Snap Preview Anywhere
Published Mon, Jan 22 2007 4:06 PM
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Annoyances, Cool Stuff
I'm sure you've all seen this cute little blogging widget. When a website includes the javascript and they've got the options configured right, it's pretty cool looking.
The user comes to the website and mouses around. As the mouse hovers over a hyperlink on the page up comes a balloon window. Inside the balloon is a quick little preview image of the website linked to.
I used it for a while on this site, and there's a lot of sites that are using it. I've decided to drop it though, at least for now.
When I first saw previews on basil's blog, I thought they were pretty cool, and decided I had to try it out. I had them up and running on the site for a day or two, but took them down after that because they were just a bit too slow for my tastes.
After all, when you use just about every cool third party feature on your blog, some of them are going to take more time to load than others. The more features you stuff into the blog, the slower it loads. If one of those features is provided by a bandwidth-challenged service, you can end up with some terrible delays while the site loads.
That was my experience the first couple of days with Snap Preview Anywhere. They've since managed to get past that and they load much quicker, so I decided to give it another try.
I took them down this time for a couple of different reasons. First, there's something about their javascript that IE doesn't like. I'm always getting some sort of notice indicating that there's an invalid argument in the script. I'm sure they'll fix that in a hurry though.
My second reason is why I won't be bringing them back though. The popups are cool, but they get in the way of using the hyperlinks.
Half the time when I want to follow an "enhanced" hyperlink the popup opens while I'm in the process of trying to click and my click goes nowhere. More often than not, if I want to open the link in a new window and I right-click, the context menu is screwed up and looks like the context menu for an image instead of a link.
I know that I could click on the preview image to follow the link, but why would I want to? Two, or three clicks to go where one click was all I needed before is more than a little annoying.
Snap Preview Anywhere is a cool widget. But for me, it's too much of a distraction from why I go to a web site in the first place. Its presence or absence on a page isn't going to change whether I read your blog though. As for me and my site, well, I guess you'll have to preview somewhere else.
Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Random Yak, Big Dog's Weblog, stikNstein... has no mercy, basil's blog, Shadowscope, DragonLady's World, Pirate's Cove, Constitution Matters, The Bullwinkle Blog, Dumb Ox Daily News, Conservative Cat, High Desert Wanderer, Right Voices, and Pursuing Holiness, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
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Layla responded with:
 | Hi! I am using Snap Preview on both of my blogs and love it. So far I have had no issues with its loading or getting in the way--but if I do, I surely would not hesitate to remove it. And I am glad it will not stop you from coming to read those blogs that are using this widget. :)
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Erik Wingren responded with: Help Snap Improve
 | <b>Perri,</b>
My name is Erik Wingren and I work for Snap.com — the company behind the Snap Preview Anywhere service.
I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts. Would you mind clarifying a few of your comments?
You write:
"...there's something about their javascript that IE doesn't like. I'm
always getting some sort of notice indicating that there's an invalid
argument in the script..."
I know we had an issue with IE many weeks ago but I thought it had been worked out...
- Are you still seeing this issue?
- What is the error you receive?
- On what site(s) are are you seeing this?
Then you write:
"Half the time when I want to follow an "enhanced" hyperlink the popup
opens while I'm in the process of trying to click and my click goes
nowhere..."
I simply can't replicate this behavior. I just move my cursor over the link and click...
- Do you have some special browser settings that could effect the click-behavior?
- Are you using a standard mouse?
The conflict with the right-click contextual menu is an issue. It may be inherent but we will certainly attempt finding a solution.
Best Regards,
--
Erik Wingren
Snap UX Research
erik[a]snap[.]com
|
Perri Nelson responded with:
 | Thanks for taking the time to read and respond Erik. I've replied via email to your comment here. I'm also replying here.
I'm still seeing the issue. It does not appear in FireFox, but it does appear in IE 7 whenever I have your code embedded in my site. The error message is "invalid argument" and it appears somewhere around character 1260 or so in the really long line in your script.
I use the optical mouse that came with my Dell, and a synaptics touch-pad on my laptop. I generally click relatively slowly the first time. (Not as in a slow motion click, but I hover before I click).
I hope this helps. |
Erik Wingren responded with:
| It most certainly helps. I will forward your note to our engineering team. Thanks!
|
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