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First Impressions
I'm not opinionated, honest.
- website layout needs work (colours, hard edges, boxy, very functional rather than aesthetic)
- it wasn't immediately apparent where I add podcasts
--- I suggest a first-time logged-in start page with a big add podcast button
--- perhaps an 'add featured podcasts' instead of auto-populating
- In the "/podcasts/add": Add Podcasts button -- instead of the note warning not to click more than once, use javascript to disable and change text on button once clicked
--- after leaving "/podcasts/add" to grind for 15 minutes, it didn't refresh to a completion page. Either put one in, or say that castroller is working in the background.
- No sidebar link for 'My Episodes' : http://castroller.com/<username>/episodes
- can't log in on firefox 3b5, windows. Login window wouldn't pop up. (FF 3.0 rc1 on mac works ok)
- can't make my own channel easily
--- had to go to an individual podcast, then select add to channel
--- expected: go to "Your Channels", then some kind of "New Channel" button there.
--- suggest a (private?) default channel... having no channels should be an option for those who aren't interested in classification
--- it's possible that could be the confusion with the missing "My Episodes" link -- with no channels, the episodes get lost.
And some feature suggestions:
- allow more control over the feed provided to external programs
- xml feed should sync up with what's displayed on castroller
- allow transcoding of audio/video content (might have to make this a "pro" feature, as it'll take some storage)
Also, submitting feedback using the site doesn't work.</username>
- website layout needs work (colours, hard edges, boxy, very functional rather than aesthetic)
- it wasn't immediately apparent where I add podcasts
--- I suggest a first-time logged-in start page with a big add podcast button
--- perhaps an 'add featured podcasts' instead of auto-populating
- In the "/podcasts/add": Add Podcasts button -- instead of the note warning not to click more than once, use javascript to disable and change text on button once clicked
--- after leaving "/podcasts/add" to grind for 15 minutes, it didn't refresh to a completion page. Either put one in, or say that castroller is working in the background.
- No sidebar link for 'My Episodes' : http://castroller.com/<username>/episodes
- can't log in on firefox 3b5, windows. Login window wouldn't pop up. (FF 3.0 rc1 on mac works ok)
- can't make my own channel easily
--- had to go to an individual podcast, then select add to channel
--- expected: go to "Your Channels", then some kind of "New Channel" button there.
--- suggest a (private?) default channel... having no channels should be an option for those who aren't interested in classification
--- it's possible that could be the confusion with the missing "My Episodes" link -- with no channels, the episodes get lost.
And some feature suggestions:
- allow more control over the feed provided to external programs
- xml feed should sync up with what's displayed on castroller
- allow transcoding of audio/video content (might have to make this a "pro" feature, as it'll take some storage)
Also, submitting feedback using the site doesn't work.</username>
I’m unconcerned
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Inappropriate?Thanks for the feedback.
I'm working on the Design, and have John Leschinski helping me out with that.
Good idea about the first time login page, I could put the Getting started video on there too.
I'm thinking now that I should have a few bundles of podcasts that people can choose to have added to their account. The same way that most feed readers do it.
I'll work on the Add podcasts page. I'd like to add a progress bar, something Ajaxy to make it more obvious that things are happening.
Your episodes are on your homepage: /home
I did have a link on the sidebar, but removed it to reduce redundancy. Do you think it should come back?
Good point about creating your first channel. I'll update the channels page to have a big "Create Channel" button. Most people would probably follow the same route that you did.
You don't need channels to use the site now, I actually thought that the "Your Channels" link was hidden for new users. I would only show it once you've created your first channel.
What do you mean by more control over the feed and having the feed sync up? The RSS feed should contain the same content as what you see on the site, if you don't, its a bug please send me the link
The transcoding is a good idea, it would definitely be a pro feature because it uses a lot of CPU power as well.
Thanks again!
I’m thankful
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I suggest the link come back into the sidebar. In home, I didn't even realize I could click on "Your Collection" (probably because it's off the page, after the contact feed -- a three column layout might improve that?)
"Your Channels" always shows in my sidebar, regardless of the "Show your channels in the sidebar" setting.
And my RSS feed (as both viewed in iTunes, and as RSS) shows content in a different order than it is displayed in the collection view. I'm not sure what link I can send you... on castroller, it seems to use date as primary sort, in xml it doesn't. "More control" was referring to the filter mechanism. Being able to specify more than 20 episodes, for instance... though this is maybe exacerbated by the fact that I just imported an opml full of stuff that was new to the system.
Also, filtered feeds don't seem to work, I just noticed. eg. /episodes/all/feed is blank.
Looking forward to the improvements. -
Inappropriate?I'll play with either re-adding the "Episodes" link to the sidebar, or making the link more obvious in /home.
I don't want to add any more columns to the layout, I'll find another way of making it more obvious how to get to the episodes.
The "Show your channels in the sidebar" setting causes the channels you create to appear the same as your contacts, links to each of your channels. Not just the "Your channels" link.
I was playing around with the sorting of lists of episodes, it appears that I didn't sync the two up. I'll fix that.
I can add the ability to get more than 20 episodes in a feed, but I would probably make this a hidden feature. Most people shouldn't need any more items than that, and I don't want to clutter the interface.
The filtering does seem to be broken on users' main feeds. It does work on channels. I'll fix...
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