Google Reader Suggestions

I have been using Google Reader since its beta release and really like it. Google Reader helps me keep up-to-date on technology and other areas of my interest by scanning blogs and other feeds. As a regular user, I have some suggestions and observations for Google Reader.

  1. When I clicked on hidden option for Show read items, the Reader kept on displaying Loading… image. Actually I did not have any unread items. Then I clicked on Refresh link and received JavaScript error alert Stack over flow at line: 0and the browser (Internet Explorer) gave an alert message to abort the script. I did not verify this error in FireFox and other browsers.
  2. In the content area where the post is displayed, there is no separator between the author name and the date. For example, this entry will look like this: SreeNov 11, 2005
  3. When I click on My Account link on the Reader page, it takes me to Google Accounts page, with no option to come back to Reader after done with editing (other than many back button clicks or my bookmark).
  4. When I click on Keep Unread checkbox for a post, it keeps the item unread until I manually uncheck it. But I would like Reader to uncheck the item automatically the next time I read it. If I really want to keep it flagged, I would either star it or label it with a meaningful keyword.
  5. Also, the Keep unread checkbox should be checked/unchecked by clicking on the label too. I am too lazy to move my mouse exactly over the checkbox and click!
  6. Under Your Subscriptions, can I have another default label for all those unlabeled feeds? That makes life easier to identify the unlabeled blogs and label them. Currently I export the OPML, edit the groups in a text editor and import.
  7. I would like to edit name of the blog I subscribed in Reader. Some of the blog names are so lengthy and I want to give a meaningful name, helping me to identity the blog in a better way. Sometimes I like to keep the author’s name instead of the blog name. This is really useful when viewing non-English atom from Blogger. For non-English Blogger blogs, title of the atom feeds are displayed ????? in Your Subscriptions box. This may be either a bug with Blogger atom.xml or the way it is rendered in Reader – I am not sure.
  8. It would be great if meaningful title HTML tag is used for all links provided in Reader. For example, when I see the Blog name on the top of Reader’s content box, I expected the link to take me directly to the blog page. Instead, Reader displayed all posts from the blog, which is really good. But I would be happy to know where Reader is going to take me before I click on the link.
  9. How do I find out all those blog entries I have labeled with a specific keyword? I do not see those blog entry labels listed anywhere other than at the end of the entries. If I find one of those post and click on the label, it brings up all entries with the same label. I am looking for a single place where I can have all of the blog entry labels listed. I am not talking about labeling a blog, that works fine.
  10. While editing subscriptions, I would like auto complete – I mean label suggest from the existing list of labels. That would save time and avoid mistakes.
  11. Can you offer skins for Reader? Since it is winter now, I would like to see a winter theme!
  12. What does refresh in blog entry list actually do? Will it look at all feeds in my OPML and check for new? I don’t think so. I don’t see any difference from the top link.
  13. Google reader footer is not center align with the page, instead it is aligned with the content area. I would center align with the page, while Google can go for align with the content box, no problem!
  14. What is meant by sort list by relevance? I am not talking about the Content Search. How does Reader find out relevance of a post/blog in my list? What are the parameters? The result shown from my list has no meaning at all – the result was irrelevant! If it is not as complicated as the Page Rank, would you explain it?

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