MangaDex v3 is coming!

[Noms]

I like the revisions you've made to the beta, Holo.
Combining some of the lists makes it look neater and now they're easier to access without scrolling endlessly. I see the "New Titles" is now a carousel and it works well, shortens the previous lists, too.

A couple of folks mentioned preferring single column updates - just an idea: you could have the left column display "All" and the right column display "Follows". The current beta already looks similar with the second column aligned under the follows tab.
This would show fewer titles in each list on the front page, so you could link the headers "All" and "Follows" to their respective pages (and remove the link at the very top - "Latest Updates").

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Bug: Display problem with Bullets.
In the "Latest Posts" section bullets show outside the table border.

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Bullets in the quick search results are not truncated, overflow the rest of the page. Does not happen in non-beta.

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I looked at the colours again and I now see the same ones in beta are used in non-beta but for different text, so it was less obnoxious.
I made an example using the bootstrap colours to show how beta could look with better contrast and and lower luminosity for the text. This makes it easier to look at and to read without being monochrome - addresses the issues of a few other commenters here.

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[Noms]

@Tamed - WASD controls for the beta reader exist. Do they not work for you?

 

[Tamed]

It does now. This is probably due to the bandwith thing for me. The non beta has me refreshing the page before I get to the next page when I have low bandwith.

 

[Brightamethyst]

Overall, not a fan of the new site. I don't hate it, but I don't like it very much either.

Reader:
The sidebar is stupid and it's busier and messier than it needs to be for no good reason. I'm willing to put up with it since the sidebar can be hidden, but I don't really like it.

That said, can there be an option to have the sidebar hidden by default when the reader opens? I will NEVER want it visible while reading something and it'll get annoying REALLY fast if I have to close it manually every time. Also, can there be an option to hide the black bar on the bottom that shows the pages? It just takes up space while doing nothing useful.

Main page:
Having two columns makes the whole thing way too cluttered and hard to read. A single line makes for more scrolling but is faster and easier in the long run because you're not dealing with information overload. Please make the current single line view an option.

 

[Holo]

@Noms

The problem with your implementation of the columns is that guests won't have any follows, so they will always see an empty column.

Everyone else, thanks for the feedback. I am continuing to make modifications to the beta, taking your comments into account!

 

[m3ch_mania]

@Holo, would you mind addding some element IDs? Makes it real hard to develop userscripts without 'em

Namely, element IDs for:

User dropdown menu in the top right
Items in said dropdown menu
All spans in chapter data rows

Also, it'd be nice if the logged-on username and user ID could be extracted from an element with an ID

 

[KAFi]

@Holo Can the developer add a button (Click Here To Understand What I mean) which when clicked will bring this info. This would look lot cleaner?

 

[Jsmith45]

The new reader is 100% broken on iOS 10.2, while the old one works flawlessly.

This appears to be caused by the use of Object.entries in various places in reader.js, which the version of safari in ios 10 does not support.

 

[Shangelcry]

It seems that nobody is having problems with the long strip option because I am.
First, when I start to read a chapter automatically load some pages but if I don't read faster or scroll down faster the pages don't load anymore and there is my second problem because after that I refresh (F5) and start in the first page and I have to scroll down to the page where stopped, that really is a bother.
On another hand, the fact that you improve/add Swipe sensitivity option I really liked because that is my big problem with the current version (v2). Thanks for your work.
PD: Sorry for my poor grammar, English isn't my first language.

 

[raveysas]

Thanks for the updates! It’s nice that you guys take everyone’s comments into account and make constant modifications.

I saw the improvements to the beta and noticed an awkward big gap between Latest Updates and Featured Titles in the homepage. The All tab has 32 manga titles while my Follows tab has only 12 manga titles, which is not even half of 32. I'm guessing my Follows list is short because only the titles updated for the past 6 days are shown under the Follows tab. Is it possible to get rid of this limit and set it so that the last 32 titles updated from my Follows will show up? That way there’d be no empty white space in the middle of the homepage.

Something I was hoping to see in v3 is a bookmark function so you can keep track of not only the last chapter you read, but also the recent manga you touched, especially useful if you stop reading a manga halfway and would like to pick up where you left off without going through your long list of Follows. By using a bookmark, you can also mark important chapters you’d like to take note of, that’s how it’d be different from the read chapter marker. It’d be like a personal list of bookmarked chapters under Follows alongside Reading, Completed, etc.

Another thing about Follows, the read chapter marker vanishes after you list a manga under On-hold or Re-reading so there’s no way to know which chapters you’re already done reading. Please retain the marker regardless which category it’s listed under.

Some nitpicks about the beta… Consider toning down the bright blue buttons and font colors. And maybe it’s just me, but having two carousels at the bottom of the homepage is a bit too much. Maybe leave only one? Preferably the New Titles, since the Featured Titles can already be accessed under the Manga tab in the header.

The new reader is lit. Customizable and fast. My only problem is the aforementioned bug in long-strip mode where you can’t move onto the next chapter (or any chapter actually).

I noticed some feedback about the keyboard shortcuts in the Reader Settings looking a bit cluttered so I suggest putting it out in the sidebar (since there’s so much empty space there) but hidden with a toggle button by default like the header toggle, then remove the display of current reader settings below the toggle buttons.

Adding to what @Truck-kun said, it’d be nice if the chapter comments can be loaded in the sidebar when you click the comment icon so you don’t have to go to another page just to see the comments then go back to the reader again to go to the next chapter. I think that’d also engage more comments.

P.S. I like the new font in the beta ★

 

[lrb]

Reposting here because @Noms advised this would get more eyes.

On smaller mobile displays, I feel like screen realestate is important. A reader that's just the page, a link to the chapter list, and the JavaScript behind tracking chapters read and previous/next pages would be pretty nice. No extra styling or page width to worry about and I wouldn't have to worry about the header making me scroll a quarter of an inch to read the rest of the page.

 

[ununseti]

_{@Teasday posted:}

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I'm not married to the current "loading screen", but even if I scrapped it I would still have to use some other visual cue to make it clear when the system is loading something in the background. There has to be a visual response to an action, otherwise people will rightly complain that the reader sometimes freezes up or feels unresponsive. It's great that most of the time the images load rapidly, but that is absolutely not something we can rely on. Even if the server magically worked 100% of the time, some people may be on slow connections.

I agree that some a visual cue is necessary for loading, especially if it's slow. The current loading screen just seems... offputting to me for some reason, so maybe something else is better. Perhaps something like Dynasty Reader's static "Loading..." text box overlay, or Facebook's content placeholders.

I've noticed that in the strip mode (for both v2 and v3), images usually seem to load from top to bottom, like they're visually panning in. If the download rate is particularly slow, then that panning speed becomes very slow, but I can still see it progressing. I think a visual cue like this would be ideal, since it's basically like a built-in progress bar. This doesn't seem to happen in single or double mode, though, so maybe there's some kind of technical limitation to this effect?

I've been playing around with the beta new reader. My internet connection is pretty fast, so I tried using a really really large image, just to see what would happen. The image I used was a 8000x8000 PNG, 67.5 MiB in size. (Sauce) I put this as page 5 of a test chapter, and padded 4 pages on either side with low-res images. Here are some observations:

v3 reader strip mode: When I get to the large image, the image slowly pans in from top to bottom, which is nice. If I scroll past it, all of the images after it are already loaded.

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v3 reader single mode: When I get to the 5th page, the reader just continues showing the 4th page. The reader isn't frozen, though. I can click through to the 6th page just fine. If I then click backwards to the 5th page, the reader just continues showing the 6th page. If I click backwards again, I can get through to the 4th page. If I just click forwards to the 5th page from the 4th page and wait patiently, eventually the large image loads. During all this, there's no loading indicator of any sort, so that should probably be fixed.

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v3 reader single mode: If I open the URL directly at page 5, the loading screen does show up. The loading UI doesn't go away until the large image loads completely, which takes a number of seconds. During this loading, I can't navigate forwards or backwards.

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v3 reader double mode: Most of the time, it's the same as in single mode: I can navigate back and forth even when the large image hasn't loaded yet, except either the 3rd page or the 7th page (depending on which direction I'm going) stays on the screen until the large image loads completely. However, sometimes, the navigation bar freezes completely, and the UI is unresponsive until the large image loads.

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I also noticed that in the beta reader, there's no blue pencil button to edit the chapter details for the uploader. Should that be added in?

Hope this feedback is somewhat helpful.

(By the way, I've removed that really large image now since I was worried about it straining the servers.)

 

[dayment]

I am really happy with all the great work that you are doing.

I wanted to suggest this.

Could you send an email notification when you get a new message in your inbox?

 

[Holo]

@dayment

Yes, that will be coming.

 

[Ascarpa]

Hi. Could you add "Authors" to the quick search?

 

[totole]

Hi, just started using the beta.
I have some weird issue, on the new reader i can't seem to navigate between chapters, the call seems to be made most of the time but the images don't change though the comments change.

That's in long strip mode.

Cheers.

 

[Solen]

Hey, i like the update so far, my only inconvenience so far is that sometimes the chapters come out of order. I think the reader is using when the chapters are uploaded and not chapter numbers. Using android if that matters. Good job with the update

 

[gzb]

I kinda like the new reader if only for one thing: it's easier to check what chapter I'm on while reading in long strip . Previously, I have to scroll all the way to the top of the page which can be a hassle depending on the length of the chapter.

 

[Holo]

For those users who prefer the existing grouped chapters view on the homepage, they have the option of reverting to this view in the "Site settings".

 

[CooperPL]

Much better then older layout ... now u can read chapters with full screen without any bar or something. I seen some bugs i hope they will be removed like when u click arrow to the next chapter (long page chapter) and nothing happens.

Home page too is much better i think many dont like it but i think many need some time too