[kluikens]

It looks great.

I agree with nathan82 about being puzzled for a few seconds on how to open a document.

Any chance you guys have plans, or even an idea, to extend a similar app to public record custodians? If so.. I'll have to watch out. :)

[jashkenas]

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to think of a way to reconcile click-to-select desktop-style icons (which is a common case, for selecting and editing documents in bulk), with click-to-open style linking. If you know of any sites that manage to pull off both at once, let me know.

As to opening it up for public record custodians ... we don't want DocumentCloud to become a general dumping ground for every government document under the sun -- sticking to newsworthy documents has worked well so far. But at the same time, it's silly to refuse a document that the government wants to publish, and then turn around and accept that same document from a reporter the next day. I think there's a fine line to walk there, while keeping the content of the catalog relevant and searchable, and we'll have to try and find it.

For the record, our policy for contributors is currently "anyone who reports on primary source documents" ... which includes newsrooms like the Washington Post as well as individual bloggers like SCOTXBlog.com.

[kluikens]

  re: opening documents

Have you considered showing a button in the center of a document when it's selected? If it appears quick enough, you might be able to retrain users to expect to be able to double-click documents to open.

Another possibility would be replace the browser's right-click context menu. But it's likely not a good solution. It might slow down the interface, take away a feature that users expect, and more problematic: users will initially expect to open documents with a right-click as little as they would with a double-click.

An example of this though would be the Google Docs extension for Chrome.

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/img/nnbmlagghjjcbdhgmke...

  re: public records custodians

Whoops -- I didn't communicate what I meant to.

I was prodding to see if there was any interest in creating such a general dumping ground for public records (separate from DocumentCloud). I've been mulling over such an idea for a time, and seeing this today is convincing me that it could be workable.

You're right about that fine line.

  re: else

I agree with another point of nathan82's about the 'log in' button.

Anyway, I'm glad you guys are putting the Knight Foundation's money to good use. Keep up the great work!

Also, any chance you guys are looking for summer interns?

[jdjdjd]

It's common to use checkboxes to allow users to select items instead of opening items. You really need to fix this ASAP; it's nice that you want to accommodate power users, but you've essentially made the site useless to everyone else.

[kluikens]

Is 'useless' not a bit strong?

Granted, I had to make an experimental click or two to test how to select a document, but once I established that -- it's set for me.

I find the current selection method not only workable, but very usable.

[jdjdjd]

Don't mean to be harsh, but I believe that many people won't have any idea how to open a doc. I'd be willing to help work on an alternative a better design if the aforementioned approach won't work.