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ActiveRain Wishlist

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Education & Training with Tech Training for You!

In yesterday's blog post, I shared my enjoyable meetup with Chris Paredes, new Senior Developer for ActiveRain. I was able to share with Chris quite a few of my wishlist items and we had a great chat about possiblities. ActiveRain #1 focus right now is stability and nearly all of the attention of the development team now is on that. We want that, stability first and foremost! However once things stabilize, there are suggestions that would make AR better for all of us. I'm a developer also, so I appreciate that not all requests are reasonable. (i.e. it may take way too much development time for little return value, or it may have complications in system resources or capability)

I have been putting my wishlist items down in a google doc for sharability. Further, others have been chiming in with good suggestions also! I have been incorporating these also into my document as I see their value and judge their development feasibility (from my perspective). So by thus moderating the discussion and by providing a single point of reference, I'm happy to act as a singular voice to the community for the ideas that we all have in common. Feel free to add comments here on this post for ideas that you might have and we can discuss. If it is fathomable and reasonable, I'll add it into my document.

Below is my google docs embedded for your review :)

(or you can open the document in a separate window if you wish)

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Craig Daniels
This blog is all about technology and helping you to use it smarter! Your digital footprint is your chance to attract new clients. What kind of impression are you making via your website, blog, and social media? We’ll be talking about that! Are you as productive as you can be? What apps might help you out? Do you know how to use all the best tools inside the apps? I enjoy photography and videography, you can expect to see those topics also on this blog.
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Comments (52)
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Mike Jaquish
Realty Arts - Cary, NC
919-880-2769 Cary, NC, Real Estate

Craig,

I would just like to see a different HTML/WYSIWYG Editor entirely.
CKEditor, or other open source editor.  More functionality.

Great post and list.  I hope AR and Chris can address a lot of it.

Jun 01, 2011 03:33 PM
Karen Baker
Sunset Beach and Beyond Realty - Sunset Beach, NC
Professional Help with Rapid Responses...

Craig ~ I would like to see a time factor as to when a post becomes featured ~ Not everyone is on at the crack of dawn (before 9am) and quite often a post has become featured with a gold star after only a few comments ~ seems like by the time you want to use you suggests, posts are being featured already ~

is there are time factor involved with features, when they are picked??

Jun 01, 2011 03:36 PM
Melissa Brown
Helen Adams Realty - Charlotte, NC
Realtor - South Charlotte NC Homes for Sale

Craig, your list is awesome!  I also have problems going from WYSIWYG to HTML, and wish they'd make it easier.  i also have ScribeFire, but get tired of all the going back and forth and wish AR would just incorporate these photo editing features.  

I wish the "search" command was more intuitive.  When I'm looking for a post that I read and didn't bookmark, I have a devil of a time finding it again!

Jun 01, 2011 04:08 PM
Glenn Roberts
Retired - Seattle, WA

I'm back with two thoughts. I'd like to see a group moderator notified when someone posts to the group. And bookmarks: Often I have book market something and then can't find it or it isn't there. They seem to be sorted by last comment which is meaningless to me.

Jun 01, 2011 04:19 PM
Todd Clark
eXp Realty LLC - Tigard, OR
Principle Broker Oregon

I love the idea of being able to see all the past featured posts in one list if you click on the gold star, that would be perfect. Well, not with you because we just have to click the back button to see your features posts. (LOL)

Jun 01, 2011 06:49 PM
Jay Markanich
Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC - Bristow, VA
Home Inspector - servicing all Northern Virginia

This is an excellent post.  Thank you for sharing this post.

How was that!?  When I was a kid, spam was a good thing!  As Boy Scouts we used it often as our breakfast meat.  I loved it.

Don't love it so much anymore...

But your list is well thought out and complete!  I had not considered hardly any of them!

But...  this is an excellent post.  Thank you for sharing this post.

;>)

Jun 02, 2011 01:00 AM
Joni Bailey
101 Main St. Realty - Huntsville, TX
Your Huntsville / Lake Livingston Area REALTOR®
These features would be really nice! I know they are busy trying to get everything stable (and doing a great job!) I can't wait till they find time for some of these things!!
Jun 02, 2011 01:31 AM
Craig Daniels
Tech Training for You! - Staten Island, NY
Technology Instructor/Project Consultant

thank you everybody for your comments - I haven't had time YET to update my google document but I will get to it soon - meanwhile I appreciate all that you are sharing with ideas...

Peg - after having talked to Niki, Bob, and Chris about ActiveRain vision... I feel confident that we are in good hands

Angela - when AR is ready to enhance, we'll have our say in what matters to us, thanks

Kathy - really agree that groups need almost a "start from scratch" rethink - that is a whole discussion just by itself! thanks for your other comments as well

Teral - suggestion on date range in searching, noted thank you

Mike - post editor needs to be better, noted! :) thanks for the reference, I'll look when I get a moment

Karen - Bob has mentioned to me how a featured post gets about a lifespan of about a day. Since new featured posts come out all day long progressively, that "suggest" button is just as powerful at different times of the day to get an article into the view of the AR gods for consideration of being featured

Melissa - editor updated and better search, noted, thx!

Glenn - new post to group notification, good idea but it should be an option for the group moderator to choose if wants (some groups would have way too much traffic daily, and that would be info overload) - and bookmarks enhancements noted... have you tried out my google bookmarks tutorial yet? you can use that right away and don't have to wait! :)

Jun 02, 2011 04:27 AM
Craig Daniels
Tech Training for You! - Staten Island, NY
Technology Instructor/Project Consultant

Todd - gold star click! I'd love to see that one too! thx :)

Jay - that is an excellent comment, thank you for sharing that comment! :) LOL

Joni - me too, I'm glad they are working on first things first, but when they are ready for ActiveRain to the next level, we'll have our input on it! :)

Jun 02, 2011 04:30 AM
Ritu Desai
Samson Properties - Ashburn, VA
Virginia Realtor-Fairfax/Loudoun/PW-703-625-4949

Craig, two more thoughts:

a. If we can make it as a word editor for grammar mistakes

b. auto spell check. Instead of writer clicking for spell check in the comment section it should underline with red like all the other sites.

Great work and I hope AR get few done.

Jun 02, 2011 05:15 AM
Eric Michael
Remerica Integrity, Realtors®, Northville, MI - Livonia, MI
Metro Detroit Real Estate Professional 734.564.1519

I had one to add, but by the time I read all the other comments I forgot. I'll let you know if I think of it.

Jun 02, 2011 10:37 AM
Mimi Foster
Falcon Property Solutions - Colorado Springs, CO
Voted Colorado Springs Best Realtor

You have obviously struck a nerve with this one.  Many of these I have often wished were available.  Obviously stability is #1 priority, but how does it look in THAT department right now?  Are we stable? We seem to be, so we can't use that as an excuse for too long.  Great running list.

Jun 02, 2011 01:54 PM
Lynda White
Bluegrass Homes & Farms Realty, Agent Know How - Louisville, KY
Admin. Mgr., Keller Williams Realty

Per your suggestion, I'm adding mine:

I wish there was a way to put Google's +1 button on the sidebar, or at least in each post. 

Jun 03, 2011 01:18 AM
Mimi Foster
Falcon Property Solutions - Colorado Springs, CO
Voted Colorado Springs Best Realtor

Can we have a "LIKE" button ? :)

Jun 03, 2011 06:56 AM
Craig Daniels
Tech Training for You! - Staten Island, NY
Technology Instructor/Project Consultant

Ritu - grammar check, noted; enhanced spell-check check :)

Eric - those darn distracting comments :)

Mimi - been good, and they are working very hard to make it better all the time! there is a lot of back coding for everything we see on the front! they are ironing out inefficiencies that cause accumulated problems over time, so even when we don't see something specific, our uptime is the result!

Lynda - google +1 should be considered, thanks for adding here

Mimi - we do already have a like button at the bottom of the post (look above) - would be nice too look at the other social interaction options though like tweet and g +1

to all - the google docs will be updated soon with all of your great suggestions, thanks!

 

Jun 03, 2011 07:33 AM
Mimi Foster
Falcon Property Solutions - Colorado Springs, CO
Voted Colorado Springs Best Realtor

Actually - I get THAT Like button.  I meant for when someone makes a comment to hit "like" :)

 

Jun 03, 2011 01:13 PM
Gayle Rich-Boxman Fishhawk Lake Real Estate
John L Scott Market Center - Birkenfeld, OR
"Your Local Expert!" 503-755-2905

Hey, Craig, Ambassador of Quan, I would love to see some trail of our "called shots", perhaps a button to be added that we can go to and see our history of Suggests that went onto become featured posts.

 

Jul 12, 2011 07:10 AM
Gayle Rich-Boxman Fishhawk Lake Real Estate
John L Scott Market Center - Birkenfeld, OR
"Your Local Expert!" 503-755-2905

Got another "request" for the wishlist...maybe a button we can go that has a list of our own featured posts.

Jul 25, 2011 05:07 AM
Anonymous
Denah

I don't think this one is on your list, but from a Active Rain reader (subscriber), not a blogger participant... I subscribed to be notified by email when certain groups, and comments are made.  I'm not sure if that ever worked, but I get a daily email of blogs with teaser paragraph then you click to read remaining article.  BUT  some articles require you to be logged in and/or a member of that group blog   anyway as email recipient, if I can't get access to it, I really don't want it.  I don't want it on the list of blogs I'm viewing if I cant get access.  Or at least there should be a lock ICON or Group Icon, that warns me don't bother to click and wait 3 minutes to load etc to find out you are of the privileged who can read it.  That's on my wish list, hope you can add it to yours.  Thanks Dena

Jul 25, 2011 12:04 PM
#51
Debbie Gartner
The Flooring Girl - White Plains, NY
The Flooring Girl & Blog Stylist -Dynamo Marketers

Just came across this again in my bookmarks. I hope they add a google +1 button.

Aug 03, 2011 03:22 PM
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