Scott Digital Catalogs

There was a mention a few weeks back about the Scott catalog app missing from Apples App store, and Google Play. I noticed today using my browser based account that there has been a major change to the Scott Catalog interface. I checked and it's still missing but maybe it is going to make a return.

My initial reaction to the new interface is less than positive, but it may just be "change". I'd just gotten used to the old one, which is not to say I liked it... but the new one feels clunkier, and the index doesn't seem as robust as the previous. (For instance in my general catalog for countries vol 3 G-I in the index in now just lumps "countries G - I" instead of having them list out Gambia, Greece, Great Britain, etc. So you have to just guess at the page number and play "split the difference" until you locate it, or A-page it (turn one at a time) until you get to it. Not very useful.
What's amusing as well though is that my old bookmarked page for the US catalog still uses the digital.olivesoftware.com interface, but if I go to Scott Catalog page, and view my catalogs, pick it from there, it will only open in the new www.scottonline.com page. I assume the olivesoftware interface will be decommissioned in the near term though.
Anyone else see this?


*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

Amos is holding back the hobby by not providing properly indexed online database of stamps in an app or otherwise. They are 25 years behind the times in issuing nothing but pictures of its catalog pages.

Amos has not had a lot of skill in the online arena.

I'm fine with a replication of the catalog as searchable document, which they have done, and in many ways it keeps cohesion. My issue is that this interface is terrible. It's a step backward from the old version. As I mention for now, at least the old version works. I'm just dreading that they will kill it off before they mature their new approach.
The other annoying thing is someone decided it's a good idea to make as "sound" when you turn every page in the online version. That's jus annoying, and clearly not thought out or tested with any real users to see if they like it or not. By default it is on, and you can switch it off, but every time you open the catalog again, it's back on.
50 years of user interface, and still they don't bother with the basics... and waste time on a feature like that instead of something useful like country indexes...

The new interface allows you to use native pinch and zoom on a tablet, and, at least on a tablet, to zoom in much closer than the old site let you.

The text on each page is now actual text and not scanned text, so when you zoom in, the next stays nice and crisp.

I'm waiting for someone to come up with an online database of stamps without stamp numbers that you can import your own numbers into. Then someone will just have a CSV file full of numbers floating around the Internet you'll pull down from some Dropbox site and import into the database.

I believe I read somewhere that Amos will NOT license the Scott numbering system to anyone with an online offering. I wonder if that's what keeps software the current crop of desktop software that Scott does license to from going online.