July 11th, 2008

The latest release brings with it a massive amount of improvements.  We could talk about general nitty-gritty, but let’s not.  Lets get to the heart of some of the more significant changes.

The Menu & Embedded Objects

• A NEW LOOK!  (We’d post a screenshot, but thought better of it this time: just give one of the buttons a try!)
• Embedded objects are only hidden when they intersect with the drop-down (or “jump-up”, depending on orientation!)
  • Whether you revere or abhor this functionality, it’s configurable, it’s up to you

The Finder (“Find service(s)…”)

• Retains user queries after they’ve clicked out of the find box, allowing instant modifications to the displayed services
• As power users know, when the menu is open, they can just type to find services, without having to click the “Find service(s)…” input box
  • You’ll be happy to know that the find box now listens for the spacebar so you can add to additional services more swiftly
• If users jump between your Share/Save and Subscribe widgets in one session, the “Find service(s)” text no longer interferes with a query

The Ol’ Down-Arrow (internally known as the ‘show off’ button)

• Includes a tool-tip to explain what it does
• After clicking the down-arrow, it’s replaced with an up-arrow that resets the menu
  • No more out-of-place “Add to Any” link (wasn’t that awkward?)

The Icons

• They’re better looking, they’re brighter
  • The compression quality induced artifacts so we now use a better compression method
• Shortly after we began using icons (the universal small kind), we started using CSS sprites to minimize the number of HTTP requests the menu had to make to completely load.  It’s been a boon for performance; everyone wins
• A good number of services had their icons updated
  • NowPublic‘s Marc (Design Director) and Michael (CTO) proactively sent us their new logo icon, a part of their brilliant new design
  • Sweden’s Pusha also scored us an icon and URI scheme
  • As usual, many other new services, like Ping.fm, were added to Add to Any

Analytics

• Fixed a bug that prevented some content from getting properly tracked in Google Analtyics

Many more updates to come!