More Improvements

Just a quick post here to let everyone know about the latest round of improvements. Here is a summary of the changes:

• Added Zip/Tar Support to the Publisher
• Added 10 Email Notices / Settings
• Added a Display Name Setting
• New Method of Displaying Site Dates
• Added Distinguished Author Comments

Publisher Zip/Tar Support

From within the Publisher you can now upload a single ZIP or TAR file (up to 3 MBs) per article you create. When you upload one of these files a "download attachment" link and counter will appear below the top and bottom of your articles pagination.

Email Notices / Display Name

The Edit Profile, Profile Photos and Settings forms have been cleaned up. There are 10 email notification settings and a display name setting so you can choose whether your nickname, first name or full name is used around the site.

Email notices are only sent out if you've been inactive for at least 30 minutes and in the case of article comments (if you're the author) no more than 1 email is sent out per hour.

Site Dates / Comments

Dates around the site are now displayed in the "3 minutes ago", "3 days ago" fashion for the first 3 months and after that switch over to the "Feb 11, 2009" fashion.

So far everyone seems to like dates being shown in this fashion, although I have received a request that when these dates are clicked a complete / traditional date would appear and I agreed (added to the to do list).

To make it easier to browse article comments and identify those posted by the author a unique border and pencil is now used on their photos.

I've also improved various forms (join, reset password, login, contact) and updated the site tour.

Share your thoughts!

So what do you think of these changes? Please share your thoughts!

New Features

I'm pleased to announce the first round of new ITNewb features are complete. There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done, features to be rolled out and improvements to be made but I feel the site has taken a notable step forward.

Article WishList

The WishList serves as a place for us to tell authors what we'd like to see written and to give authors inspiration. Any ITNewb member can make a wish or link to a wish if they want to grant it by writing the "wished for" article.

From start to finish wishes have 4 states: 1) author needed; 2) being written; 3) under review; and 4) archived. New wishes start out in the author needed state and when an author links to the wish the status changes to being written.

Once the author publishes the article the wish goes into the under review state at which time the wish is considered granted.

As most of you know an article must receive at least a 75% approval rating to be archived otherwise it is deleted. If the article is sunk (deleted) the wish will return to the author needed state otherwise progress to archived and be removed from the WishList 15 days later.

Making a Wish

To make a wish just pull up the WishList, click the Make a Wish button and describe what you're looking for in the field that appears. Once you submit your wish a Moderator will assign it a title, category and post it to the WishList.

Wish Dittos

When you ditto a wish you're letting everyone know you'd also like to see the article written which will help authors choose which wishes they want to grant first.

Accepting a Wish

1. Create an Article Draft;
2. go to your Drafts Tab and copy the Draft ID; and
3. use it on the grant wish form.

Ranked Author Pages

Authors work really hard to produce quality content and they deserve to be promoted for it. When I sat down in November to write my first tech article I realized I had a lot to learn and developed a new found appreciation for quality content.

So the purpose of the new author pages is to promote you guys and your websites. To make things a little more interesting authors are ranked based on the approval ratings sum of their articles.

To get on the list you must have at least 1 archived article and there are no penalties to your rank if one of your articles gets sunk.

Profile Fields / Settings

An Author Bio field has been added for use on the author pages. Fill out your bio in the "as if someone else wrote it" style. Here's what I added to mine:

Andrew Johnson is an avid web developer, founder of the ITNewb Technology Archive and currently lives in Ohio, USA. He spends a lot of time working on the ITNewb website, managing his business and writing tech articles. Andrew is a big fan of Gentoo Linux and you can almost always find a cup of coffee in his hand.

The following fields were also added so you can share your "elsewhere on the web" profiles: MySpace, Facebook, Digg, Mixx, StumbleUpon, Technorati, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Orkut. These new fields come with accompanying privacy settings with the "Show Everyone", "Show Members" and "Show Only My Friends" options.

Notice Bar / Site Invites

User notices are now delivered through the new "notice bar" underneath the main navigation. You'll find there are new notices relating to wishes (when a moderator approves your wish, an author accepts it or an author grants it).

Now that commenting remains open on archived articles you'll now receive both newly published (aka under review) and archived comment notices that are visually different.

Directly to the right of the user notices you'll find an "Invite Friends" feature so you can invite your friends to join ITNewb. When your friends join the site they'll be added to your friends list and vise versa.

On the far right of the notice bar the most recent posts on the ITNewb blog rotate.

Activity Stories

The following recent activity stories have been added and will be published in the Recent Activity and Friend Feed tabs. These new stories are turned on by default in your settings.

• Invite friends to join ITNewb
• Comment on the blog
• Make a wish
• Accept a wish
• Grant a wish
• Ditto a wish

Like, Dislike, Bugs?

I hope you all like the new features. If you dislike something please let me know as I really need and value your feedback. In the event you discover a bug or oversight in any of the new features or site in general please submit a bug report.

Enjoy!