Release Notes
Spruce Up Your Sidebar
Beta testers have been adding widgets
to their sidebar for a few weeks now, but starting today everyone can
get in on the fun. Another bit of good news: we're now supporting
javascript and iframes, which means we've lifted the restrictions we'd
set earlier.
To add a widget to your sidebar, head to the Design tab and click on "Customize your sidebars". Check the box next to "Embed" and click on the configure link to paste in the code and optional title for your widget. You can add or edit sidebar widgets from your blog too. When you're viewing your blog, click on the link that says "Dress up your sidebar". Please note: if your widget is wider than 160 pixels, it might look all wonky or just not display at all.
We just added a link to every post and asset to let you Digg it. This is the very first step in our upcoming Share feature that will help you share the best stuff on Vox with the other sites you're already using. Don't get too used to seeing the "Digg This" link; in a future release the link will change to "Share". The Share menu will still let you Digg something, but we'll add in options to share with more of the sites you enjoy using as well.
Neighborhood Digest Email: Delivery Time is Changing
You've
been receiving your daily or weekly neighborhood digest emails at
midnight in your local time zone, but we heard your feedback that you'd
rather receive them earlier, before you'd had a chance to read your
neighborhood page. So we've just adjusted the send time to 11AM. For
those of you receiving the weekly digest emails, this change will kick
in next week when we send it out Thursday at 11am. To adjust your
neighborhood digest email settings, click on Account, then on Notifications.
New Themes
Introducing
two new time-based themes! These themes will change color and design
three times every 24 hours, according to the time zone you've set for
your blog. (If you need to change your time zone for any reason, click
on Account at the top of the page and then Your Account.)
Just in time for the 4th of July here in the States, we've also just added some BBQ and Stars and Stripes themes, or you can use the Fireworks themes to celebrate. Voxers around the world in any time zone can show their love of music with the new Turntables themes. See all the new themes on the Design page.
1st row L to R: Havaianas Relax, BBQ Green, Mountainscape; 2nd row: Stars & Stripes, Summertime, and Turntables
- Krissy
Comments
Any insight into that, Voxey Peoples?
As for themes, can we get more themes for the personalized layouts? (i.e. more colors and patters for backgrounds, and an option to have a plain background or something? Like plain white background, etc. Thanks)
Changes should not break a user's setup. I hope this kind of mantra is kept in mind for future updates. Thanks.
Just joined digg so I could, uh, digg. Cool stuff, the sharing.
Also, the added embed features. Nice, Vox!!!
Also, blockquotes under Camo now have quote marks running down the entire left-hand side, whereas before they just had a leading quote at the beginning of the area (in common with the other themes).
As far as the Share feature, I hope ma.gnolia is included!
as far as sidebars goes.. i've said this before... but i think it would be great if we had the option to place our sidebars where we wanted.. maybe even name them and create new ones! i know i would probably get rid of the "about me" section the very top because i'm not really a fan of "about me" sections..
also....when you add an option... don't take away an option... like w/ time stamps and digg.. it's exciting when new things are added.. but i would like to have the option to display my main page without timestamps...and without digg... etc...
anyway... widgets are good... and allowing javascript is another big step in the right direction! keep it up!
Etsy and detailed stats widgets love you now! :)
Bring back old RSS feeds, plz. :}?
As Paul Mison said, I wish the feed changes were announced prior or during said implementation. I was quite alarmed to find my feeds truncated when reading my email. I have my own (and friends') Vox feeds forwarded to me via RssFwd for archiving/backup purposes). Truncated feeds defeats my intention of archiving blog entries. I don't have a problem with Vox offering short/truncated feeds because I know some people may prefer truncated feeds and that truncated feeds, as one possible perspective, also motivate the reader to visit said page to lure the him/her into viewing other material that may be visible or advertised on the page. However, as Ross suggested a "-short" feed should have been created as an alternative rather than replacing the default setup. I had to manually change about 20-30 feed URLs to correct the "damage."
Speaking of the feed system change, I noticed that the medium to full size display of all media (images, audio album cover/icons, books and videos) have been replaced by very small thumbnails within the Photos, Audio, Books, Videos, and Collections feeds, regardless of the short or full feed style. Thankfully the Posts feeds display the actual size selected by the author. Could the Vox Team correct the media at medium or regular size for full feeds? Otherwise, what's the point of offering a full feed for the media sections of blogs if it is no different from the truncated feed, save for the cut-off length of the "description" for the item?
I love the new themes, especially the themes that rotate depending on the time of day. I hope Vox offers more rotating themes as time progresses. I'm also hoping for more Personalized Theme colors, designs and options.
I too hope users are given the option to add multiple widgets. When testing out different widgets on my blog I noticed that some widgets were cropped (in width and/or height) while others were left intact. This varied across various widgets from numerous sources. I wonder if it's the coding of the widget or the code for the sidebar, or both, that is doing this.
I'm somewhat concerned with the news that JavaScript is now allowed in the sidebar. As lemmy said, this can cause security issues on many levels. Does the team have any safeguards in place to hinder malicious scripts? Also, does the team have any suggestions to add a way for users to block/hide or prevent sidebars from loading? Maybe as an option one can activate or deactivate in their Account settings? This might make many Voxers feel safer navigating the Vox community and will also appease users, such as myself, who detest auto-start music players embedded on webpages (one of many reasons I hate MySpace)?
Apologies for the long comment. I just felt compelled to voice my concerns and opinions.
It sucks how you can't customize your sidebar better.
Why is it that my widgets don't show up properly? And as AndraFoot asks: why can't we see more than one? I have two widgets, the bookroll one shows OK but the map one is only showing the top quarter. Sucks.
Think I should just stick with WordPress.
It sucks how you can't customize your sidebar better.
Why is it that my widgets don't show up properly? And as AndraFoot asks: why can't we see more than one? I have two widgets, the bookroll one shows OK but the map one is only showing the top quarter. Sucks.
Think I should just stick with WordPress.
at the top and
at the bottom, where 900px is the approximate height of my three widgets.
i expect some more updates like making their profile customize one to design their profile as they wish which really attracts the users.
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