Follow Up to the Compose Screen Upgrade

A huge thanks to everyone who has sent in their feedback and questions about the recent upgrade to the Compose screen!  We wanted to take a moment and address a few of the most common concerns we've heard from the community.

First off, we'd like to answer a few common questions you brought up:

• Is this a beta release of the Compose upgrade? No. Though not every TypePad member is seeing the new Compose screen yet, every member will eventually be upgraded to it over the next few weeks.  The Compose screen is no longer in beta -- as we mentioned in our previous post, it is being rolled out in phases to all members. 
• Is my browser affecting my experience with the new Compose?  For the best experience with the new Compose, you should use one of our supported browsers. If you need a free upgrade for the browser you're using, our list of supported browsers includes handy links for you.
• I already like the font I selected in my design - do I have to select this font again when I use the new Compose?  The formatting you’ve applied to your blog will stay the same unless you override it by selecting a font and/or formatting in the new editor.  You do not have to set the formatting for each and every post to match your blog’s design.
• How do I format text?  In order to use the formatting options, first type and then highlight the text, then select your desired formatting.  We understand that this is a change from what you're used to, so we're looking into a way to bring back the formatting process some of you are more familiar with.

Next, we'd like to point out a few of the issues we've addressed since the launch, thanks to your prompt feedback:

• Accented and special characters now display properly in Preview: We fixed a bug in the Preview window where characters with accents and other special characters weren’t displayed properly in the Preview window. They should now appear correctly.
• Text selection is maintained when you resize: We fixed a bug that caused only part of your selected text to be resized.  The entire selection of text should now be resized.
• Quickpost correctly handles draft posts: The quickpost tool was publishing posts meant to be saved as drafts.  It's fixed so that posts saved as draft will not be automatically published to the blog.
• Category selection errors are fixed: We fixed a bug where a small subset of you were seeing categories show up twice, or not at all.   

There are a few common open issues we're still working on:

• The Insert Image dialog doesn’t always display properly on Mac + Firefox: The dialog is sometimes cut off. We’re working on fixing this.
• Some users are experiencing slowness: Typing in the new editor is slow for some of you.  We're working on fixing this.
• Some users are experiencing formatting difficulties:  If you're having trouble applying formatting, whether the line spacing is off or formatting is not being applied correctly, some of these issues could be addressed by making sure you're using a supported browser.  If you're still having problems, please help us understand your issue by filing a support ticket describing the problem along with telling us what browser and version you're using and whether you're on a Mac or PC.
• Other issues: We have updated the Known Issues list with the full list of open issues.

Still Have Questions?  Please Reach Out To Our Support Team!
Finally, if you are experiencing any difficulty with a feature in TypePad, the best thing to do is reach out to our Support team by opening a help ticket.  You will receive a timely, personal response from one of our Support team members.  When we receive comments here on the Everything TypePad blog that describe a problem or confusion with a feature, we forward them to the Support team to make sure you get a direct response and the specific answer you're looking for.  When we have to forward your comment, it takes a bit longer for you to get into the Support queue, so your best bet for a more prompt response is to open a ticket instead.  Please be patient, we promise each new Support ticket will get a response!

Again, we thank you for all the feedback you've given us.  Though the new Compose screen was tested by hundreds of TypePad members over several weeks prior to this first launch phase, we can't anticipate the needs of every single one of our members.  Feedback from a larger group always helps us improve our offering. 

Thanks everyone!

An Upgrade to TypePad's Compose Screen

When Chris Alden, our CEO, asked for feedback last January about the improvements you wanted to see, many of you sent in fantastic suggestions for how we could improve TypePad's Compose page. We listened to your suggestions, added functionality from your top requests, and we're excited to announce the new Compose tools are ready for release.

Please note that the new screen will reach groups of TypePad users in phases over the coming weeks. Some of you will see these changes today and everyone will see them by mid-June. We are working to get them to everyone as quickly as possible, and we appreciate your patience while we do so.

In the meantime, here is a quick look at what's changing and what it will mean for your blog:

Text and Photo Alignment

You asked for an easier way to align images and text. Now you can do this with a single click without diving into the HTML code.

More Image Options

Editing images once they are inserted in your compose window is now a lot easier. Click on the image thumbnail to add details, like a description or website address. Or, finesse the format with customized borders.

New Font Control

Sometimes it's the little details that make a blog truly unique. The font tools have always allowed you to change the font size and text color, but now you can choose your font style too. So if your style is more Lucida Console than Comic Sans MS, your blog can reflect that.

Open Links in a New Window

Many of you wanted an easy way to set links to open in a new window so your readers wouldn't have to navigate away from your blog. Now instead of hand-coding the link options, you can just check a box.

Control Your Breaks

Extended entries present just a short introduction (or first paragraph) to show what a post has in store, and then offer a link to read more. Instead of typing your extended entry in a separate box, now you simply add an "extended entry line" into the compose window and drag it where you would like the text to be separated.

We haven't taken away any of the Compose tools you've already been using. Favorites like Markdown are here to stay.

Read the full details about the changes and watch a screencast featuring the new Compose screen in this Overview of the New Compose Editor.

A few things to note: As always, our wonderful Beta team members have helped us with testing these improvements, and have spotted a few issues that should be fixed in the next week or two.  You can find out more about them on the Known Issues list.  And don't forget, the new Compose screen is launching in phases, so don't panic if you don't see the changes for a few more weeks. We appreciate your patience as we roll out these improvements! If you have any questions, please contact our Support team.

These new features are just the beginning of many exciting developments at TypePad. We look forward to hearing what you think in the comments.

Lovely New Styles for Photo Albums

As we've been reading through all of the feedback and ideas sent in from the TypePad community over the last few days, one request we saw many times was for new styles for your photo albums.  We're excited to let you know that we just added four new photo album styles this afternoon.

 

            Radiant Heart  &  Hearts Pink

You'll notice a lot of hearts, red and pink in these themes, just in time for Valentine's Day.  But we think there are lots of other occasions to use these lovely styles, from wedding and engagement photos, to pictures of your new baby, or to celebrate any and all of your passions and true loves, year round.

 

            Romantic  &  Stripes Red

Find the new styles under Photo Albums > Design > Style and look for "Valentine's Day" in the dropdown menu.  For further reading on photo albums, you can read articles in the Knowledge Base about customizing your  photo album's style, layout and content.

Faster loading and more intuitive Photo Albums

We made TypePad's photo albums a little bit better today, especially for your site's visitors. We've added pagination to photo index pages, and better navigation on your photo detail pages, which means your albums are now faster to load and easier to navigate.

Before today, Photo Album index pages would show thumbnails of all of the photos in your album. We've heard from many of you that have large photo albums that this meant long load times and lots of scrolling for your visitors. As of today, the Photo Album index page will show the first 50 photos in your album, and then automatically display a prominent link to move to the next page of photos in the album. Faster load times and much less scrolling!

If you've selected to show thumbnails on your photo detail pages, instead of showing every single thumbnail from the whole album (which again, meant long load times and lots of scrolling for your visitors), now the photo detail page will simply show thumbnails to help your visitors navigate to the previous or next photo in the album. (Check out the screenshot to see what we mean.) It's a more intuitive way for visitors to navigate through your album, and it means faster load times for them as well.

As always, you can learn more about TypePad's Photo Album feature in the the TypePad Knowledge Base.

Spam service update

Thank you for all of your comments letting us know that the spam service is being overaggressive in categorizing your blogs' comments as spam! This is great feedback. We’ve heard you and have made a change to the service that will help direct legitimate comments straight to your comments folder.

Still having trouble with real comments being treated as spam? Please let us know by filing a help ticket that includes the comment text. Each time you publish a legitimate message that’s found its way to the spam folder you help to teach TypePad what it should and shouldn’t treat as spam, but seeing the comments first hand helps us to learn right away what types of comments are being flagged falsely.

New! Spam folders help keep your blog spam-free

Update: Thank you for all of your comments letting us know that the spam service is being overaggressive in categorizing your blogs' comments as spam! This is great feedback. We're working on a change that will help keep legitimate comments out of the spam folder and will post an update when it's done.

Over the past few months, we’ve been busy rolling out new features for the comment service. Today, we added out another great new feature – a spam folder for comments and TrackBacks, similar to the spam or junkmail folder found in your email service or program. This feature is available to all users.

What does the spam folder do?

The TypePad spam service prevents over half a million of pieces of spam from reaching TypePad blogs each day. But there are some messages we can’t quite be sure about. Is a comment about a mail order pharmacy on a blog about healthcare spam, or a part of the discussion? We let messages we’re unsure about through our spam filter so you don’t miss legitimate comments.

Until today, that meant that comment and TrackBack spam may have still been published on your blog. Now that we’ve added spam folders for comments and TrackBacks we can let you see messages we’re unsure of without automatically publishing them to your blog. Any messages we think may be spam will be put into the spam folders found on the comment and TrackBack listing pages.

If you find a message in a spam folder isn’t spam, simply select it and click “publish” in the dropdown to publish it to your blog. If you find a message in your regular comment or TrackBack folder, simply select it and click “report spam” to unpublish it and move it to the spam folder.

We heard from many of you who used the word and IP banning features that you sometimes miss legitimate comments from those addresses or using those words. We’ll now put comments flagged by those features into the spam folder so you have a chance to review them. 

How you can help make the spam service even better

Each time you flag a message as spam, or publish a legitimate message that’s found its way to the spam folder you help to teach TypePad what it should and shouldn’t treat as spam. Over time, this helps to make the spam service better for you, and the entire TypePad community.

You can read more about the spam folders in this Knowledge Base article.

Share your new blog posts with your friends on Facebook

As Facebook announced yesterday, we are excited to offer Facebook Beacon functionality on TypePad. Facebook Beacon is a new feature on Facebook makes it simple to insert actions into your Facebook Mini-Feed and News Feed from sites outside of Facebook, and then in turn share them with your friends on Facebook. Offering Facebook Beacon on TypePad means that you can now choose to share your new blog posts with your friends on Facebook.

This is an opt-in feature -- you'll be able to control whether or not you want to send your posts to Facebook, and of course we'll only do this when you're creating posts on the blogs you publicize. We see this as a great way to help you let your friends on Facebook know that you've updated your blog.  You can read the TypePad Knowledge Base article for more information about how to enable Facebook Beacon for your blog.

Follow the conversation with comment feeds

As we talked about last month, we're improving the comments service on TypePad, and rolling new features out to users in phases. In October we introduced the ability to have TypePad close comments on old posts automatically, this month we've added a feature that will help readers follow the conversation on your blog.

Comment feeds for posts and pages

Chances are, most of your readers keep up with your blog by subscribing to its feed. This week, we added the ability for them to keep up with comments on individual posts or pages by subscribing to comment feeds. Comment feeds are an excellent way to encourage your readers to continue the conversation you've started in a post as it lets them read new comments without revisiting your page to check for updates. You can also use this feature to track comments instead of receiving them by email. You can turn on comment feeds on the Configure > Feeds tab.

When will I see these changes?

We continue to roll these new features to more and more customers, making sure that before we add a new group of users that we've tested and validated the system. If you're interested in beta testing new functionality, you can let us know by filing a support ticket and asking to be placed on the list of potential beta testers.

New features and new themes

As we talked about last month, we're improving the comments service on TypePad, and rolling new features out to users in phases. In September we introduced comment pagination, one of our most highly requested features, and over the past several weeks we've been rolling that feature to more and more TypePad users.

Automatically closing comments

Yesterday we introduced another highly-requested feature to the comment service on TypePad, the ability to automatically close comments on older posts. Many authors find that closing comments on older posts helps keep readers focused on the current conversation on their blogs, and makes it easier for them to manage and moderate the conversation happening on their blogs more effectively. You can turn on this feature on a blog by blog basis; to do this go to the configure tab and click on "Feedback," where you can set your preferences for how your readers can engage with your blog. This Knowledge Base article has all the details.

Paginating more than just comments

Yesterday we also introduced another highly requested feature: paginating your entry archives. If you're a frequent or long-time blogger on TypePad, you know that your monthly or category archives will just grow and grow and grow as you continue to post on your favorite topics. This can create challenges for your readers, who have to load a very large page in order to read your great posts on Cooking or Software or Television.

TypePad will now automatically "paginate" your date archives and your category archives, and give your readers the familiar "previous" "next" links to navigate through your archives. This feature will make your archives easier to read and faster to download. And like we did with comment pagination, we're introducing a new set of preferences for your blog where you can define how many entries to show in a set (between 1 and 50), as well as the labels you want to use for the "next" and "previous" links. Don't like "next" and "previous"? Then change the labels to "Keep going" and "Go back." Or "Mooooore" and "Lesssss." Or anything you like. Learn more about configuring your blog publishing preferences in this Knowledge Base article.

When will I see these changes?

Over the past several weeks we've been rolling these new features to more and more customers, making sure that before we add a new group of users that we've tested and validated the system. We expect to be able to offer these features to all of our customers in the next 4-6 weeks. It's taken a bit longer than we originally anticipated, but we want to make sure we get this right.

And, as we talked about last month, if you're interested in beta testing new functionality, you can let us know by filing a support ticket and asking to be placed on the list of potential beta testers.

Oh, and more themes!

And because we love giving everyone more design options, we've added some new great looking themes to TypePad. Look for the "Camo," "Ragged," "Stripes" and "Sorbet" themes, each of which come in several color combinations, for a total of 17 new designs to pick from.

Introducing TypePad for iPhone and iPod touch

We've baked moblogging into TypePad from the very beginning. From integration with Nokia's LifeBlog to our free TypePad Mobile client for Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and Symbian phones, TypePad has been leading the field with excellent mobile blogging tools and services. So when we saw Apple's iPhone in January with its unique browser interface, we knew we'd have to do something special for TypePad.

Today, we're very excited to announce the availability of our new iPhone-optimized interface for TypePad. iPhone owners can try it out by visiting i.typepad.com. (If you have an iPhone but not a TypePad blog, you can sign up for a free 14-day trial.) You can create and edit posts, manage comments, configure mobile settings for posting photos directly from your iPhone, and view your published blog, all from the comfort of, well, wherever. :)

Using TypePad on the iPhone is the best blogging experience for mobile devices thanks to its tap-based interface and custom integration with built-in iPhone functionality. Blogs published through TypePad look great on the iPhone as well, thanks to our standards-based publishing engine and gorgeous designs.

Give it a try and we think you'll really enjoy blogging from your iPhone with TypePad.

Additional information and screenshots are available after the jump...