Google Reader’s Latest Change in Layout Got You Down? You’re Not Alone!

Posted on Nov 2, 2011 in Personal |

Google Reader’s Latest Change in Layout Got You Down? You’re Not Alone!

To get the latest news and check out my photos, follow me on RSS, Facebook, Twitter or Google+

With the most recent change in layout by Google on Google Reader, I’ve found that not a lot of people, including me, are agreeing with the update. This might be the worst change of mankind. With Facebook and their changes, it does annoy me a lot, but I’ve managed to live with it by some means. On the other hand, with Google, they pretty much flat out said “take it or leave it” on their blog. When they updated my Reader, I thought I was about to go crazy. I mean, this is something I use daily and religiously. You can’t just go thermonuclear and change the entire layout in one day. Not cool. I knew the only way for me to be able to use the web app is to tweak it to my liking. And so I did.

Update: I’ve finally sat down and made the official Google Chrome Extension for Google Reader Fixes.

More update: Google Reader Fixes is also on Firefox Add-on.

I spent a few hours trying to hack Google’s CSS code using Firefox Web Developer add-on and Chrome’s “Inspect Element” (ironically) feature to reverse engineer the damn thing. Once I was done with the hack, I posted it on UserScript website, because, y’know, sharing is caring. Surprisingly, this little hack got a lot of positive feedback, and it’s gotten over 500 downloads in 2 days. Safe to say I’m not the only one who hates Google Reader’s new layout.

If you’re also one of those who don’t care for or dislike the facelift, head over to the UserScript and install the fix. Needless to say, you either need to have Chrome, or Firefox with Greasemonkey. Here’s what my new and modified Google Reader looks like. If you have any questions or comments, make sure to drop me a line. If there are enough people requesting new things for the script, I might make it happen

Oh, by the way, just for kicks and giggles, this is what my Google Reader Trends says, proving how much I use the service:

From your 521 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 26,064 items, clicked 250 items, starred 0 items, and emailed 13 items.
Since October 14, 2010 you have read a total of 300,000+ items.

Tags: personal

Share this on:

Bad_Attitude
Just wanted to jump in here and thank you for an excellent userscript. Well done! Definitely was not happy about the change but I was confident that someone would step up and provide a fix! Seeing how you use Reader even more than I do (don’t know a lot of people that do) I thought I would share some scripts that you might find useful. Each article shows a read or unread color plus text is wider in frame: (http://userstyles.org/styles/16340/google-reader-larger-serif-wider-plus-color. Scrolling inside each frame: (http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/61941). RSS button top-right corner of webpage:
(http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/2571). In expanded view clicking on article title opens website inside Google Reader: (http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/104222). Maybe you’ll find something useful! ☺ From your 47 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 9,809 items, clicked 227 items, starred 27 items, and emailed 0 items.
Since December 30, 2008 you have read a total of 202,905 items. You got me beat but I try!
noescape
i agree your script is really good , and keep away about the ugly google new ui ( i even cannot consider how they agreed to release such a thing).
one thing i will really like , will be to include the COLORFUL list view , which i was using before http://greasefire.userscripts.org/scripts/show/8782 , which is really good , for easy reading
anyway thanks a lot , for your script
- http://tambnguyen.com Tam Nguyen
  Aaaahh… that hurts my eyes!
MikeC
Many thanks for your script, I am now using this and makes life a lot better !! I use Google Reader as my main site and was hating the new look until I started playing with some scripts and found yours.
I am not familiar with the workings of CSS so maybe you can tell me how I could modify the script to remove the >Explore section from the left panel totally, I don’t ever go in there and it is just taking up space. Is that easy to do?
As with the other commenter I have used the Colorful List view before the new Google Reader change, but with only the borders of the articles coloured, that is a lot easier on the eyes. I find that quite useful to see when I have moved from one feed to another when I am viewing all items (vs a folder at a time). That script author is updating his script so maybe I will be able to use his and yours together then I will be 100% happy again.
- http://tambnguyen.com Tam Nguyen
  I just updated the script with a few new features. Make sure to grab the new version whenever you can!
  - MikeC
    Thanks for the info, I have updated the script and will try it out shortly. Keep up the good work !!
Wayne
Nice script, I like it a lot.
However, on userscript.org it says “…Lessen white spaces on top and on bottom…”.
While I agree with the overall white space savings, I cannot discover a difference at bottom. Any suggestions?
- http://tambnguyen.com Tam Nguyen
  Good question. I’m pretty sure I did something to the bottom, either of each article, or the entire view… now I don’t remember what I did haha….
  - Wayne
    So, no fix for that ugly white stripe at browser’s bottom?
  - http://tambnguyen.com Tam Nguyen
    That piece of crap has been bugging me to… hang on lemme fix that real quick…
Abhishek
Thanks a lot for this script. You have saved what was left of my sanity after switching to new Reader API.
- Abhishek
  I meant new Reader UI* .. damn
Neale
Great script and really looks great.
I am just having trouble with the buttons above the feed (refresh list type ect ect) They are under the white bar and i can only see a few pixels of the buttons.
Any idea whats up?
- http://tambnguyen.com Tam Nguyen
  What version of the script are you running? Are you using the new Reader layout that was released 2-3 days ago? Can you take a screen shot?
- http://tambnguyen.com Tam Nguyen
  Duh, I saw the bug too. It has been fixed with version 3.1.0. Come get yours! http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/116931
Adam
Just updated to the newest 3.2.0 version. Thank you so much for providing this userscript. It’s made using gReader much more pleasant.
Barrie
Hi
I like the layout but one thing is puzzling me – how do I share items? It was the google+ thing that stopped me sharing.
Thanks
- http://tambnguyen.com Tam Nguyen
  Yes. When Google rolled out Google+, they skilled the legacy sharing feature within Google Reader.
  If you like to enable Google+, just comment out line #42 of script v3.2.2.