We recently finished a massive under-the-hood effort to prepare for the next big release of the Unbound Reader. You’ll see some of the improvements right away. For one, we got rid of that pesky pop-up window. None of us has ever been a big fan of pop-up windows, but initially it bought us time to face some of the challenges with having a single-page app open up right in the midst of another navigation framework. Now the reader OPENS IN THE SAME WINDOW as the rest of the site, and conforms to whatever dimensions please you for reading on-screen. So RESIZE AWAY. We’ve scaled it down to fit on my tiniest laptop and up to fill my ginormous 24-inch flatscreen, and it looks great either way. We added A THIRD FONT-SIZE to the font-scaling for those who really want to bump up the dots-per-em.

For those into reading with Groups, we made it easy to SWITCH GROUP SETTINGS RIGHT INSIDE THE READER. So you can go from reading with the public to reading with your group without leaving your book.

You may also note that this release of the Reader loads content SCREAMINGLY FAST – much faster than the previous versions. We finally did the dirty work up upgrading from Dojo 0.4.3 to the 1.1 release, and that accounts for some of the speed, but more than that, we completely overhauled the way the Reader loads content and images. Interface elements are now done with CSS spriting, which reduces the number of requests by a factor of five. We also overhauled the HTML, so that the basic UI shows up almost immediately, reducing the amount of time you have to stare at a blank frame.

One thing that’s hard for people to see is a new plugin framework we created, which separates reading interface functionality from the wing activities, i.e. chat and notes. This will make it easier for us to improve the features and functionality of the annotative and communal aspects of the Reader. Among other things this opens the possibility for future third-party development.

Overall, the Reader is more MODULAR, PLUGGABLE AND EXTENSIBLE–nice buzzwords that mean nothing until they’re taken advantage of, but good qualities to have in the coming months as we head into new territory.

Over the summer we released a score of improvements to our Upload Feature. The WYSIWYG interface lets you make changes to uploaded material in a way that allows you to see instantly what it will look like in the Reader. We think authors will catch onto this. If you’re an author, we’ll be releasing a lot of interesting things for you in the coming months. Keep your eye on the site!

As for the video, which outlines all this and more, check here:

WATCH VIDEO on YouTube

Our newest Featured Author is David T. Page. Read his rugged historical accounts of Yosemite, Death Valley, and the True West, along with guidelines about what can still be seen today, at BookGlutton.com.

Recent Activity, BG Style

This new homepage inset lets you keep track of the most-recent books read, groups formed and comments made. It’s more compact so you can peruse all the homepage info quickly and easily. Also – it has those fancy new tabs.

BookGlutton Profiles – See What I “Recently Read” Detail

Check out the new Profile Pages – you’ll see what people have been reading. Naturally, if you set your preferences to “Read in Private,” you’ll be able to keep this a secret (that’s in the Account Section, btw) But why would you want to read alone? Following what people have been reading really helps connect. It’s also super addictive.

BookGlutton Refreshes the Homepage

Good news – we’ve been making some slick new changes to the site. When you get a chance try out the new Search. And dig around in the Profiles a bit – it should be a lot easier to find other people to read with now, especially since people’s friendlists are more transparent and we’ve got the site listing who the last reader was next to each book.