Followup thoughts:
Quoting is okay. (Not that you legally need permission, but it helps to have it.) I'm very glad you took my post in the spirit it was offered--"here's what I liked; here's what didn't work for me; hope some of that changes so I can enjoy the product." Quoting the good parts without fixing the troubles will get your product mocked to the extent I have influence in the blogosphere--which is admittedly not much, but probably balances out whatever benefit you'd get from quoting. (Which is not intended as a threat, but as a way of protecting what little rep I have with my friends.)
Upon opening, there's a popup that says something like "News from News2PDF.com"--which is blank.
-- Popups on open and close? Nuisance. Two mouseclicks I don't want. The second one should certainly not be included in any paid service; reminders that you're looking for feedback should be left to people who haven't already given it to you in the form of dollars.
-- Blank popups as space holders for "sometimes we'll have content here?" Nuisance that makes users think some of the programming is broken.
Error popup on trying to select more than 3 days of articles. More nuisance. Shouldn't have to click on it & remember where the cutoff is; those should be greyed out & unselectable for free users; the "help" button should indicate them. (If there's a "registered" and "paid" version & they're different, that needs to be indicated somewhere.)
Help button--also unavailable offline=bad. (Since the whole program is unavailable offline right now, it doesn't matter. However, basic "what those settings mean" and "what features you can't use right now" info should be available offline. (And if you want it to be *really* nifty, make the whole thing run portable, so that people can install the program on a flash drive & use it in a library or school computer, instead of needing to run on their home computer.)
The fact that the images aren't included in the "print" versions of the articles is *irrelevant*--your users are not looking at Newsweek's "print version of articles," and may never have gone to those pages. It needs to mention why downloading these doesn't get an article with what they see when they go to the website.
Re: Reader's Digest image--I had selected Reader's Digest. On checking, it has images. They are 1/4" wide thumbnail shots of some sort; I certainy can't read them. Whatever you're parsing them with, they do more harm than good--they look like a glitch in the code resized them down to "unreadable." (What are they, 50 pixel thumbnails at 200dpi? Looks okay on a website and atrocious in print.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7793715.stm (one of the articles I got) has a picture on the news page. None on the "Print" page. So I can understand why there's no pictures--but this is definitely non-intuitive; you need to explain that you only include pictures if the news publications make those available for download. (Or something. Full explanations is probably too much tech, but people are going to keep asking why the version on their computer doesn't match the one they can Google for.)
You're right about duplicates same day; I must've had one of the articles open when I tried to re-run it last night. HOWEVER... If I can miss that, so can someone else; I'm used to having a dozen programs open and while I expect the occasional "oops; can't do that--you have it open!", I don't expect the whole program to crash because of it.
Also, there's still the problem that I can't make one set of files for me, focused on sci/tech/education, and another set for my husband, focused on world news/politics, if they come from the same publications. (Okay,
I can. But I can also merge the PDFs into one, re-arrange the bookmarks to how I like them, and add the missing metadata, all quickly enough to not think of that as a nuisance--I mind doing that less than I mind the popup on close. My PDF skills are not expected of the average reader.)
It auto-saves changes into whatever .ini file is open at the time, which means if I experiment with new settings, I lose my old ones. Bad. If you need to save out .ini files manually (you don't expect your users to know what an RSS feed is, but you want them to manage .ini files?), they should not save changes without asking you.
If you fix the auto-saving of ini files (and maybe even if you don't), you might find a way to put the ini name into the filename--possibly instead of the page size. (I appreciate page size in filename. But it's been mentioned that I'm a PDF geek. For most users, listing the page *label* is plenty; listing the mm measurements--esp. for American users--is just extra text they never see because Windows cuts off the visible filename after about 20 characters.)
If the Kindle & Sony have the same page size, make them a single listing. Every checkbox on the menu should do something different.
If page margins aren't going to be user-adjustable, the "printable" page sizes (letter, A4" need margins that most printers can deal with--generally at least 1/2", possibly 3/4" for easy punching to put into a binder. If you're adding user-adjustable settings, three or for standard settings plus one marked "custom" (with dropdowns for slightly more standard options, plus custom settings) would probably be best.
Saveout location--I prefer it to save somewhere easy to find (so "a folder that opens when I click on a button" is reasonable) so I can tinker with the PDFs. However, I'm fluent with file management; many of your users may have NO IDEA AT ALL how to deal with an open window. If they're used to using Sony's e-library program (or for some, Calibre), they have to navigate windows, but there's no drag-and-drop option. I have no idea what Kindle users deal with, but I expect it's even more troublesome.
Quote:
This problem has been fixed in a version that will be released Monday afternoon.
The user will be allowed to change the page and margin settings in an upcoming version.
should at least allow the user to access the menu when there is no Internet connection .... We’ll fix that.
We’ll likely move this “notice” to the download status area
|
I will NOT be downloading four (or more) new versions (at 10 minutes each), as they appear, and installing them, and looking for new bugs caused by the fixes. The "updates" page could possibly include a change log/bug fix listing underneath the "download now" option. (You are aware that by calling it version 0.1, it looks to programmers like this isn't even the beta release? In most cases, the public never sees versions 0.1 through 0.9; 1.0 is the first release to non-employees.)