Goodreads hints and quirks

[Clark]

Here are some possibly useful details about interacting with Goodreads. Try them out. Correct them and supplement them.

1. So far as I know the only way to do italics, etc., in a message is hand-crafted HTML.

2. So far as I know there is no support for moving a message from one place to another in the folder-and-topic hierarchy. The only way I know is by copying the text, manually creating an empty message in the new place, pasting the text into the empty topic, and deleting the original message. The date and time on the new message will be the time it was moved, not when it was originally created.

3. The date and time shown at the upper right corner of a message is the URL of the message. You can copy it and then paste it into another message that refers to this one.

4. Goodreads has special support for referring in a message to an author or work. It's the "add book/author" link just above the text editing box. The result is a link to a Goodreads page for that author or work. The pop-up dialogs make it relatively easy to do the search from within composing the message. Here is an example:

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

One can get a book cover:



5. Goodreads has special stuff to allow a group to declare a book as one that the group is currently reading. As a sample I just set The Alchemist to be that book. It shows up on the Group Home page.

[Clark]

Today I was reminded that sometimes Goodreads doesn't refresh the page. So if you've done something and the page doesn't show it, refresh. Or go to a different page and come back.

[Clark]

I think that Goodreads is limited to a two-layer structure: topics within folders. Please let me know if I'm wrong.

Anyhow, I'm trying to create a third level by putting "BOTM:" and "General:" and "Resources:" and similar labels at the front of the folder name. (But folder names can't be more than 32 characters, so I may have problems. Bummer.)

This is evolving. Feel free to suggest things. There is an ideas and suggestions folder.

[Clark]

Some people have asked someplace whether or not you can do X or Y in the Goodreads mobile app. If you get really stuck, try accessing the Goodreads site using the browser on your phone/tablet, specifying the desktop app if necessary. That has worked for me several times.

[Clark]

HELP! Can anyone figure out a way to collapse the topic list as the default or quickly manually? I know the user can collapse each folder manually, but it takes a lot of clicking and my recollection is that it doesn't stay collapsed from session to session.

It is probably helpful to click on the "unread" link to reduce the amount of stuff shown.

[Clark]

The "general" folder hides all except the top five or so topics. Right now above the topics it says "showing 5 of 19 topics". Click on that to see more, like previous introductions and other good stuff.