Is it just me? I really rely on the archive for research. However, I find it super clumsy.
When I do a search and don’t find what I’m looking for, using search button takes me back to the beginning and I have to type in my search criteria each time. Why can’t it take me to the options of my initial search?? Also, why can’t I save articles helpful to me. Perhaps I’m doing a project and I find drawer articles along with door making ideas, and case making articles, all helpful to one project. Shouldn’t I be able to save them for easy access? “My articles” The digital archive is a bare bones and awkward tool and it could be so much better.
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If you mean the digital archive that you access from the website, each article does have its own URL so you could save/rename these as bookmarks and return to them pretty quickly.
Last year I grabbed the magazine archive which has its own reader app - which is also pretty basic. The good news is that if you unpack that download you can access the PDF versions of each edition of the magazine. You can then use use other software to search and organise that material in much more sophisticated ways.
Navigation through the digital data at FWW has come under fire for years. The move to non-PDF format magazines has exacerbated the problem. They are doing what they feel is right based on their value points. The actual user-experience navigation is suffering.
*** Sorry Ben ***
Not going to lie, I use the archive maybe once a year—and I've been known to take in my fair share of FW content. Everything I need has a post on the website and a PDF tied to it. Almost everything I need is searchable via the online magazine archive ( https://www.finewoodworking.com/magazine-index ).
For me, the complete archive is nice to have, but I don't use it much.
This archive usb is a complete joke. Embarrassing. FW subscriber since the beginning. Don’t know why they made the archive so difficult. Adobe’s PDF format has been proven standard.