Sometime in the recent past, without notice, the Blogger DARKbox (Lightbox) made it's unwanted return. Despite several pleas from users for the expected return of this hideous viewer to be OFF by default, Blogger developers once again decided they know what's best for all our blogs and they turned it to ON by default. Millions of bloggers now have their images being viewed in a manner of someone else's choosing, whether they want it or not.
If you've been hit, again, by the imposition of this major design decision on the way users interact with your blog, you'll have to go into your Settings > Formatting and turn it off.
Lightbox is a dog - a very, very, very slow dog. On one of the blogs I follow, I'm still waiting for a single image to load. It's been minutes and I can still see thumbnails for every other picture being generated.
Many bloggers don't check their own blogs by clicking on pictures to see how they load. These bloggers will now be using Lightbox whether they know it or not. In many cases, in my experience, this will not improve their images or their readers' experience of their blog. In fact, if there are several images in a single blog post, Lightbox will take a long time to render thumbnails of each image, when a reader clicks just one image.
If you have an art or photography blog, or a blog in which images are intended to be viewed in the context of the article's narrative content, then you might want to turn this "feature" off as it is probably breaking your blog and annoying your readers.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Blogger Blogspot DARKbox viewer - gone?
Almost a week after Google imposed the javascript-based Darkbox Lightbox viewer on every Blogspot blog, it appears they have finally listened to concerns and plan to disable it (This blog is still suffering with it as I write but these things tend to "roll out").
Update: It appears to have been universally disabled now.
Discussion had been ongoing, non-stop, for five days before Google even announced this imposition. Despite widespread dismay, pleas to removeDarkbox Lightbox and a great deal of discussion about how to disable it, Google announced "your images have never looked so good".
Interestingly, that salutary article did not show submitted comments and, ultimately, the comment facility was disabled.
So what's this all about?
If you had clicked on an image posted prior to March 2010, anytime in the last seven days, on almost any Blogspot blog, this is what you would most likely have seen...
This giant black rectangle with a tiny red rectangle in the centre and a row of dark grey thumbnails at the bottom, is what Google called "Lightbox". No matter how the image used to display prior to last week, Google were telling us that this was a vast improvement and they seemed impervious to suggestions from disgruntled users that their blogs and blogging experiences had been seriously damaged by it.
I'm absolutely certain that a great many bloggers will welcome Lightbox if it is ever re-introduced. Despite it being slow and clunky, people who post lots of album-style pictures might actually see genuine benefit in it. People who post informative blogs, with charts, graphics and narrative images, are unlikely to share that viewpoint, however.
Hopefully any reincarnation will be fully-tested, announced well in advance and, most importantly, made optional and applied on an opt-in basis, not opt-out.
Update: It appears to have been universally disabled now.
Discussion had been ongoing, non-stop, for five days before Google even announced this imposition. Despite widespread dismay, pleas to remove
Interestingly, that salutary article did not show submitted comments and, ultimately, the comment facility was disabled.
So what's this all about?
If you had clicked on an image posted prior to March 2010, anytime in the last seven days, on almost any Blogspot blog, this is what you would most likely have seen...
This giant black rectangle with a tiny red rectangle in the centre and a row of dark grey thumbnails at the bottom, is what Google called "Lightbox". No matter how the image used to display prior to last week, Google were telling us that this was a vast improvement and they seemed impervious to suggestions from disgruntled users that their blogs and blogging experiences had been seriously damaged by it.
I'm absolutely certain that a great many bloggers will welcome Lightbox if it is ever re-introduced. Despite it being slow and clunky, people who post lots of album-style pictures might actually see genuine benefit in it. People who post informative blogs, with charts, graphics and narrative images, are unlikely to share that viewpoint, however.
Hopefully any reincarnation will be fully-tested, announced well in advance and, most importantly, made optional and applied on an opt-in basis, not opt-out.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Blogspot, Blogger, Lightbox & deaf ears
Pleas to have the new Lightbox Viewer removed or made optional have apparently fallen on deaf ears at Google.
The new javascript-based viewer, which loads all blog article pictures in a single album when a reader clicks just one image, was imposed on all Blogpsot blogs late last week. Revolt was immediate with users flocking to Blogger's help forums, pleading for a way to remove this from their blogs.
Initially, users were told by members of the Blogger Team that they were being listened to and that suggestions and concerns would be put to the team. Anger grew as the situation remained unchanged over the weekend with no announcement that the major complaints, the lack of consultation and the wish for it to be removed or made optional, would be addressed at all.
Dismay grew yesterday as an announcement of this new "feature" appeared on the Blogger Buzz blog making the bold claim that "your images never looked so good". Several people claim to have posted comments to that article (I have posted two comments), but no comments have been published at time of writing this. (Update: comments now appear to have been disabled at Blogger Buzz)
A new thread was posted on the help forums yesterday, announcing the now days-old "feature" and asking what people think of it. Astonished users, who'd been making their thoughts known for more than four days in the same forum, to no avail, quickly repeated their opinions on that thread. Despite a veritable cavalcade of comments essentially saying "get rid of it", "make it optional" and "it doesn't work on old images", there has been no official response to the concerns. It has, to date, been left to users to try and cobble together javascript and HTML hacks that will, sometimes, over-ride the new viewer.
There are many technical problems with Lightbox Viewer, as deployed on Blogspot, that could no doubt be overcome with some tweaking by the developers. For example, the new viewer often does not even load images posted prior to March 2010. Many blogs existed long before that date but old articles on those blogs are now effectively broken. Other problems include conflicts with existing viewer options employed by some bloggers and the inability to view large images at full resolution. I'm sure these things are fixable, if anyone cares to deal with them.
However, my concerns are not with glitches but the fundamental issue of imposing an all-or-nothing album-style viewer on every blog.
The Lightbox Viewer may well make sense for photo albums. People who use a blog to write about their wedding or new baby, and who post a collection of photos of the event, will likely see some benefit in having all the images load in a single thumbnail gallery. Photo-album sites like Flikr and Picasa work this way for very sensible reasons.
But not all blogs are intended as simple photo albums. Indeed, the genesis of blogs, or "web-logs" as they were more formally known, was as journals or diaries. They were, and largely still are, about information and education - they often tell stories. In such blogs, pictures, for the most part, form an intrinsic part of the narrative. Science-based blogs, for example, might include data graphs and charts for the purpose of explaining statistical details to casual readers who may not be trained in the sciences. Such images are intended to be examined in relation to the text that immediately surrounds them - that is, after all, the point of blogging such things, to inform and educate the reader. Having a bunch of graphs and charts load into an album whenever you want to view just one of them, makes no sense and breaks the narrative intent of the article. Millions of such articles have now essentially been vandalised by this change.
Other images might be used merely as decorative graphics that few readers would want to view separately. However, with the Lightbox Viewer, all these images are treated as part of a single photo album and all will be loaded as thumbnails if a reader clicks on just one photo in the same article, in order to take a closer look. This seemingly-harmless quirk makes an otherwise professionally-presented blog look cheap and cheezy. Why do we spend countless hours tweaking our CSS layouts if, at the end of the day, our presentation is hijacked by a significant design decision that we neither sought nor supported.
But wait, there's more.
Depending on your bandwidth, Lightbox Viewer can be remorselessly slow to render every thumbnail and then render the main image which may not be as large as the original uploaded by the blog author.
Interestingly, Blogger Buzz appear to have embedded full resolution, Lightbox-sized images as thumbnails in their salutary article. This means that Lightbox loads them instantly when clicked. But, unless something else has changed, this is not how images are automatically loaded and displayed when using the standard Blogspot interface. If this change has been made universally, then blogs will slow to a crawl as browsers attempt to load potentially dozens of high resolution images as thumbnails on blog pages.
It's possible that Google may be trying to have blogs more closely knitted with the new Google+ social media site. I can't, for the life of me, image why they would attempt to do this when one of the biggest "selling" points of a Blogspot blog is the ability for the author to individualise their blog by messing with HTML and CSS settings. It's one reason why I'm on Blogspot. But that individuality has been usurped by the imposition of a major interface change that makes no sense on my blogs or on most of the blogs I follow. And surely, if someone wants a Google+-styled site, they could just sign up to that service. It makes little sense, to me anyway, to have every website look and feel like every other site.
Blogs are not photo albums. Blogs are not social media sites.
Now, if only someone would listen.
The new javascript-based viewer, which loads all blog article pictures in a single album when a reader clicks just one image, was imposed on all Blogpsot blogs late last week. Revolt was immediate with users flocking to Blogger's help forums, pleading for a way to remove this from their blogs.
Initially, users were told by members of the Blogger Team that they were being listened to and that suggestions and concerns would be put to the team. Anger grew as the situation remained unchanged over the weekend with no announcement that the major complaints, the lack of consultation and the wish for it to be removed or made optional, would be addressed at all.
Dismay grew yesterday as an announcement of this new "feature" appeared on the Blogger Buzz blog making the bold claim that "your images never looked so good". Several people claim to have posted comments to that article (I have posted two comments), but no comments have been published at time of writing this. (Update: comments now appear to have been disabled at Blogger Buzz)
A new thread was posted on the help forums yesterday, announcing the now days-old "feature" and asking what people think of it. Astonished users, who'd been making their thoughts known for more than four days in the same forum, to no avail, quickly repeated their opinions on that thread. Despite a veritable cavalcade of comments essentially saying "get rid of it", "make it optional" and "it doesn't work on old images", there has been no official response to the concerns. It has, to date, been left to users to try and cobble together javascript and HTML hacks that will, sometimes, over-ride the new viewer.
There are many technical problems with Lightbox Viewer, as deployed on Blogspot, that could no doubt be overcome with some tweaking by the developers. For example, the new viewer often does not even load images posted prior to March 2010. Many blogs existed long before that date but old articles on those blogs are now effectively broken. Other problems include conflicts with existing viewer options employed by some bloggers and the inability to view large images at full resolution. I'm sure these things are fixable, if anyone cares to deal with them.
However, my concerns are not with glitches but the fundamental issue of imposing an all-or-nothing album-style viewer on every blog.
The Lightbox Viewer may well make sense for photo albums. People who use a blog to write about their wedding or new baby, and who post a collection of photos of the event, will likely see some benefit in having all the images load in a single thumbnail gallery. Photo-album sites like Flikr and Picasa work this way for very sensible reasons.
But not all blogs are intended as simple photo albums. Indeed, the genesis of blogs, or "web-logs" as they were more formally known, was as journals or diaries. They were, and largely still are, about information and education - they often tell stories. In such blogs, pictures, for the most part, form an intrinsic part of the narrative. Science-based blogs, for example, might include data graphs and charts for the purpose of explaining statistical details to casual readers who may not be trained in the sciences. Such images are intended to be examined in relation to the text that immediately surrounds them - that is, after all, the point of blogging such things, to inform and educate the reader. Having a bunch of graphs and charts load into an album whenever you want to view just one of them, makes no sense and breaks the narrative intent of the article. Millions of such articles have now essentially been vandalised by this change.
Other images might be used merely as decorative graphics that few readers would want to view separately. However, with the Lightbox Viewer, all these images are treated as part of a single photo album and all will be loaded as thumbnails if a reader clicks on just one photo in the same article, in order to take a closer look. This seemingly-harmless quirk makes an otherwise professionally-presented blog look cheap and cheezy. Why do we spend countless hours tweaking our CSS layouts if, at the end of the day, our presentation is hijacked by a significant design decision that we neither sought nor supported.
But wait, there's more.
Depending on your bandwidth, Lightbox Viewer can be remorselessly slow to render every thumbnail and then render the main image which may not be as large as the original uploaded by the blog author.
Interestingly, Blogger Buzz appear to have embedded full resolution, Lightbox-sized images as thumbnails in their salutary article. This means that Lightbox loads them instantly when clicked. But, unless something else has changed, this is not how images are automatically loaded and displayed when using the standard Blogspot interface. If this change has been made universally, then blogs will slow to a crawl as browsers attempt to load potentially dozens of high resolution images as thumbnails on blog pages.
It's possible that Google may be trying to have blogs more closely knitted with the new Google+ social media site. I can't, for the life of me, image why they would attempt to do this when one of the biggest "selling" points of a Blogspot blog is the ability for the author to individualise their blog by messing with HTML and CSS settings. It's one reason why I'm on Blogspot. But that individuality has been usurped by the imposition of a major interface change that makes no sense on my blogs or on most of the blogs I follow. And surely, if someone wants a Google+-styled site, they could just sign up to that service. It makes little sense, to me anyway, to have every website look and feel like every other site.
Blogs are not photo albums. Blogs are not social media sites.
Now, if only someone would listen.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Blogspot unsuitable for art & photo blogs
It's "I've got a bee in my bonnet" time again...
As of last week, Google have imposed a Javascript-based image viewer on all Blogspot blogs. This might be welcome by some bloggers but the viewer was imposed without trial or notice and it is less-than-optimal when viewing many blogs, including those featuring art and photography.
Every good blog needs a list so here we go...
Actually, it's not just me. A lot of people hate the Blogspot Lightbox pop-up image viewer.
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and Softpedia agrees
If it's bugging you too, leave a comment.
This is a part of Blogger's "Fresh New Look"
As of last week, Google have imposed a Javascript-based image viewer on all Blogspot blogs. This might be welcome by some bloggers but the viewer was imposed without trial or notice and it is less-than-optimal when viewing many blogs, including those featuring art and photography.
Every good blog needs a list so here we go...
Reasons why Blogspot Lightbox image viewer sucks...
- It was imposed without notice.
- It was not trialled in blogger-in-draft.
- No feedback has been sought.
- It's hideous.
- OLD IMAGES DON'T LOAD AT ALL!
- It imposes a design decision on bloggers.
- It is very slow.
- It cannot properly be disabled.
- Thumbnails are so small as to be useless.
- It's forcing bloggers to post an apology to their readers.
- It's ugly.
- It disables the ability to open images in browser tabs.
- Pictures are shown at limited size, often much smaller than original.
- It is very slow.
- The transparent-black overlay is ugly when viewing small images.
- It makes every blog look like a teenager's photo album.
- Novice users will hit the "BACK" button with unexpected results.
- Did I mention it's ugly!?!
- And very slow.
- People are complaining and yet it remains.
- I hate it.
- I don't want it.
- I didn't ask for it.
Actually, it's not just me. A lot of people hate the Blogspot Lightbox pop-up image viewer.
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and blogspot lightbox viewer
...and Softpedia agrees
If it's bugging you too, leave a comment.
This is a part of Blogger's "Fresh New Look"
Monday, July 19, 2010
Something different
For years I've wanted to do caricatures. I'd give it a go from time to time but never really stuck at it. That changed a few week's ago and I think it's starting to pay off. If you're interested in caricatures, check out some my latest work on my art blog and leave your thoughts...
Julia Gillard Caricature
Tony Abbott Caricature
Kevin Rudd Caricature
Emily Deschanel - Bones Caricature
Julia Gillard Caricature
Tony Abbott Caricature
Kevin Rudd Caricature
Emily Deschanel - Bones Caricature
Thursday, May 13, 2010
My landscape oil painting blog
I have just started a new blog dedicated to my principal artistic passion - landscape & seascape oil painting.
I began oil painting over ten years ago and have enjoyed quite some success with it although I don't pursue it especially seriously. The time has come to dedicate more serious time to it and the blog is a part of that effort.
If you enjoy traditional art then you might want to take a look and share your thoughts.
Andy Dolphin, Artist, Australian oil painter - landscapes & seascapes - blog.
I began oil painting over ten years ago and have enjoyed quite some success with it although I don't pursue it especially seriously. The time has come to dedicate more serious time to it and the blog is a part of that effort.
If you enjoy traditional art then you might want to take a look and share your thoughts.
Andy Dolphin, Artist, Australian oil painter - landscapes & seascapes - blog.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
JVC Everio HD editing on a Mac: Pt III
Small update to previous articles:
See:
Editing JVC Everio .TOD files on Mac I
Editing JVC Everio .TOD files on Mac II
I am still seeking a solution to the problem of misbehaving JVC .TOD files on Mac OS X computers. I contacted JVC again since they never got back to me with any answers to my earlier questions and was told something along the lines of "I'm sorry but this has absolutely nothing to do with us".
Of course that's not actually the reply I got but it might as well have been. Their suggestion was to try some of the freeware/shareware software converters floating around the place - you know, the one's made by people who don't work for JVC and who aren't remotely responsible for the problem. I was advised some of these third-party utilities might work.
Alternatively, I was told, contact Apple and see if they'll sort it out! Yes, it might be Apple's fault that JVC used some idiotic proprietary file format without bothering to offer a working conversion utility for Mac.
I continue to look for freeware solutions since JVC apparently don't give a toss about me now they've got my money.
A while ago I downloaded a little utility called iSquint. I tried it last night and it will read and convert the TOD files but it only saves at iPod or TV resolution (standard definition). I don't know if it handles the file-limit glitch any better than iMovie. I believe iSquint is no longer available but an open source variation called PunyVid can be found. I suspect PunyVid won't currently handle TOD files though since its big brother, FilmRedux (below) doesn't.
Visual Hub was another (non-free) suggestion but it too is no longer available. An open source variation called FilmRedux is now in production. I downloaded an early versionbut it doesn't appear to read TOD files yet (latest version requires OS10.5 - not sure if it solves the problem).
Some sites claim that MPEG Streamclip will do the job (The JVC representative also suggested trying it) but it won't open TOD video without Apple's MPEG2 playback component - it will load and convert the audio track however. Yay! I don't know if it will solve the problem even if you buy the Apple component and I'm not about to start spending money on this issue to find out.
Handbrake might work but it's OS 10.5+ only as far as I can tell and I'm still on OS 10.4.11.
Today I discovered what appeared to be the solution - a FREE way to convert TOD to Quicktime-compatible formats. The iSkysoft Video Converter comes in Intel and PPC versions and is a fairly small download. Unfortunately the free version is crippleware that will corrupt the output with a watermark and/or butchered audio. To see if it really works you'll need to pay.
Another promising pay-for solution is Video Pier HD but its demo version only converts ten seconds of video. Naturally this gives no indication of how it handles the Everio TOD problem with large files. I downloaded it but because of the limitation I didn't even bother to try it. If it works as advertised it looks like the perfect, all-round solution because it will supposedly read files directly from the camera - like iMovie used to with Firewire cams. Perhaps JVC should do a BULK licence and send us all a copy.
I had hoped Blender would do the job but it chokes on big TOD files.
So far, ffmpegx is the best I can find but it's a very complex way to solve a seemingly simple problem (ffmpegx and I do not see eye to eye most of the time).
UPDATE: Dec 2010
I've just got my hands on a brand new Mac with iMovie '11. This software is just one month old and includes USB support for camera input. But... the Everio HD30 does not appear in the supported MPEG2 devices list, so it seems JVC (TOD) and Apple are still having trouble playing nice with each other.
This has been a very expensive lesson in terms of both money and nerve. I will be contacting JVC again for an update on their progress on this failure and will report back with any response. Until then, my recommendation to Mac users thinking of investing in a JVC camcorder (not included in the "supported" list) remains the same...
Until a guaranteed solution is found my advice is not to buy a JVC camcorder if you plan to do your editing on a Mac - and don't have access to compatible software, whatever that might be. It is literally depressing - and I use the term "literally" literally, with full knowledge of what it implies.
See:
Editing JVC Everio .TOD files on Mac I
Editing JVC Everio .TOD files on Mac II
I am still seeking a solution to the problem of misbehaving JVC .TOD files on Mac OS X computers. I contacted JVC again since they never got back to me with any answers to my earlier questions and was told something along the lines of "I'm sorry but this has absolutely nothing to do with us".
Of course that's not actually the reply I got but it might as well have been. Their suggestion was to try some of the freeware/shareware software converters floating around the place - you know, the one's made by people who don't work for JVC and who aren't remotely responsible for the problem. I was advised some of these third-party utilities might work.
Alternatively, I was told, contact Apple and see if they'll sort it out! Yes, it might be Apple's fault that JVC used some idiotic proprietary file format without bothering to offer a working conversion utility for Mac.
I continue to look for freeware solutions since JVC apparently don't give a toss about me now they've got my money.
A while ago I downloaded a little utility called iSquint. I tried it last night and it will read and convert the TOD files but it only saves at iPod or TV resolution (standard definition). I don't know if it handles the file-limit glitch any better than iMovie. I believe iSquint is no longer available but an open source variation called PunyVid can be found. I suspect PunyVid won't currently handle TOD files though since its big brother, FilmRedux (below) doesn't.
Visual Hub was another (non-free) suggestion but it too is no longer available. An open source variation called FilmRedux is now in production. I downloaded an early versionbut it doesn't appear to read TOD files yet (latest version requires OS10.5 - not sure if it solves the problem).
Some sites claim that MPEG Streamclip will do the job (The JVC representative also suggested trying it) but it won't open TOD video without Apple's MPEG2 playback component - it will load and convert the audio track however. Yay! I don't know if it will solve the problem even if you buy the Apple component and I'm not about to start spending money on this issue to find out.
Handbrake might work but it's OS 10.5+ only as far as I can tell and I'm still on OS 10.4.11.
Today I discovered what appeared to be the solution - a FREE way to convert TOD to Quicktime-compatible formats. The iSkysoft Video Converter comes in Intel and PPC versions and is a fairly small download. Unfortunately the free version is crippleware that will corrupt the output with a watermark and/or butchered audio. To see if it really works you'll need to pay.
Another promising pay-for solution is Video Pier HD but its demo version only converts ten seconds of video. Naturally this gives no indication of how it handles the Everio TOD problem with large files. I downloaded it but because of the limitation I didn't even bother to try it. If it works as advertised it looks like the perfect, all-round solution because it will supposedly read files directly from the camera - like iMovie used to with Firewire cams. Perhaps JVC should do a BULK licence and send us all a copy.
I had hoped Blender would do the job but it chokes on big TOD files.
So far, ffmpegx is the best I can find but it's a very complex way to solve a seemingly simple problem (ffmpegx and I do not see eye to eye most of the time).
UPDATE: Dec 2010
I've just got my hands on a brand new Mac with iMovie '11. This software is just one month old and includes USB support for camera input. But... the Everio HD30 does not appear in the supported MPEG2 devices list, so it seems JVC (TOD) and Apple are still having trouble playing nice with each other.
This has been a very expensive lesson in terms of both money and nerve. I will be contacting JVC again for an update on their progress on this failure and will report back with any response. Until then, my recommendation to Mac users thinking of investing in a JVC camcorder (not included in the "supported" list) remains the same...
Until a guaranteed solution is found my advice is not to buy a JVC camcorder if you plan to do your editing on a Mac - and don't have access to compatible software, whatever that might be. It is literally depressing - and I use the term "literally" literally, with full knowledge of what it implies.
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