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Official Wizzley News

Changes in our NEW Wizzley

chefkeem
Posts: 3100
Message
on 07/19/2012

At the point of this writing, we have a little more than 5 hours left before we upload our new Wizzley design. Wizzley will be down for approx. 2 hours, at 1 AM CDT (US Central Time), early Friday morning (TONIGHT). Notice the countdown on the front page (when you're logged in)?

Anyway, we wanted to give you a description of the major changes you can expect. Here goes ...

1. The top ad unit will automatically adjust to the length of your intro text. Ideally, your intro has 100 words (or more) for a full-size ad block. If you don't have an intro at all, only a small, single ad can be shown. It may be worth your time to go back to your older articles and use part or all of your first text module as intro.

2. We've removed the "Rearrange modules" widget from the side bar (in edit mode). At the same time, the side bar now remains in view as you scroll down the page, and any new modules will be added where ever your cursor is currently positioned. To manually move a module onto a different location (all the way down, or to the top, or anywhere else), simply left-click on the module header and drag it into place.

3. We completely removed the Donation option. The technical requirements and administrative effort was not really feasible, considering how little this feature was being used. In the coming weeks, we'll get together on the forum and decide how we want to dispose of the funds we have accumulated so far.

4. We retired the Wikipedia and Code-Modules and turned existing content into regular text modules. The Wiki module didn't really contribute anything but convenient, duplicate content.  Most folks misunderstood the Code module, thinking it could be used to execute scripts, flash or other code snippets on the page. In actuality, this module was intended solely to display code snippets, but not to actually execute them.

5. While updating ALL modules and adjusting them to our new design, we were very careful to not break anything on your existing articles. However, if you have created complex two-column designs on one or more of your older articles, you may want to take a quick look and see if they need adjustments.

6. Tables are still allowed within text modules although the editor buttons have been removed. We'd also rather discourage the use of tables unless absolutely necessary, since they might not display well in mobile browsers. In most cases, simple lists are a safer option to display your data consistently across different browsers.

7. The image location of our referral banners has changed. If you embedded these on your own websites without changing the URL these would need to be changed. The old URLs contained a "/basic/" in the path, so if you remove this part then you should be good.

Incidentally, we are not too thrilled with seeing these banners on your Wizzley articles. They are intended to help you drive traffic to your Wizzley articles by making others aware of the site, but tend to look rather tacky on the pages of Wizzley itself.

We would like to kindly ask you to remove such banners and refrain from using them for this purpose in the future. It would be much more acceptable (and effective to boot) if you link to related articles with your referral link, instead of garishly soliciting sign-ups and possibly devaluing the content of your excellent article.

8. In the Amazon module, "list with product description" has been integrated into just "list". You'll still find all the display options. It's simpler that way.

9. Apparently, hardly anyone ever used "print view", so we removed this function.

10. For a faster loading speed, we optimized our social buttons as well. No more bubble counts - except for facebook and Wizzley thumbs. In addition, you will now see right away if you've already given a thumbs-up.

 

Best of all - we'll have a new, streamlined, modern, attractive look and feel.

We hope you'll agree.   Smile


Achim "Chef Keem" Thiemermann is the co-founder of a pretty cool new platform called...um...er...oh, yeah - Wizzley.com.
lobobrandon
Posts: 477
Message
on 07/19/2012

Sounds great, I've never used a table, the code snippet, referral banners or Wiki module so I guess I don't have much to do. Anyway looking forward to it and will then go through all my wizzes. The intros too are big enough to encompass ads and its great that the ad won't be larger than the next - good improvements!


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Jerrico_Usher
Posts: 1210
Message
on 07/19/2012

I LOVE 99% of these, I am really going to miss the side bar "rearange modules" thing, I used it a lot, but am more than happy to have the ability to simply cursor add the modules- much cooler and efficient...

What is a complex two -column design? just two things side by side?

Thanks for the update, I'm really excited now about the editor streamlining, especially the in cursor module adding- that was a feature I really missed from the other site my articles were on...

Jerrico

lobobrandon
Posts: 477
Message
on 07/19/2012

Same here, adding modules in between is what I missed the most, but I was ok with it considering the many other benefits and cool features. 

That's what I thought too - the two columns are side by side things. Wonder how they're going to  be affected. Got them on just one of my wizzes, so will have to take a look when its done.


Check out my blog SEO for Dummies
Jerrico_Usher
Posts: 1210
Message
on 07/20/2012

Last Forum Post of the old format! I win! haha 32 seconds to go!

 

Jerrico

lobobrandon
Posts: 477
Message
on 07/20/2012

me i win haha

Edit: Hey!! It's 46 mins to go Tongue out!


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lobobrandon
Posts: 477
Message
on 07/20/2012

10 seconds to go! I win Jerrico Cool 


Check out my blog SEO for Dummies
Meagan
Posts: 20
Message
on 07/20/2012

Oh wow - it looks A-MAZING!  Just happened to visit for the first time in a few days while riding the bus home and was stunned to see the great new look!

I like all of the changes - I also used the rearrange modules function but I am pleased that new modules will insert wherever your cursor is.

Well done team Wizzley!

lobobrandon
Posts: 477
Message
on 07/20/2012

Wow! The forum looks cool too!!! Thanks Meagan for your post. Was waiting for Wizzley to update, your post gave me an e-mail notification. Off to check out the rest of the site now


Check out my blog SEO for Dummies
lobobrandon
Posts: 477
Message
on 07/20/2012

Here's what I have to say about it:

The Home Page - Looks great and I love the layout : both for non logged in users as well as logged in people.

My Pages - Not many changes, but looks great that the colours have changed. 

Stats Page - Just one word - Awesome! But, the graph is missing Cry

Module Clicks - Thanks for adding the pics! So much easier to know which Wizz the modules are from (without reading the name)

Profile Page - Looks really decent, but the single page highlighted on the top is my first Wizz and I wish I could change that. Also, the website is linked through a small star (Not many people are going to know what it is - But, I don't mind the way it is)

The new Features - I loved the new feature of adding capsules in between the page, makes it much easier Laughing

That's all I have to say,

Wait I almost Forgot: 3 Cheers  to the team Simon, Hans and everyone else involved with the ideas Chef and Anne too. I guess I'm missing out people but, you'll are the only 3 I know. And I'd like to give you'll a 


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nightowl
Admin
Posts: 490
Message
on 07/20/2012

Thanks for hanging in there and keeping an open mind. Our tech gurus Hans and Simon are working overtime to iron out the kinks. We didn't just update the platform, we also moved to new servers. Quite a big task for our tiny team.

I'm sure some things can be improved further, but we have no intention of stopping anyway. Just give it some time and things will fall into place.


SEO Praxis: Specializing in WordPress Hosting and Small Business Web Design.
lobobrandon
Posts: 477
Message
on 07/20/2012

Of course there's always room for improvement. But, what you'll are doing is already great! Looking forward to writing lots (in time). 

Another server update? That's nice. 


Check out my blog SEO for Dummies
lou16
Posts: 118
Message
on 07/20/2012

Love, love, love our profile pages.   Off to check out the individual pages now Laughing


Simon
Admin
Posts: 578
on 07/20/2012

Hi Brandon, thanks for your feedback and bug report.

What exactly is missing in the statistics? Or in which browser can't you see the graph?

Simon
Admin
Posts: 578
on 07/20/2012

Hey lou, check out, how pages look like, when you shrink/resize your browser window (Internet Explorer below version 9 excluded) :) That's the new mobile version of Wizzley - and this brilliant idea comes from Anne. Thanks for that! Despite my nightmares before actually developing this feature, it turned out just great!

lobobrandon
Posts: 477
Message
on 07/20/2012

Hey Simon, here's a picture of what's missing

As you can see there's no pie chart at all. Before there used to be a chart of visits - that's missing. 

Edit: It's not a browser problem, just checked both Mozilla and Chrome (both latest versions) there's no graph at all


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lou16
Posts: 118
Message
on 07/20/2012

Found a bug/problem - I can't approve comments Frown

I've gone through about half of my pages and some of the 2 columns pages look fine and the others I've had to change so not as bad as I was expecting.

@Simon - I'll check that out soon, gotta go through the rest of my pages first.


JoHarrington
Posts: 1816
Message
on 07/20/2012

I really love it!   Simon already had my feedback, from my beta-testing stroll through, but it's even more wonderful to explore in my own language!

I've just been to tidy up my Wizzography, now that it's so prominent. 

Thank you so much for creating a great site for us.  Assume over-excited enthusiasm about it all, with question marks over these:


*  What are 'complex two column' designs?  I've checked out some articles where I thought they might be there, but all looks well.

*  Code-modules going was a minor surprise.  I vaguely had some 'how to write HTML' Wizzles planned, where they would have been useful.  But I can incorporate that into a text module instead.  Will <code> work as a tag?  I hadn't started said Wizzles, so it's no biggie. Just deciding whether to still muse on them. :)

*  'Join Wizzley' banners not to be used in Wizzley articles.  This isn't a huge blow to me, because I've only done that in my 'Tips and Tricks' series.  But they were as much there as illustrations, as they were sign ups.  Is there anyone artistic who could create a more appropriate in-house banner?  Or is this sort of thing frowned upon in all its forms?

*  Removal of Wikipedia modules.  I did find these useful, not as duplicate content, but as extra.  For example, when I was waffling on about ghosts in the Tower of London, the point was to say that Anne Boleyn is in x, y and z tower.   The Wikipedia entry was there to say who Anne Boleyn was, for those who didn't know the history.  Would you prefer a link over her name for extra info, perhaps to the Wiki?  Or extending such articles to explain ourselves?  I'm worried about getting too side-tracked and bogged down in detail.

*  Introductory blarb at the top for the Adsense adverts.  I haven't been doing it because it looked crap with Chitika. 

Beyond those queries, I'm so thrilled with the new look Wizzley!   Thank you so much to the team behind it.  I've redesigned web-sites in my time, so I know damn well how much effort and long, tedious hours goes into something like this.  You have my utter respect and gratitude for doing that for us.

 

 


lobobrandon
Posts: 477
Message
on 07/20/2012

Just a question, Jo's latest post here made me realize that its the wizzographies that pop up on our profile. Am I right? Just curious. I haven't planned on writing mine, but would have to give it a thought if that's the case. 


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BrendaReeves
Posts: 847
Message
on 07/20/2012

Wow! It looks great Chef!


Brenda Reeves
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