06-05-2007

Springnote Release Notes - May 8, 2008 - "Preparation for the Redesign of Springnote's UI!"

Hey everyone, this is the Springnote team~ =)

As mentioned previously, we are in the process of planning a redesign of our UI. Using the results of our usability test that was held last month as the foundation to our new design, we are looking into all parts of Springnote and recategorizing features, and relocating features and functions for users to work more efficiently. We've especially looked into our 'sharing' and 'privacy' settings to enable users to easily use these features to set their pages. Let's take a look at what the Springnote team has been doing for the past two weeks in planning the redesign of the UI.

Reorganizing and recategorizing features.

Planning out the structure of the working space and menus on the page.

Converting what was written on the whiteboard to code. By looking at their facial expressions, something probably went wrong here. =P

Testing functionality in each browser by opening different browsers and seeing if the functionality is the same.

This is our layout for part orignated from meetings regarding the redesign of the UI. Our goal is not to suddenly change the way Springnote was, but rather to eliminate problems and inconveniences that existed to provide a better working space.

The following list is what we have planned in our redesign of the UI :

• Creating internal scrollbars to eliminate scrollbars that are generated from the browser. We have choose to put internal scrollbars so that users can be able to choose in having the left and right planes always visible/hidden along with removing bugs from having browser scrollbars.
• Separating the 'go to' button with the 'search' button to eliminate confusion. We have decided to just one button for searching.
• Splitting up the location navigation section with the toolbar. We will improve the UI by just having the toolbar appear during editing.
• An easier and more convenient way to share and set permission settings.
• Putting often used features inside the menu button.
• Providing more information on files that have been attached through Springnote.

We are planning to integrate user ideas and suggestions into Springnote with ideas like being able to change Springnote's theme, hiding side panels, etc. The change in design of Springnote will not be realeased all at once, but through a gradual process in releasing one new feature/change at a time. We hope that you look forward to the daily changes in Springnote. =)

Let's take a look on what the hot issues of the past two weeks were...

Hot Issues

• We've seen a large increase in the amount of users using Springnote to post blogs. This has occurred right after we  have released our 'export to blog' feature. By using keyword "Springnote" when searching within a blog, you will see a message saying that this was "created with Springnote." Try drafting your blog posts on Springnote, then when its finished, publish it to your blog~ More details on how to export to blog
• Recently, a lot of new mash ups have been released. A program that lets you work offline, a clipboard mashup which lets you paste copied items from the clipboard through keyboard shortcuts, and book marklets that help users find paragraphs. Along with the new features presented in our release today, a lot of users from the Springnote community have been greatly contributing to Springnote with some nice mashups. Let's look in detail to see how these mashups work. =)

Changes to Springnote in the past two weeks (May 29, 2007)

New Features

• Date Auto-Completion Improvement
  

  • Thanks to hey for this suggestion. [Original page]
  • By typing '@' or '@today' followed by pressing Ctrl+Space will automatically insert today's date and current time. The suggestion was made to automate this and to cut down the time to took to use this feature. So by typing @today followed by Ctrl+Space, you will see something like "2007/05/29 14:55:34"
  • @today
    
  • For more information : http://helpcenter.springnote.com/pages/514388

• Checking Account Storage Capacity

  • Suggested made by highfree. Thank you! [Original page]
  • This was a suggestion so that users could check the amount of available storage space they have on their account. With an indicator showing your storage capacity, you don't have to worry about not being able to attach files once max storage has been reached. This can be viewed in the 'Settings' menu 'Notebook Settings' tab. =)
    
  • Also, each account's storage limit has now been increased to 2GB =)

New Mash Ups

• OffSpring
  

  • What if you could sync offline note taking and pages directly to your online Springnote account?
  • OffSpring is a mashup that enables you to write offline and have pages directly uploaded to your Springnote account online.
  • OffSpring also allows edit in HTML features.
  • Fore more information : http://www.springnote.com/post/2434
     
    

• ClipNote
  

  • ClipNote is a mashup that enables you to copy items from your clipboard directly into Springnote through keyboard shortcut Alt+F12. Once you have set up ClipNote, you don't have to separately log into Springnote and just paste items from your clipboard to Springnote with Alt+F12.
  • You can copy text with keyboard shortcut Ctrl+C in Microsoft Windows and paste it to the Springnote page you automatically with Alt+F12 to the page set up in ClipNote.
  • For more information : http://www.springnote.com/post/2578
    

Preview of our Next Release

The following is the selected by users as a wanted feature for the first week of June. =)

• First Place! Source Code paragraph style  ( Suggested by : Moo!!, 23 votes)
• To give emphasis on programming code or source codes, this feature was a suggestion to more clearly display coding to have it distinguishable from regular text. We actually pushed back the idea on how could add a feature like this only to have this feature being number one feature requested from the Springnote community this time around. We hope that many developers will utilize this feature in the future. =)

For more information on what features will be added for the first week of June, please refer to the following page : http://www.springnote.com/post/2651

A lot of people have been waiting for our SMS (cell phone text messaging) feature, however we are still in the process of getting official ready. Once this has been handled we will release this feature.

Again, we are continuing to work on our new UI and we are using all our efforts in creating a better Springnote. From all the feature requestions, suggestions, and comments we have received, we hope that our future release of our new UI will please everyone. If you have any ideas or suggestions for Springnote's new UI, please leave your ideas at our Feature Requests Board~ =)

Through future release notes, we plan to update everyone on the progression of Springnote's redesigned UI. Keep in mind that we have release notes every two weeks!

Again, we ask for everyone's contribution and support in creating a better Springnote. We will continue to work hard!

Thanks to everyone~ 

- Springnote team -