New DU Feature: Social Bookmarking/Thread Sharing

[EarlG]

Hi all,

As you may or may not know, the Admins have been working hard on the new site upgrade (if you missed the previous announcement, check Skinner's thread http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2312592">here).

One of the features we wanted to bring to DU 3.0 is the ability to add discussion threads to sites like Digg, Facebook, Del.icio.us, etc. After doing some research we discovered that it was so easy to do this, we decided to add the feature right now to our current software.

Each thread's original message now contains a button at the bottom, above the poster's signature line. If you click that button, a new window will pop up which will allow you to add the thread to a variety of social bookmarking sites, or even to your own browser's bookmarks.

If you encounter any problems using this feature, please let us know in this thread so we can iron out any bugs which may occur.

Thanks!

EarlG

[Buzz Clik]

1. Yes, I just noticed. Nicely done!

[flvegan]

2. Okay, now THAT's cool.

[flvegan]

3. Kick!

[Richard Steele]

4. I was wondering what that was about. Cool beans! recommended

[Lone_Star_Dem]

5. That is way cool!

Great work!

[aquart]

6. Aghhh! What is that creepy creeping stuff????

It's everywhere, like fungus.

[avrdream]

7. No Myspace link?

Can that one be added?

Thanks

[L. Coyote]

15. click the button. Lots more choices.

[BrklynLiberal]

8. Thanks. That is just sooo cool!!!

[BuyingThyme]

9. One of those bookmark logos is effed.

[aquart]

10. Can I eliminate the stupid thing in preferences??????

Or am I stuck with the nasty, perky, colorful, glaring intrusion?

[EarlG]

24. Phew

I'm glad we didn't go with the original button design then...

[racaulk]

26. .

:rofl:

[supernova]

32. EarlG needs a DUzy for that!

:rofl:

[TwilightZone]

41. *snort*

Nicely done.

[LynzM]

52. LMAO....

Yeah, that'd definitely be worse! :rofl:

[uppityperson]

59. Excellent, too funny

[KitchenWitch]

60. EarlG - yer KILLING me!

:rofl:

I. Can't. Breathe.

:rofl:

[krispos42]

70. Ah, a chance for my favorite Hello Kitty pic...

[TrogL]

11. I'm glad Fark is on there

Should give it a real workout

[ghostsofgiants]

61. That's not the Fark logo, it's the Facebook logo.

Edit: Oh, wait, I'm an idiot, you mean when you click it. Never mind, haha.

[mogster]

12. Great!

Looking forward to DU 3.0 too :thumbsup:

[SharonRB]

13. Thanks, Earl -- this is great!

Any chance of adding Digg? I was just thinking about this yesterday -- that we needed to be able to Digg threads.

On edit: Oops! My bad. I clicked on it and now I see there's a long list of sites, including Digg. I originally thought it was only the few shown in the post.


:hi:

[Lucinda]

14. Thanks so much! This is SO useful!

[IDemo]

16. I haven't checked out the whole concept

Does this mean DU threads can be copied directly over to sites such as 'DIGG' so the discussion (or at least the OP) is extended outwards over the internets? Does that provide a direct link back to DU if "DIGGers" so desire?

[EarlG]

22. Yes, that's correct

Threads on DU can be shared on other sites, such as Digg. In theory this will extend the reach of DU threads well beyond the borders of this site. The more people that use this function, the more visibility DU will have elsewhere on the Web.

[Le Taz Hot]

64. Thank you for asking that.

I figured it was a good thing, I just wasn't sure how. :hi:

[Oeditpus Rex]

17. I like the function, but

aesthetically, it'd be better if it were beneath the sig line.

[orleans]

19. where is it now? n/t

[Oeditpus Rex]

20. Immediately above the sig

In your case, it'd be sitting on Cindy. :(

[EarlG]

23. I see your point

But we thought it was important to have the "Share" button adjacent to the content of the post. On DU 3.0 there will be more stuff between the body of the post and the sig line in the original message, as you can see from this screen shot (the temporary share/bookmarks button in this screenshot will be replaced with the one we have now):

[Oeditpus Rex]

25. Ah, yeah

That looks much cleaner. I wasn't thinking ahead.

:thumbsup:

[Swamp Rat]

36. Suggestion:

How about moving the blue "Reply" button to the right, under the same column as the orange "Subscribe" button content?

That could solve the (visually aesthetic) dilemma for those who want their siglines just below the post content, while at the same time putting the blue "Reply" button, and its related buttons, justified to the right of the post content (it could be linked to the end of the post content, and therefore move with it, always justified to the bottom-right). Also, it would reduce blank screen space - it might look even more elegant (the orange and blue buttons would be the same size).

[Mnemosyne]

58. Swampy, you just gave me my new desktop! omg

That is one of the coolest peace signs ever. :applause:

Thank you, so tired of nukes, * , the trampled Constitution and the dick. :hug:

V :hi:

[Viva_La_Revolution]

55. I agree 100%

it feels like it's intruding... it should follow. :)

[Call Me Wesley]

18. Why's there a Swiss flag in the front?

:P

Nifty tool! Thank you!

[EarlG]

29. Just for you, CMW

Just for you :hi:

[Call Me Wesley]

34. Awwww ...

:hi:

Can't wait for DU 3.0! That's a helluva job you all do!

[flashl]

21. Thanks

[racaulk]

27. Most excellent! Thank you!

:thumbsup:

[proud patriot]

28. Awesome , Thanks

:bounce:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

30. nifty, sorry i missed the dc protests. would have been cool to meet you!

[pinto]

31. Thanks for the note EarlG.

[SteppingRazor]

33. No bug reports, but one small suggestion...

for purely aesthetic reasons, I'd suggest moving the button below the sigline instead of above. Especially when people include large photos in their siglines, thus placing the button in the middle of the post space, the button's a bit distracting.

That's the only piece of criticism I can offer, except to say it's long overdue. Great job!


On edit: Er ... nevermind. I see you addressed this in Oeditpus Rex's post. Odd that the two editors came up with the same thing. Or, I guess, not so odd.

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

35. I don't see anything, but I have sigs & avatars turned off.

That's probably the problem, right?

[EarlG]

38. You don't see it at the bottom of the OP?

It only shows up in the OP. If you don't see it there it might be because of your settings, I'll have to get Elad to look into it.

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

42. No I don't. I'll look harder, but I don't see anything different.

I'm assuming the other mods are seeing it so it's got to be at my end.

[Ignis]

43. I have sigs & avatars disabled, but I still see the bar.

It's only in an OP, and at the bottom where you'd expect to see a sig.

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

44. No I still don't see it. I wonder if it's my firewall?

I have it set to block pop-up/pop-under ads.

[KoKo]

45. What Firewall/Blocker do you use?

If you don't mind sharing...

[Ignis]

57. Unlikely. What browser are you using?

I can't imagine that any of the usual pop-up or ad blocker software would stop it, either.

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

63. Firefox. I don't have adblocker installed since my firewall

has an excellent one.

[Ignis]

65. Hmm, same here. Sorry I couldn't be of more help. (nt)

[DCKit]

37. No, thank YOU.

On edit:

How much exposure is this going to provide to DU? There are some brilliant writers here, several of whom should be highly paid for their work. Are these works of art expected to start showing up all over the internets? Are the pipes capable of carrying such brilliant gems?

[msongs]

39. how does one GET RID of this feature? nt

[Stephanie]

40. that's what I'd like to know too

it's cluttering up the posts.

[KoKo]

46. Yes...I would like to get rid of it also. Feels like privacy intrusion...

but maybe it's very benign. I'd just like to have the "option" of either not participating or not seeing the intrusive feature. If there's a PopUp Buster that would "disappear it"...it would be okay with some of us who don't want to use the new feature. :shrug:

[Trillo]

48. I don't believe there's any "privacy intrusion"

unless you click on the link. The image is currently located here:
,
so it is "internal" to DU.

[KoKo]

49. I don't like seeing it and won't use it...so how do I get rid of it?

:shrug: For those who like it ...that's fine...but some of us don't want to see it.

[Trillo]

51. There are multiple ways to do that.

It depends upon how much you know, and how much you want to learn, and what browser you're using, and what kind of customizations are available for that browser. Please note, I'm not asking you that information.

If you use Firefox, you could simply turn off all images in options, but you might miss other images that you'd like to see. So, your question, while it appears simple, really depends upon a lot of factors. There are a lot of really great plugins extensions for Firefox, some of which grant you great power over the browsing experience, but some of which require some advanced knowledge of web development, others, not so much.

Sometimes it's best, since all that information is freely available on the web, for you to search it for the answers to your particular questions. That way, you'll gain a deeper understanding of how the web and computers work....

[KoKo]

53. I use Firefox...

and find many of the add on's not quite what I'm comfortable using. I just deleted "No Scripts" because it messed up my computer and was too tiresome to deal with. It did a nice job getting rid of some intrusive junk...but also blocked what I need when I do research. I have to visit a lot of international sites and sometimes need info that "No Scripts" made it very hard for me to figure out how to allow without much extra work figuring out their "unblock or temporarily allow" certain sites. I imagine that "No Scripts" might have disappeared that tool bar that I don't want to see here, though.

[Trillo]

54. NoScript will NOT block the image,

if that's what you want to do. Adblock+ will, and it's easy to use. However, No Scripts will turn the Java and Javascript off on a site specific basis, (Flash and PDF, as well) which is why I couldn't get the links to work, and yes, it does screw with a number of sites, but it also prevents a great deal of maliciousness directed at you by entities who could care less about you or your computer.

If you don't mind getting into CSS development, Stylish grants you the ability to completely rewrite the CSS for any site you frequent, allowing you a great deal of control over any given site's appearance on your computer. Don't like something somewhere? Make it invisible, hide that division, change colors, font sizes, etc. But learning CSS isn't for the typical casual user, nor is Sylish useful for research, or with sites you will only visit once or twice a year. It's time consuming to set up a custom CSS file, then that work can be upset by the site owners deciding to significantly change their site template, and not all sites have fully implemented CSS.

[KoKo]

62. Thanks...

[Trillo]

47. Had trouble getting it to work.

I keep my browser tightly locked down to prevent various nasties.

In order to get this feature to work, I had to turn on scripting, not only for democraticunderground, but also for the addthis site.

I'm quite certain the way you've implemented this is easy, but there are open-source social bookmarking programs that don't requiring scripting to be on in the users browser, and they hardcode the needed URLs to each social bookmarking service.

[Canuckistanian]

50. I was wondering what that thingie was

Great idea!

[Donnachaidh]

56. just clicked it and got this warning?

"Warning: mysql_connect() : Too many connections in /home/addthis/public_html/functions.inc on line 32
Error connecting to database."

Overloaded already?

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

66. I'd also like to disable

this feature.

[pinto]

67. Pretty cool. I actually signed up for a DIGG account to share some members' submissions.

:thumbsup:

[Redstone]

68. No, please, just NO. Some of us (and I expect most of us) just want to

post on DU, and have other DUers read our posts.

Good God, isn't life complicated enough? I do NOT need the option to post my opinion on "digg.com."

All I want to do is to interact with other DUers.

Redstone

[Redneck Socialist]

69. Aesthetically it leaves a lot to be desired.

Any way to make it go away? It's distracting and kind of irritating to be honest.