Tab system update and online manual
Hope you’ve all had a fantastic Easter! We’ve been conducting a number of focus groups over the last few weeks, and have made some final tweaks to the tab system. In particular, we have simplified the look of the tab bar, and created a new button to provide access to the tab sharing features.
We’ve just completed the online manual and frequently asked questions page, which explains with visual aids all of the functions that Protopage provides.
Also included in this update are a number of assorted bug fixes and performance optimizations. You may notice that we’ve tightened the appearance of the widget shadows, so that the shadows look more pleasing when in combination with lighter background color choices.
And finally, we’ve introduced a new setting (accessible from the ‘Colors/Settings’ button on the toolbar). If you tick the ‘Hide read headlines’ checkbox, your news widgets will hide read items instead of displaying them with the default ‘grayed out’ look.
April 14th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Please bring back the Mark As Read feature. I\’ve found myself using Protopage a lot less since it was removed. I have lots of content and size my windows such that I can see all the feeds when I\’d select Mark As Read, but now that it\’s gone, I don\’t bother using the scrollbar to see the feeds that don\’t show up in the main window.
April 14th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Hi Jeff,
We had more people asking for that feature to be removed than wanting it to stay. What we’ve done instead is to provide a new ‘hide read headlines’ option, which should provide you with similar functionality. Note that there are keyboard shortcuts in the feed reader which you can use: pressing ‘X’ on your keyboard will mark all items in a feed as read.
April 15th, 2007 at 6:08 am
Like Jeff, I would love to see the return of Mark As Read.
Your latest ‘Hide read headlines’ feature only appears to work if you use the built in News Reader, which I don’t use because it slows down the reading of several news feeds.
Please reconsider including the mark as read feature as an option.
Steve
April 15th, 2007 at 7:17 am
Ah, so you like to click to articles directly, instead of reading them in the feed reader… How about if we made the headlines gray out/become hidden when they are clicked directly from the widget?
April 16th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Maybe it’s just a matter of me not understanding how it now works. I have a widget that’s filled with a bunch of feeds. The widget shows a short blurb on the latest 3 (default was 7, but I changed it to 3) stories. When there’s a story I’m interested in, I click on it and a new Firefox tab opens up with the full story. I read it and close the tab. The story still shows up in the protopage feed regardless of the status of the ‘hide read headlines’ option. It sounds like the ‘hide read headlines’ would work but it’s not clear to me how to use it or the ‘X’ keyboard shortcut you’re referring to.
April 16th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
As per the Protopage Team’s post above (April 15th, 2007 at 7:17 am), that is exactly spot on. I don’t use the built in feed reader and prefer to read the articles in a new window, but have found that doing it this way means the article never gets marked as read. It is therefore difficult to keep track of read and unread items, please implement the “read” feature for those of us that do not use the inbuilt feed reader.
Thanks.
April 16th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Yes, I’m also one of those who REALLY miss the mark as read feature; I can’t understand why it was taken away. I’d have no problem if “Mark as read” were reduced to a little “x” next to the widget title, but please bring it back. I can’t see how this feature would annoy anyone not using it and it would definitely be helpful for people who do.
I don’t use the internal reader either, because I think it’s more efficient middle-clicking each of the interesting headlines and have them load in the background and let Firefox render them (especially because I use certain extensions that ‘enhance’ my browsing experience).
Please bring back this little feature. All the other new features you introduced are all nice and well, but personally I think the mark as read feature was the most useful and I’d like to see it again before diving into any of the new gimmicks.
In any case, thanks for the great work!
April 19th, 2007 at 12:07 am
Hello Protopage Team…
Just today experienced a strange problem….when I log into my Protopage the entire site goes “blank”…
I have tried a couple of different PCs and browsers…and I am still experiencing the same problem…
I did the usual things by clearing cache, deleting history files, etc…
Any idea what is happening???
thanks
frank
April 19th, 2007 at 10:48 am
thank you very n?ce muck vary very comment…
April 19th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Is there a way to has something from your restricted page be added to your main page so we don’t have to switch back and forth?
April 20th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Yes please, let us go directly to the article. Most of the time the feed reader can only display a snippet!
It’sa pain to have to click twice to see the article, and then when you get back to your protopage it’s all cavered by the reader so you need to click once again to close it.
The other solution which I use most is to middle-clickt he links. It take me directly tot he article. But the downside is it doesn’t mark article as read :(
April 20th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
We’ve just released an update to address this issue.
Items are now marked read when you click directly to the news items.
Most people prefer to use the feed reader for blogs where the full text of the article is available, but not to use the feed reader when there are only headlines and it is more desirable to go straight to the web page.
You can SHIFT click articles to go directly to them (which opens a new window), or in Firefox and IE7 you can CTRL click articles and they will open directly in new tabs.
Also note that there is an option in the Colors / Settings screen to let you disable the internal feed reader, so that all clicks go directly to the news article web pages.
April 20th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
THANK YOU! That’s perfect.
April 21st, 2007 at 10:52 am
Fantastic, it works perfectly. Thank you Protopage Team.
It’s nice to see that some developers actually do listen to their users.
April 21st, 2007 at 11:17 am
Good Job! Definitely an improvement. Would it be possible to make it work for middle-click as well (which loads the page in the background as opposed to what Ctrl+click does)? And is there a way to remove news items that are of no interest (i.e. that I don’t want to click and read)?
Keep it up ;)
April 23rd, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Hi
Great improvement, but like others I would just like some facility of being able to mark items as read (and then disappear) that I have no interest in reading….
Nearly there
Steve
April 23rd, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Oh and if you are wondering why this option/latest change is popular then it allows us to use smaller windows/boxes for various feeds, thus allowing us to cram in more on our screens. Wonderful!!
April 28th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
thank you very very n?ce thank you very very much….
April 29th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Is it just me, but has the minus option disappeared? The one to minimise windows on your page. And when you moused over the bar it would drop down. Can’t see this on any of mine now?
Steve
May 6th, 2007 at 12:34 am
First of all I want to thank you for the awesome job with V3!
One thing I miss is a proper way to put a webtracker in the page. I tried in different ways but none of them worked (using http://www.sitemeter.com/).
May 11th, 2007 at 2:14 am
I’ve started using Protopage as a “virtual desktop” since most of my content has been moving online. Bookmarks work to organize my commonly used links, but what would be great is to drop a small, icon sized widget that can I would be able to edit the location link, and arrange them on my Protopage desktop like I would my Windows desktop. Then I could move from computer to computer and just pull up my Protopage desktop and press on. Again, bookmarks serves this purpose, but individual icons would be even better. Any ideas how I could do this?
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Hi!
Excellent site, keep it up!
Is it possible to completely disable the “mark as read” feature. I am sharing my startpage with many users and it is annoying that a story read by one user will be marked as read for all users. My goal is to share one page with many users, not create separate pages for all users.
This feature is a kind of a “deal breaker” for me, since I am on a deadline, and currently choosing the best site to use.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Excellent site.
Very cool.
See you,
Peter from Germany :-)
June 19th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Is protopage dead? Does anyone read this blog?
June 19th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
I’m reading! Protopage is alive, I just spoke to the developers a few days ago. They’re busy on new features.
August 8th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
thank you
September 11th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Any updates? New features coming?
September 16th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
We’re working on a couple of important new features - they’re going to be a surprise though so don’t ask us what or when just yet :)
September 18th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Well well, hello Team,
You haven’t been sitting still over the last 18 months, have you? I haven’t been able to show my ‘face’ a lot - not at all, actually - but I didn’t forget about you guys… Great to be here again!
Will take me a while to get used to all that has changed over here, but at the very least that proves that you’re still doing ‘it’:)
Keep that up!
September 18th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
You telling us not to ask what or when causes me to ask you two things…
1. WHAT are you up to right now…
2. WHEN can we expect to see it?
(Don’t tell me what not to think or I won’t be able to not think about it…)
September 18th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Haha don’t think of driving to the 24h Krispy Kreme booth for glazed donuts!
September 19th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Argh, shoot, you got me!!! :)
October 31st, 2007 at 8:52 pm
How come the Protopage team are posting comments on their own blog entry that was initially posted in April 2007?
I thought announcements (no matter how small) such as “We’re working on a couple of important new features”, would have been posted in a new entry. This would do two things, one make the blog look like it is still alive, and two, alert those of us who have a news feed set up for it.
By the way are these new features having any affect on my news feeds and e-mail widgets, as they keep being “temporarily unavailable”. It seems coincidental that I lose access to all widgets, regardless of which provider they’re pointing to (both at home and at work).
October 31st, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Hi Simon
I’ve been having the same problem with RSS feeds both last night and tonight, although they did work during today (office hours)
Yeah I agree with you regarding the comments from the team, a fresh thread every so often wouldn’t go a miss….
Steve
November 1st, 2007 at 5:09 am
@Simon and Steve:
If you look closely, the Team comments were actually responses to questions in this same thread, so I don’t see why they would have to be in a new thread… Unless you also want them to post a useless message like “We’ve answered your questions in ” in this thread as well.
@Steve only: I’ve had problems the last two nights as well. I asked them about it, and Andre told me they had some problems with their datacentre… Apparently, they haven’t quite solved it yet, but I’m sure they’ll get it working again. This issue isn’t as permanent as Simon’s message implies, so his problem is a different thing I don’t know about.
Regards,
FreeBee
November 1st, 2007 at 7:32 am
@FreeBee
The point of a blog is to announce things. A message like “We’re working on a couple of important new features” is an announcement. Yes you could argue in this instance its a response to a question, but you have to ask yourself, is a blog comment from April really the correct place to ask questions and to answer them. I would argue no, a blog is not designed for a questions and answers section.
I think if you look around this site, you notice the lack of any such facility to ask questions. Most places do one or more of the following,
- provide a blog for news updates, and update it regular
- have a forum running so the community can talk between themselves, and the developers can interact if they wish
- have a questions and answers section that is regularly monitored and answered
Even the “Contact us” link on the bottom of every Protopage doesn’t give the option for general enquiries, only commercial and press enquires exist and of course “General feedback” (which again doesn’t suggest asking questions).
If you go to http://www.protopage.com/web/help/contact.jsp, you’ll see something that says “You can keep up-to-date with Protopage developments by visiting our blog.” Clicking on the blog link takes you to a page dated 13 April 2007. Is that “up-to-date”? To me it looks like the whole project was abandoned… Or doesn’t move on very much.
If you spend some time looking around the internet I think you’ll find that most places don’t handle queries through their blog.
I would love the Protopage team to put together a forum, I don’t care if it has bells and whistles - just something so it is possible to see activity on the site.
November 1st, 2007 at 10:52 am
@Simon Smillie,
REally, there are quite a few users here on Protopage, and you’re the first one to demonstrate these feelings… So far everyone has been happy to handle their suggestions/requests and other issues through the “Contact Us” link.
In fact, there has been a discussion on the blog, in which the Team explained why they did it this way. It was to prevent getting heavy discussions about if some request by any user was useful or valid and such thing. Also, questions asked through the contact page reach them in a similar fashion to email. That’s easier for them to notice than skimming through the blog/forum every day. Further, if such questions were asked via the Contact page, the Team could answer the person on a personal basis in Email.
I used to think this was a valid way of looking at things… As for the Forum: have you tried using the Contact page to request that they include a Forum in the system? As far as I know, they were working on that, but I must also admit that last time I saw a Forum mentioned was over 18 months ago.
Anyway, perhaps some ppl *do* feel the way you do, and maybe those ppl end up asking their questions in a comment to an old blog post. But from the speed with which the Team answers each question, it must be clear that the system is far from dead or unattended. I happen to know the Team isn’t very keen on announcing a lot of stuff; they rather surprise us with new features. So far, I’ve always enjoyed that. But simply ask on the contact page, and see what you can do. They’re very friendly ppl, and very open to new ideas, suggestions and requests. Even if they are disguised as “general feedback” (perhaps they could indeed add a section “suggestions/requests”).
I hear from the Team quite regularly and I know they’re up to something right now, although I have no idea what it might be.
So, please, take another look around, and ask. I hope you’ll still come to love this place.
Regards,
FreeBee
November 1st, 2007 at 11:01 am
Oh, I forgot to mention something else: Protopage comes free of charge AND free of advertising. And they once told me, they want to keep it that way. This is possible because they also have other business which generates the funds. That’s what the commercial/press inquiries are for, I guess.
For everything there may be a good reason. :)
Regards again,
FreeBee
March 6th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Hi,
I’m a new user with Protopage and i’ve read all the comment here and like me, it will be great to click a button to make “mark all item read”.
Like me, i have more than 30 rss feed and I don’t want to click EACH of the link to make gray/dissapear (it’s 200 clicks, a waste of time).
Why not make a option in each tabs and “mark all item as read”?
Ho, whe have the “X” option… but again, it’s more than 200 clicks !!!
June 28th, 2008 at 1:01 am
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August 13th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Hi all, why we canot import a restricted tab from a diferent user I have the password inside my protopage??
It was possible in the past, its very useful to make things like freinds intranet.