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No Safari 'Reader' on MacRumors site?

petrucci666

petrucci666

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 30, 2009
714
14
Los Angeles, CA
I'm really starting to like the new Safari 5 'Reader' feature, it makes it easy to read the news with the standard "black on white" layout. I tried to read the MacRumors home page but found out that the Reader option wasn't available. Does anyone know are they working on it? It seems kinda ironic that MacRumors doesn't have this since they are one of the, if not THE main Apple-news resource apart from Apple's official page. Just curious.

Thanks!
 
Peace said:
First. This should be in the feedback forum but.

MacRumors uses PHP while Safari's reader uses HTML.
Click to expand...

Wow Peace, you take the cake.

Seriously dude, PHP is a server side language, it runs on the sever and generated guess what, HTML , which is what the client (browser) sees.

There is not PHP whatsoever sent to the browser, that would be unthinkable, and pretty much all CMS's on websites use a server side language like PHP to dynamically generate their Reader friendly HTML pages. If you want to party like it's the 80's when web pages were static i am afraid you are a little late.

That being said Macrumors, fix* your aging HTML/XML** or migrate to Wordpress altogether, it is indeed a ironic situation this.

* some pages do work in reader, about 2 in 10 don't
** generated with PHP, Unicorns, whatever.
 
petrucci666 said:
I'm really starting to like the new Safari 5 'Reader' feature, it makes it easy to read the news with the standard "black on white" layout. I tried to read the MacRumors home page but found out that the Reader option wasn't available. Does anyone know are they working on it? It seems kinda ironic that MacRumors doesn't have this since they are one of the, if not THE main Apple-news resource apart from Apple's official page. Just curious.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

It's nothing to do with MacRumors. You don't change your site to support Reader. It examines the HTML/XHTML of the page and decides if it's going to offer Reader or not. Contact Apple with your feedback asking them to enhance Reader.
 
robbieduncan said:
It's nothing to do with MacRumors. You don't change your site to support Reader. It examines the HTML/XHTML of the page and decides if it's going to offer Reader or not. Contact Apple with your feedback asking them to enhance Reader.
Click to expand...

That might fly if reader would not work on any* posts on macrumors and this would not be a site dedicated to Apple products that should strive to be compatible with those products.

* works on about 10% as far as i can determine so far
 
valexa said:
That might fly if reader would not work on any* posts on macrumors and this would not be a site dedicated to Apple products that should strive to be compatible with those products.

* works on about 10% as far as i can determine so far
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what MacRumors can be expected to do. They serve up standard, compliant HTML that renders correctly in Safari. Apple have not published what triggers Reader and what doesn't so trying to be compatible with it would be pure guess work anyway. Given that it is likely to reduce add revenue I expect sites to try and become incompatible, not more compatible.
 
robbieduncan said:
Given that it is likely to reduce add revenue I expect sites to try and become incompatible, not more compatible.
Click to expand...

That is debatable for a site that has the majority of users using Safari, the add revenue might actually decrease with a lack of Reader compatibility as users could migrate to alternative sites providing similar content and Reader compatibility.
 
Reader is based on the Readability Bookmarklet. That will run on any page (except home pages), but you won't necessarily like the results. I used it on this thread and you lose the sense of who is speaking as it just becomes everyone's post with no separation.

Reader does work on Article pages when viewed as solo articles, like this one.

It can be hard for web developers to do much to get their page to work with Reader, though I managed to get my blog to show up the way I wanted. I also have a link in my sig for a post about customizing the way Reader is display.
 
valexa said:
what is strange is that the same article sometimes displays the Reader button, sometimes it does not, https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/1...t-ever-first-day-iphone-pre-orders-of-600000/ for example

so it looks like some dynamic element like (maybe adds ?) breaking the reader functionality on purpose or unwontedly
Click to expand...

That link shows the Reader icon for me as do all the articles on the front page when I click on them to go to their solo page. It cold be an issue that the page had not fully rendered yet (slow ad download) and so it hasn't had a chance to appear.
 
angelwatt said:
That link shows the Reader icon for me as do all the articles on the front page when I click on them to go to their solo page. It cold be an issue that the page had not fully rendered yet (slow ad download) and so it hasn't had a chance to appear.
Click to expand...

If the page is not loaded yet neither RSS or Reader buttons appear, obviously.

Try https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/1...phone-games-from-square-enix-sega-and-capcom/ https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/1...orders-through-apple-slip-again-to-july-14th/ https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/15/apple-releases-mac-os-x-10-6-4/ , they never shows the Reader button , always RSS.
 
valexa said:
If the page is not loaded yet neither RSS or Reader buttons appear, obviously.

Try https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/1...phone-games-from-square-enix-sega-and-capcom/ https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/1...orders-through-apple-slip-again-to-july-14th/ https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/15/apple-releases-mac-os-x-10-6-4/ , they never shows the Reader button , always RSS.
Click to expand...

:)
Picture 1.jpg​
Picture 3.jpg​
Picture 4.jpg​
 
valexa said:
Wow Peace, you take the cake.

Seriously dude, PHP is a server side language, it runs on the sever and generated guess what, HTML , which is what the client (browser) sees.

There is not PHP whatsoever sent to the browser, that would be unthinkable, and pretty much all CMS's on websites use a server side language like PHP to dynamically generate their Reader friendly HTML pages. If you want to party like it's the 80's when web pages were static i am afraid you are a little late.

That being said Macrumors, fix* your aging HTML** or migrate to Wordpress altogether, it is indeed a shameful/ironic situation this.

* a few pages like https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/1...ation-on-t-mobile-as-next-u-s-iphone-carrier/ do work in reader
** generated with PHP, Unicorns, whatever.
Click to expand...

Ok. I take the cake and you win a prize.

But still. The reader takes text from an html page so I'm not completely wrong.
 
Not the server. Short articles don't show up reader.

Reader only works on individual article level. Macrumors front page contains multiple articles.

valexa said:
That might fly if reader would not work on any* posts on macrumors and this would not be a site dedicated to Apple products that should strive to be compatible with those products.

* works on about 10% as far as i can determine so far
Click to expand...

Guess you don't go to sites with longer articles. Most articles on my site has Reader option.
 
valexa said:
Try https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/1...phone-games-from-square-enix-sega-and-capcom/ https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/1...orders-through-apple-slip-again-to-july-14th/ https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/15/apple-releases-mac-os-x-10-6-4/ , they never shows the Reader button , always RSS.
Click to expand...

Like GGJstudios, I get the Reader option for those pages. Try pressing the mouse button on the RSS button for a couple seconds and see if a menu pops open. It's how you access the RSS button when the Reader one is showing, so maybe yours is just getting backwards.
 
angelwatt said:
Like GGJstudios, I get the Reader option for those pages. Try pressing the mouse button on the RSS button for a couple seconds and see if a menu pops open. It's how you access the RSS button when the Reader one is showing, so maybe yours is just getting backwards.
Click to expand...

I tried that several times and each time all it shows is RSS not the Reader.
 
Peace said:
I tried that several times and each time all it shows is RSS not the Reader.
Click to expand...

I think it depends on the relative size of the page compared to the browser window / display size.

Large screen + short article = NO reader
 
Peace said:
Tried both ways. No go.

There is no pop up while holding down the RSS part.
Click to expand...

Try refreshing the page. I get Reader first, then can select RSS from the drop down. When I refresh the page, it goes back to Reader.
 
Those who can see the reader can you post the build number for Safari ? All my stuff is developer builds so it might be different.

I have Safari Version 5.0 (6533.16)
 
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