October 16, 2007
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New Private Home! Check it out =)!
I’ve been working on a new private home page with Marc, and I’ve put it up for everyone to try out. We made it a lot cleaner and I think way more useful.
If you’re not a themed user, you should upgrade. It’s seriously 1000 times better than using the old CLAF stuff.
One note: For people not using themes, you’ll notice that there’s not really a way to look through all your weblog entries. However, if you go over to http://weblog.xanga.com/[yourusername], you’ll be able to edit all your entries.
Let me know what you think!
Comments (31)
Wow I like this new private homepage alot. It’s entirely convenient, you really did a great job! Might even replace Google as my new homepage.
nice
q: why do I not get a thumbnail of my site? I just get a box that says ‘generating image’.
also, why do I see a tab that says ‘Feedback (12)’…. twelve what?
hmm.. also kinda thinking you should dress up the announcements box a bit… it’s just sorta sitting there on top of everything…. maybe you could move that over to where the “you’re checking out the new blah blah” message is?
maybe you could put previous/next at the top of the feedback list (in addition to what’s already there at the bottom)
I hope you guys are planning to eventually have that page use the Themes system.
I can’t speak for all Xanga users, but for me and my friends (from what I can tell), we prefer that our Private page respects the settings (appearance-wise) that we’ve set for the rest of the site.
I mean, I know that my Public pages will respect my Themes settings, but I’d rather be able to see it. And I think most people would want to too.
To have the Private page not respect Themes settings would be, in my opinion, a big mistake.
@cApNhOwDy123: Thanks =)!
@Sean:
1 – The screenshot generator we have needs more servers, which Adam is working on right now. That will hopefully be fixed soon.
2 – Soon the page will show all the stuff that’s happening to your Xangans (people you’re friends with and subscribed to). That link “Feedback (12)” will take you to a page showing just the stuff that other people have done to your site, with 12 being the number of new things that happened since the last time you checked that page.
3 – I agree, I think we’re going to add some more styling around announcements. I think in that spot to the right we’re going to eventually put an ad, although we haven’t decided yet.
4 – We actually had those up there before, but it looked kind of messy to us, I’ll see what the plan is there.
Also:
Another reason that I think it should respect Themes is because I think the page shouldn’t be a pre-set, uncustomizable page.
The beauty of Themes is how it not only allows you to fully control the look of your page, but also to fully control the individual modules – which ones are shown, and where they are placed.
It is a great concept. Full customization to your liking.
And now suddenly, we have a Private page with modules that are completely immobile and unremovable (if one wishes to do so).
What’s the point of having this new Themes system and the advantages that it brings if the (arguably) most important page of every user doesn’t use it and thus has none of the advantages?
@remain – when I first heard about the new unthemed home page, I had the same opinion that you have. I really liked having my private home page on Xanga styled as my own page. But the more I think about it, the more sense it makes to treat the private home page more like a system page (ie part of xanga-the-application), and less like a personalized page. Allowing people to mess around with the private page introduces the possibility of breaking it, which in turn makes things like ‘safe mode’ necessary. IMO, it’s better to keep the private page confined to a standard look so they’ll always have a functional page to go to when they break something in their theme. The stability of a page like this, plus the HUGE benefits of having an aggregated view for all of your feedback, far outweigh the perceived benefits of being to navel-gaze at your theme every time you visit your private page.
@remain – we actually seriously considered having the user’s theme carry through to the new private home, but as sean mentioned there are some problems that arise from having that. in fact, sean pretty much just described our thought process on this decision.
however, for the one thing you mentioned, having customized modules, that’s something we are still considering. we actually built the page with the same framework that we used for other pages, so it’s an easy change. but we’d probably do something where some of the modules would be fixed.
did your thought process include the term “navel-gaze”? I DID NOT THINK SO.
Hmm… I see your point. (both of you)
Well, I can understand your reasoning…
The unfortunate thing is, well, let me tell you about one of my friends.
A while back, he tried Themes for a little while. I saw that and I was like, “Cool, another person I know is using Themes now.” Then a while later, his site was back to the old system. I asked him, “Why’d you change back?” He said, “Too complicated. I don’t like it. And why was my private page different? Nothing made any sense.” (Of course, back then, we were talking about the old private page, but same idea.)
I think my friend is basically what you’d consider “the average user.” Doesn’t care about the intricate details of your new system. All he wants is something that works, and something that he can adjust to his liking.
So I can understand why he didn’t like Themes. And I can also understand why he probably won’t switch to Themes now even with this new private page. If I did persuade him to try it out again, the first thing he’d ask me is most likely, “Why doesn’t my Private page look like how I set it??” And though I can give him the answer about bla bla potential risk of bad code, bla bla breaking his site, for him, it’ll probably not be good enough of an answer. He’d go, “I don’t care. If I can’t even control what my own page looks like, then I’m not using this supposedly ‘better’ system.” And this will happen with many other users, I’m sure.
Well, that said, I still understand why this decision was taken. Perhaps it is the best way to handle this. However, though I am willing to live with not having my Themes settings apply to my Private page, some people won’t. Ah well, I guess ya can’t please everyone.
Well, then I’d suggest giving people the ability to move the Private page’s modules around at least (like you’ve said).
Actually, it’d probably be confusing if those modules are completely independent of the ‘regular’ Themes modules, therefore 2 completely separate sets of unrelated modules.
How about this:
Any settings that can break the site, such as appearance settings, CSS: not on the Private page.
Modules that can break the site, such as Custom Modules: not on the Private page.
But all other “harmless” modules: on the page.
(And of course, all the other special Private page modules, like “Your Site”, “Feedback Log”, “Subscriptions”, etc.)
At least this way, even though not all settings will be respected, at least some are. It’ll give some sense of consistency between the regular Themed pages and the Private page.
That’s my two cents anyway.
Oh, and one more thing:
On the new Private page, on the top left, there’s some text saying:
“You’re checking out your new, unified feedback pageā¦
[...]
It’s still in beta, so please let us know what you think“
That link leads to http://weblog.xanga.com/TheXangaTeam/621728414/unified-feedback-page.html
but that URL doesn’t exist and thus redirects to http://www.xanga.com/TheXangaTeam
Thought you’d want to know.
Awesome. So, can we make it match the rest of our theme?
That is… at least use our color/background settings?
Unrelated comment…
How did you make your toolbar @ the top & bottom of the page only go 3/4 of the way across?
tx_christian:
“How did you make your toolbar @ the top & bottom of the page only go 3/4 of the way across?”
Who are you asking?
I see the broken link I mentioned up there has been removed now.
So where are we supposed to give feedback? Comments to this entry?
Perhaps a thread in the Help Forums should be made?
tx_christian:
“That is… at least use our color/background settings?”
Hmm…
A few posts up, I suggested to have the Private page respect the Themed page’s module settings, but not things that could “break” the site, i.e., Custom Modules, CSS, and appearance settings.
But now that I think about it, aren’t appearance settings “harmless” too?
I mean, you can’t really “break” a site by setting colors, right?
If so, then like tx_christian, I think it’d be great if the Private page could follow the appearance settings.
@ remain – I was asking vikas how he did the toolbars on this site, sorry for the confusion
my posts usually involve a lot of pictures- when i use themes it only shows some of the photos.
I really like it. I especially like the “universal inbox” where I can easily see all of my latest feedback without clicking anything. That’s probably my favorite thing about this new system. I also like that it’s simple and loads fast. I find that the “your site” module in the top left with the “edit theme” button is a big improvement to the current system. Overall I think it’s great.
IMO, the dropdown when mousing over “visiting: your home” (on the left) should not be the same as your username’s dropdown (on the right).
It should be the same as the “visiting: [username]” dropdowns of the other Themed pages, that is:
[username]‘s Xanga Site
Weblog
Photos
Videos
Pulse
Profile
@tx_christian – hmm, not sure what you mean about the toolbars being 3/4ths across. are you talking about the navigation links? when i look at my page the toolbars go all the way across
@remain – thanks for letting me know about the broken link, i think we’ll have a post up on monday where you can add additional feedback. however, until then feel free to keep commenting here and i’ll check them. as for the appearance settings, i’ll talk to people about it but i’m not sure if we’ll be doing that.
@anth0nyc – are you talking about your posts when viewed through weblog.xanga.com/anth0nyc?
@pedrothepoet – thanks! i’m glad you like it, we’ll be rolling out improvements to it in the next few weeks.
The link is back now, but it’s still broken.
It links to http://weblog.xanga.com/TheXangaTeam/621728414/unified-feedback-page.html
which redirects to http://www.xanga.com/TheXangaTeam
I like it! It took me forever to get used to the dash home page, but this is, I think, much better.
Gaaah, I’m going crazy here. I love love love LOVE the new homepage you guys have created, but I can’t seem to make it “stick”. When I go to someone’s site and come back Home, I’m back to my old Xanga Dash. What do I need to do so it’s permanent?
Thanks for your help and thanks for the kickass work!!
@bendicida – I believe this should work: http://www.xanga.com/private/homemain.aspx?set=1
It should set the page as your new home page =).
@craftygirl – thanks!
Thank you thank you! <3