesn't have this problem.
Internet Explorer:
It runs a little jumpy.
Biggest problem I'm having: my downloading program interacts with apture in a really big way. Every other time I click, I get a little download link icon pulldown, and it tries to download something weird. It's impossible to use apture under this mode, so I'll get rid of the program (no biggie, don't use i.e. in any other case)
Oh, the text in i.e. isn't anti-aliased as well as it is in firefox: see image.
hrs: 8:45 - 11:20
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