Site Update: Deviation Titles, Shopping, and More!

Feb 17, 201216 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Feb 17, 2012

91.7K Views

In our continuous effort to improve the deviantART experience, we're publishing Site Updates to keep members informed and to gather feedback. Below is a list of recent changes that have been made, including new features and bug fixes. In the "Your Feedback" section, you'll find suggestions and known issues that were brought up by members in the last Site Update.

What's New

More Characters in Deviation Titles

By popular demand, the following characters are now allowed in titles of deviations: =~`@#%^*[]()/{}\|

Screen shot 2012-02-15 at 3.48.54 PM by danlev

Sleek, New Prints Pages

We've heard feedback that some members wanted a simpler and clearer interface when ordering prints. This week, we enhanced the modules on the Prints pages to simplify the process of configuring a Print and made the options more clear. These changes have been rolled out to a number of users and will soon be rolled out to everyone.

Fair Exposure Applied to "Popular All Time"

We recently published a Journal about Fair Exposure, deviantART's algorithm for determining Popular results. As we mentioned before, changes to Fair Exposure and Popular browse are in the interest of highlighting the best from a wide range of deviants and showcasing an array of styles and genres. Today, we're continuing our rollout of the new algorithm and applying it to the "Popular All Time" Browse mode.

Whereas the previous "Popular All Time" Browse favored digital art and fan art, Fair Exposure allows the most popular deviations in a variety of categories, such as literature, sculpture, fractal, jewelry, architecture, and artistic nudes, to take a more prominent spot. This is to highlight the best from our diverse community.

General

What's New

Finished our Message Center infrastructure performance upgrades. Launched by $chris and $banks
Built the system to drive the The Great Valentine Exchange. Added by $samshull
Adjusted the Help Desk contact form to help members enter usernames in the proper format. Added by $lendrick

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue that made the browser scroll to the top of the page when previewing a note and then switching back to editing mode. Fixed by $Nodren
On a mobile device, Writer deviations -- which are too large to fit on the screen -- are now always rendered in desktop mode. Fixed by $lendrick
Pressing "tab" while writing comments now behaves consistently in all browsers. Fixed by $helloandre
Fixed various display issues on Group galleries that displayed for logged out users. Fixed by $helloandre
Fixed the search box's display in Chat. Fixed by $ZombieCoder
Improved the display and performance optimization of the Llama Trading Game page. Fixed by $knightar
Improved the display of the username entry on Premium Member gift page. Fixed by $ZombieCoder

Sta.sh

Bug Fixes

Updating a title on a Sta.sh item from the inline editor could break auto-saving under some conditions. Fixed by $kouiskas
When updating the title of a Writer item in Sta.sh, the title inside the scrolling part of the thumb now updates immediately. Fixed by $kouiskas
Fixed a bug that disabled uploading from Opera. Fixed by $adahacker
Improved responsiveness of thumbs going back to their original position during drag & drop. Fixed by $adahacker
Selection was overwriting the displayed title inside stacks. Fixed by $adahacker
Fixed several bugs with selection, including displaying the item's title rather than "Selected (1)" when a single item is selected. Fixed by $adahacker and $aMoniker
Fixed several bugs related to the "Move to Sta.sh" button. Fixed by $aMoniker
The "Save and exit to Sta.sh" button would redirect even when validation errors occured. Fixed by $aMoniker
In IE9, the dark grey bottom of hovercards were 2 pixels too narrow. Fixed by $aMoniker
Fixed a long-standing issue where some deviations would be marked as being Group-exclusive when they weren't. Fixed by $kouiskas
Fixed an issue in the Sta.sh API with a replace file operation. Fixed by $samshull
The delete button was not working on the Sta.sh item page (Trivia: we call this the "Stashiation" page). Fixed by $kouiskas

Sta.sh Writer

Bug Fixes

Embedding a video was often causing Writer to stop working correctly. Fixed by $Alisey
Non-literature category thumbs from Writer deviations had incorrectly sized shadows. Fixed by $inazar
Fixed several small bugs in Internet Explorer. Fixed by $Alisey
Clicking the Writer margin would change the selection that the toolbar acts upon. Fixed by $Alisey
$kemayo briefly broke and then fixed deviation thumbs all disappearing when opening a document to edit. Fixed by $Alisey
Many times the ">" selector didn't work in CSS. Fixed by $kemayo
Keyboard shortcuts for the WYSIWYG toolbar actions weren't working. Fixed by $Alisey
Improved click-to-add images across browsers. Fixed by $Alisey
Dragging a thumb from the sidebar will now have the editing cursor follow the mouse much more accurately to indicate drop position. Fixed by $Alisey

Bugs & issues from previous Site Updates

Your Feedback

When visiting a member's profile, display whether or not the member is watching you. From =shardwind, =deshardiii, and many others in the Suggestions Forum.
Add shortcut keys to remove deviations from Message Center or add the deviation to your Favourites. From =fenyxdesign
When browsing, add a star icon next to deviations to show that you've favourited them. From ~UnsealedSpiral
Add the ability to drag and drop Journals into Collections from the Message Center. From ^pica-ae
Increase the max character limit of literature deviations from 64k. This feature surprisingly poses some technical challenges, so we'd like to get an idea of who wants this and what the limit should be. From *BellicoseBreakfast and ~balarious
Allow members to continue writing comments while the emoticon modal is still open. From *Dizzyatdizumnl
Add the ability to Watch a forum thread and be notified of any replies. From ~NeonSilks in the Suggestions Forum
On Group blogs, all admins should be able to hide comments, rather than just the admin who submitted the Journal. From *Drache-Lehre
Remove Journals from "Random Deviation" button. From =chaoskomori and several others in the Suggestion Forum
When you start to have many Collections, the Collections dropdown on the header becomes harder to use since it requires scrolling. From =Luna--Rose
Add a "hovercard" that displays more information when you rollover someone's avatar and/or username. ~Cenit-v provided a mockup:

DA suggestion: pop-up information by Cenit-v

Last Week's Discussion

Last week, we asked for input about the new deviantID widgets. Members gave feedback about the specific artist types listed, asked for the ability to select multiple types, and made some suggestions about the visual style of the widget.

Some members have expressed that they missed the old "member type" dropdown list, and that the new types are too serious. The old list of member types become too long with way too many "types" to pick from -- many were comical, random, and inside jokes. The original intent of this dropdown became lost. Our intention with this new dropdown is for members to use the "Artist Type" feature as a serious description of themselves as an artist. Everything else that you'd like to express about yourself, your skills, and and your personality can be described in your bio or tagline.

We received some suggestions on different artist types that should be added, but we'd like to pose the question to everyone: Which specific artist types would you add?

Have a suggestion, idea, or feedback? Leave a comment on this article!
Find a bug? Report it to the Help Desk! (Be as detailed as possible!)