Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Product Update: A Speedier Front End, Import Your Venues and more!

Our biweekly Product Updates give you a rundown of all the features and bug fixes that are being deployed - plus one handy tip of the week.

FRONT END SPEEDINESS

Our developers have been upgrading our servers to use Ruby 2.1 (we were previously on 1.9) - which means each metro should notice a significant speed increase both on the front end of the sites and in the app.

SEND US YOUR VENUES

As metros spend more and more time creating venue lists, we have all been asking ourselves: Isn't there a quicker way to create venues than doing so one at a time?

Well, now there is. We have the ability to automatically import a spreadsheet's worth of venue information in just a matter of seconds - with absolutely no dev work required.

This should allow for a much speedier venue-import process:

  • (Have an intern) assemble a spreadsheet with the following columns for all of the venues you'd like to add: title, url, phone, address, city, state, zip, neighborhood, category.
  • Send the spreadsheet to support@dostuffmedia.com. We'll import it for you - and all of the venues will be instantly created (and marked official) with all of the information included in the document.
  • We'll send you an email back letting you know the import is complete. 
  • Then, all you have to do is (have an intern) add a photo and description to the venue pages in Radmin, then vote on the venues via the front end - and your list is SET.
We hope this helps significantly cut down the time it takes to create venue lists going forward.

QUICK HITTERS

We removed the 'What To Do In (Metro City) Today' text from all lense pages. It's confusing to filter DoTheBay.com by "East Bay events" and still see a "What to do in the Bay Area today" headline on the page.

We made brand ads with non-DoXYZ.com URLs automatically open in new tabs when clicked.


We added 'Other' and 'Prefer Not To Say' to the list of gender options on giveaways



AN UPDATE TO BIRTHDATES

The 'Birthdate' field will now validate 'Minimum Age' on all giveaways. The field already does this on RSVPs - so we thought we'd make it consistent.

This means that if you 'Require Minimum Age' on any giveaway (or RSVP) and want to collect entrants' birth dates, you no longer have to also 'Ask Minimum Age' - you can just use the 'Birthdate' field to validate user ages.

BUG FIXES

We fixed a lot of bugs this week. Here are some highlights:

TIP OF THE WEEK

Does it ever seem like a /p page has suddenly reverted back to an old version? Or is just completely blank? Many metros have experienced this sensation over the course of the past month - and it can be both a confusing and a terrifying experience - to think that some (or all) of your work has suddenly disappeared.

But rest assured! Your work is not gone. The older edition of the page is just cached in your browser (you can check the page out in an incognito window if you don't believe it). At this point, it's important that you hard refresh the page before proceeding any further. If you 'edit' and 'save' an old version of a page, then your work really will be lost.

So, if you ever see a /p page that doesn't look quite right (or if you just want to make absolutely sure you're seeing the most recent version), please hard refresh your screen. Unsure how to hard refresh? Find out here.

Please be sure to share this information with the rest of your team (especially all of your interns and contributing writers). We'll be making some major improvements to /p pages in the coming months - but in the mean time, this extra care will at least ensure that you never lose your valuable work.


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Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Product Update: A Speedier Front End, Import Your Venues and more!

Our biweekly Product Updates give you a rundown of all the features and bug fixes that are being deployed - plus one handy tip of the week.

FRONT END SPEEDINESS

Our developers have been upgrading our servers to use Ruby 2.1 (we were previously on 1.9) - which means each metro should notice a significant speed increase both on the front end of the sites and in the app.

SEND US YOUR VENUES

As metros spend more and more time creating venue lists, we have all been asking ourselves: Isn't there a quicker way to create venues than doing so one at a time?

Well, now there is. We have the ability to automatically import a spreadsheet's worth of venue information in just a matter of seconds - with absolutely no dev work required.

This should allow for a much speedier venue-import process:

  • (Have an intern) assemble a spreadsheet with the following columns for all of the venues you'd like to add: title, url, phone, address, city, state, zip, neighborhood, category.
  • Send the spreadsheet to support@dostuffmedia.com. We'll import it for you - and all of the venues will be instantly created (and marked official) with all of the information included in the document.
  • We'll send you an email back letting you know the import is complete. 
  • Then, all you have to do is (have an intern) add a photo and description to the venue pages in Radmin, then vote on the venues via the front end - and your list is SET.
We hope this helps significantly cut down the time it takes to create venue lists going forward.

QUICK HITTERS

We removed the 'What To Do In (Metro City) Today' text from all lense pages. It's confusing to filter DoTheBay.com by "East Bay events" and still see a "What to do in the Bay Area today" headline on the page.

We made brand ads with non-DoXYZ.com URLs automatically open in new tabs when clicked.


We added 'Other' and 'Prefer Not To Say' to the list of gender options on giveaways



AN UPDATE TO BIRTHDATES

The 'Birthdate' field will now validate 'Minimum Age' on all giveaways. The field already does this on RSVPs - so we thought we'd make it consistent.

This means that if you 'Require Minimum Age' on any giveaway (or RSVP) and want to collect entrants' birth dates, you no longer have to also 'Ask Minimum Age' - you can just use the 'Birthdate' field to validate user ages.

BUG FIXES

We fixed a lot of bugs this week. Here are some highlights:

TIP OF THE WEEK

Does it ever seem like a /p page has suddenly reverted back to an old version? Or is just completely blank? Many metros have experienced this sensation over the course of the past month - and it can be both a confusing and a terrifying experience - to think that some (or all) of your work has suddenly disappeared.

But rest assured! Your work is not gone. The older edition of the page is just cached in your browser (you can check the page out in an incognito window if you don't believe it). At this point, it's important that you hard refresh the page before proceeding any further. If you 'edit' and 'save' an old version of a page, then your work really will be lost.

So, if you ever see a /p page that doesn't look quite right (or if you just want to make absolutely sure you're seeing the most recent version), please hard refresh your screen. Unsure how to hard refresh? Find out here.

Please be sure to share this information with the rest of your team (especially all of your interns and contributing writers). We'll be making some major improvements to /p pages in the coming months - but in the mean time, this extra care will at least ensure that you never lose your valuable work.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Thoughts to share? DO!