Weekly Update: 23 November

[denise]

Wow, it really is Monday. Mark and I lost most of the week -- him to the swine flu, me to the Christmas knitting (I'm getting there! Only two pairs of socks left!) -- and I could've sworn it was last week. (This is one of the perils of working at home and keeping a non-24-hour sleep schedule. Sarah keeps threatening to buy me one of those clocks that only has the day of the week on it.)

Happy Thanksgiving to our US readers this week! And if you're looking for an excuse to escape from the familial festivities, feel free to tell your family members that you've got Dreamwidth work to be doing.

Behind the cut: development updates, call for styles testers, an update from suggestionsville, and stuff to read.

1. Development

I overslept this week, so I didn't get a chance to put together a code tour, but this week we resolved 23 bugs, including new themes for Drifting, Bases, Boxes and Borders, Fluid Measure, and Negatives; display fixes for several layouts, and some general bug fixes and improvements:

* A fix for the problem where your reading page would use your journal's adult content setting for displaying NSFW/18+ icons on other people's entries;

* A fix for the problem where comments without replies wouldn't have the Expand link in customized comment pages;

* A fix for the problem of deleted accounts showing on the non-full profile view under certain circumstances (they should only show on the full profile view);

* The new ability to "update time" when posting an entry, so you can choose whether or not you want your entries to reflect the time you started them (opened the update page) or the time you posted them (if you hit the 'update time' button before you post).

All of these will be live with the next code push. Keep an eye on dw_maintenance to see when that might be.

2. Layouts

As many people have noticed, we've been expanding the number of layouts we offer (as well as the number of themes). The effort is coordinated in dreamscapes, where layouts for consideration are posted.

If you aren't a layout wizard, though, you can still help in the process. When someone makes a layout, it's posted to dreamscapes for testing and turning into an actual system layout. It's the testing part that we always need more people for: if you want to check the layout in your browser, OS, and screen resolution combinations, we always need more eyeballs.

The needs testing tag in dreamscapes has themes that need checking in various situations. If you've got a few minutes, drop by, check the previews or apply the theme to your journal, and see if there are any problems in view or display.

3. Community Promo

This week, our featured communities involve stuff to read and stuff to make:

books is a low-traffic place to share discussion of books of all types: stuff you've read, stuff you've started, stuff you've just finished, stuff you hated, etc.

knitting is a general community for anyone who likes putting sticks and string together, or would like to learn. We show off our knitted projects, discuss technique, and share tips and ideas. All welcome!

4. Finding More Stuff to Read

If you're looking for good content on Dreamwidth, foxfirefey has started dreamlight, a place for people to showcase interesting stuff that's happening on Dreamwidth.

Been participating in Follow Friday, the weekly meme that involves listing off accounts you want other people to know about? Drop links to your posts in followfriday.

And, of course, you can always search for something interesting.

5. Suggestions

Thus far, 160 suggestions have made it through our Suggestions process and into our bug tracker, and of those, we've implemented 40 -- a 25% hit rate. Every week brings a few more things that people have asked for, no matter how big or small.

If you've got something you want to suggest to make Dreamwidth better, you can fill out the Suggestions form, but this week I'm mentioning it for the other part of the process: the discussion and brainstorming in the dw_suggestions community. Drop in now and then and give us your opinion on the suggestions that get posted -- if we're ever on the fence about whether or not we should do something, the quality (and vehemence!) of the discussion is part of what sways us.


*

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; if you just want to come and hang out with us, join us in irc at irc.dwscoalition.org, channel #dw. (Warning: #dw is capable of eating your entire day. In fact, #dw is capable of eating your entire life.)

We'll see you next week for our next update.

Comments

[rho]

* The new ability to "update time" when posting an entry, so you can choose whether or not you want your entries to reflect the time you started them (opened the update page) or the time you posted them (if you hit the 'update time' button before you post).

Sweet holy hippo, I am excited by this.

[lethargic_man]

Sweet holy hippo

Will that be St Augustine, then? ;^b

[alixtii]

The entire synod, probably.

[ex_pseudonym472]

Thanks as always for the updates!

[samvara]

new ability to "update time" when posting an entry

Brilliant idea!

[thene]

Update Time sounds wonderful - saves me from having to refresh the page every time I've got something ready to post. Sweet!

[sara]

...you're that far ahead on your knitting? Fab, you can start in on mine. *snerk*

[zarhooie]

For those interested in making use of their semi-newly expanded comment slots, I present to you the following:


Text: Warning: #dw is capable of eating your entire day. In fact, #dw is capable of eating your entire life.


Text: Warning: studies have shown that #dw causes loss of time and mad laughter in lab rats.


Text: Warning: #dw is not only occasionally NSFW, it's occasionally Not Safe For Brain...


Text: Warning: participating in #dw may result in blacking out and discovering yourself as head of a project team.
^TRUFAX.


Text: Warning: studies have shown that #dw causes you to be unable to think up funny or clever warnings


Warning: studies have shown that participation in #dw may result in volunteerism in test subjects.

To credit: Icon by zarhooie@dw, text from dw_news posts by denise

[cesy]

Hehe. I saved a couple.

[yvi]

*grabby grab*

[jaaaarne]

The new ability to "update time" when posting an entry

That's neat. I was posting an entry a couple of days ago and noticed that the time had automatically updated when I was going to hit the "Post" button. I thought it was a pleasant glitch of my browser. :) Thank you for it! Things like that might seem small and unimportant, but such small details are what makes using site more comfortable. Go you! :)

[hivesofactivity]

I cannot tell you how much I love that it's perfectly okay for you to talk about knitting, and then put "I overslept this week" as the first line in point No 1 (and then you detail all the vast amounts of work that you still got done). I get so fed up when the prevailing work culture is that it is incredibly difficult to admit to anyone that one might actually be a human being with non-work stuff that sometimes intrudes into work life - especially when you have the kind of work that intrudes into non-work life all the fucking time, as I imagine DW does.

(Context: I have that type of on-duty-all-the-time job, as well as serious off-duty caring responsibilities. I was signed off work for two weeks by the doctor yesterday, and I'm debating whether I dare even to tell my boss, never mind actually take the time off.)

[denise]

The benefit of working for yourself is that you can set your own schedule, though. And I spent my entire 20s being a workaholic overachiever and totally paid the price for it, so my personal resolution was that my 30s would be better. (I still backslide a lot, but I'm learning to take it as it comes.)

I hope you're feeling better soon!

[wanted_a_pony]

THIS!!1!

[susanreads]

The new ability to "update time" when posting an entry Hurrah!

[lifeingeneral]

I love that we can update time when posting an entry, that's just so cool!

And you should enter The Guinness Book of world records for like fastest knitter I tried knitting a pair of socks one year for Christmas and, well besides the fact it became a muffler instead, it took me till January to finish it... me and knitting have a love hate relationship sadly, lol.

[denise]

A pair of socks takes me about four days! It helps that I have a tendency to knit a row or two every time I'm reading something on the screen, and I spend a lot of time reading stuff on the screen.

[nubriema]

Huh, swine flu! I hope he'll get well soon and it'll pass without greater difficulties - though I'm sure it will. One of my mum's colleagues had it and didn't even know it until she made a blood test after it; she didn't even have a fever or headache.
So, keeping my fingers crossed here. :)

Regarding the "update time" thingie - I'm not sure I'm getting this right, but would that work together with a concept of an up-to-date reading list as I am keeping one? Like, displaying that it started in March and was last updated in July, that kind of way?

Anyways, thanks for implementing this, I think it's gonna be really helpful, to me, at least. :)

[denise]

No, more like -- say you start an entry on Monday and finish it on Tuesday; as of now, unless you update it manually, the entry will say it was posted on Monday, but this will be a button on the update page that you click and it will change the time on the update page to whatever the time is at the point you update it, so you don't have to remember to change it yourself.

[nubriema]

Aaaaaaaaah, now I get it - thanks for explaining. :)

[yvi]

Thus far, 160 suggestions have made it through our Suggestions process and into our bug tracker, and of those, we've implemented 40 -- a 25% hit rate.

Whee!

[archersangel]

yay for the books community promo! i'm a member there & it could yse a little mor trafic

[erinptah]

It's the testing part that we always need more people for: if you want to check the layout in your browser, OS, and screen resolution combinations, we always need more eyeballs.

Have you guys looked at browsershots.org? It takes automatic screenshots of any page in just about every browser imaginable, then can give you the whole set in a .zip file.

[denise]

Oh yeah, but there are other little details -- like, some people have their journals set up with certain modules that others don't, etc, that all affects the display. And we also like to make sure that we cover all kinds of preferences and accessibility needs; we might not notice from screenshots, for instance, that the entries are set up incorrectly for screenreaders or whatever.

Basically, the more human beings who poke at it before it gets added to the site, the more we're confident that things aren't going to be screwed up somehow!