denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
Denise ([staff profile] denise) wrote in [site community profile] dw_news2009-09-21 06:18 pm

Weekly Update: 21 September 2009

Oops! I usually write the introductions to these last, and forgot to do that this time ... which means you guys got an uncut news post for the first 15 minutes. Mea culpa. (And it did have to happen on a week where the update was long...)

Let's try this again:



1. Slow Like Turtle...



Many people noticed that the site was intermittently slow or failed to load earlier today (starting at around 6PM EDT). This was a connectivity problem with our upstream hosting provider. It was only about 10 minutes of network issues, and our hosting provider seems to be on top of things, but if the site gets wonky after I post this, we're keeping an eye out. Thanks for your patience!


2. The Week in Code



[personal profile] yvi was the host for this week's code tour: 26 bugs resolved FIXED, with thanks to this week's contributors [personal profile] pauamma, [personal profile] superluminal, [personal profile] cesy, [personal profile] kareila, [personal profile] yvi, [personal profile] wyntarvox, [personal profile] afuna, [personal profile] ninetydegrees, and [personal profile] exor674. (Also, [personal profile] szabgab deserves thanks for all of his code cleanup and work on our test suites -- all of his assigned bugs are major ongoing meta-bugs, so he hasn't appeared in a code tour yet, but he's been diligently working on fixing up a lot of old and crufty code to conform to modern coding standards.)

This week was a nice mixture of bugfixes, enhancements, styles/layout stuff, and minor enhancements. Two patches out of that 26 came from [site community profile] dw_suggestions suggestions.

The big things this week: nearly all pages now have a ?style=light implementation (available now on all pages that can show the navstrip), adding an extra set of "mark all read" and "delete all" buttons to the top of the inbox as well as the bottom, a bugfix that would prevent the Manage Access Filters page from loading if you had more than 30 access filters, and, the big one:


3. Crossposting from Clients



Beginning with the next code push, which should be either this upcoming weekend or next weekend, all entries posted via desktop client, including post-by-email, will obey your default crosspost settings. This means that if you've got your account configured to crosspost your entries, they will begin crossposting after the next code push if you have your account configured to crosspost by default, even if you make them via desktop client or by email.

[personal profile] superluminal gets props for this patch, and for sticking with it through all the revisions.


4. Vacation



[personal profile] sarah and I are on vacation from Wednesday morning on, which means that any check or money order payment that comes in from 9/23-10/2 will be delayed slightly until we get back into the state. (Don't worry, your paid time will start from when we enter the payment, not from when you send the check.)

Sorry about the inconvenience!


5. Reading Filters



By now, everyone's probably had the chance to play around some with subscription filters and try out some of their features. We've already implemented a few fixes (that will be live with the next code push), and have taken suggestions for a few more.

As a reminder, this is the alpha version -- not even ready for the title of 'beta' yet -- and so they're not necessarily pretty! But we hope you're finding them useful. You can read over others' suggestions for improving them in [site community profile] dw_suggestions, and suggest your own if it's not already listed.


6. Styles



We've seen an awesome increase in the number of people submitting layouts and color themes since [personal profile] zvi posted her Quick & Dirty Guide to Creating a Color Theme, but I wanted to remind everyone: if you've got a pretty color variant of any of our official styles, please see [site community profile] dreamscapes and submit it (the submission guidelines explain how -- with [personal profile] zvi's tutorial, you don't need to know any programming language at all, and all you have to do is cut and paste).

Our next code push will include a number of new color themes, including new themes by [personal profile] sky, [personal profile] wizard101, [profile] dancingserpent, and [personal profile] twtd. Thanks to [personal profile] wyntarvox for all his work to get them ready for prime time.

In particular, we'd like to point out that the next code push is going to include light-text-on-dark-background options for all of our system layouts, thanks to suggestions by [personal profile] nonniemous and the hard work of [personal profile] cesy -- so people who are susceptible to glare headaches will be able to pick a pre-made light-on-dark theme without having to dink around with the customization wizard.


7. User Scripts



Styles aren't the only thing you can customize, though. If you're using the Firefox web browser (and if you're not, why not?), you can use the Greasemonkey and User Scripts browser extensions to customize your browsing experience far beyond what our style system can offer.

There are a bunch of user-submitted scripts to improve/enhance the Dreamwidth experience posted to [site community profile] dw_nifty, including scripts to collapse specific entries on your reading page, tweak the site scheme layout to make it look different, or always add ?style=mine or ?style=light to every link. [personal profile] qilin has also posted a basic guide to user scripts and styles that will show you what you can do with these powerful extensions.

(And if you come up with anything nifty on your own, [site community profile] dw_nifty would absolutely love to see it; posting is moderated, but anyone can submit an entry to the moderation queue. This doesn't just go for user scripts: if you have any particular useful trick that not many people know about, it's a good candidate for a [site community profile] dw_nifty article.)


8. Feed Maintenance



Support would like me to mention that if you're subscribed to a feed from another site that seems to have stopped updating, you can open a support request about the issue. Sometimes we can't help -- if the issue is on the other site's end, or the feed isn't updating on their side -- but if it's a case of the feed being too large for DW to handle, or the feed's URL has changed, there are steps we can take to fix it.

We can't delete a feed once it's been created, and the function to merge duplicate feeds into a single feed is currently broken and we haven't gotten a chance to fix it yet, but we can deal with a few common issues. If you're ever in doubt about whether or not we can help you with your feed issues, just ask. Support is standing by.


9. Hey, Look, It's Us!



Just published: Mentoring in Open Source Communities: What Works? What Doesn't? by Esther Schindler, in which I got a chance to speak about the awesomeness of Dreamwidth's project teams. Esther and I had a great conversation about the techniques that Dreamwidth has evolved to nurture our contributors, and she's also planning on writing some more about our project's lessons learned in the future.

I can't stress enough that the reason we're able to make these updates every week, full of interesting things we've done and useful things we've added, is because of the time and effort of all our developers, advocates, and volunteers -- and even the work of you guys, the people who are using the site and constantly telling us how to make it better. So, from the bottom of my heart: thank you for coming to play in our sandbox. We're having a ton of fun building it.

10. Developer on the Loose



And, speaking of building the sandbox, starting October 3, we'll have [staff profile] mark working full-time on Dreamwidth. This means that by the end of next week, we'll have 100% of Mark's attention. (Well, okay, probably about 50%, after his wife [personal profile] janinedog and their puppies.)

What does this mean for you guys? It means that starting in 10 days, Mark is going to become a lean mean coding machine. We're already plotting ways in which we can sit down and blaze through some of our pending enhancements, and we've got a lot of exciting features on tap, including full-site search (with accompanying respect for your privacy choices, of course), photo hosting, scheduled posts, draft posts, and more.

This is a pretty daring gamble, and we're hoping that it will pay off for us -- and for you. The best way that you can make sure that both [staff profile] mark and I can afford to work on Dreamwidth full-time is to buy a paid account, or make a paid time gift to a random user. We're doing this 'on spec' -- right now, our monthly income only covers our technical costs, not the costs necessary to also be able to support ourselves.

Both [staff profile] mark and I are fabulously lucky to have partners who are 100% supportive of us pursuing our dreams and I wanted to take a moment to give public thanks to [personal profile] sarah and [personal profile] janinedog, who have been the most incredible Other Halves ever throughout this whole enterprise. Mark and I bicker sometimes about which one of us got more lucky in our choice of partner. ;)

*

Sappy stuff aside -- I should not be allowed to have a Jack and Diet Coke just before I start writing the weekly update -- that's it for us this week. As always, if you're having problems with Dreamwidth, Support can help you; for notices of site problems and downtime, check the Twitter status page; if you just want to come and hang out with us, join us in irc at irc.dwscoalition.org, channel #dw. (Warning: studies have shown that participating in #dw may result in blacking out and discovering, when you come to, that you've agreed to lead a DW project team.)

We'll see you next week for our next update.
foxfirefey: A wee rat holds a paw to its mouth. Oh, the shock! (myword)

[personal profile] foxfirefey 2009-09-21 11:50 pm (UTC)(link)
If you're using the Firefox web browser (and if you're not, why not?)

Oh dear, you just threw down browser war bait!
lacey: Me and my leather :D (Default)

[personal profile] lacey 2009-09-22 12:04 am (UTC)(link)
popcorn.gif

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zarhooie: Little cartoon Tardis. Text: vworp! vworp! (Whoverse: vworp tardis)

[personal profile] zarhooie 2009-09-22 12:05 am (UTC)(link)
We could have an adorable icon war instead. All in favor?

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[personal profile] boosette 2009-09-22 01:10 am (UTC)(link)
Because it doesn't let us resize textareas like Safari does?

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angelikitten: A happy orange kitty with a halo (Random - Pirate)

[personal profile] angelikitten 2009-09-22 04:36 am (UTC)(link)
Because if I tried to use it on my phone, it would explode.
jld: (squish)

[personal profile] jld 2009-09-22 02:39 pm (UTC)(link)
If you're using the Firefox web browser (and if you're not, why not?)

Ooh! Ooh! I know the answer to this one:

Because I'm using Opera. I have an Iceweasel around for broken websites, but Dreamwidth isn't broken.
princessofgeeks: (Default)

[personal profile] princessofgeeks 2009-09-22 12:05 am (UTC)(link)
you guys rock. and sappy is good. thanks for the update.
ldybastet: (Default)

[personal profile] ldybastet 2009-09-22 12:25 am (UTC)(link)
going to include light-text-on-dark-background options for all of our system layouts

OMG! Yay! Thank you so much! I'm one of those people who get almost crippling headaches from staring too long into a bright screen, so I'm very happy with this! :) Awesome!

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dancing_serpent: (Default)

[personal profile] dancing_serpent 2009-09-22 07:41 am (UTC)(link)
Want me to create one for you all in purple and black?

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[personal profile] lina_00 2009-09-22 01:06 am (UTC)(link)
Have fun in your vacation!
norabombay: (Butterstick!)

[personal profile] norabombay 2009-09-22 04:01 am (UTC)(link)
I will give you a cute Panda. Butterstick, our one true ruler!
ranunculus: (Default)

[personal profile] ranunculus 2009-09-22 05:38 am (UTC)(link)
I love your updates!
Viewing this on Konqueror because firefox isn't playing nice with Kunbuntu today, and wondering where my pic of the two kittens -in- the washer (no water) is.
yvi: woman showing her biceps, text: "We can DW it" (Dreamwidth)

[personal profile] yvi 2009-09-22 06:02 am (UTC)(link)
\o/ News post

Warning: studies have shown that participating in #dw may result in blacking out and discovering, when you come to, that you've agreed to lead a DW project team

Ha! That has not yet happened to me!

*realizes that she spent a few hours yesterday just deleting and re-arranging code, something no user will ever notice*

*looks at assigned bugs*

Okay, so my soul is lost to you anyway. But I like that :)
afuna: Cat under a blanket. Text: "Cats are just little people with Fur and Fangs" (Default)

[personal profile] afuna 2009-09-22 06:04 am (UTC)(link)
*giggles*

(They'll notice when we get them the next good feature faster, because we don't have to go through five(!!) different .pm files to basically duplicate code.

Oh actually, they won't, but I will <3)

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cesy: "Cesy" - An old-fashioned quill and ink (Default)

[personal profile] cesy 2009-09-22 06:17 am (UTC)(link)
The comparison between the comments in today's updates from LJ and DW is amusing me.
angelikitten: Yami Yugi looking lost in thought (Thoughts - Thoughtful!Yami)

[personal profile] angelikitten 2009-09-22 07:22 am (UTC)(link)
I was just thinking this.

(Well, no, that's a lie - I was actually thinking about the possibility of breakfast. And before that I was wondering when the sun got so bright, which led to me thinking about the possibility of breakfast. But I did think about the comment-differences before that, honest.)

[personal profile] ex_rising236 2009-09-22 04:07 pm (UTC)(link)
PineKirk. Okay, not quite the same type of cute as the kittens but still,
trinity_clare: (how do I love thee)

[personal profile] trinity_clare 2009-09-22 06:39 pm (UTC)(link)
adding an extra set of "mark all read" and "delete all" buttons to the top of the inbox

EPIC WIN. You have no idea how much that was bothering me. (Okay, clearly you do, since you fixed it, but still.)
ninetydegrees: Art: self-portrait (Default)

[personal profile] ninetydegrees 2009-09-22 07:52 pm (UTC)(link)
This week was a nice mixture of bugfixes, enhancements, styles/layout stuff, and minor enhancements.

Very, very nice. We all like the 'big' things but smaller things are what makes a difference in every day usage.

Have fun on your vacation!
siljamus: (boom de yada)

[personal profile] siljamus 2009-09-22 09:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Enjoy your vacation, hon! It's well earned \o/
alianora: Akira's Nobuta Power pose (NwP: Kon)

[personal profile] alianora 2009-09-24 02:42 am (UTC)(link)
i am very excited about the crossposting by client! that's what ive been waiting for! thanks!

[personal profile] ex_axel184 2009-09-24 10:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Crossposting appears to be down again but maybe I'm just dumb and it's supposed to be? It was working okay earlier in the week.

[personal profile] ex_axel184 2009-09-24 10:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah-- crossposting to lj I mean.