BookCrossing 2.0 - What do you think?

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BookCrossing 2.0 - What do you think?

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1k00kaburra
Mag 25, 2010, 11:54 am

Do you like it?
Hate it?

Don't really care either way?

2Bcteagirl
Mag 25, 2010, 1:06 pm

It took me a minute to find my book categories, but I think I like it!

I do like the recent book activity list.

The main large issue I see is the lack of the recently released/recently caught list on the bio page.. that is very very important to have! They are easier to spot on the left hand side vs. the right hand side. Is there a way to get it to show 5 books again?

Another issue is on the Go Hunting page the sites per city seem to now be listed in alphabetic order rather than order of most recent release. In cities with lots of locations used within the past X days (And therefore red) that could be problematic.

I think there a a few small issues like these that need to be worked out, but the overall look I really do like! It is a nice clean look. Thanks for all the hard work :)

3sqdancer
Mag 25, 2010, 1:17 pm

Ugh, the formating is crappy on IE6; I'll have to take a closer look on IE8 when I get home.

4k00kaburra
Mag 25, 2010, 1:43 pm

3/ The formatting doesn't look so great on Firefox, but I couldn't tell if that was the design of the site or the browser so I was holding off on commenting until I could try it on IE, too!

5Bcteagirl
Mag 25, 2010, 9:09 pm

Having some real problems when I try to look at a list of all my books by release date (I assume that is the same as most recently released?).. I have the wings so I should have the options but it just isn't working!

6wookiebender
Mag 25, 2010, 9:51 pm

I think it's got a number of glitches that need to be ironed out.

I'm using Firefox and I dislike the way a particular book with a lot of JEs looks. Too crowded, not enough of a break between various JEs.

For some reason I've gone back to my old (and I mean OLD!) profile pic.

And my lovely space-saving dropdowns on my profile (which took a while to find) no longer work. Boo! I'll have to rewrite them all as one long list, which will take up a lot of page space. And we seem to have lost some CSS styles on the TBR/RES/TRAV links, which is also making a mockery of my profile.

How come I can edit the details of a book I didn't register? I think that's not right. Why do I have to click a link to see the "new journal entry", "release notes" etc links? They're bloody useful and should always be shown. I'm sorry I don't get the previous entries when I make a new JE as sometimes I want to refer to other comments. Clicking on the TBR/RES/TRAV etc buttons results in a JavaScript pop up error. Sometimes. On releasing a book, my shortcut just has the location, not the city as well. (So I have "bus" three times on my shortcut list, for the three different city/suburbs I've released a book on a bus.) How come I'm getting a "remove ads" link when I've already got wings? On visiting the forums (fora), apparently I've not read any topics in Book Talk, which is funny, because I was just in there yesterday.

With the "recent book activity" on my profile, I'd like to know *what* the recent activity is. (I think it's the most recent registered, the most recent caught by me, and the most recently released. But I'm *guessing* which is never good.)

I do like the "Immediate Release" option on the wild releases, it was a pain sometimes with the timezone. And I am happy that when I go to http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf and I'm not logged in, it actually sends me to the login page, instead of just saying I should be logged in first. (Well, duh.)

It's going to take some work to get my profile working again, and currently I'm not terribly happy with it all. But I'm sure it'll settle down and I'll get used to it. Eventually.

7sqdancer
Modificato: Mag 25, 2010, 10:09 pm

>3 sqdancer:,4
Formating is fine on IE8, but my eyes are tired after a (relatively) short session (poor contrast between background and typeface). Ah well, I don't spend much time there anymore anyway.

8bluesalamanders
Modificato: Mag 25, 2010, 10:18 pm

I'm having trouble expressing what's bothering me. It's not that I especially dislike the colors or the flowy lines or whatever, it just seems off for some reason. It's out of scale - the header is huge, the search box and some of the text are massive, the tabs are huge with that small text... Also, there is incorrect information on my profile (the number of controlled releases is wrong).

9lilithcat
Modificato: Mag 25, 2010, 10:34 pm

Right now, I hate it. Some of what I hate is probably just due to the bugs that weren't sufficiently worked out before they were forced to go live. But some of what I hate is or seems intentional: the awful, overly intrusive graphics; the wasted real estate (the header and sidebar take up an inordinate amount of space!); the appearance of avatars in the forums; the loss of the ability to search one's own bookshelf; the inability to edit journal entries; etc.

I'm reserving judgment, but the problems registering and releasing books, and the inability to search my shelf, may be deal-breakers. I'm hoping those things will change.

One of the things I love about LT is that they haven't bought in to the "2.0, lots of graphics, minimal text" nonsense. Apparently, BC has. And I don't like it.

10wookiebender
Mag 25, 2010, 10:45 pm

Lilithcat, I can edit my JEs. It's all a bit cluttered, but underneath my JEs to the right, there are those two links: "edit" & "upload journal picture". Have you got those links?

Although, now I come to actually *try*, I'm getting an error of "Error: Some inputs were NOT valid. Please correct and try again." when I try to submit my changes. (WTF? What bit of my JE precisely is not valid? It was all perfectly valid when I first wrote it some weeks ago.) And none of the line breaks are showing on the actual JE itself, making it look pretty icky.

DAMN. I hate the loss of being able to search my own bookshelf! Although I can put my username in the filter box, and that seems to work. Actually, no it doesn't. I put in "hedgehog", limited it to my shelf, got my result, but when I click through, it's not to the book on my shelf, but to global overview, whereupon the whole thing falls over with an error message.

Yeesh, that was the most useful thing they had on the site! BRING IT BACK!

11lilithcat
Mag 25, 2010, 11:04 pm

> 10

Although, now I come to actually *try*, I'm getting an error of "Error: Some inputs were NOT valid. Please correct and try again." when I try to submit my changes.

Yes, that's the problem. I'm hoping, from the fact that there's an error message rather than the lack of an "edit entry" link, that it's a fixable bug, rather than an intentional change.

Although I can put my username in the filter box, and that seems to work. Actually, no it doesn't. I put in "hedgehog", limited it to my shelf, got my result, but when I click through, it's not to the book on my shelf, but to global overview, whereupon the whole thing falls over with an error message.

And, if you weren't the one to register the book, you get "no results".

12k00kaburra
Mag 26, 2010, 10:49 am

9 - One of the things I love about LT is that they haven't bought in to the "2.0, lots of graphics, minimal text" nonsense.

Ugh, yes. The new BXing site is so fugly!

So I've tried using the site more, and I'm quite disappointed with it. I mean, I know that all new launches will have some bugs but I can't believe this new incarnation of BXing is such a MESS. I can't do *anything* on the site, it seems.

Registering new books: I usually use pre-numbered labels, and those don't seem to be working. I can't edit them and get error messages when I try to use them.

Old Journal entries look wonky because line breaks have suddenly disappeared. The idea of going back and editing everything makes me cringe...but apparently I can't do that anyway, since editing journal entries leads to an error message.

My wishlist is completely messed up. 9/10s of it is missing, and what remains are the books I had deleted or marked as a granted wish.

Friends? I don't really use the friends feature, but now I apparently have 50 friends. No idea how *that* happened.

For some crazy reason, the avatar I've used for the past 5 years disappeared and the one that replaced it is one I don't even remember using on BXing!

Book sorting: They forgot/elected not to add the 'in my possession' option to book sorting, which I use a *lot*. Uber-lame.

So yeah. Not impressed. I feel like I can't even use the site at the moment. It looks like Matt is out trying to fix the bugs, but I am honestly quite stunned that this many made it out with the website.
Also, I logged onto the beta.bookcrossing.com site several times in the past few months, and I do not remember this ugly layout. Was it really there for testing all this time?

13pinkozcat
Mag 26, 2010, 11:10 am

My wishlist seems to consist solely of books which I have acquired, read and deleted from the list.

And the search facility is quite, quite useless.

I suppose that we will get used to it - at least I can release books still; but it thinks that I live in Casablanca.

And my shortcuts to the site no longer work which is a nuisance but I can set new ones, I guess.

14bluesalamanders
Mag 26, 2010, 11:10 am

I'd only just started using it and was looking forward to doing more, but if they don't get the mess cleared up fast, I'm going to just say forget it. I'm not invested in that site.

15Bcteagirl
Mag 26, 2010, 1:03 pm

Not only can I not order by most recently released, but I can not see an indication if they are wild releases or controlled releases?

16Megi53
Modificato: Mag 26, 2010, 1:57 pm

I love the way it looks, myself.

Love the way I can add covers, even for books I didn't register (as a pp mentioned, I'm very surprised this is permitted!).

Didn't realize one could edit book details for books one didn't register -- going back to fix a few egregious misspellings before Matt changes that.
(ETA: Wow! The worst one has been changed already -- wonder if it was by support or by one of the many previous readers?!)

(lilithcat, aren't those new bookplates terrific? Especially the one with the orange cat on it.)

17overthemoon
Mag 26, 2010, 3:30 pm

At first glance it looks clean, but there are so many glitches! My wings went, came back and went again though I didn't log out. My wishlist has been reduced to four wishes that have been granted, and nothing happens if I click on those little grey arrows beside them. My joining date has appeared in French, though if I click the "change language" I'm told that my setting is English.
I haven't tried releasing yet, but it was quick and easy to register a book, and I love the fact that I can upload my own covers for those that are missing.
The forum is taking a while to understand and set as I want it - and I'm not at all keen on all those avatars; the old system was better, where my own posts were highlighted, and I could see on my profile whether anyone had answered my posts.
>16 Megi53: new bookplates? must check those out, though I still have a huge stock.

18Bcteagirl
Mag 26, 2010, 3:45 pm

Just released a book, and could not find the option to add a new location? Had to choose the already added location 'somewhere' and add in the details in the notes.

19LyzzyBee
Mag 26, 2010, 5:19 pm

This wasn't available in beta form - there has been alpha testing which has been quite comprehensive and got rid of a lot of the bugs (honest!) but then this is basically the beta version. They weren't able to run old and beta new together as are totally different systems with different support needs.

I know Matt is listening to the feedback - there is a place on the forums for people to say what they find wrong and he is working really hard to fix each thing.

Hope this helps a bit!

20SqueakyChu
Modificato: Mag 26, 2010, 10:10 pm

It is *so* messed up that I'm going to lay low and wait a while to check back in there. I was getting frustrated with it yesterday, but allowing BC time to fix the bugs before checking back in will help me immensely. :)

21pinklady60
Mag 26, 2010, 10:39 pm

Me too, Squeaky. I'm not going to add/delete/change a thing until the bugs are worked out. Hopefully, that will be fairly soon.

I noticed it's difficult to even read the forums, because I can't mark messages as read - - it just doesn't do anything. And I sure don't want to waste my time rereading messages.

22wookiebender
Mag 26, 2010, 11:26 pm

I'm definitely keeping away. One of the Australian bookcrossers tried to update her profile pic and she ended up being locked out of her account!

Shame, I'm due to refresh my wings this week, but I'd hate to have them broken while the site is still so buggy!

Hopefully it'll all settle down and some of the new "features" will go away while I'm not looking and fretting at the site.

23SqueakyChu
Mag 27, 2010, 12:22 am

--> 22

I *had* to edit my profile picture before I left the site. That ugly picture of me they put up yesterday came out of a very old folder. I was not a happy camper when I saw it. :)

24pinkozcat
Mag 27, 2010, 5:50 am

How do you find out when your wings are due for renewal. Although my wings are showing, the site is acting as though I don't have any.

And I have a link to send myelf a private message. I can see myself using that a great deal ...

At least there is a dropdown for my extended profile now - everything which had disappeared is now back - as long as I click the little arrow.

25otakuu
Mag 27, 2010, 7:10 am

I'm fairly neutral. I want to see what it looks like when the rollout is completed and the de-bugging is finished.

I have surprised myself with being more open to change than I expected to be so although there are changes I am struggling with personally, I am prepared to hold off my complaints until I can see the integrated package.

All in all, it is the books and people that I go to BookCrossing for so I will put up with a lot to keep that going. After all, I met most of you there in the first instance!!

26melydia
Mag 28, 2010, 9:15 am

I'm reserving judgement until the site actually works properly. Right now so many things are broken that I decided to stay away until June. I hope that by the time I return most of the kinks will have been ironed out.

27indygo88
Mag 29, 2010, 12:28 am

My very first thought was that it physically LOOKED nice. Esp. the home page, which is much more welcoming to new people coming to the site. I always was kind of turned off by the "plain-ness" of the site before. So I'm glad they've spiced that up a bit.

But! Just about everything else on the site frustrates me. In its current state, it's just not very functional at all. Like some of you, I'm laying low & avoiding the site for the most part, except for making journal entries. If they can get these bugs worked out & put back most/all of the previous features, then I might be happy. I realize it's a lot more work than you might think to revamp a site, but they really, really should've held off before releasing this. I fear this can only hurt the BC community, with all the negative comments I'm seeing.

28SqueakyChu
Modificato: Mag 30, 2010, 10:56 am

they really, really should've held off before releasing this

I so totally agree. Anyone new to the site will never return, that's for sure. These are not few and small bugs they're trying to fix.

I can't stand going there now, and I've been there for years. I'm only thankful that this didn't occur prior to three book festivals that I did with my local DC area BookCrossing group in which we registered and released probably close to 3,000 books in three months. Today I couldn't even add one person to one of my bookrays.

Does anyone else find the small, pale font particularly annoying? I can enlarge the font on my computer but then the display doesn't fit my screen size. It's really hard (and tiring) for me to read.

29sqdancer
Mag 29, 2010, 1:39 am

Does anyone else find the small, pale font particularly annoying? ... It's really hard (and tiring) for me to read.

Yes!! I find my eyes get tired and sore very quickly.

30pinkozcat
Mag 29, 2010, 2:59 am

I promised to send a bag of books to someone and have had to hang fire because, the way things are at the moment I am not sure what will happen if I release them and she tries to journal them. So they are sitting on the floor of my study, along with a bit pile of books for wild release. Grrrrrrrrr ...

31SqueakyChu
Mag 29, 2010, 11:46 am

I can't find a particular book on my bookshelf because I don't know its BCID.
Grrrrrrrrrr...

32SqueakyChu
Mag 29, 2010, 11:47 am

I can't add a new member to a bookray that's about to run out of members because all I get is an error page when I try to link to the book from my profile page.
Grrrrrrrr...

33overthemoon
Modificato: Mag 30, 2010, 4:18 am

some things I do like:
- we can now delete double-posts in the forum
- we can search for cover pics or post our own (though this feature isn't working well for me, it defaults onto amazon.fr for the search)
- there is no longer that annoying flickering ballycumber on my travelling books

That error page comes up quite a lot, in various circumstances, but if I try again, and again, I usually get what I want.
It is easy to change the font size with control and mouse wheel. At first I found all the avatars in the forum annoying, but now I don't even notice they are there. My eyes must be selective-viewing enabled.

I would like to be able to search books on my shelf, and some way of seeing my posts, because I can't remember from one day to the next where I have posted.

34crazy4reading
Giu 8, 2010, 11:07 am

I was still trying to figure out the old one and I am now starting all over again. Once I get my computer working and I can spend more then 3 minutes on BC I will see what I can figure out on there.

35Bcteagirl
Giu 9, 2010, 4:54 pm

Is there still a way to remove books from your wishlist? I can't see how anymore.

36SqueakyChu
Giu 9, 2010, 7:31 pm

If there's a way, I can't see it either. :(

37Bcteagirl
Giu 9, 2010, 7:39 pm

Well that renders that function pretty much useless doesn't it? :(

38SqueakyChu
Giu 9, 2010, 7:57 pm

It's a good way to get five RABACKs of the same wishlisted book. :D

I'm sure they'll fix that function sooner or later (...probably later).

39Bcteagirl
Giu 9, 2010, 7:58 pm

LMAO! *Insert evil laugh here*