It's New Release Time
As promised, we're back from the long July Fourth weekend and have a brand new Vox release to play with. Instead of making the obligatory pun involving fireworks or independence, let's get right to the new stuff in Vox 0.8 (its release version number, for those playing at home).
More privacy controls & default settings
Want to write a public post but only allow your friends and family to comment on it? You can now do that. The same is true for anything (photos, video, etc...) you insert into your Vox blog. Additionally, we've made it possible for you to set your default privacy settings on stuff you send through a mobile device/email as well as through the browser
Global Explore
Want to explore Vox globally by tag? Meaning, see other posts on Vox that have been tagged a specific keyword. Well, you can do that now by simply hovering over the tag on the public blog. You'll then be prompted to view the type of content you want to see (either post, photo, audio or video).
QotD improvements
Although we've been delighted by the uptake on the Question of the Day, we've always realized that it should be a whole lot easier to answer the questions and insert other types of content in your posts. The solution? If you see a QotD that you'd like to answer, simply click on the "answer" button and you're taken to a compose page with all of the relevant fields already filled in. And, for future context, we've made it so that the question has been inserted in fabulous blockquoted glory! Want to save that post for later? You can set it as a draft as well
Post Titler
We wanted to make adding a title to your post as easy as possible, and we realized one way to do that would be by letting Vox do some of the work for you. In the past, if you hadn't entered a title at the time of saving your post, you'd get a little dialog that said you needed to enter a title. We've improved that dialog by actually offering smart suggestions for your post based on the content. Want to try it out? Just leave the title field blank and click save.
More themes
This is our first release to incorporate the work of our summer intern, Tiffany. Tiffany is an awesome illustrator and has been busily working to incorporate cityscapes (Paris, San Francisco, New York and Tokyo -- more to come) and our favorite four-legged friends into themes. And these are just the first batch!
Favorites
[This is Good]
Favorites are a way for you to keep track of things you like a lot. But sometimes, there are things that are good that you just want to quickly acknowledge. The ability to tell someone you like something of theirs, without the pressure of having to write a comment or think of something clever to say, was the motivation of the [this is good] feature. It's treated just like a comment in the sense that you can append more text to it if you like. But, if you just want to use [this is good] to say "hey, I liked this," that's good too. Thanks to Andre for the inspiration and blessing to use the concept of [this is good]
iStockphoto integration
Inserting a photo or image into a post does a great deal to illustrate a story. But sometimes you just don't have the right image on your computer. Most of the time, we find ourselves going to Google image search, locating a photo, saving it to the desktop and then uploading it into Vox -- not the best experience, by far. We're happy to say that we've made inserting an image impossibly easy: you can now insert images that you find from iStockphoto.com, a revolutionary service that does stock photos right (very much user-generated content, affordable and great experience). Search for a term, click on the image and insert. That's it! This is probably our favorite new feature of this release.
Cross-Posting to TypePad
Have a TypePad blog? Have a Vox blog? Want them to play together? Now, when you write a public post on Vox, you have the option of having an excerpt published to your TypePad blog.
But wait, there's so much more! We'll leave it to you to explore:
- Friends and Family tagging
- Ability to flag items as possibly offensive
- New hover behaviors with speed improvements
- Ability to add thumbnails for collections
-Mena
Comments
this is good. this is all good.
I like the cross-posting integration with TypePad. Wondering how comments are handled. Does this mean we can look forward to something similar with LJ in the future? That would be really nice.
Everyone's going to be commenting with, "this is good". Those are a lot of good updates!
love the saving the qotd as a draft. brilliant.
Thanks for the QOTD change, that one's been bugging me!
Can't wait to start using the David Jacobs!
God I can't wait to be able to try this stuff, it really looks like something I'd enjoy playing with. Searching members by interest would be awesome, since all I can do at the moment is read and comment, I'd like to find similar interests, if it's here I haven't found it yet.
Great release! [this is great]
[this is good]
Can't wait to start using the David Jacobs!
Awesome updates.
Could we pleaseeee have a London Cityscape ?
More cityscapes are planned -- and London definitely should be on the list!
+1
Good work Vox team!
msgid "this is good"
msgstr "Ca c'est bon"
Ths is awesome. Especially the helpful post titles. That's really cool.
The Torrez nod is making me laugh. I second the request for the ability to cross-post to LJ a la the new TypePad function.
How about a Seoul city-scape? (hint, hint, hint)
this is seriously good.
how about a Houston cityscape? :)
more privacy controls: will we eventually have the option of who may / may not view our contact info? i hate not having it visible, but rarely put that kind of information out to the general public... it would be wonderful to have a friends and family only option.
or is it????
Good, good, good! I've been waiting for the QOTD change. :-) Crossposting is very cool (would love to see LJ and MT added to that, if possible). Favorites are good!! And I really like the "this is good" cheers!! :-)
What happened to invites?
I thought we had unlimited starter invites?
very good indeed.
I also have a question about what happened to the starter invitiations. Are you removing that functionality altogether? Are current starter users going to be upgraded? Was server load just getting too high?
what about getting replies when someone replies to your comments? :) maybe threaded comments?
Getting replies to posts is sporadic at best too.
awesome
Cross-posting. I love it!!!
Ooh, all these features sound really cool. And yes, when will Starters be upgraded to Standard? I can't wait...
[this is doubleplus good]
we are le[g]ion
Finally, some themes that don't use the Arial font! Thank you Tiffany!
Wonderful updates. The QotD change is really good. The favorites is really good too. [this is goods]s are actually pretty good here on Vox...hooray.
[this is da bomb]
**Please read**
Today's post from Team Vox was to focus on new features introduced with today's release. However, I wanted to point out that we have been listening to your feedback! Some of you pointed out that having two types of accounts Starter & Standard has been *confusing*... so we've decided to remove Starter accounts for the time being, and everyone that was a Starter has been upgraded to a Standard account. A full post will be done early next week to elaborate. As always, we appreciate all of the feedback, so please continue to submit it (via the Feedback link). Welcome new Standard accounts, and blog away!
Yay for the draft on the QOTD
yay team vox!
this is quite good
WOOOOOOO!! I'm gonna blog now!!
keep up the awesome work, especially the QotD improvements and better exploring.
You guys did an INCREDIBLE job in 0.8. INCREDIBLE. Not only did my pup get her own theme (OMFGZ, STELLA BLOG!), but everything you've listed here is amazing. Congratulations on such a great release.
As an aside, one of the things I was MOST pleased with is that the push happened while I was doing massive editing on two big posts[1][2] and yet I DIDN'T LOSE THE POSTS. I don't know how you did that but congrats to the ops team.
[1]: Vox: There goes the Neighborhood
[2]: Exploring Vox
yay!
one thing that's been bothering me is that i'd LOVE it if i could manually enter links and html in my own posts. i've always done all of my links and stuff by hand, and i forget that vox won't recognize them. it'd be nice to have the option to "classic" edit, or use the wysiwyg editor.
So, how do we go about creating our own themes/customizations?
a cross-posting API would be great period, for those of us using MT or another blogging system currently. Also importers from other blogging systems would be appreciated for those contemplating a complete switch over.
Neat changes! I like the global explore by tag.
... I know saying this gets me laughed off the internets, but most of Vox won't work on any Mac OS 9 browser at all. IE 5 laughs it off, and scrolling doesn't work on Mozilla 1.3. You can browse Vox on Lynx ... but not the Macs at my work :)
...Lots of new goodies to play with, plus I've been upgraded. Thank.You.Vox! :)
A Dubai Skyline pleeease!
Good to hear positive news and nice to see this site grow. :) Oh, and well, are you probably planning on doing something about entry subject being an obligatory field now? I don't feel comfortable with having to fill it in since I don't usually use subject lines on entries and like it much better without them. Please, give it some consideration.
Best release yet, VOX team! Even more stuff to be addicted with. Can't wait to see what is around the corner. ;-)
What bonaldi said, it's a bit wobbly on Safari over here.
Would LOVE to see a Dallas Skyline theme please!! :):) Thanks so much!
Cool updates. I noticed the starter invites were gone. Can't say if that is a good or bad thing... yet. Anyway, keep up the good work. You may end up with some converts.
WTF!! Yesterday I offered someone a starter invite, and now I just logged in to find I have none. Not cool! If you're going to yank our invites, give us some warning! Could I please have at least one extra for my friend?
Awesome :) There is one thing that's been bugging me a bit, though, about the Photobucket option, (other than not being able to choose which photos show up on your blog page). I just uploaded 50+ photos to my Photobucket, thinking I could then just add them to my VOX, but it is only giving me the option to add a few (maybe the most recent 15 or so?) and doesn't give me the option to choose from the rest of the pictures in my Photobucket account. I wanted to use Photobucket to host them, in consideration of space on the VOX servers, but instead I ended up uploading the other half of them from my computer. :(
I mean, what can I say? ;)
great improvements! I think you've converted me from LJ
will we be getting starter invites back soon? I have lovely friends who are interested & currently missing out on Vox's greatness
Awesome update.
And as far as Cityscapes... Nashville.. 'nuff said.
Integrating with Typepad is a good step, but integrating with LiveJournal would be nice too please!
I love the new designs featuring the pets! I personally would love to see a Boston Terrier one!
Also, as a suggestion for other 'types' of blog designs . . . how about sports-style. One with a soccer ball for us 'Soccer Moms/Dads', a basketball, baseball, football, etc. Something simple that could be used for male or female would be most time-saving for you guys (like no kids/people in header?!?!).
I'm a 'Soccer Mom', myself. I don't have a life. ;)
You're doing SUCH a terrific job with VOX! I'm loving it!!
I'm just gonna add to the chorus of people wanting integration with LJ and MT and a general API. Also, it would be nice if you could create a page that lists every QOTD, ideally showing which ones the person logged in has answered to date. That way new users can go there and answer old questions, existing users can go back and answer ones they skipped, or re-answer any. It'd be a great starting point when lost for something to write about (after you've answered the current QOTD).
Love the new features. And don't forget about us city folk in the east, we could use a New York theme! (hint hint)
How about a Toronto Cityscape?
We Canadian Voxers need some representing!
How about adding the ability to subscribe to comments? That way if you leave a comment and someone responds, you will be notified and can comment again.
I would second what Matthew said - the ability to receive notifications (either via email or some other way) would be nice.
Luvelyjuvly...
and now for Movabletype cross-posting?
Cheers,
Dug
But this isn't. Rart!
I am a blind user of Vox, and have the following issues.
at sign up, there is no audio alternative to the visual verification. I needed to gain assistance. If you guys could possibly steal the code from LJ, that'd be nifty.
Second, you need to stop putting edits in list controlls. because of this, I, using JAWS for windows from Freedom Scientific, cannot actually log in. As it stands, I'm not sure if I am logged in because it doesn't say much about whether i am or not. On one side of the page it recognises my user name, on the other i get a log in box. Not cool!
I'd love to see a Portland skyscape.
The thing that's been bugging me [and I put in a feedback on it, I'm gonna repeat it anyway] is that the fonts are too big and the whole thing is just...too...big. Can we have at least an option to use smaller fonts/icons and not have the window stretch so wide? I doubt everyone who starts up is gonna be 80 and need all those huge fonts.
Besides that, it's pretty good =) Keep up the good work~
Is there a way to put a custom header image on the blogs? Will there be?
I hope we can cross-post to Blogger in the future, too. Excellent start, Vox. :)