New Release: Groups Mania!
We've got a brand new release out today that focuses on tidying up spots around Vox, especially in Vox Groups. Here's some of the fixes and improvements you'll see:
Group Enhancements
Now you can view and manage your group invitations all on one page, instead of managing your invitations solely through email notifications. Just head to the Groups dashboard to accept or decline invitations.
We also added a "Post To Group" button to the control strip of each group. When you click on that button you'll be taken to the Compose screen with the group already chosen and the security level set to "you (hidden)". If you want your post to display in both the group and your own blog, be sure to remember to change the security level to "anyone".
Anyone who's addicted to posting from their mobile phone will be happy to know that you can set up additional posting emails for their groups. Head to the "Mobile Settings" page (under the Account link) and click on the "Add a posting address" button. You can set your privacy level, add tag(s) and then choose a group to post to.
Group hosts can also now remove users from groups, or users themselves can choose to remove their content if they leave a group. When the last member leaves a group, the group will be deleted and the group name will become available again.
We've made some tweaks to your group feeds. You can now see non-public posts in feeds, as long as you’re authorized and authenticated. You can also subscribe to feeds of groups, including private groups of which you are a member. This means you can just put them all in your feedreader and watch them from there.
Email Improvements
Speaking of email notifications, we've given the once-over to a lot of notifications you commonly receive, including new neighbors, new messages, new comments and more. Look for larger member photos and better copy. You'll also notice that certain notifications from Vox members will come from their email addresses, instead of from vox (at) sixapart. That way, (for example) when your mom gets a private message from you, she doesn't immediately delete it because it's from Six Apart (some company that she's never heard of). But don't worry, we've respected your privacy settings too. So if you've opted not to share your email or real name, we will default back to vox at sixapart.com. Your email settings can be configured over on your account profile page.
New Look For Your Neighbors Page
The Neighbors page is a place where you can view who is in someone's neighborhood. We used to just display the neighbors' member photo and member name, but we've improved the page by increasing the photo size, changing the layout to three columns and adding pagination. Yay to pagination!
New Themes!
We've also just adapted 40 existing themes for your groups! From illustrated to seasonal to Valentine's themes, you have so many more to choose. Group hosts can change the group design by clicking on the Settings tab within their group and clicking "Change Theme".
Comments
I have only one question; when will you be making Vox t shirts??
Is there no longer a way to just view all of the people in a neighbourhood? I used to use this a great deal.... instead all I can view is posts and media it seems...
GIVE ME BACK THE PEOPLE!
Scratch the last comment - for anyone wondering the list of actual people can be found through someones profile, in the sidebar.
Here's some suggestions for further improvements Team Vox!
1. [This one is GOOD] Make it possible to post ONLY to ones group page, so that it is not mandatory that it also shows up on someone's VOX. If something is going to be private, and only readable for the group, why make it show up on the persons blog at all?
2. Make it possible to email/message all the people in a group, instead of selecting each person manually.
3. Remove the ads all over the group pages!
4. I still hold that allowing anonymous comments within normal posts would increase feedback and probably convince more people to join VOX in the long run.
btw, is there an easier way to add items to groups than selecting each one individually and sharing it to the group?? its quite frustrating and takes a long time if you upload alot of them at one time.
I'm with Hotrod...the new Neighborhood page is clumsy. If I want to go directly to , say Team Vox, I have to scroll through about FIVE pages of neighbors. and it's not even like I can go immediately to the last page, I just have to go, next, look around, next, look around, next, look around, OH THERE'S team vox. The new portions of neighbor posts is redundant of the Vox Watch Page.
There is no way for me to click once to see all my neighbors and click one more time to the person I am looking for. it's been unstreamlined.
oh---now I see that the neighborhood is now arranged backwards...with your most recent adds first, and team vox peeps are all the way at the end.
also I think it is odd that Next/Previous is arranged that way. shouldn't it go Previous/Next?
Sorry I am complaining a lot today...but I'm trying to be constructive honestly.
Another thing is....I think the Team Vox avatar/link (this one) should appear on the Vox home page. It should be easier to find, you should have it accessible on the Explore Page, the Vox Watch page, etc.
Most of the changes you've implemented up to now have been great, but this one - no so much.
I'm on the "go back to the old neighbourhood" bandwagon - I do not like the update to it at all - well, the date of peeps' last update is okay considering it doesn't take long for the few that show on the right-hand side of our main page to change
and I'd like to use this opportunity to suggest something I posted about once, which received some positive feedback: is there any way to get a notification if someone replies to your comment on another post (ie clicks the "reply" button in the comment section) - it's very easy to forget where you've commented and a lot are worth going back to follow the thread of comments
as for the hood view.. i like the larger icons and update dates.. i don't like the new ordering because it throws me off from what i had gotten used to.
i think being able to privately arrange your list of neighbours would be really helpful. then when i'm looking for someone, i can find them easier.. and only i see it, so someone won't feel bad if i put them at the bottom of the list.
another option could be to set how many you want to see per page of neighbours.. maybe i want to see 25, but someone else wants 50.. could be a nice option.
Please put back the old "neighborhood" page. What's there now strikes me as change for change sake. The new page doesn't display properly half the time anyway.
Sorry
this is very frustrating - please, please revert to the old way. Like jp, I think that what you've done appears to be change for change's sake - most definitely NOT an improvement.
I kindof liked the old page as well, but at the same time - it is nice to see updates. Maybe just adding several ways to "order" the neighbors would solve the issues that people have. That way one person could sort by friends/family/etc and another person could sort by last updated and yet another person could sort by when people joined vox, etc. I suppose name sort would be helpful too as I often get lost if someone changes their pic and I have to search all around.
As for the changes in how comment e-mails are delivered. le sigh* My inbox is so messed up now.
Well.. since CrankyPants mentioned it. I would like see my neighbors displayed in alphabetical order, or maybe order of who posted most recently.
I also noticed that the new neighbors layout showed 11 people in the first column, 10 in the second, 9 in the third... making me think, because all columns werent' filled, that i had lost neighborsl. But noooo.... there was a little "next" link which revealed a 2nd page.
I don't hate it the new layout - it will take some getting used to - but I do think all columns should be equally populated and the "Next" link should be larger.
Comment notification emails? What are you talking about? I've never rec'd any kind of comment notifications.
thanks for the tip, cranky, i'll have to update my email filters now.
I hope the Vox Team plans to implement a segregation of group posts in VoxWatch (similar to that of tag feeds and Neighbor/Friend/Family posts sorted by user) as it would be nice to read posts sorted by group.
I actually like the new Neighborhood page. I like how the mini-list of neighbors was removed from the Neighborhood page to accommodate the neighbor's posts and media. I also like the new layout/design for the Neighbors list. My only complaints are the number of pages necessary to navigate through one's list and the order in which Voxers are listed. A drop-down box giving users the option to sort the list (alphabetical, last updated, added to neighborhood, or date account was created), or the number of neighbors to view per page, would be very handy. An alternative would be to give Voxers the option to sort everyone's Neighborhood list to their liking in their Account Settings, similar to time zone settings where it differs for each logged in user.
As a few others have mentioned, it would be nice to read posts from groups to which we are subscribed via a page on our blog similar to that of our Neighborhood page.
I know we're asking a lot from you, Team Vox, but it's because you offer such a great service. I understand that you receive a ton of requests -- both good and bad as well as reasonable and impracticable -- I just wanted to say that I truly appreciate all the time and effort you put into this project and for keeping an open mind to your users' requests. Thanks. :)
Love you and all the releases, Vox! EXCEPT FOR THE NEIGHBORHOOD PAGE. Unless I'm misunderstanding how it works, how would this be an improvement? Please go back to the old page or allow us to customize our own (at least the order). 'Cause I can't figure out what order they're in right now.
You're still great, just missed the boat on this one.
I agree with Crankpants.. the new neighbourhood thing sucks tbh. It is clumsy and time comsuming trying to find people. Alpahbetically listing would be better (or at least have options so we can customise our own neighbourhood views)
The next/previous thing is just plain silly.
I know it is only a minor detail but one of those minor things apt to bring the more OCD of your users to the brink of madness.
Pretty, pretty please, may I have a set of end quotation marks at the end of the block paragraph?
Dear Dev Team,
How come as a group leader or "starter", you still cannot remove anyone you've made a host? Why cant we have "Levels" of hosts? Aka: Group Leader, Group Helper, Veteran Member, New Member? And maybe even make it fun so we can rename these levels or classes of hosts / members in the settings page? This wouldn't be hard to code in and would probably take one guy less than a couple hours of database and page maintence. Even if we could just remove these "sub hosts" that would be killer. Leave all that extra fancy "level" and "name" stuff for the part where you go ... not so beta, with groups. : ) That would make one very special group host very very happy, but of course I still love you vox, keep on kickin!
~ Zak/Taken