{"id":2879,"date":"2015-06-08T14:35:03","date_gmt":"2015-06-08T20:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/?p=2879"},"modified":"2015-06-08T14:35:03","modified_gmt":"2015-06-08T20:35:03","slug":"the-start-of-a-new-series-maybe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/2015\/06\/08\/the-start-of-a-new-series-maybe\/","title":{"rendered":"The start of a new series, maybe."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"icon\"So, as we all know, I have problems. One of those problems is insomnia. Another problem? I like to read.<\/p>\n

Those two problems sometimes combine into an unstoppable force.<\/p>\n

When this happens, I often find myself in bed, reading Reddit.<\/p>\n

And, because using a computer while pretending that I’m totally going to sleep, no really<\/i> is uncomfortable, I’m usually reading Reddit on my phone.<\/p>\n

We also know that I have this blog.<\/p>\n

These two things combined last month into a truly cunning plan: why not download all<\/i> the Reddit apps and see what they’re like, and find one that isn’t 100% intolerable.<\/p>\n

So, I did that.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

First, some more background, though.<\/p>\n

I will be inconsistent, because I am me.<\/p>\n

I will fixate on shit that probably does not exist, because I am me.<\/p>\n

I will be reviewing from my perspective, because I am me.<\/p>\n

Wait, what does that mean? Oh, right: from the perspective of someone who isn’t commenting, posting, or being social at all. I am there to read, whether it be batshit fan theories, creepy stories, or drama.<\/p>\n

I only have an account so I can save threads and subscribe to subreddits. I’ve tried commenting, and I don’t think I’m cut out for being social over there.<\/p>\n

So, with that in mind, let’s begin. With the mobile edition of Reddit.com…which I kept getting bothered about while testing other apps.<\/p>\n

\"indexvfull\"<\/p>\n

There it is. m.Reddit.com.<\/p>\n

\"homelandscapefull\"<\/p>\n

Obviously, it has landscape mode, because we’re in Chrome.<\/p>\n

But who uses their phone all sideways like that, unless they’re watching a video.<\/p>\n

There is an option to make things less…ginormous, too.<\/p>\n

\"indexcompactv\"<\/p>\n

Which is slightly more tolerable.<\/p>\n

\"mredditmenu1\"<\/p>\n

That right there is the menu, by the way. How you get to all sorts of important shit.<\/p>\n

\"menuoptions\"<\/p>\n

Like switching between list view [the first version] and compact view [the smaller, more tolerable version], or your subreddit list. You can also type in a sub name and go to it, but who does that?<\/p>\n

Let’s see how a post looks….<\/p>\n

\"postview\"<\/p>\n

Kinda like a post. But who cares about posts–especially here. It’s all about the comments here.<\/p>\n

And when I’m reading comments, I like to collapse the ones that I’m done with, because I’m done with them. I have read you, and now I shall put you away, or something. It’s a thing, and I absolutely must be able to do it.<\/p>\n

\"postviewcollapse\"<\/p>\n

And I can. This is a good thing.<\/p>\n

Bad thing, though: if I accidentally hit ‘back’? It forgets what I’ve collapsed. This will likely be a complaint with everything, because holy shit do I hate<\/i> it when I accidentally ‘back’ and lose my place.<\/p>\n

I don’t even think that you can do this on a computer, in a proper browser, with Reddit Enhancement Suite, though, so this may be me hunting for a fucking unicorn.<\/p>\n

Next thing to check: does it show Flair?<\/p>\n

\"postviewflair\"<\/p>\n

It does. That was easy.<\/p>\n

Let’s fuck off for a bit.<\/p>\n

\"profile\"<\/p>\n

I can view my own profile. That’s interesting.<\/p>\n

Or depressing. Or evidence for that groundwork I laid up there. I am really fucking inactive over there. I don’t upvote or downvote. I don’t really comment. I treat it like a library.<\/p>\n

And I don’t go to the library to make friends. With people. I go to the library so I can spend even more time shut away from people, reading books.<\/p>\n

\"givegold\"<\/p>\n

I clicked on ‘give gold’ just for the fuck of it, and discovered that the feature isn’t ready yet.<\/p>\n

Not here for gold, anyway. Here for reading.<\/p>\n

This is where I start running into irritations, by the way.<\/p>\n

\"srmenu2\"\"srmenu\"<\/p>\n

First, I’m clicking–tapping?–about, checking things out in various subs, just testing things, and I notice that one of the menus likes to stay open for no reason, sometimes showing the previous sub’s information.<\/p>\n

Which, okay, weird glitch, but whatever. No big deal.<\/p>\n

Then my phone loses its damn mind when trying to access a subreddit wiki.<\/p>\n

\"wikilinkhandling\"<\/p>\n

I guess I kinda just installed a bunch of things. Maybe this confused the phone a little. No big deal. Open that shit in Chrome.<\/p>\n

\"srwiki\"<\/p>\n

…which brings us to the most glaring issue. This image, contrasted with all the previous images.<\/p>\n

See the difference?<\/p>\n

Yeah. Everything else is blinding white. Which I hate. So much.<\/p>\n

There’s no dark mode for the mobile website.<\/p>\n

Also, I can’t access my saved posts.<\/p>\n

These two things combined? Very irritating.<\/p>\n

But, fuck it, there’s a search option, and I’m still trying to pretend to be professional and diligent here.<\/p>\n

\"search4\"<\/p>\n

Um….<\/p>\n

\"search5\"<\/p>\n

…shit.<\/p>\n

It never loaded. <\/p>\n

And the animation that transitioned between the r and the little robot was nowhere near entertaining enough to hold my interest.<\/p>\n

That was pretty much it for me. <\/p>\n

While it had some basic functions–the ability to log in, and the ability to collapse comments–it was missing far too many things that I consider to be basic essentials–access to saved posts, a search function that actually loads–to be usable right now. <\/p>\n

The lack of a dark mode is also a problem for me, as is Chrome’s insistence on not being helpful about faster scrolling–say, to the root or the parent comment, or the top of the page. <\/p>\n

It also just felt plain wrong. It felt like I was browsing a cut down version of the desktop edition…which, technically, I was. But part of the cuts were the things that I’ve come to expect from RES, which made everything painful and obnoxious. And slow. <\/p>\n

And entirely too flashy, with the ‘pay no attention to how long this shit is taking’ animations. <\/p>\n

You’re only drawing attention to how long I’ve been fucking waiting, guys. Stop that shit. <\/p>\n

It was a bit like paying for a full internet\/television\/phone package, and then using the VoIP line for AOL dialup. <\/p>\n

It may improve at some point–it’s still in beta, after all–but I kinda get the feeling that apps are the way to go. And there are a lot of apps [many of them apparently projects abandoned in public alpha stage], so I’ll have more pointless, image-heavy content. <\/p>\n

This should be fun. Or, at least, fun-adjacent. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, as we all know, I have problems. One of those problems is insomnia. Another problem? I like to read. Those two problems sometimes combine into an unstoppable force. When this happens, I often find myself in bed, reading Reddit. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[194,248,249],"class_list":["post-2879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bib","tag-apps","tag-mobile-monday","tag-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3bMfN-Kr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2879"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2881,"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879\/revisions\/2881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}