ARRL digital publications stuck firmly in the 90s

[Jacek Radzikowski]

Before ARRL switched from an already then grossly outdated flash-based
reader, I posted on their forum a long list of problems I had with it. I've
got a response that my comment has been passed to the publishers.
After a year a new reader was live. With almost exactly the same problems
as I listed (the only improvement was that it wasn't flash-based), and with
an additional pain-in-the-butt that this time it is impossible to turn off
the "awesome" page turning effects and swooshing sounds.
I'm really sorry for the person who chose this monstrosity, because clearly
they must have never used a computer before, and they got blinded by all
the bling the sales rep showed them.
I would also really like to know how we can hold the selection team
responsible for wasting member's money on purchasing the system.

jacek
kw4ep


On Thu, 29 Sept 2022 at 14:33, Rob Seastrom <rs at seastrom.com> wrote:

>
> Hi all,
>
> I recently became active on HF under my own callsign after years of mostly
> running club signs and special events with other people's callsigns (and
> hence logbook entries for LotW and the like).
>
> Seven and a half months later I have the credits necessary to get
> certificates for WAS and DXCC (both digital), and figured I might as well
> sign up for ARRL membership for the first time in 30 years, especially
> since the magazines are now digital and I don't have to worry about pulling
> the typical ham trick of saddling my next of kin with a giant hoard of
> boxes of old issues of QST.
>
> Boy, what a disappointment.  It seems to me that there is no way to
> download a PDF to slap in my ipad and read on mass transit.  Just a reader
> app from some joint called Pagesuite, which needs connectivity in order to
> work.
>
> Further investigation under the hood (web inspector) shows that it's not a
> PDF on the back end that I could coax out of it, but rather a series of
> jpegs!
>
> On my Mac, I can select all pages and print them to a PDF.  Of course, the
> suggested name is "QEX.pdf" (for instance).  No YYYYMM or anything like
> that.
>
> The folks at QCWA get it right.  Antique Truck Collectors of America gets
> it right.  Telephone Collectors International gets it right.  World Radio
> History ( https://worldradiohistory.com/QST.htm ) looking at 55 year old
> issues of QST is a better user experience than looking at current issues of
> QST straight from the League.  Ironically, it seems that the less money the
> organization has, the better they do because they follow the KISS
> principle.
>
> Am I missing something or did "upgrade your digital publications to meet
> some sane expectations" somehow get left of the requirements for the recent
> retool of the League's web site?  No I don't want to "install the app on my
> ipad".
>
> Has someone written a scraper to just pull down the jpegs and wrap them in
> PDF?
>
> -r
>
>
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-- 
Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier
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