Dreamwidth changes from LJ

A list of things that have changed, or been added, from LiveJournal to Dreamwidth. (See also: LJ features not in Dreamwidth.)

This is an older list, and not complete. For a closer look at changes being made, check the Code Tour tag in dw_dev.

Already Done: The Big Stuff

We've also already completed the following:

• The "friends" concept has been split into its two functions - "subscriptions" for the journals you read (these appear on your reading page), and "access" for people you allow to read your locked posts. (Access filters are currently in place. Reading filters will come shortly after open beta.)

• Complete import of your personal account's contents from some other LJ-based journal services - including journal entries, comments, user icons, and profile details. Imports are currently working correctly with: LiveJournal, InsaneJournal, and JournalFen. Import from other services with a much older codebase will follow.

• The ability to upload more than one user icon at a time.

• User icon page has a new field: description. This is used to add a text description of the content of the icon, and is used as "alt" text accessible by blind users and some other forms of assistive technology.

• Completely redone S2 (journal customization) system, along with the standardization of options across all styles and much better CSS markup (so you can more easily customize your journal just by using CSS, without having to learn S2).

• New paid user feature: Google Analytics integration, so you can choose to add your Google Analytics code to your journal and get reports on where your readers are coming from.

• Full text search of individual journals/individual communities, if the journal or the logged-in user is paid. (Users can choose whether to allow search by others or not.)

• Full text search of your individual journal for paid accounts.

• Full text search across the entire site for all logged-in users. (Users can choose whether to be included in the site search engine.)

• Subscription filters: all users can use basic filters; paid users get access to additional reading filters, such as filtering your reading list by tag.

• "Sticky entry" module: you can specify the URL of a single entry to 'pin' to the top of your journal/community so that it will always be the first entry displayed, without having to backdate or change the date of the entry.

• The ability to set a maintainers-only security for posts in communities.

Already Done: The Little Stuff

• Increased length-limits on usernames, entries, comments, and polls. Removed word count limit on interests. Poll creator also has more sensible defaults.

• Addition of another option on the "gender" field: instead of "female, male, unspecified", the choices are now "female, male, other, unspecified".

• Retooling the "Adult Concepts" warning system and self-identification. We're removing the ability for people to flag other people's posts and comments for age-appropriateness review, except in the case of community maintainers, but we are keeping the ability for people to self-restrict their content if they want to.

• "Adult concepts" and "graphic adult material" have been renamed "NSFW" (short for "Not Safe For Work") and "18+" so it's clear what they are and what they do. Users under the age of 18 will not be permitted to view 18+ material under any circumstances, users over 18 may opt out in their account settings. There won't be any penalty for failing to use these features, but this way people who want to use them will be absolutely certain about what they restrict.

• Allowing users to describe why they chose the particular adult-content setting they chose, so you can (for instance) say "NSFW for image of naked people" or "18+ for violent content", etc. This works for both individual entries and for your whole journal, so if you set your entire journal to 18+, you can make the click-through say "this journal contains frequent nude images", or whatever else you want.

• OpenID accounts have been extensively worked on so they have additional functionality and are easier to use.

• Respect cut tags in RSS feeds: users can now set a new syndication level, in addition to "full", "title", and "summary", and if the "ljcut" syndication level is selected, it will show full posts in that user's RSS feed unless that post is behind a cut tag, in which case it'll only show the uncut portion with a link to read more.

• Add a warning while deleting your account if you're the maintainer of a community, reminding you to select a new maintainer for the community.

• Tweaks to the logic of when the navigation strip is shown to you, so that it becomes a viewing preference and not a style preference: you choose when and where you want to see it and no one can override that for you.

• New account type for staff accounts, to only be used for staff business. These are clearly marked so people will always be able to know when someone they're talking to is site staff and functioning as such.

• Renaming of LiveJournal-specific tags. The lj-user tag format is now <user name="username">, and the lj-cut tag is now simply <cut> or <cut text="Cut Text Here">. The old tags will still work, for those who don't want to memorise new versions.

• Easier way to refer to people on other services -- now you can do <user name="username" site="livejournal.com"> and have it Just Work for any site.

• Upgraded the spellcheck option and added support for custom dictionaries, so we can add in commonly-used terms that aren't in the dictionary already and neologisms that come from the community.

• Added links to the navigation strip to see the page you're looking at in ?style=mine and ?format=light options with a single click.

• Added 'Track User' link to the navigation strip.

• Streamlined process for creating new accounts.

• Lynx site scheme now displays whether you're logged in, and name of logged in account.

• Quick Reply Includes Preview Button. No extra steps needed.

• Ability for a journal owner to distinguish between visible/screened comments.

• Added "random community" page, as well as the existing "random user" page, to help you find interesting active communities.

• Twitter and Delicious fields are added to the profile.

• Multiple usability fixes for the Inbox, including the ability to filter to all notifications for a single entry, code to mark PMs as 'read' when replied to, and bugfixes to improve the mass-action workflow. Added a "reply" link directly to the email sent out by private messages.

• Fixing a huge number of minor bugs that have always annoyed us -- far too many to list.

• Added total number of tags to the Manage Tags page; added total number of subscriptions to the Manage Subscriptions page.

• Added a module on the bottom of the profile for easy cut-and-paste linking to users on both Dreamwidth and other sites.

• Ability to specify a "public" email address to display on the profile, separate from the email address used by the system.

• Fixing the entry preview system so that it includes metadata, such as tags and current mood/current music.

• Added the ability for all users to post polls into paid communities, not just paid users. Changed the interest limit to a configurable option from a hard-coded limit, so different account levels can have different interest numbers.

• OpenID users can join communities (although they can't post).

Future Improvements

Many of our priorities for feature additions, usability changes, bugfixes, and enhancements will be set after launch when we see how people are using the site. Here's a list of some of the projects that we hope to add, during our first year of operations or shortly thereafter:

• Some kind of main account/alternate account system, so that you can (invisibly and privately) designate one of your accounts as the "parent" account and all other accounts inherit that account's settings unless specifically overruled. (Thus making it easier to, for instance, change your viewing preferences or settings for all your accounts with one click.) This will also improve the "work as other user" drop-down, so you can select userpics while commenting as one of your other accounts, post to a community more easily with a sub-account while logged into your main account, etc.

• The ability to schedule posts, so you can write posts now and have them appear in the future, such as for when you're on vacation, etc.

• The ability to save and manage draft posts on-server, so you can have multiple posts in progress at once. Bugzilla 29

• The ability to create separate "archive pages" for your journal's "greatest hits", for specific tags, etc, etc, that will display the subject line and a brief description of each post all in one place and in an order of your choosing. Bugzilla 34

• The ability to export your journal's contents as a nicely-formatted .pdf file, for easy printing (and binding!). Bugzilla 32

• Killfile support, so that you can browse the site without seeing community posts or comments in other journals that your archnemesis may have made. Bugzilla 35

• A complete overhaul of the Memories function, allowing you to both more easily add other people's posts to your site-wide bookmarks and browse other people's site-wide bookmarks via tag. (Think del.icio.us-style operation: you'll have the ability to save bookmarks as public or private, browse all public bookmarks from a specific user, browse all public bookmarks from all users using a specific tag, etc.). Bugzilla 210

• An improved to-do list, allowing for better task management.

• And, of course, miscellaneous bugfixes and usability enhancements to update, modernize, and streamline existing features that haven't gotten any love in a long time, or to fix what we consider wrong or incorrect behavior or design.