Last month we launched a new feature—”Other Web Sites”—that was actually an old feature, dressed up with some new bells and whistles. This week we launched another new feature—”Build Your Own Slate“—that is actually an old one, but without a single new bell or whistle. Who says there’s no such thing as progress?
Build Your Own Slate is an all-in-one tool that lets you pick just the articles you want, then e-mail them, print them, or save them as HTML (a Web page) or as an eBook. It’s essentially what we used to call MySlate. (Why change the name? The phrase MySlate seemed to confuse some readers. Plus, Build Your Own Slate just rolls so nicely off the tongue.)
We hope that BYOS is more or less self-explanatory. When you open it—which you can do from the Output Options menu, near the top left of every page on the site—you’ll see a list of virtually all the articles we’ve published in the past seven days, organized by subject (News & Politics, Arts & Life, etc.). Check the boxes next to the articles you want to print, e-mail, or save, then click the appropriate button at the bottom of the page. If there are extra steps, BYOS will walk you through them.
By the way: If you’d rather get the articles listed chronologically rather than by subject, click “List by Date” at the top of the BYOS screen. You can always go back to the subject listing by clicking “List by Department.”
Keep in mind that to print articles in the two-column format, you’ll need Word 2000 or newer. And to read an eBook, you’ll need Microsoft Reader, which you can download free.
In other news: We’ve also just expanded the “flyout” menus—the lists of articles that pop up when you point at “News & Politics,” “Sports,” etc., in the top-left corner of every page. They now list all the articles from each section that we’ve published in the past seven days. (And in some cases, they include stories that are older than that.) If the list is especially long, there’ll be a “More …” item at the bottom; point your mouse at it, and you’ll see a second pane containing the rest of the week’s articles.
If you missed the debut of Slate UK, read the editors’ welcome message, or check out recent items on Tony Blair in India and former BBC man John Birt.
