Release Notes! Yay!
It's new release time (hello 9, aka Rocca -- can you guess our code names?). The theme of today's release is making the invitation process easier and more rewarding. That means we've made some changes and added some features that will allow people to get the greatness (we think) of Vox communities almost instantly.
And now to some of the highlights of this release:
Suggest a Friend during Invite
Suggest a User Pic too!
I'm constantly inviting people to Vox that I just know don't have a digital photo of themselves on their computer desktop -- my mom, for example. We've now provided the option to suggest a user picture at invitation time that the invitee can accept or decline when they first register for Vox. If they don't like their picture, they can always upload their own.
Quick Link to a Neighbor
Since we write about people that we know all the time, it makes sense to make it easy to link to them. Now, when you're adding someone that on Vox, you can either select them from your neighbor's list or search Vox. At click, a link to their Vox blog is automatically inserted.
Edit Time and Date
You may have noticed that currently when you first save a post as a draft and then publish it later, it retains the original date from when you first wrote it. That means, for example, that if you first save a QoTD answer as a draft, when you finally publish it, the date may be a couple days old. In this release we've made it so you can edit the date back in time or any time up to the current time. You can find this functionality over on the Compose page on the "save" bar
iFilm Conduit
We've introduced a new "conduit" -- the word for other web services that have been integrated in Vox. We worked with iFilm to allow you to bring in their videos onto your own blog. The iFilm Conduit can be found in "Videos" in Organize and off of Compose. iFilm is especially great for movie trailers and music videos and has a great video player that allows you to browse for other content inline.
More Themes!
Blog Widening
HTML Mail Improvements
We've cleaned up and made the HTML mails you receive easier to read. Additionally, we've worked to make actions clearer. For example, when someone adds you as a friend or invites you to Vox, the email now includes their public user picture. That's just one way to make it easier to see who that person is.
The release also includes little functionality improvements here and there as well as the usual bug fixing and performance enhancements.
As mentioned at the beginning of today's release notes, our focus has been improving the invite process. We'll be handing out more invitations real soon and are planning to run a little contest to receive a whole bunch of invites to share with your family and friends.
As always, thanks for being part of the Vox community and keep the feedback coming!
- Mena
Comments
looks like some great new features. still waiting for some integration with LJ but i guess that can wait a bit.
I love the linking to neighbors and being able to include iFilm stuff! Nice work, Team Vox. :)
BRAVI!!! *claps claps*
You must have read my mind. I was just searching around to see if I could edit the time and date on posts.
Blog widening: Seems that embedded objects (video and images) appear larger in blogs now and appear more pixelated. However, when viewing the asset by itself, it does not.
Compare: Blog post with vid and Asset page for vid
I still wish there were a method to publish only an abstract of an entry to the index page (something like the lj-cut functionality). Neighbor linking is great. The minor fixes you've made to the posting form are great. Each new release seems to make things easier and better around here, so good job! :-)
but are non-Vox users going to be able to comment at any point? That's the only thing holding me back from switching my blogging entirely over to Vox.
I really like the new themes, especially this one (Urban Noir) and the Bunnylicious ones. :]
Woot! woot! great changes!!!
The objects (photos, etc...) were made larger by mistake -- we're going to be reverting that change back soon.
Yay, cycling!
The wider layouts are awesome!!
I don't know if this is a bug that has crept into this new release, but this evening all of a sudden some of the photos that some of my neighbors had posted and included in blogs have disappeared -- going all the way to "full size" seems to show the picture, but neither the blog in which they are included nor the picture item itself shows the less-than-full-size image.
Thank you for the back dating!
Still would like to integrate with LJ, please! Also would like to have a better way to track comments, maybe expand the list so we don't have to friend every single person we leave a comment for.
I don't like the widening! The blog doesn't fit my screen anymore. Can't that be optional?
Wider tables is awesome, thanks!
Thanks for all your feedback so far! Integration with other services (especially LJ) is definitely on the feature roadmap. Just a note -- for feature requests, please use the feedback link on the control strip. Your requests are better tracked by us that way.
You need a [this is bad] checkbox for my comment.
Blog Widening
This is VERY VERY VERY BAD. You've now caused me to have horizontal scroll bars on EVERY SINGLE BLOG AT VOX, including my own. I could handle the horizontal scroll bars on the blog management pages, like compose, organize, design, even the Vox home page but I canNOT handle them on my own blog and every blog at Vox!
Not everyone has their browser window open to 1000 pixels wide or higher - some of us have other things we consider important to see, like the Google sidebar and my own personal links sidebar in Firefox, my browser.
I've been a long time MT user and have always admired your templates and the SixApart website but Vox now gets many thumbs down from me and I just recommended it to my cousin for his first website - guess I'll have to suggest something else, like Blogger.com where I never see horizontal scroll bars.
PLEASE FIX THE HORIZONTAL SCROLL BARS! I really liked what you've done with Vox but this is a deal-breaker for me.
Thanks for the good work!! I like the wider layout.
@aa: Thanks for the feedback. You know have my [this is good] seal of approval.
Love the new templates. Do NOT like the widening. It's very tiring on the eyes and makes templates that used to look nice and neat now look stretched-out and amateur. Please at least give us some kind of option over our blog width.
blog widening -- great move. the pages look so much better now, filling in all that extra space on the sides. also, I love the new themes. I switched mine over to urban right away. :)
I love the new release EXCEPT fir the blog widening. It's so much easier to read/process narrow columns of text. My gorgeous blog is now only semi-attractive.
For the folks who don't like the blog widening, we did a lot of research before we went there and found:
* Many of the largest sites (from My Space to the New York Times to CNN) have also standardized on a similar larger width.
* The vast majority (and I mean well over 90%) of our users have screens which support the increased width.
* The Vox application was already that width and we have had 0 complaints about it.
* We did have a fair number of complaints about the blogs being too narrow.
As everything with Vox, we will listen to your feedback and if we hear that this is a meaningful issue, we will look at providing a narrower template option in a future release. Please let feedback know if this is a big concern for you.
On one hand, I wished for wider layouts when I picked them out, but after I got used to the width, you wnt and changed it. Could you please provide an option to set a width ourselves?
I do NOT like the new widening. I think there should be an option for wide or thin as a browser, because not all people have their browser on full-screen. In fact, I refuse to do so - I have the attitude that if it requires me to scroll to the right or make my browser bigger, it's not worth reading. I keep my browser about as big as some people with smaller [numbers-wise] resolutions have their entire screen, so this widening gives them issues too, I imagine.
The rest of it is lovely.
Vox just keeps getting better and better!! Thanks for all your hard work Team Vox!
Many of the largest sites (from My Space to the New York Times to CNN) have also standardized on a similar larger width. And a lot of us don't go there for those reasons. I straight-out refuse to visit them BECAUSE of their width.
The vast majority (and I mean well over 90%) of our users have screens which support the increased width. Just because they support that width does not mean that the users want that width. To assume that they WILL have their browser that big is a bit rediculous, don't you think?
We did have a fair number of complaints about the blogs being too narrow. Then make an option. Don't force it on all of us.
Love the new layouts and the widening.
Would love to be able to copy and paste when making a post
Any chance of LJ cross posting in the near future?
Keep up the good work!
I like the new release EXCEPT for the blog widening.
"Many of the largest sites (from My Space to the New York Times to CNN) have also standardized on a similar larger width"
Yes, but CNN and the New York Times aren't blogs. And the MySpace look is what many of us have come to Vox to avoid.
"The vast majority (and I mean well over 90%) of our users have screens which support the increased width."
Absolutely, but this is more a matter of aesthetics for many of us. If I suddenly had a larger front yard, would I want to fill it with more yard gnomes just because my yard would support them? (Incidentally I don't have any yard gnomes. Or a front yard.)
"We did have a fair number of complaints about the blogs being too narrow."
Why not provide wider templates to choose rather than widen the blogs globally? That's like saying, "Hey, somebody's allergic to cheese, so... tofu for everybody!"
All in all, the latest updates are a vast improvement and are *much* appreciated. The widening, though? Eh, not so much.
One request for those not crazy about the blog widening: please take some time just to see if you can get used to it. At first, I admit it is a bit jarring. However, I have found that more and more people who didn't like it at first are now fond of it -- myself included.
We've heard the issues against them and as Andrew said, we will listen to feedback and address accordingly.
I like the widening, it allowed me to switch to a two side column layout and leave plenty of room for blog entries. Before the widening the two column layouts seemed way to cramped.
Yes, that's the other thing. Before the widening, the three column layout seemed almost unusable. For those who are on two, try switching to three and see if that make a difference in your perception. Additionally, the sidebar column on the left side rather than the right may make it more easy to read.
Now I have a horizontal scroll. I hate horizontal scroll. I avoid sites with horizontal scrolls like the plague. I had no problem seeing all my content before. I don't know know why you have to change it and I was really starting to enjoy Vox too. This is such a disappointment.
Yes, the blog widening makes three columns nearly mandatory. Is that somehow a good thing?
I love the new release, just not the blog widening.
Thanks!
I just wish there were some more people that I knew around here... somehow they probably like LJ too much and/or are lethargic to try out new stuff...
i <3 you guys. and ladies. this place keeps getting better and prettier. damn you all for making me use this instead of my OWN website. :-(
but i love Vox!
wider is better. the three column layouts were pretty tight.
Well, since people are posting about the new wider column widths I might as well “geek-out” and add my two-cents...
Personally, not a fan of the wider columns...
I work as graphic designer for an agency that is required to follow the Canadian Accessibility Guidelines for all of our work. In the guidelines, a strong emphasis is placed on not creating excessively wide columns as they reduce people’s ability to keep their eyes following the proper flow in a large body of text.
(I know, I know... I can feel your eyes rolling...)
All other things Vox... very good and getting better.
Thank you for the backdating option... makes it possible to bring over entries from other blogs and keep life in proper time.
--
steelie
I personally don't really care about the wider or narrower column. But an option that you can switch between the two would be great.
Is Vox going to let people outside of Vox comment on the entries? And are we ever going to be able to put our own links in the sidebar somehow? Integration with the Nokia LifeBlog API would also be great, coz I don't like emailing my moblog entries. Another feature that would be nice to have is that if we're allowed to shift things around in the sidebars, because right now, my left sidebar looks really empty comparing to the right one...and yes, I've switched from one sidebar column to two on each side with the widening of the columns.
Hi Elellanyar... can't speak to the issue about outsiders commenting on Vox yet. But more flexibility in sidebars is definitely on the roadmap, both in terms of layout and content. As far as Lifeblog, we support that already and have since pre-release. I use it every day! Just set the posting address to www.vox.com/atom and it should work fine. I use mine to post to both Vox and TypePad.
The "suggest a friend" and "easily link to a neighbor" are great tools - thanks!
I appreciate wider columns, especially for a blog. When I write an excessively long entry (as I am wont to do) I don't want to make people scroll constantly. Also, I hate reading when one paragraph takes up the whole screen - it's asthetically similar to someone not using paragraph breaks (from my point of view) and seems more difficult to parse somehow.
I'm also looking forward to the Chicago template. :)
I HATE the widening. Before it fit perfectly on my screen now I have to scroll for every single line.
Not everyone has big screens. Not everyone wants big screens. Perhaps you could have a "select screen size" option?
The widening issue is just a pain for me and makes my eyes sore. HATE it and I am not the type of person to use the HATE word.
Everything else is fabulous, but the widening... blech.
Vox is making a great improvements, and I'm really happy with the new features. Somehow, I have to agree with sme other commenters that the 'Blog Widening' was not really a good idea. Some people still have their computers set on 800x600 pixels resolution though some might be using the standard 1024x768 or widescreen resolutions. Maybe you could give us options to choose the sizes of the columns, if that is possible.
With that aside, I like the new invitation options and those other improvements. I look forward to seeing more improvements from time to time. :)
Hi AA, just tried it out and it worked! Thank you very much!!!
not to kick a dead horse, but the forced blog widening will probably cause me to leave the site, which is a real shame as I was just starting to seriously consider switching over to VOX entirely.
I agree that it shouldn't be forced on everyone. The line lengths are too long, and the horizontal scroll is a huge pain in the ass. I have a laptop with a small screen and the wider blog is driving me crazy and forcing me to use the three column layout which wasn't really my preference.
Why isn't it possible to have the OPTION of wider layouts? Make the existing layouts have an option for wide or narrow. This way, everyone can have a blog that they're happy with and not be forced into the general preference.
I have a laptop with a small screen. My browser isn't maximized. I'm using a two-column layout. No horizontal scroll.
So uh... (shrug)
Mena wrote:
One request for those not crazy about the blog widening: please take some time just to see if you can get used to it. At first, I admit it is a bit jarring. However, I have found that more and more people who didn't like it at first are now fond of it -- myself included.
Horizontal scroll bars are not something to "get used to" - especially when it either cuts off the links that make people want to explore your site or cuts off the blog post they came to read (depending on the blogger's layout choice).
Someone (AA?) mentioned the width at Myspace being similar to Vox (and CNN and NY Times). I'm not a frequent visitor there but I just checked and I don't have a horizontal scroll bar there at all, I clicked on a bunch of their blogs and still no horizontal scroll bars. It all fit nicely in my screen with a small amount of blank space on each side.
As I point out in my most recent post in my blog, Vox isn't a news site like NY Times or CNN and their layouts are very different on their home pages and most of CNN's story pages are limited to an 800 pixel width, including the advertising.
@aa: Does this mean that you support the full atom posting api? Because I can't seem to get to work in ecto.....
One note with the NYTimes and the CNN websites is that the fairly ignorable content is along the right column, so those of us that intentionally keep our browsers narrower don't mind missing the adverts and secondary content that is off of the page. With Vox (this is a compliment), everything has equal and substantial weight.
I can live with the wider format, I can certainly get used to the wider format, but it isn't my preference.
I now have a horizontal scroll bar. I am not alone in saying, I hate having to scroll horizontally.
Horizontal scroll bars are the kiss of death for most websites. I may suffer through them if a site has information or service that I really, really need and I can't find elsewhere. If not, forget it. There are plenty of websites out there that don't have them.
The widening is a really, really bad idea. Be serious. Do you really expect people to get used to scrolling horizontally?
The widening sucks because now I can't see the martini glasses or whatever they were!
Totally NOT a fan of the new wider columns. Using Mozilla, and it makes layouts go all funky unless I set my screen resolution so high that I then have trouble reading the default text size.
If your goal is to design Vox for a more "mature" audience (i.e. people over 30, not trusted by other blogging services) you need to take into account that we need to be able to SEE :)
Many of the largest sites (from My Space to the New York Times to CNN) have also standardized on a similar larger width.
And when I go to those sites, I make my browser window smaller, because I hate them.
Boo hiss on the horizontal scrolling.
Today, when I entered my vox blog, I immediately noticed the broadened layout. And I love it. Out of all the other themes that I use including in my blogs hosted in my own web domains, I like this Vox theme and layout the most. Good work.
I like the blog widening however now I can only see a small fraction of my "Invites" link on the home page and I can't click on it. Is there a direct link to the invites page?
"Suggest a Friend" sounds cool! Also, thank you for letting us change our time/datestamps-- that was a real issue for me since I write a lot of rough drafts.
* The vast majority (and I mean well over 90%) of our users have screens which support the increased width.
I can't set my screen that wide because I have severe visual impairment, and when the resolution is 1000x800 or whatever, my operating system won't let me increase its font sizes enough to be readable.
Why not just use fluid layouts so that the user can control the width? (Letting the blogger choose the width strikes me as going at it from the wrong end, since the result will be that next we will all be clamoring for a Vox equivalent to LJ's style=mine.)
Oh, and speaking of font sizes, are you guys using em units? It looks to me like you aren't. I can set my browser's minimum font size to a comfortable 18 points, but then it doesn't preserve relative font sizes on sites that are not using em units (which, sadly, is almost all of them), and as a result I lose some of the semantic value of the site design.
Just for fun...
At my last count we have 11 comments in favour of the wider layout, 23 comments not in favour of the wider layout, a handful of people that are indifferent, and a few people that said they would stop using VOX entirely if they have to scroll horizontally.
--
steelie
To throw in two more cents about the widening -- I use Safari (which is not a supported browser, but it's the Mac default, so one would think it should be supported). I don't even have scroll bars and I need them to get to the right section of the screen. I also have an errant veritcal scroll bar which doesn't seem to adjust much of anything, but it's there next to the scroll bar adjusting the page itself. So - code bug.
I agree that column width should be a selectable option, rather than a set feature. It is definitely a make or break feature for me, and won't be using the service if I would be forced to resize my browser window every time I visit the site.
Because so many people seem to care, I thought I'd add: I like the new width, it allows me to use a 3-column layout I couldn't use very effectively before. Selectability might be nice too, however.
A bug report: since the widening, the Google adwords at the bottom of my Fleur (brown) template now covers the strip of flowers at the bottom of that design, in Firefox, so that the left-most and right-most flower peek off to the side of the ad bar, making the whole thing look really hokey.
some flock integration would be awsome :)
Is there a way for people who aren't signed up with VOX to comment on a VOB-log? That would really help.
As I was one of the people who complained about all the empty screen real estate, I'd better speak up for the widened columns, which make me happy. :) I knew as soon as I saw them however that you'd be getting a lot of complaints.
I know flexible width layouts are hard to achieve with x-browser precision, but they *are* possible. Why not offer a few of these to give users choice?
Thanks also for the equivalent tag in the compose menu. It was one of the things I requested in feedback, so it's great to see it added. :D
Is there any chance that we'll be able to respond directly to comments (so that they thread as they do in LJ) at some point?
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/screen_resolution.html
A wide screen is for multiple columns and/or parallel browsing.
As for CNN, don't watch the top page (with many columns). Picking up an article is fair in comparison with blogs.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/08/02/gibson.charged/index.html
Well, what is the width of the main column in the article? Horizontal back-and-forth eye movement is simply not ergonomic.
So, if you insist on the widening seriously, just disable 2 column design- it makes no sense anymore.
nice new themes... some of the better or the bunch.
BUT... c'mon! Youve got to make it an option for those with the know how to create their own themes. If everyone has the same bucket of themes to pick from, it knocks the whole "individualness" down a peg or two.
Please?
Wishlist:
Windows Media Format for Video. Half my content is in WMF and I don't want to put it up on Youtube, I want to put it on VOX exclusively.
Ability to my add my own icon to sound files.
Ability to format text in comments (like boldface or adding links)
Ability to email a neighbor through VOX, and to have neighbors be able to email me without revealing my email address.
Ability to customize content (or add custom content) in the sidebar, like "My top ten posts" or "vocabulary guide to my blog" or "contact info" or "favorite articles" or "favorite links / websites"
Ability to add my own background image instead of the themes offered by VOX (not that there's anything wrong with VOX themes, which are generally pleasant and useful).
Ability for people (family or friends or neighbors or world) to rate my posts on a one-to-five star basis
Hooray for new themes et wider blog! :) I was waiting for that!
Folks... thanks for all the thoughts in this thread, both positive and negative. As I said a bit earlier in these comments, the place to send feedback is to our feedback form. While we certainly read and survey the comments on this and other posts, the only place we can really collect, process and action on all of your feedback is to the feedback form.
I'm going to end comments on this thread as Team Vox is really meant as more of an announcement blog anyway and we'd really like to encourage this kind of great feedback (thanks Timmy! good stuff) to go through feedback where we can do something with it.
On the blog widening and other issues raised, we hear you. Vox is still a pre-release site and there's a lot of great stuff we're working on, including the ability to customize blogs more. We try to push new features out about every 2 weeks and you will continue to see that through the summer and fall. I think you will find us to be very responsive to your feedback.