by We have just rolled out a site upgrade across the Bang the Table platform. As well as fixing some annoying glitches and gremlins the upgrade has made a number of minor enhancements to the platform based on user feedback and requests. Changes that will affect clients and users are:
1. Blog/News post images
Our blog or news feed automatically store a square cropped version of images used to liven up or illustrate a post. An additional feature now allows you to choose not to crop the image in a blog post. This is especially to allow logos to not be cropped. When the user goes to add/change the image for a blog post, a checkbox labeled “This is a logo” is presented. Selecting this stops the image from being cropped.
2. Site Footer
We have added some links to key supporting site information within the footer of all sites. These are links to the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, Moderation Rules and Accessibility Statement. The link to Moderation Rules in the top menu bar has been removed.
3. Project widget enhancements (elements on the right hand side of the page)
“Key Links” and “External Links” Boxes
Both the “Key Links” and “External Links” project widgets (these are the links boxes we often call ‘go to forums’ or ‘take me to’) have been enhanced to allow the items within the widget to be reordered without deleting them and starting again.
“News Archive”
The “News Archive” widget has had two enhancements – it’s heading can be configured and it can be turned on/off. This widget was always included on project pages where there is a news feed prior to this release, there was no way to turn this off.
“Key Dates”
We have added a Date Picker tool for this to make adding dates simpler.
4. Truncation strategy for Client and Project descriptions, Blog Posts and Topic Summaries
We have applied a new and hopefully easy to use approach for truncating page introductions, blog posts and topic summaries. The truncation strategy involves the use of an “Introduction” field. For longer items, placing some of the content in the “Introduction” field means that part of text is displayed with a “read more” link to the full content for that item. Clicking the “read more” link makes the content appear in-place.
6. “Make it sticky” feature
We have implemented the “Sticky” feature for blog posts and for discussion topics in a forum. This means that those with a client login can stick important posts or topics to the top of the list. The feature allows you to order forum questions rather than allowing them to ‘float’ according to activity should you wish.
To use ‘make it sticky’ simply click on ‘make it sticky’ next to the topic or post. If you use this multiple times the one you click first will go to the top of the list, second to second and so on. You can unstick items by clicking unstick. Please note you will need to refresh the page to see the changes.
7. Multi-purpose contact form
The contact form has an additional field called “Reason for contacting us” with two possible values, “Technical enquiry” and “Project-related enquiry”. Depending on the choice the site visitor makes, the resulting enquiry will/can go to different email addresses. These email addresses can be configured by “administrator”. This means that we can ensure issue related enquiries come directly to clients while we still manage technical enquiries.
11. Change the terms used in the survey
Instead of saying “Survey Name” and “Options”, the survey form for adding/editing a survey refers to “Question” and “Answers”. Hopefully this will avoid confusion.
12. Optional sign-up form field “Extra Attribute”
You can now choose to add a number of questions to the sign up field for rebranded projects. These are ‘age’, ‘gender’ and a free form question of your choosing. Future reporting enhancements will allow you to see this information for any comment made enhancing the insight you gain into the community response to your project.
13. Introductory text for submissions tool
We can now add introductory text above the submissions or feedback (email) form allowing you to give information or ask questions to users of these tools. For example you might want to state the privacy status of submissions in this space.
16. Deleting blog posts
Clients were previously unable to delete blog posts. This was to prevent accidental deletion but we have listened to your frustration and have now opened up this feature to clients. There is an “Are you sure?” confirmation dialog for protection.
The BTT development team wishes you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
This work by Bang the Table Pty Ltd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License.