Behind the scenes our web team has been actively working on features to make Steemit.com easier and more fun to use. Today we have release a preview available at https://test.steemit.com.
Among the features available are notifications about new posts, feeds, replies, and followers. These notifications show up as red badges next to your account toolbar.
The new editor works very much like Medium and renders the text almost identically to how it will look in the final post.
There are still some quirks with the editor (hitting return after inserting an image will add it another time), but those quirks should be worked out in short order. Along with this new editor is the ability to insert images by copy/paste without having to upload to a 3rd party server first.
When you put your cursor at the start of a new line it gives you a popup toolbar allowing you to insert images, youtube/vimeo, and code blocks. Currently image uploading is not working on https://test.steemit.com, but that will get fixed shortly.
Soon you will be able to align / justify your images right in the editor as well.
There are some small performance issues we are stilling working out with the editor as well. In the mean time try it out for yourself and let us know what you think!
I'm playing around with the new test server and the first issue I have, (if you want criticism and feedback) is that it's irritating to see notifications for every single post that appears in my personal feed. I follow a lot of people, and it suits me to follow a lot of people that's how I wish to be able to use the platform. So I would prefer if I only saw that red notification mark for more urgent things, like for example a reply, or ideally I could choose which bloggers I would like to be notified about when they post. For example I could click to 'Follow' @ned, @dan and @steemitblog, and when clicking follow I would have the option to opt in for notifications, so that I only get that red notification for steemitblog rather than everyone. (Although I would totally opt in for notifications for you and ned too)
Great point! I'd love that kind of functionality as well.
Currently the notifications are rendered useless... I have no more reason than I did before to check my replies because that number just represents the amount of new posts in my feed and doesn't mean I have a reply at all.... Great to see the progress though!
Wow, nice! I've wanted this for a long time! :)
However, I think the notifications should be in blue, since the official color of Steemit essentially is colors of blue, and I think red makes it look a bit too much like Facebook, since its notifications are in red. Something like this:
What do you think?
I love your thought process behind this leading far away from, facebook this is a good thing.
Yes!
Excellent! People keep forgetting Steemit is still in beta and there is a lot ahead. Thanks for "notifying" us! :)
Super glad to hear from you @dantheman and I look forward to testing the new features.
I know you guys have a lot going on so thanks for the update.
Wow, I never expected or even thought we would get direct copy paste of images into posts. I genuinely believe that that feature coupled with notifications will be quite the game changer for new users and user retention as a whole. Part of the problem for newbies has always been the faff around image uploading.
I dont even pretend to know how they did it but major congratulations to the dev team and fantastic to hear of these updates.
Agreed, it's a huge step forward!
I have been waiting on this and tempted to write a post about these exact things, I just get easily side-tracked as to which way I should go... haha There are so many useful tools and ideas at my our fingertips not to mention all the mentors alongside. Thank yall~
A nice smooth evolution of the platform. Nice :)
I feel like we are in the movie while writing it.. :D
Correct. V.good imagery @christoryan!
Thanks for the update, Dan. Always great to hear from you about what's going on behind the scenes.
Exactly, I would be lost without the help. @dantheman
Awesome! Awesome! Awesome!
:)
By the way if anyone doesn't feel comfortable using your main account on the 'test' site, feel free to use @the.masses account, which is a public account that anyone can use.
If you would like use the account, here is the private posting key:
5JYoxENB7MRc75DxqyH6eyW7ZZNYXvN9gtUFRqrifTLf1JmoddU
What are some of the advantages of doing so?..
Basically if you are afraid that a 'test' site could cause an issue with your account. It is unlikely, but a lot of users with high amounts of money in their account might prefer to use a 'test' account in case there is a glitch with the site.
Good looking out, as always @timcliff!
I had decided that I'd just check the new interface out later, because I want to use my own credentials as little as possible. Now I can go check the changes out with reckless abandon.
An interesting and well needed update that should encourage new users to post.
Finally a post from Steemit, was about time......
Great, notifications was something I have been really looking forward to.
Me too Rob! I think this would be a great plus in the social aspect.
Seems that @stellabelle advice has been partly realised
How so? I may have missed that..
https://steemit.com/steemit/@stellabelle/if-steemit-had-sex-with-medium
Amen!
Obviously the developers have faith the price will come back up, they're still working hard!
Don't we all !?
We do
It feels like nothin but bots somedays. Hundreds of votes, no comments.
Perfecto!
edit: I'm not getting the bar across when I do submit post.
Looks good.
Good job! It is necessary!!!
Hello!
Resteemedwith your answer on that post by @steemitfaucetYou will get 0.06 STEEM within the next 1 hour.
Thank you for this resteem btw! I'ts easy to miss important updates and announcements due to the quality posts coming into this platform.
EXCELLENT, Fantastic and other high praise.
One thing I (and others) strongly suggest and request is
CAPTCHA for voting.
(make it harder for the bots)
That could be quite time-consuming...
yup...it would mean that people would actually read the posts and curate them honestly. Instead of the steem stream processing that is happening now.
Agreed, but I get a lot of comments to and use a 1% upvote to "check them as read" so that I know I didn't miss replying to someone.
When 40 or 50 users leave a comment on some posts (often at least 200 upvotes come in) that would be a lot of Captcha hoops to jump through.
Plus, people would only need to read the Captcha to upvote, not the post, right?
There is a Captcha that only requires a human to check a box. Voting could be done with two birds, one stone.... clicking the upvote arrow would bring out the check box, which you check. A completed Captcha automatically signifies an upvote!
How would this affect steemvoter and streemian?
Would only the initial voter need to double click and those those following their votes would get the pass?
Good point.
You just indicated another thing that should be added. A 'read post" indicator..
I dunno how it would play out in all the details. That's why I posted the suggestion. Perhaps people (like you) can come up with some ideas. Perhaps the Devs will take the best of those ideas and implement them.
It would seem that at the moment there is a problem that needs to be fixed. I've made a suggestion toward fixing it and you've commented on modifying that suggestion.
Good plan.
I think many higher up actually like some of the upvoting bot activity, or things like auto voting certain users.
How would this affect steemian or steemvoter.com where people can choose to Autovote or follow the votes of another user?
With posting occurring 24 hours a day and curation based upon when upvoting occurs, I think users will always lean towards automating some aspects of it.
Does that make sense?
Using 'autovote' of any sort is NOT curation. It's processing.
If we want to process the steem stream...that's fine.
...but let's be honest about it.
Curation has a whole nuther meaning.
I see both sides to this..
Won't the data from the blockchain solve this problem on it's own..? I figure eventually in the near future, this platform will be able to decipher a bot from human solely off the thought process of recent activity.
NOooooOOOOOOO! I dont want to capt ha ever. Fucking pain in the arse!
That looks very cool. If you also re-enabled the ability to Edit, Delete, and get Replies to old posts it might even reverse the huge decline in participation. In case you haven't noticed removing the users control over their own posts is not encouraging more activity, it is making them leave.
I see your point but feel as for now it is necessary to get a true evaluation of each user..
Very nice. I'm assuming we will still be able to use markdown as before though? I'm pretty used to it now.
I hope so.
*I don't see why that would change, but I hope not."
I have actually used both medium and iconomi platforms and really like how the markdown editor works. It is much easier on the user if he/she is not used to markdown as I wasn't first coming into this platform. Now, I love markdown but believe this tool will enable users to write and edit quicker making our use for time more adequate.
For sure and I also very much doubt they will remove the markdown facility as that wouldn't make sense.
I'm pretty sure they are only enhancing what is already there and won't be removing Markdown.
Yeah, I think (and hope) so.
Thanks for the update Dan! Looking forward to more exciting updates in the near future!
Epic, I'm so relieved to see these progress posts :) Thanks for the update @dantheman
Likewise!
Hi @dantheman, I translated your post into Spanish:
Nuevo Avance de Steemit con Notificaciones y Editor de Estilo Intermedio
Mucho gusto amigo~
Muchas gracias @christoryan, abrazo!
Yeah!!!!
Fantastic! Interestingly I had chosen the same subdomain weeks ago for my steemit.com clone sandbox test.bitcoiner.me too!
Looking forward to these cool new features. But think that auto voting and reduced time periods for power down aren't good for the ecosystem
Nice. I hope we have super talented UX professions to make Steemit site much enjoyable.
Where does the direct image hosting take place? I'd thought that media in the block chain itself was too unwieldy. Is media still processed as a link but with Steemit having procured its own integrated free hosting solution?
Probably, and if anything goes wrong. POOF. you have no more pictures and no way to fix them, because they disabled the edit and delete commands.
Edit needs to be be permanent, especially in cases where someone uses a copyrighted image and the owner asks them to take it down. How would this be possible, unless Steemit hires someone to clean old posts manually?
Edits are permanent now. That is the problem, after 30 days you cannot ever fix or delete the things you post.
Using your copyrighted image scenario, no one can remove infringing content to fix a DMCA request after 30 days because Steemit Disabled the Edit and Delete commands after 30 days.
The choice is either to support the user's rights to maintain and control their info, or to support refusing DMCA takedown requests.
Thank you for the question, this DMCA example explains the problem they are causing much better.
Looks dandy!!! :-D
Excellent work! This is a great example of features which will reduce the friction of authors in creating content and establish capabilities on par with other top tier content sites. One step closer to v1.0 gold release! Keep it up.
Those are very nice features! I am happy to see them implemented. Thanks for that!
Where and how are the images stored? Will i be able to use steemit as a store for my pictures? With auto proof that they are mine and first published by me?
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Excellente'
Excellent upgrades @dantheman !
@dantheman, Before I want to say the feture is very useful for steemit users, how this project makes it easier for users in the field of telling .. just my question like this. My account @nauval sometimes it does not appear in my account .. is there anything wrong with my account. Or how what i need to do ???
LOL :)
Haha!
Just imagine, the same great team that brought us steemit wants to make it even better and press on out if beta mode.
Full steem ahead!
Your bot is super chill!
You're welcome!