Changes from Sunday's code push...

[karzilla]

As you probably already saw, we recently had a code push, which implemented the past several months' worth of bug fixes and new features submitted by our volunteer development crew.

The long list of changes is well documented in the past few code tours, but I wanted to highlight some of the more important differences that will hopefully be of benefit to everyone.

First off, there is a new account settings tab for keyboard and touchscreen shortcuts. There is already a great writeup from one of our accessibility experts explaining and promoting this feature, so I won't go into more detail here, except to say that it looks neat and you should check it out!

Secondly, it is no longer possible to list your AIM or Imzy username on your profile, because those services have shut down. However, we did add a field for including your LiveJournal username! (How did we go so long without anyone thinking to add that?)

Third, for our dedicated post-by-email users (you know who you are): you can now use "post-screenlevel" to change the screening level to something other than the default, and "post-security" to specify a comma-separated list of access groups to use. Related to this change, we no longer allow you to use commas when naming access filters, but if you already had 'em, we left 'em alone; it won't be a problem unless you want to use that particular feature.

Fourth, if you use the RSS/Atom feed of your journal as a crossposting source, and don't want to see the comment count info included in the crossposted content, you can now append "?no_comment_count=1" to the feed URL to make it go away. (These are the sorts of features we add in response to support requests, on the theory that if one person bothers to ask if something is possible, there are probably at least 10 others who would appreciate the feature but don't ask!)

Fifth (why am I enumerating these anyway?), we've updated the text you see when viewing your own profile, to more clearly indicate not only how many icons you have uploaded, but how many you currently can upload, including any bonus icon slots.

Next, you may notice that several parts of the site that accept email addresses as form input will more aggressively check for misspelled domain names. You should be able to override any incorrect complaints without too much trouble, and this will hopefully cut down on the number of requests for help we receive from accounts associated with invalid email addresses.

Penultimately, we have added several more sites to the whitelist we check for allowing embedded journal content. Instead of detailing them here, I'm in the process of creating a FAQ that will authoritatively list all of the currently allowed sites. I'll update this post when it's ready to go.

Finally, the long standing bug of community membership options failing to save when submitted should finally be fixed! Hurrah!

Thanks to everyone who helped with these and the myriad other little tweaks that go unsung, but not unnoticed. And if you're one of the people who reported a bug or requested a feature, give yourself a pat on the back, because you are a vital part of the process as well. Cheers!

Comments

[yuuago]

Ooh, thanks for the icon tweaks; I'll find those very useful. :)

[devilbear]

Hmm, I like these changes, but I'd love to see the extra info when viewing one's own profile get truncated so it doesn't spill over onto a new line. Perhaps something such as "15 Icons Uploaded (17 available)"? I don't know how many bonus icons a person can have, so that's just an example, but it feels like there's too much info as is now, making things look a little messy.

Also, I'd like to see an insanejournal field added to the profile, since it's more or less a sibling to livejournal. (My edit profile page still has a field for AOL IM, for what it's worth.) And I'd love to see a fix for comment import failures on IJ content, if possible.

That said, I don't want to be pushy or annoying or anything, so take my opinions as the two cents they are and thanks for the hard work to keep this site up and running!

[kareila]

You're right! It looks like the AIM removal is incomplete, and the editing form still needs to be updated. Thanks for pointing that out!

I'll open a ticket for Insanejournal to be added like LiveJournal was. Thanks!

[jazzyjj]

Way to go on the shortcuts! I had a brief look at that tab in my settings, and it looks very good. I'm kinda busy though so will have to come back to those. But thanks as always for being here for us, and keep it up. So glad Dw is a thing and here's to many more centuries of it. Yes I did say centuries and not years.

[siliconshaman]

Rich text editor/entry box still doesn't work in firefox though...

[sporky_rat]

Have you tried the Beta Create Entry page?

The Rich Text Editor is ancient and as the internet gets newer code, the RTE is going to fail in more and more ways.

The Beta Create Entry page does offer Markdown language and works surprisingly well.

[siliconshaman]

Yeah, that's what I've been using, it's ok, just.. it's a pain importing text from libre-office, then having to re-enter all the tags by hand you know. I used to be able to write and import into the RTE without hand-editing all the html, because it would preserve them.

It just really slows down the process, and lowers the functionality you know.

Which is kind of a big thing for me, because I write and post chapters up on my journal when I'm working on a story, to get feedback... and trust me, futzing around with the HTML is a real PITA when you have a 3,000+ word chapter and you're hunting for one missed >

[ilyena_sylph]

I have legitimately been yelling at myself "You cannot J on Dreamwidth, Yena!" for six months. This. Is. Amazing.

I. Love. Y'all.

[chomiji]

You're awesome!

[archangelbeth]

*waves the pompoms of encouragement and thanks to the hard workers*

[siderea]

Third, for our dedicated post-by-email users

Hahaha, you used the plural.

I think I can say, on behalf of the entire dedicated post-by-email users demographic, that all of us really appreciate these improvements!

[falena]

I use it! Not for all entries, but quite often. And I always reply by email to comments, does that count? :D

[ayebydan]

well done and thanks guys!

[shadowcat]

Thank you so much for these additions.

I love seeing the expanded information about how many icons are in use, are uploaded, and how many bonus slots I have.

I would love if in the future Insanejournal can be added like Livejournal was?

And just to let you know, a spot for an AIM username still shows when I go to edit.

[kareila]

You're right! It looks like the AIM removal is incomplete, and the editing form still needs to be updated. Thanks for pointing that out!

I'll open a ticket for Insanejournal to be added like LiveJournal was. Thanks!

[claidheamhmor]

Thank you for the updates. :)

[iguana]

Thank you for your continued hard work :)

*sheds a tear for AIM*

[arethinn]

it is no longer possible to list your AIM or Imzy username on your profile, because those services have shut down.

So does ICQ's being there mean it's still operational? Wow.

It would be handy if there were way to list multiple usernames per service (e.g., I have two Tumblrs and would like to put them both in). Maybe if you could click a "plus" next to the entry box and another box for that service would appear?

[frith]

Ooh, shiny! *scoots off to see the icon count detail*... Wowsers! that many!? @_@

[yourlibrarian]

Yay for fixes and features!

[rubibees]

Thank you dedicated and awesome volunteers!!

[carbonel]

This isn't directly related to any of the current changes, but it's an ongoing minor issue for me.

I have around 25 tags, and I don't have all of them memorized. Is there a way to see all of the tags without opening a separate window? That's what I've been doing, and it's a minor pain. I know the tags autocomplete, but only if I remember the tag and thus the correct first letter.

In LiveJournal, there was a pull-down list available from the posting screen. I'd love to see something like that on DW. Or if it's already there and I'm just missing it, please let me know!

Thanks, and apologies for the minor derail.

[kareila]

Have you tried the Beta Create Entry page? You can opt into it here: https://www.dreamwidth.org/beta

The tag module on that version of the page has a browse button that does what it sounds like you want. You won't find all of the features of the older page (most notably, it is missing a rich text editor) but it does have a few features that the older page doesn't.

[impulsivepaladin]

You guys are awesome. <3

Random question, though!

Since there's talk of updating the other services list, is there a way to perhaps someday get Discord listed? I know with the death of AIM (may it RIP) that a lot of the RP community has switched over to that now instead.

[mark]

Yes! This would be fabulous.

I'd actually be interested in seeing how folks are using Discord for RP, if you want to get in touch with me or anybody you know who wants to ping me: zorkian#0001

[impulsivepaladin]

I know various games have chat rooms/servers that they use for either OOC chatter or plotting. The one I'm in does, and I've seen various other people mention them on plurk. I know the only reason I got one in the first place was because everyone in my RP circle was getting one too.

I will do that - it just might take a while. I work in a prison and my internet time is a little wonky since I can't have my cell phone inside and I doubt the state wants me to be using IM programs while working. ;)

[darjeeling]

I actually requested this at dw_suggestions in March 2017! Nothing ever came of it though - is that community still actively monitored?

[kareila]

Thanks for the suggestion! I believe the community is still being monitored, but new suggestions aren't always migrated to Github expeditiously. Even after being migrated, implementation doesn't happen until one of our volunteer developers has the time and ability to take it on. :)

[buttonsbeadslace]

Thank you so much for the comment-less RSS feed! I had been mildly annoyed about having to delete the number of comments (or rather the failed embedded image of the number of comments) from crossposts for a while now, so I'm glad somebody did ask about that.

[egret]

I am excited for the beta entry page!

[cpthorn]

Thank you! I noticed a significant performance boost when opening a post.

[entj]

Hi! ElJay stopped working a while ago. Does anyone know of another Android client that works with Dreamwidth? Is there an official one now, or in the works?

Thanks!

[spikedluv]

I'm not sure where to ask this, so I'm starting here.

1. Will you ever implement the option to make scheduled posts to communities? This is something that I, as the mod of several comms, could really use.

2. I have some communities still on LJ, and so I've been crossposting to my DW comms whenever I make an update. When this happens, though, members who track the comm do not get notified because I didn't make an actual new post to the comm. Is there a chance you could implement an option to track when an import has been done?

Thank you!