New Post Tools
The “Meta Nub” we released a few weeks ago was a temporary solution on our way to reaching this new tool bar you see at the bottom of the screenshot above. We think you’ll find it easy to find what you are looking for and fun to use. Go visit your hub and click those spectacles. We changed how that works and we think you’ll be delighted.
We also fixed a few other bugs including a bug that prevented some Google Chrome users from clicking on Preferences or Account after clicking “Edit Account.”
The upgrades are great!
Hi Dan
Looks like I am the first to catch the latest news!The post tools are good. Clever little specs:-)However, something odd has happened to the photo on our hub page: It has grown and now covers the whole of the right hand side, including the section which lists the hub members. And the photos dropdown tag does not work- although it works fine in the menu on the left of the page.
Also: Can I change the photo on the hub page, or can it only be changed by adding a new one I believe someone may already have asked this- but I have forgotten your answer.
When you have a moment… Thanks
Hi Elke, The photo issue is now fixed. We have our eye on the hub home and the improvements we can make to it. Keep posting pictures and you’ll discover a few new tricks Spokt has in store for you.
I am impresssed with your response to issues, comments and suggestions. I hope you’re able to keep it up as the site grows from myfamily.com refugees. I like the tools under the photos!
Thanks Becky, we are having a blast trying to keep up. We’re glad to have you along for the ride.
I would just like to thank you for the recent upgrades. If they were in response to my inqyiry, thank you, thank you thank you!!! Your certainly did it very quickly. Moe
MoeT, I’m glad you enjoy them!
I love the new post tools. Great little graphics and placement.
Now that my family is pretty settled into our Spokt account and loving it (thank you, thank you), I am starting to realize that we are pretty “talkative,” which was never much of an issue on myfamily because they gave us a giant text box to type our thoughts and comments into. Not so with Spokt. If I write more than a few lines, it’s difficult to have to scroll back through the tiny text box to check my thought completions, grammar, etc. A small text box is fine for many comments, but is there any way you could build an expandable text box, or one that’s at least a little bigger? I’d love it!
I’m still playing with the demo site in anticipation of moving a genealogy friends group from MF and also possibly using Spokt to set up a new site for a family group. Have been following the blog posts – amazing response from the Spokt team!!
Both of my groups definitely want/need photo albums – just to validate what you’ve said you’re working on.
Also, I second the comment about the size of the text box to key posts into. Being able to only see 3 lines of text when scrolling up and down to edit before posting — or even to edit after posting — is VERY tedious. Any possibility that this can be modified?
The other MF function that our group used (in 1.0) is Chat. I haven’t seen any requests for that. Is it on the list of possible features? If not, I’m interested in what other groups use.
Thanks for your feedback Dianne. Both of the features you mention are things we’re working hard on preparing for everyone. Have a great weekend!
Hi Dan- me again. The photo on our hub page is back to its normal size- thanks. However, those on the photo file are now very big and fuzzy. Is it to do with the resolution of the originals? Any suggestions?
Our group is very happy with the site and the changes you are making are fine for us. even our most reluctant members are pleased with it and find it easy to use.
Hi Guys – The post tools seem to please everyone. Thank you.
I have a quick question about the Invite Page: What is the sort logic for the names of those that have been invited but have not responded? I’m tracking invitation work, and just wanted to understand the movement of list entries. I don’t think a fix is needed, and make it easy on yourself with the answer. Thanks again for the post tools.
The new post tools are good, but I can’t edit posts on mobile now.
Hi Joshua – now that the new post tools are in place, we are working on expanding them to mobile. If you can bear with us for a bit, I’m confident we can get it right so it works across both platforms.
Dan, this is wonderful! I asked about the photos and now it is fixed.
Administrator gets access to new tools, but users do not get tools
These seem to work for me. However, I have found several things to be browser dependent – and the users have fixed the ones I found. Try another browser if you have access to one. Notice that the Edit tool is selective. It is viable for all administrators on all posts, but to members it is only available for their own posts – as it probably should be.
Attachments upload in Chrome.
We are transitioning here from MyFamily. Really like the simplicity, yet elegance, of Spokt!
But, two issues. Anyone know how to get around these?
1. Cannot upload NEWS posts with an attachment. NEWS posts OK without an attachment, but when clicking “Add Item” for anything with an attachment all it does is nothing. The button turns red and nothing else.
2. Cannot upload VIDEOS. Same behaviour as above. Click “Add Item”, button turns red, and nothing.
Mahalo!
-Paul
Thanks Paul. We’re looking into this. I’ll shoot you a private message later today if we need more information.
Mahalo! 🙂
For 1.
For Win7, works in IE but not FireFox. Haven’t tried in Chrome.
For 2.
Same as 1. Plus, if you do get it uploaded it won’t play in either browser. Plays on an iPad Safari, but only as at thumbnail size.
I like the fact that we can reply to Spokt and someone gets bact to us very soon. However we can only do this when Spokt post something on there blog. It would be nice if there was a way that users could post the problems as many have the same problems and other user may have found answers to problems.
Hi Frank, you can also use our contact form. But a user forum is an interesting idea.
What I have found is Internet Expoler 10 and 11 do not work well on some sites if you ane opening more then one page.
We are refugees from My Family also, as of 2 days ago! Love the site, love the responsiveness to comments and I especially love that you are working on a “Migration Tool” for all of us! That will be absolutely awesome, to have 15 years worth of our family history, transferred over to here.
I have but one little request but as things go, it may not really be little – here it is – when I am on my home page I prefer to see the “What’s New” and more of the members than the default has – so I set it that way but it doesn’t hold because each time I return I have to reset it! Is there an easy way for you to make a button to make a personal preference set up permanent?
Thanks, again
Izolina
I found an interesting error – I made a typed picture out of dashes, brackets & slashes, that looked exactly as it should in the typing box but when it was saved, some of the design was lost!
Those marks are all part of typing and so are lines and spaces – so should it not have been saved identically? Anyway I have images of the before and afters, if you can tell me how to show them to you! If it is something I am doing or not doing, I would love to know how to make it right it and if it is a site problem – can it be fixed?
Thanks,
izolina
I thought I asked before, but cannot find, even searched. Sorry if this is a duplicate.
Issue: User paying attention to photo size before upload.
If the size of photo being uploaded cannot be controlled by Spokt through auto resizing and/or upload blocking; can the size limits be put on the form we use to do the upload. Maybe a text reminder like:
Max. Photo Dimensions ____ x ____ Max. Photo file size ____ ?B
We have a lot of chat associated with photos, and some individual system performance is affected by large photos and the need to bring the photo forward EACH time there is a comment, slows things up, big time.
This also seems to affect how quickly HUB Home comes forward, on slow system. I assume this is the case since several large photos are all grouped on that one page. Not everyone has high speed systems.
Thanks, KB 1 of 6 Admin. Alumni of Bainbridge Islalnd
Hi Kathie,
I’m not quite sure I understand. Are you having trouble loading the pages quickly when visiting a photo post? It almost sounds like you’re working on a very slow internet connection. Our average photo pages are 1/5 the size (in MB) of common pages like Apple.com, and the typical profile pages at Facebook and Twitter. Please feel free to contact our support team at http://spokt.com/contact for help troubleshooting.
Thanks,
RJ
Is there a calendar feature like we had on myfam? If not, is there a way to link a google calendar to my hub or other solution? My hub is for musicians – we need a gig calendar!
Hi Barb,
We are working on a calendar feature. I’m not sure exactly when we’ll be releasing a calendar, but in the meantime Google calendar could be a good stop-gap solution. Keep an eye here on the blog for update announcements.
Have a great weekend,
RJ
Like others we have transferred over from myfamily.com.
One thing I miss already are the background and colors
on the old site. Are backgrounds available here?
Thanks,
Patty
Hi Patty,
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll pass this along to our product team.
I know you have a full plate right now with the migration tool and all. But I do want to put a bug in your ear that you can think about when you have breathing room.
Our main page right now has a nice space devoted to the notice about Mayflower. After September, when MyFamily is officially closed down, why not use that space for an icon of our choice (as was available on mf). You are moving ahead so well, and have really made a happy home for us here, but we’d love to have our old, familiar picture welcoming us as we entered our hub.
Another suggestion or two for the future: (1) we’ve come to really like the use of our avatars with posts. But they are really tiny, and sometimes the person is almost invisible. Could they be a tad larger? I believe they used to be larger, and that was better. (2) the font is so very light, it’s hard for a lot of us to see! (3) I often lost what I am trying to post because I push the very obvious “next unread item” orange button, forgetting to push the very light, easy to miss “Post” button. Can it be more visible?
May I say, your search engine is lightening fast! Thumbs up! In fact, thumbs up for all your good work. We like our new home!
Thanks for the feedback, Diane. I’ve passed your suggestions along to our product team. Glad you’re finding a comfortable home here at Spokt!
RJ
Video works on Chrome on my Android devices. Seems to be an IE and Firefox issue
We are working on some new features and updates that will make video upload and viewing simpler for all of our members. The latest version of certain browsers have exhibited compatibility issues with our site (mainly recent versions of IE and Firefox). If you’d like something that works well in the meantime, consider downloading and installing the Google Chrome browser. It adheres well to universal web standards, and is very easy to use.
Hi, Dan.
Each time I try to log in to my new Spokt site I’m told my User Name & Password do not match what’s on file. So I have to ask for a link to reset my log in data in order to get logged in. It’s starting to get a bit frustrating now. Can you or your techies provide me some help with that recurring problem? Thank you.
Bob
Hi Bob,
Did you get this problem sorted out? If not, please contact us through our support channel: http://spokt.com/contact
Thanks!
RJ
Dan – I sort of got the log in problem under control. I found that if I use my email address rather than my user ID, I can log in successfully. You may want to take a look at why the User ID (name) doesn’t work smoothly also.
Hi Bob,
I’ve noticed that your username had a slight misspelling in it. I’ve fixed it for you, and I’ll email you to make sure you get this message.
RJ
Thanks, R.J. I used that User Name for years on myfam, so shame on me if I misspelled it. Cheers.
Is it possible to allow administrators to post avatars for others? We have a very avid participant who can not get his photo to post as an Avatar. He says he keeps getting errors about passwords needing to be at least six characters. As far as I can tell, adding an avatar doesn’t require using a password.
I probably could fix the problem, if I had editing rights for his profile page. He thousands of miles away, so there’s no way for me to see where his difficulty is.
Hello Lee,
I’ll pass your suggestions along to the product team. In the meantime, I have received word from our engineers that they have fixed an issue that was preventing some users from updating their avatars due to a password bug. If you’d be so kind as to ask him to try again, it should work now. Please let us know if either you or he run into any other troubles.
Thanks!
RJ
Kudos to the entire Spokt Team. I would consider myself a very experienced user of Web services (70 y.o, on line 20+ yrs.) and I think yours is at the top for serving the needs of your clients. Your responses are quick, even if it is “we are working on that” or “you can find the answer here.” I don’t think I have seen an issue raised that you have not responded to. Most fixes are timely and complete. It is a pleasure to submit a query and not think that it was “lost in the Transporter.” The simplicity of the site does not antagonize novices. Keep up the good work. We’ll drag ’em kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.
Gary, you’re great. Thank you! (and welcome!)
RJ
Firstly, I am so impressed with the transitioning design of Spokt and want to thank you for being so responsive! Those of us who are/have been loyal MyFamily customers have very distinctive “must haves” functions, based upon “the good and the bad” we received there. I will be VERY VERY satisfied with Spokt when I see: photo albums, administrator-only invitations (locked); member events calendar; site background customization/ability to load my own background design–including JPG; routine long-term tech-support responsiveness; and of course–no/infrequent site downtime. I have read that many of these are in the works or at least have been sent forward to the design team for consideration.
Which brings me to my current quandary: do I wait to transfer all of my files from MF until I see such things as photo albums between now and the transfer deadline? What happens to my thousands of photos currently in MF albums if a new album function is available on Spokt but I have already completed the transfer—rebuild every album photo-by-photo? If albums become available on Spokt in time for the transfer, will an album-to-album transfer be possible? (Many years on MF with much organization that I am hoping not to lose, if possible). Thanks! You rock!
Hi Dr Deb,
Great question. Sign up now, initiate the migration, and we’ll take care of the rest. Really.
We will have the new photo organization tools available soon, but until then we are storing all of the information regarding which albums an image belonged to on MyFamily, and as soon as those features are available the images should be able to automatically be organized in the proper album or group. This will apply retroactively, so you will not need to wire up photos manually — we’ll do that for you behind the scenes.
If you can continue being patient with us (and muster possibly seeing unorganized photos for a short time until the tools are officially unveiled), then we’ll take care of the rest for you as soon as the site is updated.
Ditto to your comments, Gary! Thanks, spokt.com.!
My transition from MyFamily site is in pending status so wondered if I can close out the page while the site is pending or do i need to log out and check back the next day? I also see from the demo site that the photo page has no Photo Info Section like we had at My Family. I really don’t think “posted 6 years ago” is specific enough for our members. We loved having Posted by, Date Posted, Description, Date Taken, Place Taken, Owner, and Albums Posted. Any chance that we will have these features on or new Hub?
Also the Calendar Feature is already an important tool so if you are not transitioning it over now do we have to start from scratch to reload it in the future? Thanks and I am really excited to begin working with our new starship after 14 years with MyFamily as an administrator, a sad goodbye and hundreds of photos and postings up to today.
Hi Helen,
Mayflower preserves the Posted By, Date Posted, Description, etc. You are welcome to continue adding that to your photo descriptions. We do plan to add a calendar later in the year.
If you let your mouse linger over the “posted 6 years ago” you’ll see the time and date of the post. We will make this nicer to use as soon as we can!
I have been waaaaaay too busy inviting and reinviting people to read all the blogs to see if this was recently covered. Someone suggested when he was on Spokt yesterday that he wished the nested replies were indented more than the 2 spaces that they are now – hard on old eyes to see the difference. Can you guys tweak that for us older people?
Hi Janet,
I believe a silent update went out this last weekend that included a minor increase to the nesting margins. I just happened to see it as an item in our release notes, and remembered your comment. Hopefully this makes things a little easier to read!
Kudos to Gary above with his good comments towards your customer service!
We create a lot of html pages and need to know how we will be able to do that here. We also had front pages that we updated for various occasions, Christmas, thanksgiving, super bowl pages, etc. Will we be able to continue to do that. Thanks for all your efforts.
Hi Eleanor, You can dress up your posts with safe html tags (see: http://spokt.com/faq#html). We offer private communication hubs where users can share information about things and or stay in touch with each other. We don’t currently offer much to customize hubs but are looking into that possibility.
Is there a way to send an email to all members?
Hi Michelle,
We do not currently have plans to add a bulk email feature. That said, we are working on a number of enhancements that will make member display and management easier for admins and other Hub members as well. Any feature announcements will show up here on the blog. Keep your eyes peeled over the next few months, as we have a major update coming that will bring many of these features to your Hub.
Have a great week!
RJ
I paid my $69 for migration, but did not pay for 1 year membership. In the meantime, a person joining our hub has paid the $29. I could not find out how to pay it, now I’m confused whether he could bay the $29 on my hub.
Need help with the finances. I don’t want to find out later that our migration was held up because of a glitch in the way I failed to pay the annual fee and another member paid it first.
Hi Andrew,
You can rest easy. So far we have not had to resort to any hostage-type scenarios. 😉
If you’d like to submit a support request so we can get the specifics sorted out, we’ll make sure you are taken care of.
Thanks!
RJ
Gary – Not sure where to post this, but I’ll try here.
Under YOUR HUBS, I now show two hubs and, if I check my profile, I see that the profile info is identical. However, if I update and save the email address on one of those profiles, then go back and check it – it shows the original email address rather than the new address. Is this a known bug or am I somehow malfunctioning?
I’m not sure what’s going on here. I’ve tried to reproduce this behavior, but following the steps you’ve outlined correctly updates my profile info as expected. Please open a support request at the link below and we’ll make sure we get to the bottom of this for you.
http://spokt.com/contact
Thanks!
I love the site so far. Will you be adding a tool to form different albums so that photos can be arranged
Yes, we plan on adding organizational tools later in the year! SO glad you love the site!
I have just received the import from our site on My Family ” The Parachute Riggers Family” Looks good. One problem I found is, One member that was transferred has my E-Mail address instead of his in his biography. Is there any way I can change this as an administrator?
Hi James, I’m glad the migration looks good. Hub Admins can’t update other user’s information at this time. We do want to provide this ability but now we’re focused on Mayflower. Both the unfinished migrations and the MyFamily.com 2.0 migrations. I updated the user you mentioned in your comment then removed his name and email in case he wanted it private. He can visit http://spokt.com/password_resets/new and enter his email address. We’ll send him an email with a link that he can click to set his password.