Blotanical News

No worries Stuart!

Family, work, stress: TOTALLY sympathise.Take your time!

It'll all come right in the end!

Esther
ESTHER IN THE GARDEN

Hi, Stuart,

I fear my machine is not fast enough to take advantage of the new current posts feature (the page now includes a few lines from each post). Even on a good day, it always takes a while for the picks pages to load, and I'm not certain I have the patience to wait for each 20 posts to come up. I really liked having all 200 recent posts on one page.

Because I don't want to wait for each page to load, I don't know that I'll be navigating via current posts quite so often, which means that it's likely I won't be reading anything other than the first 20 or 40.

Here's a vote for going back to listing the picks the old way, all on one page.

Thanks for indulging my bit of griping. I love blotanical, and I'm really grateful for all the time you put into it!

Jared

Hi

I noticed another glitch, related to the lists/picks.

Catchable fatal error: Object of class MagpieRSS could not be converted to string in /home/gardenin/public_html/blotanical/php/magpies/rss_fetch.inc on line 208

I wondered why my own blog hadn't been appearing lately, and that of some of my faves, and went to read one of them via the persons plot instead so I could keep up with it as they hadn't been listed for a while, and got the above error.

As Jared commented, I have to say I much prefer seeing 200 entries on one page too, rather than having to wait to have every 20 entries to load, as page loading takes ages, I assume because of traffic levels on Blotanical's server. I know it's not my connection or Machine, they are both high spec and many other graphic intensive websites load and page much more quickly.

I also love Blotanical and admire all the effort you put into it.

I'm with Jared on this. I hate to add to the stress or the work-load, and I do enjoy the 2-line leads, but I can't get through them all.

Furthermore, I can't find a particular post easily. I just stumbled on one through a different source, and want to pick it if it's still up, but I have to go through 20 pages just to see if it's even an option, since I can only search one page at a time.

So, I'm for the old list. sorry!

Strangely, I find that the 20 posts/page actually loads a lot faster for me and I was thrilled with this new feature. :) Ah well, I guess everyone's mileage varies, as they say. Whatever works, in the end. You must have the patience of Job, Stuart. ;)

Thanks Stuart for working so hard on this when it's not your day job.

I agree with Jared on the new format though - doesn't work for quick page scanners like me. Those who like to 'try before they buy' will probably go for it though. Depends on how many you have in each category as to whether the new layout is judged a success.

A lot of 'the regulars' don't appear to be coming through into the Picks - so it looks like you're still having problems?

I am sorry that you are having all these problems with picks. I assume that it is blogger that is causing the problem - they are the ones not in my picks list. How ever you want to display the list is fine with me, just do which ever is easiest.

Hope your family needs are pleasant ones and they must come first.

Best wishes Sylvia (England)

I started to say 'hurrah!' - because at last it seemed to have become possible to access my blog through my plot - but it turned out to be the post from several days ago!

Quite entertaining in some ways!

Esther
ESTHER IN THE GARDEN

I do love the two lines on the posts, it makes some blogs appear more interesting than just the title. I have noticed that it's not picking up several of my faved blogs when they post new blogs.

Thanks for all of your hard work. I know that this is hard for you. I appreciate all of the new features you're trying to give us. Don't be discouraged.

I agree with Jared as well some of us have jobs and family as well so we don't have all day to view the list.Its seems the more features that are added the slower the site becomes and my latest posts Friday 23rd are not on the list.Perhaps the picks should be a separate page I quite like making my own decisions on what I would like to view, not read along with the reef fish

Stuart - The new picks pages are wonderful! They load in a flash, give more info and are visually nicer too. Thank you - I appreciate the hard work!
Sue

"Read along with the reef fish?"

I'm not concerned with this for myself, but just wanted to note that none of my posts are showing up, anywhere that I can find. I'm a web designer and know these things can take time, so please don't feel I'm rushing a fix. I just wanted to let you know in case you didn't =)

It does seem to be the Blogspot blogs which take a while to come up on our plots.

I've noticed several people have moved away from Blogger (to other providers) recently and have wondered why.

Do Blogspot blogs have problems more widely, not just on Blotanical?

Esther

I've done the Feedburner and the Blogger bit,but can't seem to edit my blog on Blotanical...

I've switched to Feedburner as per your instructions, Stuart, and my posts still aren't being picked up. Not complaining as I know you're still working on things, just FYI. :) By the way, I REALLY like the "My Picks" feature -- it's an easy way to see if our picks do show up without going through a longer list.

As frustrating as it might be to have these recent "hiccups", we should all remind ourselves from time to time that we don't pay for Blotanical membership. Speaking only for myself, I feel that for the price, I get pretty darned good service AND content. :-)