New Site!

Posted on September 6, 2013 by | Posted in Blog | Comments: 63 Comments on New Site!

We have  a new site after much sweat and tears. We expect there might be some bugs and problems, and there are a few little, and some bigger things we’ll be working on shortly. Please let us know if you spot problems: info@librivox.org.

 

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63 comments

  1. Ruth Golding says:

    Please note that most of the new site is up, but not everything is working yet (including reader pages, and searching by reader).

    Work is continuing. Please bear with us and hold off reporting errors for a bit. The folks working on this have had to get some sleep!

  2. Ruth Golding says:

    Readers’ pages and searching by reader is now fixed.

  3. wysiwyg says:

    WOW!!!! What a playground! Thanks, all involved!

  4. Winston Tharp says:

    Congratulations to all who worked on this. It should provide a much easier to use interface to the LibriVox collection, and it’s lovely to look at to boot!

    Bravo! Brava!

    Winston

  5. Clara says:

    Wohoo! This new site fantastic — congratulations and thank you to all involved!

  6. james says:

    I am unable to run any search whatsoever I can how ever listen on cached pages.
    just a heads up.

  7. Hugh says:

    James, can you give more details? What happens when you try to do a search?

  8. Alan says:

    Your new site is horribly slow. I have yet to get beyond the Search screen. Nothing is returned from the initial screen after clicking Author or Genre/Subject. I’m using DSL.

  9. Anthony says:

    Seems the links to the files on this page are all jumbled http://librivox.org/short-science-fiction-collection-048-by-various/

  10. Kim says:

    I’m afraid I’m having the same problem as James and Alan. I try to search for a title, but I can’t get past the “waiting” screen. (I let the site keep working on it for about 20 minutes, but nothing happened – just the little sunburst thing going around and around.)

  11. LibriVoxer says:

    Please tell us what browser (and version no.) you are using. Search is very fast indeed with the latest version of all common browsers. We are, however, aware of problems with Internet Explorer 8 and 9.

  12. Anna says:

    @ Anthony (nr 10): re: http://librivox.org/short-science-fiction-collection-048-by-various/ – oops, you’re right, something is wrong there – we’ll have to fix that.

  13. Anthony says:

    Thanks for fixing so quickly Anna :)

  14. Aaron says:

    http://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/Newbie_Guide_to_Recording

    Some of the links don’t work, I only checked the “Readers” wanted links, however. (They don’t work.)

    A side question, where do I go to see where readers are wanted? I’d like to volunteer. Thanks.

  15. Melanie Sands says:

    Why do people have to change things that work?!!! It’s so annoying. Your site does NOT work, it is NOT possible to log onto anything, title, author, genre, catalog, NADA! I have been trying for over 20 minutes to get SOMETHING to show up. It’s just a waste of time. Too bad. I used librivox all the time to listen to during duller work, but now I guess I’ll have to go elsewhere. Really bad.

  16. Kim says:

    @LibriVoxer – I was using Internet Explorer 8. I tried using Chrome this morning, and was able to get search results right away. (I tried Explorer again, though, and got the same slow results. I’ll use Chrome in the future). Thanks for your site and your work.

  17. hugh says:

    @Melanie Sands what are you trying to do exactly? you shouldn’t have to “log on” to access the catalog? can you give more details about what is happening?

  18. Jerry says:

    The new site does not work. Why did you change it. What were you thinking?

  19. Duke says:

    The search API is not working. Will this be fixed also, or has it changed permanently?

  20. LibriVoxer says:

    I will repeat: if you post to say that the site “does not work” please tell us what operating system, browser (and version no.) you are using, and what you are trying to do – please be specific. Catalogue search is fast with the latest version of all common browsers. We are, however, aware of problems with Internet Explorer 8 and 9 (but Internet Explorer 8 is, to be honest, pretty old).

    In answer to those who ask why it was changed, please believe us when we tell you that we would not have undertaken all this work for something unnecessary. It could not have continued to work as it was, as it was bulging at the seams and frequently breaking.

    Of course, despite extensive testing (conducted by volunteers, remember) there are teething problems, especially for people using old versions of browsers. We are working very hard to resolve them.

    @ Duke Information on the new API is available at http://librivox.org/api/info

  21. Evan Mullins says:

    Site works here on chrome/mac and looks great! Very impressive and well thought out. Thanks for the update, it makes the site a pleasure to browse.

  22. jingchunyu says:

    I have a good trick to overcome this old internetexplorer issue. You do not
    search here rather you search thru google–that is in google, type in “book name+librivox”, then open from there

  23. James says:

    The browsing page seems to have a problem with my Internet Explorer 9.0.12, 64-bit. Used Firefox and it works great. Sub-categories are great. I love the fact that you click on an authors name and you get there Bio and the list of books by that author, no extra searching.

  24. LibriVoxer says:

    @Aaron Re links to forum on Wiki. Thank you for pointing this out. Reported to sysadmin for correction.

    EDIT: And now corrected :)

  25. Vince says:

    Download speeds very slow with google chrome.
    no search on librivox website with windows 8
    & 9. Old web site was fantastic. why change??
    Vince

  26. LibriVoxer says:

    @Vince All our projects are hosted, as before, at the Internet Archive, and that is where you still download them from, so any change in download speed is nothing to do with the new LibriVox site. We are aware of search problems with older versions of Internet Explorer, and are trying to find a way to make the site work as well on them as on current browsers.

  27. Catherine says:

    I like to browse by author – but how do I get to G, or to the S… when I hit author, all I gat are A’s

  28. Heber says:

    Have the same problem as James posted today. Search doesn’t work in IE9 64 bit. Any attempt to search just gives the rotating star. Further, clicking on any of the “recent additions” titles just goes back to the top of the page. No connection to the book or the author.

  29. This is fantastic, what a clean open feel. Congratulations.

    -brewster
    Internet Archive

  30. RuthElaine says:

    The new site looks great!

    Thank you so much, jingchunyu, for your search around for IE9. It makes me so happy for my work computer! I can find the books I want. :)

  31. Linda says:

    I’m very disappointed that you reorganized the catalog. I loved being able to browse a category by the authors’ name and see all books by that author. Now I have to scroll through hundreds of titles, and no, I don’t know all the authors that I might like to read until I see their name! What a shame.

  32. Vicky says:

    Looks great! Thanks for all the hardwork.

  33. Vicky says:

    @Linda, you can totally search by author’s name…

  34. Zahna says:

    I think this is a great start to what is obviously a huge project. I have immediately found it easier to search by subject, particularly winnowing out the extras with advanced search. I found the previous site difficult to navigate. I am on an iMac OS X 10.6.3, a bit dated, and Safari, and I have had some of the hanging search icons so I reload. My main concern is the RSS feed, which I must use rather than iTunes, as it seems at complete loose ends. I trust this issue will be addressed as the new site evolves. Thanks for the hard work, you can’t know the entertainment and interest you bring to me every day.

  35. Zahna says:

    Never mind … lol … figured out how to get the RSS feed URLs but I believe the icon is still not working properly.

  36. Zahna says:

    Okay … on second (third?) thought, I was able to add the RSS URLs to my iTunes program, but when I tried to download them they came up as 0.1 kb files …

  37. TaylorAsh says:

    I haven’t had any problems, besides the loose nut on the keyboard, but I was a couple days late to the party. I agree with whoever said: Wow what a playground!

    Librivox entertains me every single day. Thank you ALL from my heart.

    My first big discovery was finding how much was on the front page when I scrolled down! And I bet you thought that was obvious!

  38. Jerry says:

    Do you even read this. the new site does not work. I still can’t get to anything, except for some shortcuts to book i made before the change. I am out of books and links and can’t get to the catalog. Please help! Why did you take down the old site before this one was ready. Who were the beta testers? What was fixed? Nothing was fixed that I can see. All I get is a “working” icon. It never finds anything.

  39. Sadia says:

    I like the new site. The lighter color tones are easier on the eyes in comparison to the previous site. I do however miss the thumbnail arrangement of the books vs the list arrangement in the new site. It somehow takes away from the fun in choosing a book.
    Anyway, I really like this site and appreciate everyone’s hard-work and care that’s put in to keep it going! :)

  40. LibriVoxer says:

    @ Jerry: there are already some responses to your earlier posts in the comments above, if you read through them. To summarize them:

    There is unfortunately an issue with Internet Explorer 8 & 9: the site doesn’t work well with them. You are probably using one of those browsers? (It is helpful if you mention what browser you are using). The website works fine with other browsers.

    You have a few options if you want to keep listening to LV books:
    – go to http://archive.org/details/librivoxaudio – all our files are hosted there;
    – use Google to find the book you’re looking for, I believe that way you can still reach the catalog page.
    – download another browser to work with instead of Internet Explorer 8 or 9
    – wait; I know that the developer is looking into this issue and trying to come up with a solution.

    Please remember we are a bunch of volunteers, doing all this for fun – it has grown tremendously over the past years of course, but we still do it for fun – and are happy if other people enjoy our work.

  41. Mary W says:

    Like others have mentioned above, the new site didn’t work for me at all on Internet Explorer, so I downloaded Firefox and that works pretty well. Still I need to load some of the pages twice before they come up, so I’m looking forward to when these bugs are worked out!

    Overall, though, I’m delighted by the new site; it’s bee-yoo-tee-ful. :)

  42. Elizabeth says:

    Hi there!
    Using FF 23.0.1 on Mac with OS 10.7.5.

    This is the message that I receive no matter what link I try to click from the homepage.

    “A Database Error Occurred

    Unable to connect to your database server using the provided settings.

    Filename: core/Loader.php

    Line Number: 346”

    I’d love to help you figure this problem out. Feel free to contact me to test out any fixes/changes to make sure things work. I’m looking forward to being able to experience all the changes others are raving about! =)

  43. annaf says:

    when I try to search an autor, title,… I become A DATABASE ERROR… some hours ago the side worked but now its unable to connect! :((

  44. LibriVoxer says:

    There has been some additional work on the servers today, with some (unexpected) outages along the way… Hopefully this was the explanation for your database errors, Elizabeth & annaf? Could you try again?
    Sorry!

  45. Hugh Gamble says:

    New site design is not accessible.
    The old site worked great for the vision impaired. It would zoom properly on my tablet and mobile devices. Librivox is great for people who can’t see, but the site has to meet accessibility standards so they can get at the content.

    Primarily, don’t use Frames. We have Divs now for that. If you can’t go back to the old site, a quick update removing the use of the ‘frame’ tag will be a big win. After that you could do a test and overhaul to make the whole site properly accessible again.

    Thanks for all the good work.

    http://www.w3.org/WAI/

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_accessibility

  46. Jerry says:

    Site is still not working for me. Thank you Mary W. for mentioning firefox!!
    It seems to work with . But I hate firefox. I have to relearn everything. I prefer Internet Explorer. It seems like you should be able to figure it out.

  47. LibriVoxer says:

    @Jerry You still do not mention which version of Internet Explorer you are using. If you are still using versions 8 or 9, updating it to the current version should solve your problems.

  48. LibriVoxer says:

    @Hugh Gamble Can you be more specific about where you are finding FRAME tags, please, Hugh? Looking at pages at random, I find no FRAME tags, only DIV tags. Please also let me know what platform, operating system and browser (and version numbers) that you are using. Then I can report any such issues to the web developer.

  49. christopher says:

    I am so sorry you changed your format. There is no general hub in which I can peruse authors or titles. Its confusing and very time consuming. Its like looking for a needle in a haystack with a magnifying glass.

  50. David says:

    Thanks for the great update! Browsing is a breeze with the new format!

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