Upcoming Features — Tell Me What You Think

Everything gets better with feedback

What happened since the last release?

Releasing every version brings excitement. I have finally passed the milestone of designing, developing and testing every feature. And also… waiting for the bugs to come in. There’s only so much I can test on my own setup.

Soon after the go-live, Llewellyn (Lou) Daniels was the first to notice that while the story about the release was up, the actual extension was not. Earlier I was unable to synchronize the release and the story, but that should no longer be an issue in the feature. Thanks for letting me know, Llewellyn!

After that, the release went flawless, except for one slight hiccup. I received a complaint from Anthony Lawrence that the tip jar over at buymeacoffee didn’t work. Due to his lightning reflexes I was able to correct it and even get a donation from him! Thanks again, Anthony!

I haven’t received any complaints or bugs afterward, so I think I can safely assume the old and new functionality work as intended.

I can check various fun statistics at the Chrome Developers Dashboard. The data is two days old. This is what I am seeing today in regards to the installed versions. It should be safe to assume that I would have been swarmed with bug reports if there were any major issues.

This calls for celebration! Everyone, get the chocolate!

Great suggestions, information and feedback

Anthony Lawrence keeps the ideas coming. He already provided some great input on earlier versions. And his new idea is to ‘get the Reading time for today and yesterday for each story with activity those days’. He was even so kind as to point me in the direction where to get that info. As of now, I think this functionality is out of scope for this extension, but who knows what future extensions can bring?

Nikki Waterson suggested something that got me into a reflective mode. She asks “is there a way to potentially tell which tags are performing best for a story?” Now, that would be something. Below I have something that is maybe a little useful. I have read a very interesting story that can be of help, though:

Elin Melaas was so kind to provide me feedback about the screenshots. Sometimes I think showing a screenshot of just about everything is overdone. This tells me I should keep it up. Thanks, Elin!

The perfect Jeanne-Erin let me know she thought the icon for not being Distributed was ‘perfect’. What wonderful wording to connect to something we all would rather not see, don’t you think? Thanks for making me smile, Jeanne-Erin!

May Moore and Hogan Torah told me they had their stories Distributed well over 10 days (23 days and over a month). My assumption that the chances of becoming distributed after 10 days is low, might still hold, but their information tells us it is not impossible. Thanks May and Hogan.

Hogan went the full mile and explained the exact process on how to become Distributed:

I think it involves a pogo stick and every golf course in California. You might want to check with writers who just had their first story that got over a thousand views. They seem to know everything.

— Unmistakable Wise Words from Hogan Torah

He also claimed that he got the extension working on Opera. I did ask for confirmation, but how can you argue with a man that wields these powerful nuggets of wisdom?

Did I mention that Nikki also volunteered to help? The only thing I could come up with for her to do is to eat copious amounts of chocolate. That can’t be healthy. Does anyone else want to join?

Finally, The Secret Aspirant went overboard with flattering words. He also graciously offered me to become an editor of this publication. Obviously, I could not refuse. Who doesn’t want a cozy home like this for their loved ones?

Thank you all for your kind words. Every comment made my motivation start to surge even wilder through my veins!

So, what’s next?

I hope you have guessed by now: I want feedback! No pressure, no need to hit that comment button, it’s not mandatory. We all have lives to attend to.

But you know you want to, right?

To facilitate easy response I have emboldened my questions and marked them a) and b).

Which tags (are performing best) on a story?

Remember Nikki’s request? Although I am probably unable to fulfill here full request, there is a little something I can do.

I have noticed that after you publish a story, a couple of topics are automatically added to it. My guess is that they serve as a suggestion to the human doing an actual review of the story. I have inspected quite a few stories and I must admit I am impressed.

For example, take the story that explains why I am developing this extension currently. The ‘suggestions’ for it are ‘Mental Health’ and ‘Self’. Quite spot on, wouldn’t you say? I can show more examples, but I like this as those topics don’t appear as either tags or keywords in the story itself.

Maybe, I can show those:

I have created a very quick mockup for the screenshot above. The text and the aesthetics may need adjusting, but you get it. So, feedback please:

a) How about I show those ‘suggested’ topics on the stats of a story?

Downloading statistics

This evening I have completed the functionality to download your statistics. It works, but I am underwhelmed by the functionality. You now get a csv-file which you can open in a spreadsheet of your choice.

There are still some wrinkles in the system that need ironing out. But the first iteration works. Currently, you can only see the primary topic, just like on your stats page. Maybe I can get the other topics in there as well.

b) Is this something you want? If so, what is the most important thing to you?

Tagging Paul Coogan as I think he might enjoy the progress on this so far.

Any more?

These are the things I am currently working on. I do have some more things on my list, but I don’t want to pollute your imagination by listing everything here. Got other ideas? Want something real bad? You know how to comment!

Whenever you name people you always run the risk of forgetting someone. If I have forgotten you, please let me know. I am prepared to do some groveling.

Stay awesome everyone and get those stories Distributed!