Pictures in comments

You can now attach a picture to a comment. A number of users asked for this feature.

Changes to the way chat works

There is a new user preference on the account preferences page

[ ] Only accept new chat requests from bookmarked contacts

This option is unchecked by default, meaning that any other registered member can initiate a chat with you. If you don’t want unsolicited chats, you can filter your chats by selecting this preference option (registered members can access their account preferences with this link) so that other users can’t start a new chat with you unless you have bookmarked them. Checking the box won’t disable existing chats – but if you want to, you can suspend any existing chat by clicking the suspend check box in the chat window. This gives you complete control over who can chat with you.

Notification for bookmarked members and objects now includes comments and remarks

Notification checkboxes in bookmarked ‘Contacts’ and ‘Favorites’ now reads:

[ ] Notify me of posts and comments to this object
[ ] Notify me of posts and comments by this member

Registered members can access their bookmarks on Handmeon home page under the Favorites and Contacts tabs.

For the last release, we rewrote the examples section in the tour. As I explored the site looking at the various themes, I was amazed at the variety of different kinds of Handmeons folks had created in such a short time. Themes included thanks, reconnections with friends, frivolous journeys, and a whole lot more. Most surprising was that there was no conscious effort on anyone’s part to push the edges of Handmeon. It just turns out that people see different uses.

Given that we’re so early in the game, it makes me wonder what other uses we’ll see.

Today we released a new version of Handmeon, and it’s got some great fun stuff. Here’s what’s new since version 392:

• Check out the new Explore section. You can tab between Recent Handmeons and Recent Sojourns, and there are next/prev links on the right side. Recent handmeons are sorted by activation date, and display when they are activated and have a photo. Recent sojourns is more complicated, but essentially they are displayed at the top when new content is “published.” The photo quality people are uploading is excellent!
• Object home is now a table of contents. We summarize the sojourns: member, dates, location, posts, rather than displaying a full-length blog view. This seems to help people grasp what’s going on.
• You can now navigate between the sojourns with the orange arrows at the top of both object home and sojourn home (example). This makes the reading experience much more like a book. The object home is the table of contents, and each sojourn is a chapter in the object’s travels.
• You can now post after you release an object and hand it off to another person. Your interaction with the object doesn’t end when you pass it on, you can still write about what you see in other posts.
• Any registered user can comment on any public post. This opens the site for interaction beyond just the creators and recipients of handmeons. Post authors can optionally be notified of comments to their posts via email. We have defaulted this to ‘on’ but you can set it in your account preferences.
• The current host, not just the creator, can edit the object photo and inscription. Object photos are now a gallery, and we display the most recent in other areas of the site.
• We added a “gestation” time, perhaps called a nag reminder, to the objects. The creator can set when we might remind the current owner of their intended circulation time. Current options are one week, one month, three months, and never. It seems like the creator has an intent about how often they’d like to see objects circulate, and they can set that intent here.
• Added the privacy setting to object creation to put it a little more in the forefront.
• We now require an object photo prior to handoff. This will keep the user experience better for the community. To date, everyone has uploaded a photo anyway, so we’re not breaking new ground here.
• We provide confirm dialogs when you click a delete button. Should’ve done this in the very first release; we just missed it until I accidentially deleted a post I’d been writing on-and-off for a week. Just nuts that I designed a delete button right next to the save button.
• Added a meta viewport to help the iPhone users. Let us know how it looks and what else we can do to support your remote browsing, writing, and sharing!
• A bunch of minor cleanup, like making the edit textareas wider, putting the post info below the post instead of between the headline and the post, some text copy changes in object create, removed the “home” link in the banner links, dealt with all the known IE6 and IE7 bugs, etc.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the member bio from displaying. D’oh. The member profile pages really need some work. We have some ideas, and your suggestions are welcome too!
• The blog got hammered by comment spam, so we’ve turned off comments until we get spam filtering installed. Please stay tuned. The “Feedback” link in the upper right still works though, and we want to keep hearing from you!

Today we rolled out version 392. Here’s what’s new since our last update post:

• We added the option to print a customized gift card. The goal of this feature was 1) to help the recipient learn or remember how to claim the object online, and 2) help the giver tell the story of Handmeon. To address the first goal, once you release an object, you see a link in sojourn home labeled “Create a gift card for this object.” That opens a pop-up window, where you see the object name and photo, the sojourn map, instructions on how to claim the object, and a text entry box for a personalized message. You enter your message, or leave it blank, and then press the button for “Preview printable card.” Voila! To address the second goal, we added some text at the bottom of the card that explains the concept.

• We added the ability to re-order posts. When editing your sojourn, you can click on the gray up and down arrows to move the post up or down one position. After you release the object you cannot edit the post order, just like you can’t edit the post content.

• We simplified private messages. Givers can leave a private (online) message for the receiver. You can see the message the previous owner left for you, and you can leave a message for the next owner. That’s it. We removed video from private messages.

• We changed the label “Fetch a Handmeon” to “Claim a Handmeon” throughout the site.

• Likewise, we changed the label “Hand off a Handmeon” to “Release a Handmeon.” One of the interesting challenges we’re still sorting out is differentiating our language to separate the real-world experience from the online experience. Hence, “releasing” is the online term for “handing off” an object.

• We removed the invitation-only limits. Unregistered users can now explore the public objects as well as take the tour. Anyone can register, even if they don’t have an invitation code. We removed the waiting list. However, we have implemented a “Slashdot switch” so that if traffic suddenly spikes and the servers get overloaded we can quickly let existing users keep using the site and moderate new user additions. We hope to have this problem someday, believe me! ;)

• We changed Explore so that you can see current sojourns as well as completed sojourns.

• We got the blog templates integrated with the site templates. And we made a blog logo! Now we’re ready for the t-shirts….

• We made a lot of minor language changes – cleaning up, simplifying, clarifying. Let us know what’s confusing and we’ll try to address it.

• We integrated editing the object name and inscription. Much better. Following this, changed the settings label to “Edit privacy settings.” If you have not activated the object, you can delete it from the privacy settings, under the theory that deletion is an extreme form of privacy.

• “Remember me on this computer.” We expire cookies after eight weeks.

• We try to learn a user’s location upon registration, failing silently if they enter a bad address or leave it blank. The location is integral to the experience, and we continue to ask for it in a lot of places until they enter it. Just a town is fine – we don’t want targeted street addresses.

• We scale most display pictures to a max of 250 x 400, instead of cropping them into a square.

What features do you want to see us build next? Comment here or use the “Feedback” link in the upper right corner of any page to let us know. Thanks!