dw_news: Update, 1 September 2010

fu (

fu) wrote in

dw_news,
@ 2010-09-02 12:30 pm UTC

Entry tags:

news

Update, 1 September 2010

Hi Dreamwidth!

I've been stuck with a craving for Lucky Charms (they're grrrreat! And are for kids, silly rabbit), so I've been having that for breakfast this entire week. Also had it for lunch this one time a cat leaped up onto the dining table and ate my lunch for me. Hey, at least the cat didn't get my cereal.

Anyway let me just hand off my cereal bowl and we can start with the update.

A Warm Welcome

We've noticed a lot of new members this week! Welcome to those of you who are coming from LiveJournal -- you might want to check out the Guide to Dreamwidth for LiveJournal Users.

Last Week's Progress

This week's code tour was done by the ever awesome

cesy.

That brings us to exactly 2002 bugs which have been resolved fixed, and almost 2300 bugs that have been resolved in some way. This week also brought us another milestone: I filed our 3000th bug!

Since our bug list contains planned features and code cleanup as well as actual bugs, I'm really proud of this milestone.

This Week's Request for Feedback

We have another version of the update Create Entry page up for feedback.

And first of all thank you to everyone who left feedback for the last version! We weren't able to respond to everyone individually, but we read all your comments and tried to take all of them into account while working on this latest version.

The short list of changes is:

less options on page startup

ability to customize the page so it fits your posting habits

full list of tags

editable individual tags

fix for the red flash issue

tweaks for older browsers, including better support for resizing

various appearance and behavior tweaks

Play around with it a bit :)

We built in drag and drop functionality for mouse users. We are aware that this only works for mouse users, and we'll be working on ways to have something that will work for everyone, not just mouse users.

We'll also start integrating the mockup into the backend soon, which means that the next time we do this, the mockup should respect your site scheme and use your icons/tags/etc (it still won't remember your settings, though, and it won't work to actually post).

Communities that Link to Other Communities that Link to Other Communities

This week's theme for community plugs is communities that link to other communities to get you started on finding and making those communities that you're interested in:

dw_community_promo - the official community promotion community

community_promo - an unofficial community promotion community

create_my_comm - a community for community ideas, in case the community you want doesn't exist yet

And finally, some links that don't fit into the theme, because I've said "community" so much that it doesn't look like a real word anymore:

getting_started - for any questions you may have about getting started here on Dreamwidth

interests search, to search for people and comms which share your interests

site search, to search by keyword for posts about topics you're interested in

the latest entries page, to see the latest public entries posted to Dreamwidth. Also possible to see the latest public entries with a specific tag

Equally Warm Goodbye

And that's it for this week. Rest of this month is

denise's as per usual. 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've got an idea to make the site better, you can make a suggestion.

See you again next week!

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(484 comments) - (Post a new comment)
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no subject

seamyst
2010-09-02 07:27 pm UTC (link)

Oh.

I like you.
And I like it here.

I am leaving my (paid) LJ (maintained since 2004) -- and you'll be getting that business instead.

I'd also like to say that Importing my LJ over here was 100% trouble-free and FAST. Thank you for providing that service to us.

I cannot tell you how impressed I am with just that -- and your attitudes regarding privacy.

I have a horrible feeling regarding my whole LJ experience and look forward to establishing myself, here.

Thanks again.

(Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

no subject

kyrielle
2010-09-02 07:30 pm UTC (link)

Thank you. Also - just tried to look and can't - very broken on the iPhone. Current update page works great. It looks like the new one is detecting a mobile client and trying to "help" by giving a "friendly" display. That is a deal-breaker for me - please fix that or it will be unusable on my phone. And screamingly ugly. I loathe those "mobile-sized" pages.

Screen shot of current update page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyrielle/4951624705/

Screenshots from new page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyrielle/4951624457/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyrielle/4951624175/

(Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject sophie 2010-09-02 07:38 pm UTC (link)
	I'm thinking the "move" pointer would be better. Here's an example of what I mean - hover over these boxes with the mouse and you'll see the pointer change: Crosshair pointer Move pointer The move pointer seems to better convey what's expected. Last edited 2010-09-02 07:39 pm UTC (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

no subject

enigel
2010-09-02 07:39 pm UTC (link)

I didn't want to try it until I could see it in Celerity, but I was intrigued enough by the drag-and-drop hurray, so here I am.

"Customise this screen": would like more intuitive placing of link/button, and if possible more comfortable procedure of customising - like others have noted, scrolling up to enable it, then scrolling down to drag and drop, then scrolling up to turn it off again is a bit clunky. OTOH, this is not something one would have to do every time, after a suitable zen of options was reached.

Placing of modules: I join the chorus of those who'd like to be able to place modules to the left or above the subject and entry box.

I would also like to be able to place modules between subject and entry box, though I might be alone in this. Save, Post, Delete buttons should also be movable, ideally.

Lastly, maybe this was mentioned for the previous iterations and I'm missing something obvious, but why is simulating posting to the "member_of" community restricting the security options to Members only? Does it intend to simulate posting to a supersecret community that has the members-only security options by default?

(Reply to this)

	no subject faithofone 2010-09-02 07:52 pm UTC (link)
	You're 100% right, that's what I meant I just lacked the right words for it. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject turlough 2010-09-02 08:14 pm UTC (link)
	And update time when published -- we'll be remembering that, yup! AWESOME!! (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject pauamma 2010-09-02 08:18 pm UTC (link)
	No two keyboards are not on fire! (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject denise 2010-09-02 08:21 pm UTC (link)
	The dreamsheep happened randomly during open beta. g helens78 started it, and it just SNOWBALLED. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject fairytalewishes 2010-09-02 08:21 pm UTC (link)
	Well, I'm glad it did! ^_^ It's a great idea. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject helens78 2010-09-02 08:25 pm UTC (link)
	:D :D :D Thank you! The sheep would be very flattered that you think so, I'm sure. :D (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

no subject

denise
2010-09-02 08:27 pm UTC (link)

Also, I should note, that's just a demo: when it's actually a real update page, it won't have that message there, and it'll use your tags. It's just that because we couldn't make it respond to your own personal tags yet (that'll be the next step), we had to give it sample tags, and

fu has a sense of humor about what the tags should be! (And needed some way to tell you what tags to try.)

(Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject denise 2010-09-02 08:28 pm UTC (link)
	OM NOM NOM. burp (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject denise 2010-09-02 08:29 pm UTC (link)
	As long as please-God nobody starts singing the pirate song. (Although the worst of that was after I left, thank God. G) (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject triggerhappy 2010-09-02 08:30 pm UTC (link)
	Oh boy, the new version of the update page is spifftastic! Love that some of the boxes can just be hidden, on top of the ability to collapse things. Also, thanks ever so much for taking privacy concerns so seriously. (Reply to this)

no subject

denise
2010-09-02 08:33 pm UTC (link)

9350 new accounts. It's possible many of them are OpenID accounts created from imports.

...Actually, I happened to do my monthly private record-of-stats yesterday before this ran (to graph things later, although soon I won't have to as it'll be automated YAY) and here's what the diff is:

64490 personal accounts on 9/1
466388 external/identity (OpenID) accounts on 9/2

65298 personal accounts on 9/2
479646 external/identity (OpenID) accounts on 9/2

So, yeah, looks like it was around 3/4ths OpenID. But still, that's nothing to sneeze about :)

(Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject denise 2010-09-02 08:34 pm UTC (link)
	August, September, who cares? handwave G (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject haruka 2010-09-02 08:36 pm UTC (link)
	Not at all! Once the Open ID members get a good look at DW, I'm sure they'll want to sign up. :D (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject denise 2010-09-02 08:37 pm UTC (link)
	Yup, exactly. There are still some people who find finding a code too difficult, but we're pondering other ways to hand out codes that will make sure they go to humans, not spammers! (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject denise 2010-09-02 08:39 pm UTC (link)
	Forbiddden image :( (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject instantramen 2010-09-02 08:42 pm UTC (link)
	The latest draft of the Create Entry page is perfect except for one thing: I'd like a "discard changes" button in addition to "save changes and close panel". (Reply to this)

no subject

schwertlilie
2010-09-02 08:42 pm UTC (link)

Love, love, love this new mock-up - I didn't like the workflow of the last mock-up or the posting options sidebar, so being able to re-arrange the modules myself made my life about five billion times better. ♥ And you enlarged the entry box and put back the icon select drop-down, asdjkf YAY!

While we're asking for shiny robot unicorns, can I request an option to customise the number of columns beneath the entry box? When only two columns are being used, the third, empty column looks lonely. Maybe with an option between stretching the modules or centering them?

Editable tags! \o/ Shiny unicorn list: being able to navigate between tags with a keyboard - if I start at the beginning of the list, I can tab forward, but I can't tab backward. This seems counter-intuitive. :/

And to whomever implemented the browse tags + ticky box option: *HUG* My fic journal a) uses a lot of nested tags, so the current auto-complete isn't much use for me, and b) uses a lot of the same tags over again. I didn't know I wanted this option, but now I don't know how I've lived without it.

What I assume is a bug: when I reduce my window size to about 800 px wide, the search options (interest drop-down & go button) cover the "Customise this Screen" button. I can still click it if I put my mouse in exactly the right place, but I can't read the text. (I'm using Firefox and Windows 7.)

*much love to coders and staff*

(Reply to this)

Re: Payment Query

denise
2010-09-02 08:43 pm UTC (link)

Hee, I woke up and was coming to answer this and saw that it had already been dealt with! I love our users, really :)

(For the record, we also accept VISA gift cards, international money orders, and international checks in US funds, which your bank can usually do for you. And if all else fails, US cash or traveler's checks in the mail will almost certainly get to us and be credited to your account, although officially I have to say Don't Send Cash because if the cash gets misplaced/lost/stolen by the postal service, nothing can get it back for you.)

Also, welcome!

(Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

no subject

arethinn
2010-09-02 08:57 pm UTC (link)

That is a nice looking update page. I love the behavior of the tags box; currently, if I type in enough tags that the string goes past the end of the field, it keeps jumping the display back to the beginning while the cursor remains at the now-invisible end of the string. Very Annoying.

If I have all the options sections open, the middle column looks a little lonely with only "Icon" in it.

*sporfles at "friends" "romans" "countrymen" "earlenders"*

(Reply to this)

	no subject denise 2010-09-02 08:58 pm UTC (link)
	...except I'm about two weeks behind on letting suggestions out of the queue. Bad house-elf! irons hands (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

no subject

turlough
2010-09-02 09:00 pm UTC (link)

*flails happily* The latest version of the create entry page is FABULOUS!! Both drag-and-drop and expand-and-collapse! I can't wait until this goes live so I can start using it for real!!

I do have a couple of further wishes though :-) Like so many others I would really like to have the option to put modules above the subject+entry box combo, and I would also like if there was a way to briefly make all modules visible for those rare occasions when you need to change something you ordinarily never touch. I would also REALLY like to be able to put the Preview button in a more prominent position. I keep forgetting where you've put it now since putting it in the Status window seems incredibly farfetched to me.

PS I think I've discovered a bug in the tag module. When you backspace to remove a tag you also loose the focus on the tag module and have to click again to be able to delete another tag or even to start writing another tag.

Last edited 2010-09-02 09:01 pm UTC

(Reply to this)

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