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Uploaded: Thursday, November 19, 2009, 5:33 PM

Weekly announces new online 'virtual edition'  

Posted by Sarah, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Nov 19, 2009 at 5:50 pm

I really hate these fancy user interfaces. What's wrong with plain HTML (like Palo Alto Online already uses)? Plain HTML is fast and easy to navigate and works with all web browsers. These fancy user interfaces are really really hard to read and I usually give up after a page or two.

Posted by Outside Observer, a resident of another community, on Nov 19, 2009 at 6:45 pm

Hope you will have better luck with this than the Daily had with their "virtual edition"

If it's intuitive, and runs properly in Safari and Firefox, you'll have winner

Posted by Kate, a resident of the Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhood, on Nov 19, 2009 at 10:01 pm

I gave up on the Daily"s so-called Virtual Edition. Never read it. Hard to read, difficult to log on, and too complicated. Keep it simple. Not everyone is a computer genius in this area.

Posted by just hangs, a resident of the Adobe-Meadows neighborhood, on Nov 20, 2009 at 10:56 am

doesn't work

Posted by Mark, a resident of Menlo Park, on Nov 20, 2009 at 11:03 am

This UI is better than the Daily's Virtual Edition, but still not usable for me. The text is too small or too large on my 15" laptop, and the panning behavior for the too-large page flashes like crazy because it is not double-buffered (I'm using Firefox as my browser).

Anyway, the reason publishers like these formats is they hope the ads will be more effective than with HTML. Unfortunately, they are wrong. Advertising-based online news is a doomed business model.

Posted by Miriam Palm, a resident of the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, on Nov 20, 2009 at 11:50 am

I just sampled this new version and found it easy to read, page through, zoom in on, and print selected pages. I am no techno-whiz.

I agree about the Daily's E-version: it's hard to use, and I don't see why one needs to create a login to do so, thus I rarely bother to read it.

Thanks, Palo Alto Weekly! I appreciate all the E-versions, but thank you for continuing to send a printed paper to us as well. It's well worth the modest and voluntary subscription cost.

Posted by Frank, Barron Park resident, a resident of the Barron Park neighborhood, on Nov 20, 2009 at 12:01 pm

I just want to ditto the previous comment quoted below. Please do not think that this new format should ever replace your excellent online format. I use your emails to link to PA online each day. I find the Daily's format unusable. Your virtual addition is not even an improvement on the Daily's. I am quite computer savvy. The issue is ease of use and ability to focus on the information I am seeking to learn more about. I'm afraid that ads in the printed and online versions simply have to be delivered differently.

I'm agreeing with

"This UI is better than the Daily's Virtual Edition, but still not usable for me. The text is too small or too large on my 15" laptop, and the panning behavior for the too-large page flashes like crazy because it is not double-buffered (I'm using Firefox as my browser).

Anyway, the reason publishers like these formats is they hope the ads will be more effective than with HTML. Unfortunately, they are wrong. Advertising-based online news is a doomed business model."

Posted by Annie, a resident of the Palo Verde neighborhood, on Nov 23, 2009 at 6:56 pm

I like this format a lot. It works great on my mac. I like being able to see the ads and have the pages turn. I like it a lot better than PDF. Thanks!