New Website Feedback
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The new site seems very good. I'll be using it a lot after I catch up with the stuff I gotta read this week.
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You can read some of the volumes that are labeled as expired. For example "The Great Cleric" volume 1 is labeled as expired on its page, but you can still read the whole volume if you go to the drop-down selection within the reader. So either the page displays incorrectly that it is expired or some of the volumes don't correctly expire.
Fushi no kami vol 2 does the same thing. It is listed as expired, but you can still read it. You can't read Volume 1, however.
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@AlexanderR said in New Website Feedback:
I like, that the new website is less dependent on Javascript.
lol
Ok, kidding aside, both the old and new site were built in javascript-based frameworks as single-page web applications. This is a popular way of designing sites now, as it provides for rich, responsive pages that only need to load additional data for the dynamic parts and generally work well on a wide assortment of devices and layouts. From what I can tell, the old one looks like Bootstrap.js, while the new one appears to be React.js. This, too, would be in line with the trends in popularity of these JS frameworks.
Old novel reader was imperfect, but bearable. The new reader is an abject failure.
Extensive custom javascript functionality, such as the web readers, frequently has conflicts when embedded into JS Frameworks, and ends up needing a lot of tinkering. I wouldn't be surprised if the old reader broke even worse when embedded into the new site than the new reader does. So for that, I'd say give it time.
(Source: I have been a Full-stack software engineer for 25+ years.)
I really like the calendar page. I further like the ability to restrict it to just followed items, and to save that as a preference.
I'd love a feature on the Users > Library page to let us know about updated epubs, not just new ones.
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Glad to see the new series pages are live, but I would appreciate an easier way to check for future volumes on the series I've bought. When I go to my library, I can see series I've purchased a few volumes of, but I can't click on the series title to look at the series page. My only option seems to be to download the original books. So if there's a series I bought some of that isn't currently releasing parts I can't figure out how to easily get there without being forced to run a search on series title, which is less than ideal.
In the same vein, I would like an option on the series search to filter by owned/followed titles.
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I really like the look and UI for the new site
I thought I was screwed cause I binge read prepub volumes I don't buy once via searching for the "final" tag on the old release calendar, and a quick search for "final" on the new January page shows up nothing so I started to panic!
(I'm still catching up, just finished Vol2 of that seed creation girl one)Looking closer, the last parts in the volume now have an "End" tag instead of "Final", so I just have to search for "End" instead now, phew!
Thought I'd note it here in case someone else runs into the same (non-)issue.
Side note: How does the new "follow" function on the title page of a series work exactly?
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Having used both now, I'll be going back to the old site. Just not sold on the new one. The other site was easier to navigate. Homee page is just plain confusing, so is the navigation. You don't know where your going or where you even are. That, coupled with the fact that you don't even know what you are looking at in the calendar make navigating the new site a nightmare. Especially for new members.
The only thing unchanged, the forums, is still good.
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I can't see any of the novels that I'm following from the user tab. The user tab shows that I have no novels followed.
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The new navigation in the reader which allows for jumping to any parts in the volume is really nice. It was very clumsy to do that with the old reader.
One request around the "follow" capability. Currently, there is no easy way to get a "List of series I'm following", which would be pretty handy to have. Could you add "Follow Status" filter on the TITLES page the same way as in CALENDAR?
Also, while I do have series I'm following, when I enter USER page, it currently says;
You do not own any books nor are you following any series.
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I like it overall. One thing I'd like for the library is the ability to see unpurchased volumes for series I've already purchased a volume in. Bookwalker has something like that and I like it a lot.
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Suggestion: Make a filter in the calendar to only show final chapters for prepubs.
Personally, I don't like reading the new book until the full thing is out, and I can read it all at once. If you could filter out to find the final section, that would make it really easy to see when the next volumes are completed.
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My first impression with the new site was not great. After digging around a bit I’m happy with the new features but still find the front page jarring. Since I mainly read through the beta app I don’t use the website to read, though I did hit the 404 problem other iOS users were having at first but seems to have been corrected. I mainly pop in to see what’s coming up and if anything new is being released.
My experience is mainly coming from using on an iPhone X, but have looked at it on my iPad and PC.
It took me a while to figure out what bothered me about the front page. At first it was the loss of the upcoming release schedule. I like the new calendar but still would be nice to see what’s coming up for that day right away.
That wasn’t all though. The problem I believe is how the site handles the mobile view. The whole page is one solid block. While the headers are there, they don’t do much to highlight the next section. On top of that everything feels too large. Covers take up almost half of the viewable area. Text runs completely edge to edge even on an iPad. There’s no negative space at all on the mobile view. I shrank the view on both devices to 75% and found it all much more visually pleasing.
The last little thing is the catch-ups. I like seeing the covers and being able to jump to the series by clicking on them but miss the fun article description that went along with it.
One technical issue I hit was a 404 error when using Google to log in on my PC, Win 10 Firefox. It still logged me in though.
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Forgot one last thing. I haven’t tested in other browsers but in iOS Safari tapping the top of the screen doesn’t return to the top of the page.
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I would be nice to see on the main page today's part releases rather than having to go to the calendar to do so.
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@DoomerX
Agreed. Navigating the new site is beyond difficult. -
Dunno if this is the right place, I only noticed it setting up series follows so I thought I'd put it here seeing as the new site is what let me notice it was a thing...
Searching under author names we have both an "Ichirou Sakaki" and an "Ichiro Sakaki", with the titles evenly split between the two spellings.
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My User page say "You do not own any books nor are you following any series.", but I am currently following several series (which is still accurate on the individual series pages).
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Really love the new site. Great job guys.
Some suggestions for enhancements: On the Title page have the following filter and under Publication Status have a filter for just on hiatus.
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Parroting other feedback, it'd really be nice to have the recent prepub part releases be shown on the main page; that is by far the #1 thing I navigate to JNC to find.
The current main page design seems focused on content tailored for people who visit once a month or less and don't read prepubs; new series, ebook releases, and print releases (current main page content) update much less frequently than prepub parts. I would guess most page hits are for people coming to read the prepubs, even if the number of unique users is somewhere lower.The image size of the "Our Latest Titles" covers is probably larger than it should be; both in the sense it's jarring and the fact it takes up front page real estate. Image sizes there really shouldn't be larger than the other sections.
Extending that, image sizes for all categories could probably be reduced and possibly margins reduced. In the old page, images were much smaller, and on my standard sized laptop screen, with a glance at a single screenshot I could take in at least some of the imagery from each of the categories (new series, recent ebooks, prepub releases, catchup announcement). In the new site, a single one of those categories takes about just about my whole laptop screen, and I'd have to scroll to view each category in isolation.
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From the calendar there is no way to open the light novel/manga page for a prepub, it always opens the part/chapter itself.
Also, not a fan of the new reader. Guess I'll keep using the old one until it's available... đź‘€
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Would it be possible to have an option to sort Calendar entries by release time, and then title name? I liked that in the old Releases page, the 3 PM EST releases would always be listed before the 7 PM EST releases.
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If the reader is set to display 2 pages, and there's an odd number of pages in the part, then you can't view the last page of the part.
