18 Apr

Mini update in the comment section below.

Isabelle

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08 Mar

Mini update in the comment section below.

Isabelle

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07 Feb

Mini update in the comment section below.

Isabelle

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04 Feb

Mini update in the comment section below.

Isabelle

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03 Feb

Hi everyone,

Since last update we've been working on replacing the gibberish and the question marks (punctuation, accents) remaining on the site. 

Hundreds of thousands of records are involved, so this is a long one.

What we managed this week :

-  All texts'  Title & Body are cleared of gibberish and question marks (2005-2020).

NB:  If you have many texts in your archive in another language than English, we would need your help in finding out which characters the gibberish currently displayed needs to be replaced with before we can correct them.  We're unfortunately unable to do it on our own 'cause we don't know your language.  Sorry about that :-/ 

What we're currently working on :

-  Comments on texts & exhibitions

-  Author name on profile page

-  Profile page presentations & fortune cookie

We'll be back with more soon...

Isabelle

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25 Jan

Hi everyone,

Last night we think we managed to fix the character display issue which showed question marks (instead of apostrophes, quotes, and accents) in Texts and Comments, for some members of the site, and in all Private Messages. 

So, you'll notice that your new posts will display correctly now.

As for the question marks & gibberish (instead of the correct characters) on the site, we are sorting out a way to find and replace all instances of them in our database.  So, this part will take a little while longer.

We also fixed the NOT SECURE warning about connecting on PoetBay (http:// to https://).

We'll be back with more soon...

Isabelle

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19 Jan

Hi everyone,

We’ve put up new changes on the site today.  We hope that they will enable you to organize and share your works in an easier way. 

We’ve added:

  →  a new menu link on My Page titled Tags.  From here, only when logged

        into your account, you can view lists of your texts, by tag that you’ve set

        on your texts.  You can also edit your tagged texts from that list with

        the Edit link.

*NB:  Although this view is private to the account holder, be aware that ALL tags saved to a text are always PUBLIC.  It’s the listing and editing that is private.

  →  a new menu tab on Poet Home page (clicking on a writer’s name link

        will get you there) titled Tags.  From here, visitors can view the author’s

        lists of texts that have tags set to them.

We think this will add to the sharing experience as well as enhance the possibility to organize and better manage your PoetBay archive of texts.

We’ve also added:

  →  a basic text Title search option of your own account’s archive of texts. 

        On My Page, click on Texts, and the search box is at the top.

We thought this may be useful for members who have hundreds of texts in their account.

This work can be considered as major changes on the site, so although we’ve done all of the extensive testing possible, it’s possible we may have skipped an order of action or an IF consideration to test.  Hopefully not, but should a problem pop up, please let us know and we’ll fix it.

We have a few more changes we plan to bring to the site, but for now, we think we’re ready to tackle the character display issue.  It’s one of two remaining issues from the move to the new server.  We couldn’t continue fixing those before completing more of the tidying/normalizing of the code, which is what we moved along these past couple weeks.  Finally ready to start :-)

This is a big one too, involving a lot of thinking and figuring out for the best solution.  So, thinking caps on, we’re off ;-)

That’s it for now.  But do let us know about any of the changes… we’re very much interested to know if everything is ok and that we’re not disrupting your usual experience of the site.

We’ll be back with more soon…

Isabelle

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11 Jan

Hi everyone,

We've moved on with the fixes/changes this week (we're still keeping the issues list up-to-date here: www.poetbay.com/whatsup.php).  Here's what we've done, and a bit of an explanation on some of it :

  →  Added a new section (Featured Photos) for the home page selections by

        the Editors where exhibition pictures from members can be featured,

        above the Books selections.

  →   Finished the tweaks for the Editors' Dashboard.

  →   Fixed the access to comments in the Diary section.

  →   Included the display of former Supporters' published Books and

          Exhibitions in the Galleries.

  →   Added the display of the publishing date on books in the Books gallery.

  →   Made a final adjustment in the profile page Archive's layout (width) to

          accommodate skipping years in the calendar.

  →  Fixed the Category link (in My Bookmarks) displaying a blank page when

        there was no more than one category (default).  Now it displays correctly

        and it's possible to place your bookmarks in your own made categories.

  →   Fixed challenge Themes created by creators who have deleted their

         account:

           •  In order to keep the challenge going and not affect the challenge text

               submissions, those themes are reverted to the Editorial Team to

               manage. 

  →   Challenge themes make more user-friendly (first stage complete, we're

         still in the tweaking process):

           •  We think we've so far managed to simplify this feature a little bit

               more for you.  It is no longer necessary to submit a text before

               publishing a challenge theme for others to participate.
 

           •  The creator of the challenge theme can submit a text or not, it is

               optional.  The first text submitted to the challenge will be displayed

               as the example of the challenge theme, under the Description. 

           •  We think doing it like that will open up the way to ideas without

               obliging the one who comes up with an idea to have to write an

               example text before others can participate.  Let us know what you

               think about it.

  →   Display on Today's Texts page the latest challenge Theme posted.  If

         the latest challenge theme posted is older than 5 days, then no NEW

         CHALLENGE will show on Today's Texts.

We're working on finishing up the challenge Themes, as well as the My Tags tab/section on profile page that we'd started.  Things are moving along very well.

We'll be back with more soon...

Isabelle

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For more information on challenge Themes (How to create a challenge theme and How to participate in them), we've prepared this basic How-To:  PoetBay Challenge Themes Guide.

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