

Introducing Treesaver, my latest project (mentioned in today's NYTimes) - fortes
http://www.fortes.com/2010/introducing-treesaver

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fortes
Hey all, I'm very excited to show off what I've been working for what feels
like forever.

I'm very passionate about improving the state of reading online. It's amazing
how many sites are actively user-hostile, it's like they are daring you to try
and read the entire article by splitting it up across pages or throwing tons
of annoying, flashing ads on the page.

This is my attempt to make things better :)

The NYT article is about our first publicly announced publication, Nomad
Editions:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/business/media/11nomad.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/business/media/11nomad.html)

Quick video demo of resizing: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt2iJZGqMpw>

I'm happy to answer any questions.

~~~
mapleoin
How would this deal with ads? I'm supposing they'd want the ads on even the
smallest screens. Would the publisher have to provide a range of different ad
sizes?

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bramstein
Very interesting. Are you also planning to go after the eBook market?

On the technical side: are things like hyphenation and justification also on
your todo/feature list? I've been thinking about putting my work on
justification and hyphenation [1, 2] to good use, as the "rendering engine" of
a HTML/JS based eBook reader. I haven't given much thought to page layout and
scrolling, but I like the direction you are taking it for mobile and iPad
users. I would personally prefer a different layout for reading on my desktop
machine though (granted I prefer reading on my Kindle.)

[1] <http://www.bramstein.com/projects/typeset/flatland/> [2]
<http://www.bramstein.com/projects/typeset/>

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Tichy
"It's a new way to create content using visually appealing column and page-
based layouts using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript."

Ah, that explains it then. Seriously, what is it?

~~~
fortes
I'm a terrible writer.

I wrote a JS library that lays out text and images in pages and columns.
Wrapped that into some decent UI for reading easily, and we're helping clients
use that in order to create better digital publications.

Is that any better?

~~~
duck
I think that is a lot better. Maybe it is just me, but I find it confusing
when people say _create content_ when they are really just talking about
creating another interface to display the same content. I see this a lot from
non-developers and was surprised to see it here.

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pedalpete
My initial reaction was 'awesome', very cool, and just what the publishing
industry needs. I hate the idea that each publisher is going to try to create
their own 'app' and we'd end up with huge images and inconsistent layouts,
etc.

However, is a column/page based layout really the best we can do with modern
UIs? Pages between different sites/articles makes sense, but within a single
article, I always found it to be a sacred cow. Same with columns. I know
columns are faster to skim, but isn't there something better?

Maybe this is just a way to get a foot in the door with publishers so you are
giving them something familiar, but I think a new standard will be introduced
into the publishing world to better fit the technology now that we are no
longer bound by the limitations of paper.

~~~
fortes
> However, is a column/page based layout really the best we can do with modern
> UIs?

This is a great question, with no clear answer yet (requires more
experimentation in my opinion).

One issue I've run into when designing for this is that, without columns, it's
hard to use the full width on wide screens. You're left with a ton of blank
space on either side of your content.

Once you flow text into columns, you end up needing to page, because scrolling
and columns don't mix (you'd have to scroll down to the end of the first
column, then scroll back up to the beginning of the next -- it's terrible).

~~~
dhimes
From the parent: _Maybe this is just a way to get a foot in the door with
publishers so you are giving them something familiar_

I think this is an important point. If you can get your foot in the door by
making them comfortable, you can drive a new UI with their help: private beta,
asking for feedback, etc.

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run4yourlives
Isn't this just serving a standard HTML webpage using different CSS dependent
on the device?

So, basically using a developed version of media="screen, mobile"?

If so that's pretty brilliant marketing.

~~~
fortes
I would love it if something that simple worked.

CSS column support is fairly primitive: You can't do columns with different
heights, or have images that span columns. Also, there's no native way of
doing pagination, so which cripples columns in most cases (you'd have to
scroll down to the end of one column, then scroll back up to the start of the
other).

~~~
angstrom
Curious, since the content has to re-flow based on the available space is it
possible to reference locations within the content without needed to manually
page to the content?

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user24
ah, so this is what you meant when you posted about it in the "what are you
hacking on" thread :) ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1570761> )

nice product! Does the content producer have to determine in advance what
counts as important content, i.e. what content stays on screen when space is
limited?

~~~
fortes
> Does the content producer have to determine in advance what counts as
> important content, i.e. what content stays on screen when space is limited?

Currently, there's a way to specify that content is optional, or has alternate
representations that can be used at other sizes (e.g. multiple image crops)

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silverlake
Did you use a PR firm to help place that article in the NYTimes? I'm looking
for a good firm.

~~~
fortes
No PR firm. We're just lucky that the CEO of our client used to be the head of
Newsweek, so anything he does is a story.

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websta001
This looks fantastic, and I will no doubt be a user. Keep us posted on
progress

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headsclouds
This is excellent, I really hope it becomes widely adopted. I linked you up
immediately on our little Tumblelog

<http://tumblr.com/xxcfidizt>

~~~
fortes
Thanks!

