Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Further thoughts on blogging, and Blogger

Google has rearranged the furniture again.  As a result, Frank has quit blogging,  Tam has written of quitting, Bobbi may quit; Daddy Bear has jumped ship to Word Press.

Like many, I tried the new Blogger interface, and didn't like it. The Dashboard is now even more cluttered than before with all kinds of stuff I don't need, which is a pain when you only use it long enough to find the stuff you DO need.

 The Post Editing tool is now... different. 

But why?

Look, we bloggers often talk about "Free Ice Cream" and the blog is the "Free Ice Cream Machine".  Yes, the actual "ice cream machine" is provided for free by Google, so, if Google wants to rearrange the controls, Google may do so.

But, again, why?  If you're renting office space somewhere, the property manager may come in and say "Due to fire regulations,  this space must be clear", or "You can't block the air vents", but they don't come in in the middle of the night and rearrange the bloody furniture!

I will admit that I like that the Post Options controls are in a bar at the side of the screen, so that when I'm writing a long-ish post--and, since I'm writing this on the netbook computer, it became that long about paragraph 4--I don't have to scroll down to change a setting, and then back.  OTOH, Tam says the new interface chokes her netbook, and she brings a helluvalot more traffic than I do, so you might want to reconsider.

I am undecided about the new editing tools in "Compose" mode.  Not sure I'll ever use them, and since I didn't miss them when they weren't there, it's hard to argue they were necessary.  (How about adding additional fonts typefaces, and superscript and subscript buttons?)

Dear Google: Did you even try this out before implementing it?   "Switch now or switch later" doesn't count!

Again:  The Ice Cream Machine is yours, and as long as it's free, you can configure it the way you want, but you still get some value out of our use of your Ice Cream Machine, so some consideration for the users might be Good Business.

1 comment:

Ruth said...

Considering that for part of the "trial" period the feed back button didn't work....