Commenting Fixes, Facebook Integration, and Beta Improvements

A big shout-out to everyone in the TypePad community for your feedback and suggestions these last few weeks. We’re hard at work improving TypePad for you. Here’s the highlights from this week’s release update:

Commenting
We fixed a lot of small, but important, commenting issues. These were affecting users with certain operating system and browser combinations. Some issues fixed include:

• A caching issue that caused some user comments to appear later than expected.
• An issue that made it difficult to leave comments because preview/save buttons were not showing properly
• Fixed an issue when commenters used accent marks

We appreciate everyone’s feedback about the issues you and your readers were seeing. We’re excited to keep improving the commenting experience. Of course, please open a ticket with our awesome support team if you see issues.

Facebook Integration
Tell your friends about your latest post on Facebook. We’ve updated our connection with Facebook so that the “beacon” (which automagically updates Facebook when you post) works with more posting statuses. Now, the Facebook update will work even when you set a post to draft before you publish it, and with scheduled posts.  Are you a TypePad fan on Facebook?

Bug Fixes Just for [some of] You
We also fixed a ton of specific issues for individual customers. We’re here to make you happy.

Beta Improvements
Finally, for beta customers, we improved our “share this post” feature so you can automatically update Twitter and Friendfeed when you post to your blog. Please give us feedback so we can roll this out to everyone as soon as possible.

Release Hiccup: Future Post
Some of you may have experienced with future posting issues on Thursday night after the release. Thanks to everyone’s feedback and our own tireless engineering team, the issue was identified and fixed the next day. As always, you can check status updates and the help section for details about system problems. (Thanks to our friend and great blogger Book of Joe, for the suggestions for improving our communication in those channels. I haven't used hardly any exclamation points since then, Joe.)

Coming up...
We know some people are still seeing some issues when composing your posts. Over the next several weeks we will be testing some major improvements and upgrade to the Compose experience based on your feedback. As we learned from the first major upgrade to Compose last year, it's complex. We will be testing this experience for a future release and design experience. In the meantime, we encourage you to try the Light Editor if you are still having problems. We’re looking forward to hearing about how you’re doing, and to keeping you updated on the progress.

Have something you want to say? Talk to us in the comments.

Comments

[Cosmo Scharf]

Thanks Ginerva! Hope to see some more great updates!

[Sylvia]

I'd just like to add that if anyone is dissatisfied with Compose that they try Windows Live Writer for offline blogging. It is an absolute dream to work with (and it works great with Typepad). It gives you true, fully-styled WYSIWYG editing, cool image formatting options, and it's a model of user-friendliness. It's fast, it works, and it's beautiful. Give it a try. http://download.live.com/writer

[Ginevra]

glad you liked it! :) Next time I'll try not to make it so wordy.

[Ginevra]

I've also used Mars Edit with a Mac, or even just composed my posts in a notepad or something to that effect. We're really working hard at improving the overall compose experience, but an external editor is a great idea for a good middle ground for now.

there's a couple of nagging issues in Windows Live Writer, but I'm glad you're having a good experience with it.

[Sylvia]

Yes, I haven't had a single problem with it so far. I don't think you could pay me to go back to non-WYSIWYG editing!

[RobiNZ]

I use BlogJet with TypePad, have tried Live Writer but prefer BlogJet because used it since before LW existed.
It's not perfect, in fact getting a bit old in the tooth, but is fine for most posts. The only real problem I've had is in mangles some, not all, player embed code if you try and edit a posted draft/existing post. Compose and first post are fine.

Try it at http://blogjet.com/

[RobiNZ]

Is it possible "Release Hiccup: Future Post" could have resulted in a draft on one blog appearing on another? I'm sure I posted a draft to my CAD blog a couple of weeks ago only to find it posted to my index blog the other night. Might have just been my scrambled brain but when I opened my local file (composed in BlogJet and saved to hard disk) it was not directed to the blog it published on.

[Katie Konrath]

Some thoughts while we're discussing improvements:

I'd really appreciate it if we could publish a post without automatically notifying all the publicity services. Since the Preview window is not an accurate depiction of how a post will look on the blog, it would be nice to be able to publish secretly so I can make sure everything looks the way I want it to.

Also, it would be great to have a "print this" capability available. Currently, posts print with the banner on one page, and the content on the other. That's a problem, as well as a big waste of paper.

Another fix I, and many others, would love is the ability to re-arrange items in a Typelist. Currently I do it using html, but it would be much nicer and easier for non-tech people if they could just re-order items similarly to the Blog Design content selections.

Those are three features I've been hoping for for a long time, so I hope this gets it on Typepad's radar.

[The Typepad Team]

This could have happened if you posted it in the time in which the bug was still scuttling around out there - from Thursday night PST to Friday afternoon PST. I don't think there's much of a way around that for now, except to repost it where it belongs. :( Apologies for that.

[Colleen]

Weblogs have a built-in print stylesheet now, so it shouldn't print with the graphical blog banner. It should be just the blog's title and the actual posts. Are you seeing something different?

[RobiNZ]

No big deal, have reposted to the correct blog. I think it was in draft and set to publish in that time period.

[Kass]

Perhaps it depends on the web browser? I use Firefox and currently the blogs title and posts print (on the index page anyway). The graphical blog banner and sidebars haven't printed for me since 2007. I didn't even know Typepad changed the way blogs were printed.

[Age of Autism]

I've had major problems with readers unable to comment. They think we're moderating them out and are ticked off. It's not that the post buttons don't turn black - although that was a major hassle. Thanks for fixing it. They get data errors that I hear might be related to script blocking. I'm trying to figure out if I can customize the verbiage they see when they go to comment - the commenting instructions - I opened a help ticket. Commenting is the engine of blogging - we have to fix this. Thanks so much,

Kim, Age of Autism

[Ginevra]

Hi Kim - Let me know how the ticket turns out. Please let me know if you need anything beyond that, or if you have any additional questions.

[Age of Autism]

Thank you. Not quite resolved, although Zalary and the others on the team
have been helpful. They tested comments. They work. I know they work - they
just don't work for every reader. People are getting the "gray buttons that
don't turn black", a data error message and perhaps another glitch where
they think they commented but I never get the comment. It is not going into
SPAM - I know to look there.

My main goal right now is to be able to customer the commenting instructions
box that appears before you leave your comment, telling readers how to
manage the potential problems with comments and reassuring their angry
little selves that we still love them and want them to comment... I keep
asking if I can do this and I think it;s "Only in advanced template." I'm
no techie.... I don't have a tech team. I'll hire someone if needed. I'd
hire Typepad if I could just write new copy for the box and get the job
done.

I have the upgraded service with Typepad, and service is quick and helpful.
I am stuck on this one though - I expect to have another answer tomorrow.

Thank you so much. I enjoy having a Typepad blog.

Kim, Age of Autism.

[Ginevra]

Kim, if you want to email me, we can work on this to get it sorted out together. It's just ginevra@sixapart.com

[Katie Konrath]

One problem I've had recently was that when I write a post, the paragraphs are separated by html tags instead of tags.

This is just a recent occurrence. Is that an error, or is that how the html in posts work now?

I ask because it's causing problems with inserting pictures.

[David Hewson]

The Facebook posting doesn't work on my site. When I pointed this out I got this reply from tech support.
'The FaceBook prompt is a third-party tool created by FaceBook, not TypePad. We have integrated the tool into TypePad, but it was developed by Facebook. We have had some users report success with getting the Facebook Beacon to work after adjusting their security software or firewall settings, so we recommend disabling the security temporarily to see if that resolves the problem. Your router may have a firewall installed which you may want to look into. You may also want to report the problems you are encountering to Facebook to see if they have any recommendations for adjusting your computer and network to allow the beacon to work correctly.'
Nice to see Typepad taking responsibility again. Of course it may be not working due to the domain issue at Typepad which has taken my domain offline for three days now, a problem TP say they will look at tomorrow when they get round to it, unless I want to take out a $90 a month business account to get premium support. Would-be TP customers note - this it the support you can expect from this company. A downed web site, killed by a TP error, is not regarded as a priority.