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Charting my impressions of the new Writing.com |
| [Introduction]
Btw, this isn't a story. See Brief Description for details. I chose the campfire format for simplicity. No titles to worry about. Plus, I've been gone a long time and once more for the second time, or is it my third? I'm new to the site and completely lost. What better way to start over than choose something and run away with it? |
| I guess the first thing I noticed about the site was that it's not yellow any more. The picture of the Hub looked a little scary too. I have/had been away for a long time. Possibly a few years passed... I've never been good at keeping track of time. I have a bad habit of doing things in the way something's not designed to do. For instance, this item. I didn't realize I needed company to get it going. Thankfully, Acme was willing to help... I've already forgotten a few things I wanted to say. So the next few items will probably be quite random. One reason that I chose the campfire to be my journal was its simplicity. I remember spending too much time naming a chapter/entry. There are probably more flexible formats available now but until I discover them, I'll at least not have wasted time. I love technology, especially gadgets. Yet, when it comes to the first time, I can be quite timid. So I'm testing the waters... |
| One reason that I chose the campfire to be my journal was its simplicity. I remember spending too much time naming a chapter/entry Yeah, I know that one all too well. Campfires are a pretty good way to avoid this, plus the fact if you wanted the blog-tastic 'comment box', then all you need to do is invite folks. New site goodies:  The new quick keys on item entries like this one mean I can do all sorts without feeling like a software engineer from silicone valley. In fact, all I had to do to jazz up my headers with color, italics and fonts was to highlight them and press a button. Ace. More emoticons. When words fail me, little yeller heads fill in the blanks. Cool.  Ace. |
Quick Keys, aha! I  this bar. How did I miss this wonderful shortcut? I'm going to have some fun with this feature!But I can't locate the Preview button for my campfire entry, so I'm not happy. After I've added the markup, the text is so heavily encrypted that I would need a decoder ring to crack my own heavily mangled message. I think the Preview button should sit among the Quick Keys. Can you tell I'm addicted? I can barely compose email without a few preview sessions per sentence. |
| So far as I can tell, campfires are wonderful. As the manager, I've successfully skipped a turn in less than 5 seconds. It would be nice to have a time/date stamp too. That's not important but it does make a part of me feel better to see the time an entry was made. |
| Friday, Jan 21, 2011, 12:37 am... I made a static item today. I still don't see a preview button but I guess the save and edit option works just as well. Static type chapter. I remember long ago there was a spell checker of some sort. ... I guess I won't find the tool here. The EP / edit points sounds nice but I probably won't need them for a long time. Basically this means I can't be bothered to learn to use them. |
| Friday, Jan 21, 2011, 10:24 pm... Okay, it appears I was too hasty. The spell checker appears after the item is made. And it works beautifully. And I love the RCS / Revision Control System. Keeps a copy of all the changes  I should use it sparingly, else I'll find myself swimming through copies of very minor edits. |
| Okay, I'm impressed. The review section looked weak at first blush. I couldn't find preview, or the fanciful text decorating bar. However, after a submitting a couple of reviews, I realized that there was a button called a review tool... which I will check out some other time. I bet everything I wanted was in there all along. And the thing I really liked, the icing on the cake, is that after I submitted my review, I scrolled down again to see if it would let me write another review for the same piece (for when I have more time to think and disect) and surprise! I can read my own review! So cool |
| January 23, 2011 I'm starting to get back my memories of how to use mark up language  I'm loving the review tool, although it's not easy to remember to check the appropriate private/public checkbox or remember to rate. During one of my reviews, I hit return and it sent out my review prematurely. Took me by surprise. I think I must have placed the cursor in the wrong spot. The awardicons are easy to set up but I wish there was a quick key on the item page. I'm still having some trouble finding what I'm looking for on any page so possibly there is a quick key and I missed it. All the same, I found the Awardicons under the Shop tab, which makes sense because I can buy an Awardicon with gift points. Also, nice is that an Awardicon also lets one add a secondary link to redirect the viewer to some other item  |
| Monday, January 24, 2011 Okay, so there is a way to give an an Awardicon easily. By locating the item in the author's portfolio, there is a giant grey + sign to the left of the item. Click on the + and you go to the Awardicons page where the textbox (for the item to be awarded) has already filled. |
| Tuesday, January 25, 2011 The Hub page Hmm... okay the site is impressing me more and more. I just discovered today that I can reduce the busy-ness of the site page after I log in. I'm still using the default that I only know as The Hub so this really helps. I dont know what other templates and skins look like. Apparently I can minimize all the categories except for the leftmost column. |
| Wednesday, January 26, 2011 Fanfare Ironically, I figured out how to add myself as a Fan of an author only after a dear friend joined WDC today. I'm still not aware of the purpose of the Fan feature except that I can access it by visiting the portfolio and choose to be a fan by selecting the megaphone toggle in the fan section. |
| The positive thing about helping Newbies is remembering all the first times when I tried to do something on the site. Some memories were great. A few were very embarrasing. My face would get all flushed and I actually considered deleting myself and coming back with a brand new account... but I'm glad I took a break and then kept going. I'm bound to make another majorly regrettable action eventually. However, looking back, I think the consequences have never been as dire or as permanent as I had imagined them to be. I can't even remember exactly what bothered me so. Likely these awful moments are connected to reviews and typos. Very, very badly placed typos. And of course, very badly expressed reviews. Fortunately, time is forgiving. |
| I don't like the automatically generated email notices about gift points. Sometimes there are just too many of them. I enjoy earning gps and making sure I sent the gps to the right place or account. However, I notice that I seem to be getting more emails about the number of gps I earned than I am getting meaningful correspondence. Seeing that my inbox has email fills me with joy. Discovering that the emails are about bonus gps is disappointing or depressing. Maybe this is a sign that I need more people in my life so I wouldn't be so bothered by the gp notices. |
| Last entry: 01-29-2011 Today: Friday, July 29, 2011  My explorations have finally turned up the WDC Markup Language Help Page... WritingML Help  I'd been going crazy looking for this page. Another cool thing I found: "Anniversary Reviews" [E] by Annette  And lastly, I love the notebook.I'm using it to help me organize links. Hopefully my messy port will finally get straightened out with some help. I got the premium subscription but I still haven't explored all the tools. Kind of overwhelmed. |
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