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_news2010-03-08 11:21 pm

Weekly Update: 8 March

I think there's a problem with my calendar; it keeps getting stuck back on Monday. I'm fairly certain it was just Monday yesterday ...

Still, temporal distortion aside, onwards to the weekly update.



1. Development



Dev work this week concentrated on the styles end of things, with new themes, new layouts (including EasyRead, a one-column layout built to accomodate large text and both high and low-contrast colors) and updates to the S2 core backend. That wasn't all, though! This week also included some improvements to the process of leaving a deleted community, upgrades to how screened comments are shown on the site scheme once comments collapse, and a fix to the multiple icon uploader for the Internet Explorer browser, among other things.

This week's code tour explains it all. (And thanks to [personal profile] jd for his first (code)tour of duty!)


2. Anniversary Parties



The one-year anniversary of our open beta is fast approaching, and while we haven't sorted out exactly what we're going to be doing 'officially', [personal profile] jumpuphigh has created a community that will let people plan DW-related parties: [site community profile] dw_meetups. Go forth and celebrate!


3. Invites



As many people noticed, we released a new batch of invite codes into the wild this week, sent this time to people who had used up all their available invites. Enjoy inviting your friends!

Meanwhile, it's been a while since we've mentioned it, but: If you need a larger bunch of invites, to move over a community or start a RP, just contact us by opening a Support request in the Account Payments department. Let us know how many you need and why, and we'll be happy to take care of it.


4. Coming Soon



We've got some major things coming soon! In addition to cross-site reading, which Mark is still working on, we've also got:

* Renames! Thanks to the tireless efforts of [personal profile] afuna, soon you'll be able to buy and use rename tokens to change your username. (We had to reimplement the functionality, because LJ's version of the code isn't open source.) Look for more information about this new feature soon.

* Updates to the Latest Things page: [staff profile] mark had an awesome day today and put together a great new feature that will be live with the next code push. The Latest page will track the most popular tags used on the site, and provide a list of the 100 most popular (and links to see the posts tagged with those tags).

And, of course, the big one:


5. Payments



Our application with our chosen provider has been approved, and we hope to be able to once more accept credit card payments, very soon. We are (for what we hope are obvious reasons) not going to be publicising the name of our new provider, since their features allow us to process the payment entirely on our end.

In order to comply with their requirements, we'll be changing around the way "paid accounts" are handled a bit -- we'll get into that more once we do it. But, as part of that change, we'll also be getting something that people have been asking for for a while: payment credits, which can be used for extra services on your own account or gifted to someone else's account. Look for more information coming soon.

And, until we're able to get our new processor implemented, we're still accepting checks and money orders in USD through our shop, and if you have a paid account that's about to expire and you can't use check or money order for any reason, contact us at accounts@dreamwidth.org or by opening a Support request in the Account Payments department. A special thank-you goes to everyone who's braved the Outside in order to send us a check or money order in the past week -- we really appreciate your effort. (And the notecards and words of encouragement are a great pick-me-up, too!)


6. Communities



Mark and I have been hard at work on a lot of things, but we've taken the time to create some community spaces, too. Some self-promotion:

[community profile] fucking_meds: For complaining about your medication (of all types): side effects, reactions, drugs that don't do what they say they do on the label, and all kinds of general griping.

[community profile] the_2nd: Political discussion with a conservative/libertarian slant, for all of you who feel outnumbered!

(No points for guessing which of us moderates which community.)

In non-us-started communities, there's also [community profile] actyourwage, a finances and frugal-living community based on getting out of debt and achieving your financial goals, and [community profile] homeeconomics101, for figuring out what the heck you're supposed to do with that broccoli/scrub brush/laundry/vaccuum anyway. And, if you're looking for something else, [site community profile] dw_community_promo has a list of communities you might find interesting.


7. Counting Down ...



We're counting down the weeks until [personal profile] afuna can start in on Dreamwidth full-time! Her first task will be implementing draft/scheduled posts, which carries with it a change to both the Update and Edit Journal pages in order to make those new features possible (and make them make sense!)

Mark talked about the update page redesign in his February 16th update (item #6), which also explains the process we'll be undergoing to make sure the end result works for everybody (or at least doesn't actively annoy the crap out of you). Afuna's going to be the one who implements the working mockup for us, at which point I'll be talking about what's changing, why it's changing, and how each of the changes will work better with the new features.

(And, since a lot of people have asked: we're going to be moving from the 'scroll' metaphor for your journal to the bookcase/lego-block model: your journal will be the thing that holds all the different contents (entries), which you'll be able to snap out, rearrange, move around, and otherwise play with. The biggest thing I'm excited about with this is getting an Edit Journal page that's useful.)

*

Now that I've been writing this update for hours and hours, that's it for us for another 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've got an idea to make the site better, you can make a suggestion.

We'll see you next week for our next update.
angelikitten: A happy orange kitty with a halo (Random - What does this button do?)

[personal profile] angelikitten 2010-03-09 07:06 am (UTC)(link)
Here's hoping that the update page will work okay on my phone - it's the only internet access I have!
finch: (Default)

[personal profile] finch 2010-03-09 07:21 am (UTC)(link)
Actually, if you could throw together an alternate mobile version, that would be amazing...
quivo: Watercolor of a daisy (Default)

[personal profile] quivo 2010-03-09 11:58 am (UTC)(link)
Honestly, I'd be happy with just a slight expansion of the dreamwidth.org/mobile featureset. I.e. display posts on your reading list as well as the titles, and link heavily into the Lynx site scheme, since that displays well on pretty much everything. I also have a G1 lying around that I'd be willing to donate to the effort for testing purposes.
ursamajor: people on the beach watching the ocean (Default)

[personal profile] ursamajor 2010-03-09 01:09 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't know that I have enough technical expertise to lead the project, but now that using my phone for internet access is such a key part of how I interact with the webworld, you can count me in as an eager volunteer for testing and possibly interface mocking up.

(And now REALLY I run to work!)
exor674: Computer Science is my girlfriend (Default)

[personal profile] exor674 2010-03-09 04:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Actually, an interesting idea I have -- so it'd be *trivial* since converting pages over to the new tempting system separates the logic and the display -- to have two or three different templates, one for desktop browsers, one for the "desktop-class" mobile browsers if needed (Mobile WebKit is like, love), and one simple page for the rest of the mobile browsers.
alierak: (Default)

[personal profile] alierak 2010-03-09 06:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Occasionally, a typo transcends mere misspelling and yields a new word or turn of phrase with meaning all its own. Template Toolkit, I now dub thee a "tempting system", and may the users succumb!

:)
gchick: Small furry animal wearing a tin-foil hat (Default)

[personal profile] gchick 2010-03-12 03:43 am (UTC)(link)
Ooh, and so it is!
azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)

[personal profile] azurelunatic 2010-03-09 08:34 am (UTC)(link)
One good thing about mobile browsing is that it shares a good amount of its needs with the people who are using screenreaders and text-only browsers. Those are sure to be also taken into consideration. I'm even less of a developer than Denise is, but I feel it very likely that if there has to be a separate screenreader/text-browser -safe version of the page, then it should not cause a mobile device (many/any) problems.
angelikitten: Various supervillains celebrating (Celebration - Yay)

[personal profile] angelikitten 2010-03-09 07:45 am (UTC)(link)
\o/! Nikita, my phone, is very pleased to hear this :)