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New Ratings Widget from Outbrain and a Note on the New Text Editor
New Ratings Widget
For some time we have lacked the ability to rate blog posts, forum discusiions etc. This is now possible with the new Outbrain widget which has been added to the right hand column below the search engine --------
The widget provides recommendations for other ( related ) content that 'you might like' on the site. There are also external sponsored recommendations. So if you have written a post you might want to rate it and encourage others to do so. The more ratings you get the more likely it is that Outbrain will feature your content on other site pages ( currently more than 13000 ). The more its read, the more likely you are to attract comments and win the monthly 'Top Blogger' competition.
New Text Editor
We have recently installed a new text editor on the site. This editor will be standard for blog posts, comments, forum discussions etc. It will appear anywhere where you might want to add text. It has a number of capabilities which were lacking in the old editor/s e.g. colored text but it may take some getting used to. If anyone has problems with it please let us know by commenting on this post. As with any new release there will be some bugs and if you come across one we want to get it ironed out as quickly as possible.
As an example you may notice that smiley's do not display in the normal way. There is a work around for this. When in visual mode ( does not work in html mode ) simply drag and drop the smileys from the display below into the editor window and they will appear thus:- 
@Swansea Aaaaargh....the dreaded text editor...will call later in the week to discuss...BUT you are right, a post or two to explain how to use it wouldn't be a bad idea
@Swansea..yeah they took the icon out in the WISYWIG panel....you can still do it in html though.
Want more 'eyeballs'? We've set things up so you can get them.
Dont forget to rate your own blogs when you post You can rate internally using the Outbrain widget ( 5 yellow stars in the right hand column ) which will mean that your post is 'recommended' on more page views on this site. Also you can like your own posts on Facebook using the FB 'Like' button at the top of the column. You can also share on Twitter and FB using the apps below your posts ( just underneath 'tags' )
New Feature This Evening
Or perhaps more accurately the return of an old one. If you look at the top of the right hand column you will see a dropdown menu called Quickadd. From here you can add blog posts, forum discussions, events, music, photos and videos without having to navigate to the appropriate page on the site or to your home page. Should speed things up a bit
Be aware though that you will only have access to the mini version of the new text editor if you are entering content from here. If you have any heavy formatting requirements better to go to blogs, add blog post where you will have access to the full version of the editor.
All this upheaval just so we can have colored text! When do we get WingDings?
More new features coming. This looks quite promising
"You've probably noticed that your Admin Options (Feature, Edit, Delete, etc.) for various content are all over the place. For example, on a video page, the Feature link is at the bottom of the page, right next to Favorite. But on forum discussion page, the Feature link is in an Admin Options box right in the discussion itself.
The location of Admin Options on discussions and blog posts in particular sometimes causes other issues. For example, when an image is very large, it sometimes obscures the Admin Options links.
All this led us to provide a cleaner, more consistent experience, which you can see below. Just like with any change, it might take a week or two to get trained on clicking here to Feature, edit, or delete content. But on the flip side, you'll now have one single place to look for any piece of content, and you'll be able to view blog posts and forum discussions normally, without the Admin Box changing (and sometimes breaking) the UI. ( Click to enlarge the image below )"
As always, a thousand Diolch's for your tireless efforts Gaffer.....much appreciated.
More text editor fun and frolics........I apologize for being entirely wrapped up with this for the last 3 days but it is of such vital significance that I have no option. All content on the site is produced by means of the text editor and if it lacks basic functionality then we are somewhat banjaxed. As you may know Ning has introduced a new text editor and while in many ways it is an improvement on the old arrangement there remain a number of bugs to be ironed out. You may notice a few changes as the process proceeds. For instance today we have introduced sitewide justification of blog posts via CSS Heres a partial definition of text justification:-
Paragraph or block of text in which all words in all lines are spaced-out such that the first word aligns with the left margin and last word with the right margin.
All blog posts will be rendered as justified text in future although this wont apply to comments, wall postings, messages etc. The reason for this is as follows. When we are presenting certain types of content e.g reviews, interviews ... it is important that the formatting looks as professional as possible. Books, magazines and news sites on the web all use justified text and we need to do the same. The new text editor does not permit justification of text so we have added a line to the site CSS which will compensate for this by justifying text in blog posts globally.
We are sorry for limiting your formatting choices in this way but without text justification we would important posts would lack polish. Hope you all like the new look
lol....no worries....rate away to your hearts content
Hopefully at some point if enough people use it we will get an idea of whats most popular on the site ( at least amongst active raters ) and popular content will be more widely linked.
The new widget is in the right hand column just below the AmeriCymru search engine ( 5 yellow stars ). Hopefully its working ok
It also includes both onsite and offsite recommendations for further reading. Cant vouch for the offsite stuff coz thats mostly sponsored BUT the onsite stuff will become more relevant the more often the rating tool is used. If 50 people give a post a 5 star rating it is highly likely to show up as a recommendation on other pages with similar content thus increasing page views for popular posts. It will take a little time to mature coz the bot that makes it work will need to visit the site many times assessing popularity and relevance . But eventually it could be a useful and fun addition to the site.