Flappr Reaches 1.2
February 15th, 2006
Flappr, my pet project to design a more explorative interface for Flickr, has just bumped to its most significant update. Check it out.
A few of the new features:
- User Profile Panel: Clicking on a buddy icon now opens up the new User Profile section, which gives you quick access to more information on the photographer, their favorites, and now a legitimate and easier-to-use display of their photosets.
- Quickly view a grid of previous photos: this was a feature/bug that had for a long time been accessible by hovering to the right side of the screen. It’s now properly encapsulated into a button down by the userstrips.
- Search history: Go back to any search you made, viewing a list of the most recent. It will even remember searches from your previous visits. Try it out by clicking either the down arrow in the thumbnail container or by using the new button nearby the userstrips.
- Running newest builds of Flashr and Fuse = snappier tweens and faster, cacheable data requests.
- Adding to favorites now displays confirmation
- A new spinning square when the photo enlargement is loading in! (ok, so why save the best for last, anyway?)
Bug fixes:
- FlapprLinks have received a long-overdue renovation
- Pagination issues are resolved (this was previously a headache for favorites/photosets)
- Repositioning after a browser resize now more reliable
- Keyboard shortcuts no longer interfere with comment form
- Hover boxes no longer appear over photos without titles
- Text overflows, while not entirely gone, are greatly minimized
Read more about the project here.
February 15th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
“explorative” interface??
You mean a “you can’t see photos from the same album and half the links take you back to what ou’ve already looked at” interface?
Please add some ability to browse, not just search! I want to explore, not google, you know
It’s pretty, though that’s not enough to make me want to come back.
Douglas
February 15th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Douglas,
Thanks for the comment.
A feature to allow you to jump to a photo’s related photoset could be worthwhile, depending on how thoroughly a user has organized. I’ve considered adding this to the options in the icons underneath the photo, and may include this in a future update.
But the downside is that since a photo can be a part of several photosets, displaying them all comes at the expense of a lot of visual real-estate. The Flickr site suffers somewhat from this dilemma, clogging up the right side of the page with modules that distract you from the displayed photo in an effort to offer all of the photographer’s photosets.
It is by design then that this is not the case with Flappr. There is an alternative (if a photograph is worthy you can select a user’s profile and explore from there) but I do think that Flappr currently allows you to explore in a way unique from Flickr.
Would anyone else vouch for the need for a “related photosets” option?