As a lot of our members have already noticed, we snuck a new interface onto Platial a few days ago, but have neglected to post the release notes, till now.
The newest addition to the lineup is the Today Nearby link. This has been written up in it's own post here.
But, working towards a simpler, cleaner interface, we have changed how the Platial information if organized. Now, The Explore link brings you to the new Maps page (platial.com/maps). The maps page now integrates your own maps into the list of recently modified maps, no longer making a separation. To see your own maps though, apart from any other content, you still have your own maps page (platial.com/YOUR-USERNAME/maps), you will find a link to this page on Your Homepage. You can also see any other user's maps page as well (for example, mine is:platial.com/jason/maps ), by following the link from that member's Homepage.
The Explore area also includes similarly structured People and Tags pages.
Don't be surprised if you see a few minor changes in the interactivity of the navigation over the next week. We finally modified our own javascript to eradicate the previous conflicts we had with implementing the prototype library.
Just click it any time you have "been" to a Place. The number will increase by one and you will be added to the list of people who have also been there. As this tool gets used, you'll be able to see who else has been to your special Places. Clicking the "Been there" button does not add the Place to your Places. (to bookmark someone else's Place, use the Grab
tool and you can always Drop
it again at any time.)
A new, single-path splash page
This path brings you to a totally new landing page, we call it a "Where" page, or a "Region Profile" page. Basically we have taken the member profile page and applied it to a region or a city. This means that you can finally see a tag cloud for a city (we are still balancing out the temporal element in this - showing either the overall cloud, or a cloud that deals with a more recent dataset), see some recently modified maps that have something to do with that region (we are still tweaking this particular algorithm too, it is currently being very liberal: if the map contains even one Place that is within this region, it can be included in the list.) and, as always, a list of the most recently added or modified Places for that region.
You will also notice that the search results are now shown in this same page template. The main benefit of this, is that now your searches result in a list of Places, and, a list of maps that meet the criteria.
that removes a few steps, and that puts you into a much more logical setting once you are in. This flow also includes new data entry forms on a member's new (empty) profile page that should make it easier to get the first Place and map in there.
So, that's about it, most of these changes have been based on the very valuable member feedback that you have been sending in, and from usability testing. But, if these changes are making any of you very unhappy, please let us know.
Recent Comments