I have come across a need for this many times, often there's a simple trick you can do to get by it (i.e. setting an image as a background of an input element, rather than overlaying the image on top, or using transparent backgrounds along with z-index fiddling) however, I would definitely consider using this tool for rapidly building a layout. I like your presentation as well, clear layout with a brief to-the-point message.
My only concern would be performance, right off the bat I see a few nested for-loops in the code and am wondering what sort of performance hit you'd be looking at if you use this for several images on a single page. I didn't thoroughly trace through the code or anything, I am just thinking out loud here.
Performance is a valid concern, but so far in the tests I've run I haven't hit any real problems. If you encounter any slow downs or real performance issues, I'd love to hear about them (and hopefully eliminate them!)
This is a big flaw with a hopefully simple fix. Such a small thing ruined an otherwise pleasant experience. Great job, there is definitely a need for this and it works pretty well.
Edit: with the breadcrumb and icon/file switcher views, you may not even need this hierarchical view...
The problem with Facebook is that your network is too small and constricted, people want to expand and reach many many people, not stay limited within their circle. Think about it, you already talk to most of the people who are your closest friends in real life via phone and chat. You don't need yet another way to contact them. They should have taken the opportunity to bring down the barriers of the closed social graph.
Instead Google makes another Facebook with a different UI. It looks like a cleaner Myspace that will be embraced by a small set of techy users. No way will this ever be cool.
I answered no, but sometimes I drink alcohol during marathon coding sessions to make sure I don't stay up all night and also for fun. It always seems to help me program actually.
Looked like one of those fake ad landing pages at first glance. I think the reason for this is that there is a lot of whitespace (maybe off-white would work better) and the header text isn't stylized.
Additionally the slogan "Watching Web Videos Is as Easy as Watching TV" seems too long, I had to read it before I really understood it...imagine that! It really is a simple sentence, but somehow the meaning was a little obfuscated by its layout and sizing. I think the main reason for this was that the text was too big...bigger than the "Topchan.tv" text at least.
The 3 steps could definitely pop a lot more. Adding background colors to those boxes should help with that. They have to look separated, not really mixed in with all the other text.
You could replace the text "Watching Web Videos Is as Easy as Watching TV" and "Let you watch web videos like regular TV" with just "Watch web videos like regular TV", much more concise.
The try it now button seems uninviting, probably because of the mechanical looking font.
You could probably reduce all 3 steps into 1 step of "Try it now!" and just have a button.
You could get rid of everything else and just have the text "Watch web videos like regular TV" (centered) and under it have a button that says "Try it now" and I think it would come across better. You should then also have a "Learn More" button where you can have more text. Text is distracting, your goal is to get them to click the button, make it a focus.
Couldn't quite figure out how to use the tool, but it did manage to create a pretty rad 3D version of my site (using the "Both" setting and varying font sizes on each). I'll probably have another go when I've got less homework.
An improvement is already live regarding this, it used to have the same font size and color for the result and the timestamp. However I would personally make the WA date/time even lighter;
If someone printed it out they then wouldn't know what ago refers to. I will revisit the coloring and size though -- I think I could de-emphasize it a bit.
I've never had a problem with Gmail search and I'm surprised the article writes about 20+ second search times as if it's a common and widespread issue.
I have around 45,000 messages in my Gmail inbox. My experience searching it has felt sluggish for a long time. But really the fatal flaw is that search terms have to be damn near exact. Gmail is a joke compared to Google when it comes to fuzzy searches. I often find myself having to do several searches to get what I want, compounding the issue of search latency. It's so bad I sometimes give up entirely.
Ouch. If you're anything like me, around 90% of your traffic comes from mailing lists. Greplin could win big by inferring what mailing lists you are on (along with beginning and ending subscription dates) in order to factor out all relevant storage and indexing.
Sometimes it's just easier to search for things in Gmail. But since it is just a mailing list, it's pretty easy to label it and kill it en masse if you need to. At least, that's what I do.
The substring search is HUGE, though. Also, if they support searching attachments, that would be great -- I haven't looked carefully to see if they do.
If I do a from:, to:, and search keyword, Gmail can often take around 20 seconds; normal keyword searches for recent items take about five seconds.
Gmail slowdowns seem to be common for older Gmail users with a ton of mail and lots of labels; Google has acknowledged the problem and claimed they're working on it, but the only people who have had fixes are ones who've complained loudly enough to get moved around to a newer server.
I appreciate your feedback. I've been on gmail since 2006 or so with lots of labels, but only ever about 500-1000 messages at any given time.
I was trying various searches today, with the from:, to: operators, as well various keywords and the longest lag I had was a little over 2 seconds. I've heard people complain about it, but never to the tune of 20 seconds. I genuinely thought it was exaggerated for effect in the FA.
Bummer! I'm assuming you didn't set up any "one-click" option, and if that's the case they should go the Amazon route and only enable One-click if you say so first.
My only concern would be performance, right off the bat I see a few nested for-loops in the code and am wondering what sort of performance hit you'd be looking at if you use this for several images on a single page. I didn't thoroughly trace through the code or anything, I am just thinking out loud here.