What's New in Social Wave 1.6!

Social Wave 1.6 has been released! This release covered a large number of nagging bugs that have been on my to-do list for too long and a few key major enhancements. There are also a lot of little changes. I won't cover most of the little changes because there are too many and most likely there isn't much of a point in telling you that a few icons changed or font sizes got adjusted.

Before I get into my list of what's new, I'll repeat the call I always make when announcing upgrades to the Social Wave system. If you like what we're doing here and like the direction this is heading, consider contributing by upgrading to a premium membership. Over several thousand dollars and a thousand hours of almost unpaid labor goes into building and maintaining this site every year and the income I make from the advertising on the site doesn't even begin to make a dent in the pain.

Ok, here's what's new!

HTML Editor Everywhere!

You now have access to using the HTML Editor in most areas of the Social Wave site. By default, the HTML editor is turned off, so you'll always see the usual text box when making a post, but you can click a link to turn on the editor and your text box will automagically transform into a powerful editor application that makes it easy to do text formatting, image insertion, linking, and other HTML tricks that you would otherwise need to be an HTML guru to do. For more info, see the HTML Editor help page.

The HTML Editor also features a new built in image manager that allows you to upload images directly into your post. You no longer need to upload images separately either before or after you post something. You can upload in the middle of your post.

 

Stealth Publish Events and Topics

If you want to post something, but don't want it to appear on the Social Wave main index page (the front page) where it's screaming to the world, you can now choose to publish new topics and events quietly by checking off the "Stealth Publish" checkbox when making new posts. When you Stealth Publish something, the Social Wave system will still send out email notifications if appropriate and the post will be visible to the public. It just won't appear on the main index or the latest activity sidebar. Stealth Publish is useful for when you want to keep a topic semi-private or when you're adding information to a forum for archival purposes. 

 

Guest Posting

Guests are now allowed to make posts in most areas of the Social Wave website. They can post new content as well as responses to posted topics, events, and reviews. In order for a guest user to post, the guest must supply a valid name, email address, and correctly enter a security code to ensure that a real live human being is making the post and not a spam program. The guest user must then validate his/her post by clicking on a validation link sent via email to confirm his/her identity. If the email address used belongs to a registered user on Social Wave, the post will be linked to the registered account upon validation. Otherwise, the post will be labeled as a guest post on the site.

• Guests are allowed to add new events
• Guests are allowed to RSVP to events
• Guests are allowed to post new discussion topics
• Guests are allowed to post replies to disccusion topics or events
• Guests may post comments in the photo gallery
• Guests may post follow-up reviews in the Reviews Section

 

Improved Error Handling

We're introducing kindler gentler error handling in the 1.6 release. When you make an error creating a post or filling out an online form, instead of getting a cryptic error message page, you'll get redirected back to the form with the errors highlighted for you to correct. The cryptic error message pages still exist, but you should see it less often because the most commonly used forms were enhanced to perform this improved method of error handling.

 

 

 

RSS Feeds for Forums, Groups, & Events

Each forum now has a live RSS feed that's updated whenever there's new topics, events, or reviews posted in a forum. Additionally, each group also has its own RSS feed and there are also dedicated RSS feeds for calendar events only and an "Everything New" feed that mirrors the content seen on the Social Wave main index.

These RSS feeds will allow you to keep up with what's happening on Social Wave in a news reader program or allow you to syndicate previews of Social Wave content into a blog, content management system, or any other kind of software that is able to read, format, and display RSS feeds online.

 

Post Reviews and Events to a Forum

You can now add Reviews and Events directly into a forum in addition to the usual discussion topics and polls. This means that if you have a technology related review, you can click on the "New Review" button from the Technology forum and author a review that will be stored in the Reviews database just like all the other reviews, but it'll also get placed into the Technology forum where it's more likely to get read and commented on by regulars.

It's a similar story for events. The process for posting a new event has not changed, but now you have the option of posting your event into a forum of your choice by clicking on the "Post Event" button from the desired forum. You can still add an event direct from the calendar area of the site, but your event will not get specific placement into a forum.

 

Events: Send to Friend, Printable View, & Track Event

You now have the same options for events as was previously available for topics.

• Send to Friend: Email a message and a link to the event to a friend
• Printable View: Get a printer friendly version of the event posting
• Track Event: Get email notifications when there's new activity

Merchant Profiles

• Added an "All Coupons" page (link is on the Merchant Profile main page)
• Simplified processes for managing your merchant profile. Some redundant or confusing steps were either revised or removed.
• Display RSS Feed Reviews from other sites on Reviews page. If you have reviews on a site like Yelp available in RSS format, you can display a formatted version of that RSS feed on your merchant profile's review page.

In addition to these Social Wave enhancements, the two Social Wave Downtown Portal sites that are linked into the main Social Wave engine have also received notable upgrades that will make them more interactive with the core Social Wave system. The guest posting that is now possible will allow visitors to the Downtown Portal sites to make posts that will appear on their respective sites and on Social Wave without having to always remember to login here or to even have an account to contribute.

You can see the improvements to the two Downtown Portal sites:

• http://www.downtownwillowglen.org
• http://www.downtowncampbell.com

Additionally, I expect to add another Social Wave portal site within the next month, but more details on that will not be available until later.

It looks great! Can I do my happy dance?

QUOTE (ArsNova @ May 23 2007, 04:42 PM)

It looks great! Can I do my happy dance?

LOL

I can't do the Happy Dance

In the midst of all this happy dancing, I guess I have a few more enhancements to add. These were added after some user input on a few changes that really should have been done in this round of upgrades. Here they are.

Invite a Friend to Join Social Wave

Now on every page, there's a button that you can click to send an invitation to check out Social Wave to friends. If you're a registered user, you can send it to up to five friends per send. If you're a guest, it can only go to one user per send.  

 

Invite a Friend to Join a Group

This is very similar to the Invite a Friend feature. It's the same idea, except instead of inviting a friend to join Social Wave, it invites the friend to check out a group on Social Wave. The same rules apply. Members can send to up to five friends per send and guests only one.

 

Post Buttons on the Main Index

The main index page (homepage) now sports post buttons to post in the forums, a new event, a new review, or a new photo album.

 

New Social Wave Splash Page 

The intro page to Social Wave has been sorely outdated for quite some time now, but it now has a very new look and the messaging on the page has been brought up to date to the current day Social Wave site. You can see it at http://www.socialwave.net.

The new Splash Page looks great! It's so very eye catching.

Keep up the good work!