You and the New and Improved Dashboard!

You might recall that we began releasing a new and improved dashboard to Typepad users a few months ago. We're happy to say that as of today, this has been released to each and every Typepad subscriber!

You can read more about the new and improved Dashboard in the Knowledge Base.

We hope you enjoy using its new features!

Comments

[fairlady22]

Looks great!

[cindy2paw]

I have a "Featured Food Blog" smack in the middle of the page now, between the thing that tells me the dashboard is new, and the list of comments. How can I make it move or even go away please??

[Bronwyn ...]

Love all the new stuff you guys come up with.
Thanks for this latest addition!

[Tater Tales]

So far, I hate it. I'm finding it hard to navigate, and the Knowledge page didn't help at all. Ick.

[Maclin Horton]

I *really* miss being able to click on a comment to view/edit/mark it as spam. Puzzled that you would take that away. Not keen on the "featured blog" feature, either. Have yet to see one I was interested in and it's just in the way. Like the new quick post features, though.

[Account Deleted]

You need to rethink how we are supposed to manage moderated comments for multiple blogs with this new dashboard. With the old one, we had "Publish / Delete / Edit" choices for each comment. That's missing from the new dashboard - or did I miss it?

[Kamran Mackey]

What about the black dashboard that I saw on the Typepad website? Please push it out now...

[Seika]

That's a lot of blogs you have there.

Like Cindy and Maclic, not too fond of the Featured Blog posts. If you want to keep it going, why not push it to another official blog and leave Everything Typepad for announcements and Typepad news only ?
Peoples who want to see them can just follow that Featured Blog account. That way you could also see how much is actually interested in it to follow.

[Melanie]

Hi Cindy,

That does not sound good! Can you make a screen shot for us, and perhaps open up a Help ticket? The Featured Blog should be at the top at all times if you're on the front page, followed by other new posts, then a list of posts. We're happy to help get you sorted out, but we'll definitely need more information, so a Help ticket is the best way forward.

Thank you!

[Melanie]

:D Thank you Bronwyn! So glad you like it!

[Melanie]

Can you clarify a bit what you find difficult? Perhaps we can help shed some light on things.

[Melanie]

We've had a fantastic response to our Featured Blogs, but if you're not seeing the types of blogs you like, maybe we're missing some great stuff! In fact, it would be awesome if you could submit some of the Typepad blogs you like - chances are, other folks would like them too:

http://everything.typepad.com/blog/suggest.html

With regard to comment management, we have some great stuff in the works there, but for now, clicking on the native comments link within your account should let you work with those.

[Melanie]

Hi Seika,

We recently made the move to bring the Featured Blog posts into the Everything Typepad blog - they were on their own blog for a little over a year. This was done specifically to bring everyone a robust Customer Center where everything can be found in one place. We are looking at changing the frequency of the Featured posts though, so thanks for your input on that!

[Melanie]

Hi Chip!

We did remove the access to comments from the Dashboard proactively, but we have great stuff in the works for comments which we will hopefully be able to talk more about soon. We appreciate your letting us know what works best for you!

[Harry Joiner]

ugh!! this is a major problem. how do i delete the 20 spam comments i get each day? do i need to visit each comment to delete it? how can i switch back to the old UI?

[Maclin Horton]

Right, I know I can still do that, it's just not as convenient. Kind of a petty complaint, but when you make something that was very convenient somewhat less so, it's pretty much inevitable that people will gripe.

Re features, unfortunately most of the blogs I read regularly are on other platforms.

[Maclin Horton]

This is not something you could implement easily/quickly, but in the Maybe Someday class: a recommendation engine that would let people rate or flag as helpful/nothelpful the featured blogs, then use that to select featured blogs for that specific user. That would be cool.

[Harriete Estel Berman]

My blog (behind the scenes) for editing and composition is TOTALLY MESSED UP. Nothing works. Long lists of links, just seems like the interface is NOT supposed to look like this.
If I switch from Rich Text to HTML the editing box DISAPPEARS.

This is a crisis!!!!!!!
I can't even write a new post.
No way to add images.
No way to change fonts or edit size.

Harriete Estel Berman

[Bri]

Hi Harriete! I see that you've opened a ticket with us in the Help system, and I've marked it as urgent so that we can help with this situation. We'll do our best to get you back to the expected display as soon as possible. For now, I'm recommending that you try logging in and accessing your account with a different browser to see if that helps. We'll finish this conversation privately in your ticket.

[Bri]

Harry, in order for you to manage comments, you'll need to click the Comments link on the dashboard. For any blog on your dashboard that's not the default blog, the Comments link can be found by clicking the down-arrow to the right of the blog title. From the comments screen you can mass-delete or mass-mark spam comments. We have more information here: http://help.typepad.com/managing_comments.html

[KitchenEncounters]

I don't hate the Featured Blogs, but, it is in the way of my own stuff, and, it seems like you are trying to sell me on Typepad. I am on Typepad! I don't need to be sold on how great you all are. It's a bit "overkill". Why don't you create a Timeline, like FB and put your posts on the other side of the page.

Also, the "not being able to delete spam thing"... that is "just plain nuts" that it was taken away. No one likes it. Who would even propose to think that we would?

Lastly, the fact that I cannot sign in is driving me nuts. I use two browsers, Safari and Internet Explorer. Being told to temporarily use Firefox or Chrome is an insult. I cannot believe you did not check out these browsers prior to unveiling your new page.

I LOVE BLOGGING, and, I am not adverse to change, but:

Having great things in the works and us bloggers working with what actually works is important to us. We love hearing you have it in the works... just don't change it until you actually do.

LONG LIVE TYPEPAD!
Melanie

[carla]

Count me in as another vote against the Featured Blog post taking up so much real estate on the dashboard.

To be blunt: my web-surfing time and my blog-administration time are not the same thing. I do not want to be distracted with noisy and largely irrelevant invitations to browse the web when I log into TypePad to administer my blog. I just don't.

Keep the Featured Blogs in their own blog; I will happily add it to my RSS reader and browse them *when I have time and inclination to browse the web*. But when I log into TypePad, I've got work to do on my blog. I'm just not here to find new blogs to read at that time.

Please, get this clutter out of my way. Please.

Also count me as another voice who really wants to get back the administrative options on the dashboard comments view. I am not even sure what is the point of showing me this view of comments in the dashboard at all if I can't do anything with them. Can you please explain what this abbreviated, non-actionable view of comments is supposed to be useful for?

I've been a TypePad customer for ages. I'm reasonably satisfied with it (and far to entrenched to go anywhere). But the new dashboard is really just a page for me to click past so I can get to the stuff I'm actually here to do. It's not useful at all.

[Harry Joiner]

man what a hassle. i have 22 blogs in my typepad account and now i have to visit EACH blog to delete the spam comments, whereas before i could do it from my primary typepad dashboard. there should be a "manage comment" option right next to the comment on my typepad homepage. don't make me dig for the offending comment. who has time for that?? (otherwise, excellent update.)

[Account Deleted]

Good it's really nice......