Discussion about "CollectiveX 2.0 is almost here"
CollectiveX 2.0 is almost here
You are viewing the results of the pre-release of CollectiveX version 2.0.
This pre-release covers about 75% of what's planned for version 2.0.
We are calling this release CollectiveX version 1.8. During the next week or so we will be completing what we've started and finishing the last 25% of CollectiveX version 2.0.
So what's new in this release?
*Public and Limited Group Visibility* (Manager / Group Settings page)
(see the "CollectiveX 2.0 is almost here" blog post referenced above for details regarding public groups) or create one yourself by click the "Create your own Groupsite" link located at the top left corner of your group.
*New & Notable Discussions* (Summary page)
The Latest and Highlighted Discussions area displays the most recent and highlighted discussion topics.
The top most discussion in the list is always the most recent discussion.
Other topics in the list are topics that have been highlighted by
a group manager for increased visibility.
*Headlines and Links* (Summary page)
The Headlines & Links area provides access to external content via news feeds and shared links. News feeds can be pulled from any external blog or news site via RSS. We even help you create your own feeds simply by entering keywords that are relevant to your group. Links are bookmarks that are shared by group members.
All headlines and links can be rated and discussed via a special toolbar that
appears when headlines and links are visited. Resulting discussions take place in your group's Headlines & Links Discussion forum.
*Profile Completeness Meter* (Summary & Members pages)
The Profile Completeness Meter is located at the top of the right sidebar on the Summary and Members pages. This meter serves as a reminder of what outstanding profile information you need to fill out to complete your profile.
*Group Membership Types* (Manager / Group Settings page)
In addition to configuring a group's visibility option to public or limited visibility, managers are also able to set membership preferences for their group. There are three types of member signup options: 1) By invitation only; 2) By request approval or invitation; and 3) Anyone can join.
These options allow managers to configure groups to cover any and all member signup possibilities.
*Member Profile Customization* (Manager / Group Settings page)
Group Managers are now able to ask custom member questions to be displayed in each member's profile. Questions types include: Short answer, Long answer, Multiple choice, Date, and Website link.
Questions can be set to "Required" so that they must be answered during signup. Members will be reminded to answer non-required questions via the profile completeness meter.
*Member and Pending Member Search* (Manager / Pending Member & Members areas)
It is now easy to locate members and pending members from within the manager area. This is very useful for large groups with many members or pending members. You can now search by member name or pending email address.
*Many more small improvements*
We made many more additions that will improve your overall user experience.
*What's coming next?*
Expect to see improvements to discussion forums; minor enhancements to member profiles; and several other additions throughout. We also plan to create a Directory of Public Groups that will be accessible from http://groups.collectivex.com and new tour demonstration videos.
Please provide feedback. Also feel free to setup discussion topics to discuss any of the above mentioned new features.
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Thanks Clarence... It's great to see new features, and improvements coming to the service...
Can I also voice a suggestion for a "nested" discussion list?? And also the ability for group managers to be able to move discussions and posts, around the forums?
I kinda hate having to reload the page, each time you want to read a sub topic in a discussion - and would love to be able to have a discussion tree, which allows you to keep the navigation through the discussions seperate from the content of the discussions themselves...
That way, when you navigate through a discussion, you can avoid getting lost, with regards to where in the forums you are, and where the different discussions all come together, or fork, depending on subtopics (another feature request!)
Look forward to seeing collectivex becoming bigger and better (though lets stick to the less is more philosophy, can we?)
Thanks
Farhan
Thanks Clarence, what about Spanish version?
Any outlook for a wiki, such as 'Pages' in Google Groups and 'Writeboards' in Basecamp? Being able to *group edit* is such a fundamental Web 2.0 feature.
WOW!! - that is all I can say with my first look around. I am going to have a more complete look around this morning and then pop back and make some comments. Some of the features I have suggested over time are here. It is great to feel like CollectiveX has been listening. This group is going to be excellent as well. Lets work hard to make this group a goer
I would like to suggest a custom tab with a limited number of custom sub-tabs.
Also, a WYSIWYG editor for any entry area
Gentlemen,
Thanks for the feedback and suggestions.
@Farhan - I like your discussion suggestions. Some of which will be implemented soon. I pretty much agree with everything that you've suggested.
@Pere - I agree, we need a Spanish version. However, it would come until we have all areas enhanced a little more. We still have much to do to the file cabinet, calendar, member profiles, and discussions. Expect to see some localization efforts before the end of the year.
@Neil - We will probably add a Wiki at some point in the future. However, we have other priorities ahead of a wiki at this time. It may become a premium feature -- we're not sure. Your input is welcome.
@Gareth - Thanks! You have been a CollectiveX Champion long before we established this group. I am happy to hear that you are pleased with our direction. I look forward to hearing your full review.
@Jonathan - WYSIWYG has been suggested by many users. We will try to get basic WYSIWYG editor into discussions soon.
Please keep the kudos and feedback coming. Your voices will help shape the future of CollectiveX.
What other discussion topics would you like to see discussed in this group?
Sincerely,
Clarence
I reckon we will need a "bug report" discussion forum.
As a manager, I'd love to have a firefox bookmarklet/toolbar that makes it easy for me to add events to the calendar, links to the links section, discussions to the forum simply from my web-browser. Diigo are a group that make a great toolbar that makes bookmarking easy peasy!!
Permit ordering discussions and allowing an image to be associated with a discussion (ex. image shown on left of discussion...see www.wetpaint.com
Allowing threads under a discussion to be ordered by various methods: by date (earliest to latest or vice versa etc). See VBulletin
Allowing managers to determine what discussions should appear in preview on Summary page.
Allow users to send an email of formatted content to a group email address and it becomes ingested and available as a link, or as a discussion. EX: I go to the IEEE site and I read an article of interest. Next to the article it says "email this article to a friend". I click the link and enter a special email for my group. The article gets sent to my group and ingested into a "standby" area. I take action on the article in the queue and publish it for my group in a discussion or in a link.
I reckon you could probably harvest all sorts of content from sites for the purposes of discussion forums. I reckon the same feature could be done with a toolbar - select the content, click "Add to discussion forum" - window pops up and allows you to automatically post it to the forum with an explanatory paragraph.
It seems both Jonathan and I are interested in pulling content from outside sites and posting within our groups. This could probably be done in a number of ways. (integration with existing services??)
Responses to questions
@Gareth - a bookmarklet or Firefox toolbar extension for adding content to your group is something that we plan to add in the not to distant future.
@Jonathan - Allowing images or files to be attached to discussion posts will come shortly, we also plan to add tools to make it easier to YouTube videos etc.
We already enable sorting of discussion replies based on oldest first or newest first. We also already enable group managers to highlight discussion posts to be included on their group's summary page.
In order to keep things simple, we try to enable general features (i.e. discussions) to be used in multiple ways. If you would like to engage your group members in a dicussion about an article, you could add a link to the article from your group's summary page, then click the link to visit the article. From the top frame above the article, you could cick the "Discuss this" link. You could then write a discussion post about the article. The link to the article would be automatically inserted at the top of your discussion post. Before submitting your post, you could check the email to my entire group checkbox.
I hope this helps.
Great program!! How does the private messaging work? I sent myself a private message and can not seem to find it.
Sulaiman Rahman
sulrah@urbanphilly.com
Clarence: - glad to hear about bookmarklet/toolbar - That will be a wild addition and make life very easy keeping the calendar and discussion forums motoring along.
I suggest we need another forum for "Feature Requests" - cheers for adding the "Bug Reports" forum.
I didn't say before, but I think the links/feeds section is really good and helps really add content to the summary page. Also the hover effects are elegant and make browsing these links/feeds simple.
I took the liberty of using the new custom questions functionality. This is a good feature that allows the group managers to gain specifically relevant information from users when users are too lazy to think about and enter in their objectives. I understand that the formatting is not there yet (have a look Rob and you will see how it can be fixed easily). But a great (and simple) feature. For that matter, the workflow for creating objectives needs to ask specific questions to help the member think about appropriate answers.