July 13, 2013
Evaluating/reviewing the new e-edition (online version) of the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
Great idea. I understand the economics are driving in this direction. And I like seeing the “real paper” better than just the lists of articles as in, e.g., NYTimes.
But this first go at it doesn’t cut it.
- The mouse control is terribly sluggish. Significant lag. Virtually impossible sometimes to control where the cursor is. One result is no precise zoom control.
- The buttons at the top and bottom of the zoom control don’t seem to work consistently or reliably.
- The default to two-page view makes is seemingly impossible to view just one page at a time, which makes it even harder to zoom in on the desired article. Selecting the “single page” option at the top doesn’t persist when you advance a page.
- Click and drag to center the desired article on the screen is sluggish and klutzy. The page shifts a bit and then the cursor zooms off the page and one has to reset it and start dragging again.
- Once you click on an article you should be able to view the entire article, even if it continues on a different page.
- The menu bar on the right covers part of the articles and seemingly can’t be moved.
- The ‘page up’ and ‘page down’ keys don’t work reliably to move to a new or previous page. There seem to be no keyboard controls for moving around the page, just mouse/touchpad options. Typically on a web page ‘page up’ and ‘page down’ scroll the screen for the page one is on. And the directional arrows move the cursor around the page.
- The whole process has to be quicker. Right now it will take significantly longer to read the e-edition than the dead tree edition, even apart from the difficulties involved.