Archive for the ‘snap preview’ Category

Snap Preview improves

Wednesday, February 14th, 2007

Snap Preview has taken onboard all the feedback and revised their widget. They let you customise the look of the widget but more importantly the widget can be off by default and the user has to turn it on.

Nice one Snap, this allow those who like your service to keep using it while not annoying the rest of us. Thanks.

(Thanks to Chris Gallagher for the link.)

Posted in Post, changed, nice, revised, snap preview, widget | Comments

Snap Preview redux

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007

So it seems the whole Snap Preview outcry is having some effect. TechCrunch has modified how Snap Preview works on their site. Before, any external link would pop-up a little window previewing the site on hover. Now they have moved that feature by inserting an icon to the right of any external links and showing the pop-up on hover of that icon.

Is it an improvement? Yes. Is peace and tranquility restored to the interwebs? No. You can’t take a well intended but bad idea, shift it ten pixels to the right and declare the problem fixed. The idea was bad in the first place; admit it, kill the idea and move on. Now when I read paragraphs on TechCrunch the flow of words is broken. Typography is important. Readability is important. Preview links are not. The icon is meant to be subtle in contrast (it is off-white) but it still takes up 16 pixels of width which throws off gaps between words which is a big no-no in typography and readability.

Ah well. You can still disable the damned thing, until you clear your cookies and have to go disable it again.

Posted in AAA, Links, TechCrunch, Web, bad, not good, silly, snap preview, unreadable, worse | Comments

Snap Preview isn’t very snappy

Thursday, January 25th, 2007

I haven’t spoken to a single person who likes the Snap Preview feature that is sweeping many blogs. I’ve read endorsements from quite a few sites but whenever I talk to real people trying to use one of those sites their first question is; How do I get rid of them?

Today a friend was setting up a WordPress.com site for his course material and, through a co-worker, asked me what the thing that kept popping up on links in his new site was. It was the Snap Preview. Apparently it is has been added to WordPress.com and turned on by default for not just new sites but existing sites too. The official line is that there was such a good reaction to an initial test that they decided to let everyone have it, auto-enabled. My cynical side says Snap approached WordPress and paid them money to have it included. Turning off the feature means digging through your Presentation options, it took us a good few minutes to find it.

A quick Google search shows plenty of dissent on the issue. The thing is annoying to a lot of people.

You might like it, your friends might like it but not everyone likes it. Make it a client choice. When someone visits a site make it either very easy to turn off or easy to turn on (the latter please.)

Posted in AAA, Plugin, WordPRess, annoying, snap, snap preview | Comments