Entry tags:
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.
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]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jd for his first (code)tour of duty!)
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',jumpuphigh has created a community that will let people plan DW-related parties: ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png)
dw_meetups. Go forth and celebrate!
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.
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 ofafuna, 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]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png)
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:
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!)
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]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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.
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 alsoactyourwage, a finances and frugal-living community based on getting out of debt and achieving your financial goals, and 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, dw_community_promo has a list of communities you might find interesting.
We're counting down the weeks untilafuna 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.
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
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',
jumpuphigh has created a community that will let people plan DW-related parties: 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
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:
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:
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.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
actyourwage, a finances and frugal-living community based on getting out of debt and achieving your financial goals, and 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, dw_community_promo has a list of communities you might find interesting.7. Counting Down ...
We're counting down the weeks until
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.
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(Are the invite codes also open source or are they also site-specific?)
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Invites are in dw-free! Our goal is for people to be able to run a for-profit production site out of the box with just dw-free. (We've got a few people who are doing it so far, with very small installs admittedly but still.)
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