In the November newsletter feedback, several readers wanted scale specific listings. Since the content is organized to be more conversational like a bull session than organized like a spreadsheet, I asked if we couldn't leverage the fact we've got interactive media here, and allow you to click a button to highlight the content of interest.

So with the December newsletter, we've done that. What do you think?

...and then ended up reading the whole thing anyway! 

I'm using Firefox 3 and Foxit reader.  I saw no buttons to click on.  Apparently there are three buttons on the dashboard page, but no text on them, or button for that matter.  I only found them because I was able to highlight them.  The scale buttons don't work at all.  :(  Maybe this is all adobe specific?

-

S

Nope.  Still no good on that side.  Eventually I managed to click them all and ended up with color coded text.  i.e. the pages had all scales selected, but at least they were the right colors.  The buttons still don't show up.

To be honest, having the text color coded without finding buttons might work just as well.  N scale is yellow, HO is green, O is orange, and other/non scale is white background.  That would probably be just as easy from a layout perspective and you wouldn't have to worry about stuff like the buttons not working.  Admittedly I have no idea how you're putting it together so I don't know which is more effort for you.  For the newsletter it looked fine to me, but maybe you'd want to tone the colors down a bit if you had a lot of different ones mixed in so it didn't look so chaotic.

-

S

Since MRH's publications push the envelope on rich media, reading the PDF inside a broswer using the browser plugin is just asking for problems. So is trying to read a rich media PDF in anything but Adobe Reader 9.

You need to download the PDF and open it with the Adobe 9 reader. If you try anything else (like trying to read it using a PDF browser plug in or trying to use Foxit Reader), then expect the interactive components to malfunction -  and we won't support that combination.

Since Adobe Reader 9 is free, using the specific reader we support, in the manner we recommend should not be too tough.

If you're downloading the zipped version, make sure you unzip the file first to the desktop as a PDF before you try to read it with Adobe Reader 9. Trying to open the zipped PDF from inside the zip folder also gives Adobe Reader fits.

I think the buttons are great. It make it very easy to find what you want to read about. I read more than just what I marked but it made it easier to find your scale.

I like the resulting highlighting; so I like the buttons.

I can't get my computer to download the .zip file at all.

In fact it seems that much MRH access is happening in slow-motion for me now.

Anyone else having this issue?

Charlie

Have you tried running a speedtest against http://speedtest.net ?

Joe,

The link within the PDF file to go to the sponsor site " UPBIDS.COM " give errors regarding path or Internet address under IE7. Path starting from $$$ is being added to string,

Also the online PDF give a page not found error on the same link.

A suggestion. The Newsletter thumbnail could  bring up the PDF version instead of the link to the ZIP version unless others have requested otherwise.  

Marc F