Website Update Announcements (Updated: February 16, 2024) • Page 6

December 3, 2018

• The holiday logo returns!

 

I just remembered the falling snow theme available on AP; I'm glad there's at least the wreath here on Chorus. I like winter. :)

 

January 2, 2019

• The holiday logo is retired.

 

Hey, is there a way for me to see the edit history on posts?

I accidentally deleted a list of albums I wanted to get to on this post.

 

January 4, 2019

Today I'm happy to roll out a new feature on the website for all members: thread ignoring. This has been an often requested feature from a variety of members for a variety of reasons. To do this right, I needed to make a few other improvements to the forum as well, so here's how everything works:

• At the top of threads you will find a new "action button" between the "follow" button and search box. This button is where you'll find a new item that will allow you to ignore (and unignore) threads. If you are the thread creator, or a moderator, this is also where you'll find the thread tools that used to be accessible via the gear icon next to the thread title. This action button uses the same iconography that you will find on the mobile version of the website in the upper right corner of every page. On mobile, on any thread you will find all thread options, like following or unfollowing a thread, as well as ignoring or unignoring the thread, via this same action menu. (This addition of the action menu on the desktop site will allow me to add new thread options or features in the future as well. It'll end up being the home to far more than just this feature.)
• When you ignore a thread it will be added to your "ignored threads" list. To see what threads you've ignored, and to quickly unignore them, you can view this page via the control panel. On the desktop you can click your username at the top of the page and the option is in this menu (as well as the quick menu at the bottom of the page). If you are viewing your account settings you will also find the link to this page on the left side menu under "followed threads." On mobile this page can be accessed via the forum menu (top left) and by then clicking "options." It is the last item under that sub-menu.
• When you ignore a thread it will no longer show up when you are browsing the forum listings, or in "Recent Activity," or "Friend Feeds." This includes actions in the thread, so, for example: if someone likes a post in a thread you are ignoring, it will not show up in "Recent Activity" for you as long as you are logged into the website. When you ignore a thread it will also automatically unfollow that thread if you are following it, and remove any notifications you may have set for the thread. At that time it'll also black out every post in the thread, and display a message at the top, and bottom, of the thread letting you know you're ignoring the thread. That way if you happen to come across the thread by accident, you're not tempted to read it without first unignoring it. At this point in time, posts from ignored threads will still show up in search results and you will see users posts in ignored threads if you click to see all of their posts from their profile or mini-profile. (You can also still technically reply to ignored threads, but, obviously that doesn't make a lot of sense to do.)
• The main goal of this new system is to make it so that if you don't want to see a thread being bumped up the forum list, you won't. And if you didn't want to see it show up in different feeds, you wouldn't. Along with that I wanted to aid those that don't want to see a thread in being able to have some help in avoiding it. I think these additional features are a big first step in that direction and I tried to error on the side of making it easy to use, but not so easy to just visit/read an ignored thread that it defeated the purpose for those that asked for a little extra help with self-control. I'll continue to evaluate and adjust as needed.
• I've also cleaned up a few aesthetic things that were bugging me when dealing with menus around the site. If you notice them, you've got an incredible eye.

 

God, so many typos. Ugh.

 

Well done!

 

Oh hell yeah. I’m gonna ignore so many threads.

 

Nice work Tate!!

 

Great feature.

 

Is there a way to make the Absurdist Twitter thread and The 1975 thread like, the only things I see? Half kidding.

 

January 17, 2019

I've made a few minor aesthetic changes:

• For supporters, in dark mode, the notification background for "new" notifications has been lightened a little bit. This makes it easier to tell what notifications are "new" and works better when the brightness on a device is turned low.
• I've added all of the members of a conversation to the conversation drop down menu on desktop. This way you can quickly see not only who replied last, but who that conversation was with. This was requested by people that had a lot of similar PM titles and wanted a quick way to be able to see what conversation was with whom.
• I also fixed up how commas after usernames were displayed when there were multiple people in a conversation in the inbox. And, on mobile, I added the same list of all conversation participants to the inbox view to, again, make it easier to find the conversation you're looking for.
• I tweaked a few spacing issues on mobile threadbits because I think it looks better.

 

Thanks!

 

February 11, 2019

Today I'm excited to bring an idea I've had for a while, but didn't quite know how to implement right, to the website: Giphy integration!

Giphy is a giant gif resource, and in the forums we post a lot of gifs. So, it makes sense to be able to quickly and easily find and post a gif when you want to. In the past this meant google, copy/paste, and all sorts of little hoops. Now, it's just a simple search and tap.

If you click the image insert button:



(Also available on mobile via "More Options.")

You will now see an option to search for a gif via Giphy:



Click that and you'll get a new dialog box where you can search for any gif you want:



Search and hit return/click the search button ... and you'll get all the gifs in Giphy for that topic. Tap, or click, one, and it'll be inserted into your post. Simple, fast, easy.

I've been testing the feature for a little while now, and rolled it out to supporters last week, and it's been a whole lot of fun to play around with because it simplifies the entire process and avoids broken hotlinked images, weird upload failures, or images not quite embedding correctly when you want to insert one into a post.

If you're on desktop, with a keyboard, you can also pop the gif search box up automatically using the keyboard shortcut Command (or control) + G. [All keyboard shortcuts require the cursor to be in the posting/reply box.]

Enjoy!



Note: If you like features like this and want to help support the continued development of this website and forum, please consider signing up for a membership. That's how things like this get built and I can dedicate my time and energy into making cool things!

 

February 11, 2019

• Added some common keyboard shortcuts to a help page.

Figured some power posters may wanna know about these.

 

Is selective quoting coming to mobile anytime soon? On the list? It’s so nice on desktop! Also would love a block quote shortcut. I never know how to do that on the go when quoting something. It’s such a nice looking way to format a post.

 

The main issue with it on mobile is that it fights up against the built in "copy/paste" features of the system. It's something I've thought about, but I'm not sure how it would work implementation wise.

Yeah, on mobile I need to figure out a way to put more of those options into a menu of some kind, but that'll be a pain in the ass.

It's [bq][/bq]

 

February 25, 2019

• I updated the Twitter and Instagram automatic embeds to load way faster, deal with size changes to the media, and work better in Dark Mode for supporters. I'll be monitoring these changes for the next few days, and if there's no major bugs, be rolling the feature out to more automatic embeds on the website as well.

 

I enabled this to play around with it to see how it works.

 

February 27, 2019

• Fixed up Imgur auto embeds.
• Fixed up Spotify embeds a little as well.

 

February 27, 2019

• Per a request from @jkauf, I've added a quick theme switch for supporters on the mobile version of the website. If you expand the "options" menu in the mobile menu you'll see a button you can hit to quickly change the website's theme from Light to Dark and vice versa.

 

Thank you for humoring my laziness, good sir!

 

Sick. Works perfectly for me at least!

 

March 6, 2019

• Fixed up Reddit embeds and stylized them for Dark Mode.
• Added Apple Music automatic embeds. So, when you use a share link for Tracks, Albums, or Playlists from Apple Music, they should automatically embed now. (If you're logged in to AM you can stream the full songs as well.) Please let me know if you see any issues.

Playlist Example:

Album Example:

Song Example: