Version User Scope of changes
Mar 22 2008, 5:25 PM EDT abi123 1 word added, 2 words deleted, 1 widget added
Mar 22 2008, 4:54 PM EDT abi123

Changes

Key:  Additions   Deletions

In our continuing efforts to make your wiki websites more collaborative and social, this release featuresfeatures a number of changes we think you’ll be excited about. As our usual, this release includes several new features and some layout improvements. This release is the result of your feedback, several rounds of user testing, as well as analysis on what features best help wiki sites grow and grow. We’ll be watching these changes closely and you should expect that we’ll be optimizing them over the coming months to help you continue to get the most out of Wetpaint.

Major updates in this release include:
  • a wider WYSIWYG area
  • a more convenient location for page and profile tools
  • a new ‘what’s new?’ dashboard
  • a new horizontal navigation bar for easier access to key features
  • a new site section for admins and creators with tools, tips, and data on how to promote their sites
  • a redesigned site members page
  • .....read on for details......

Wider WYSIWYG area & new tool locations: to give you more page real estate, we relocated the right-hand ‘rail’ of tools on all Wetpaint sites. Feedback from users was clear that the Wetpaint ‘frame’ (our tools) far outshined the picture (the editable area where your content goes). This reallocation of the page gives you some more breathing room and put tools at your fingertips. The tools that used to occupy the right rail are now located in the following locations:
  • Personal toolbox – the personal toolbox was relocated to a new global navigation bar across the top of the page. This move frees up valuable real estate on each page while still providing handy notifications of private messages, compliments, and friend requests upon sign-in. Just click the ‘My Profile’ link to access your messages or to go directly to your profile page.
  • Page toolbox – the wiki page tools (edit page, add tags, add To-Dos, manage page, etc) are now across the top of each wiki page in a more traditional application-style placement – think Microsoft Word. This placement performed well in user tests and keeps the tools in a convenient location. We prioritized the tools to make sure the ones that get used the most get the most prominent locations.
  • Recent Site Activity module – the recent activity module has been removed from the home page and replaced with a new site section called ‘What’s new?’ Don’t worry! The new page is much, much better.

03/06/08 - release - Wetpaint Central

    ‘What’s new?’ dashboard: This new activity dashboard goes well beyond what the previous recent activity module; offering site-wide notifications on changes to pages and threads. Additionally it will include notification of a number of community-oriented changes such as friend connections, the sending of compliments, and new members. Our user surveys indicated that ‘seeing what has changed’ was the top reason users return to their site. Don’t want your activities shared? Simply update your settings in the site preferences section off of your profile page.

    03/06/08 - release - Wetpaint Central

    New horizontal navigation bar: this new navigation area is being introduced to drive awareness and utilization of existing core features as well as provide prominent access for new features. The navigation bar will include; easy access to the home page, prominent access to our recently improved Discussion Forums, access to the new Activity Feed dashboard described above, as well as access to a newly designed ‘Members’ page.

    03/06/08 - release - Wetpaint Central

    Promote my Site: After receiving hundreds if not thousands of questions on how to get more people to your wiki sites we decided to create a new section for site administrators and up to do just that. The new Promote section includes new features, tips, and data on how to drive contribution and more traffic to your site. We’ll help you understand how to get a custom URL, optimize your site for search engines, or find out which pages have inbound and outbound links. Use this area to help make your site grow! This feature is only available on Public wikis!

    Site Members Page Redesign: our previous members report was, well, boring. So boring we called it a ‘report.’ So we decided to give it a much needed facelift and you easier access to it from the new horizontal navigation bar. Right away you’ll notice the page is much more visual with easy ways to filter by role or friends. You can also sort the member lists by the number of page edits and threads they’ve made (to see who has posted the most) as well as by their join date, most recent activity, and username.

    New 'ZeeMaps' widget: Place an interactive map directly on your page with ZeeMaps. Read more about the ZeeMaps widget.

    Lower advertisement placement: you might have also noticed that we moved the ad placement lower on the page (below the comments) so it doesn't interrupt the flow of the page.

    We hope you enjoy this release! And as we said earlier, we expect these offerings to change as we capture feedback. If you have any suggestions on how we could improve, please let us know in the comments below!