Vote for Media Features
Here at WordPress.com, we always run the most recent version of the WordPress open source software. In addition, we do custom development so that we can offer features not included in the open source core product (like VideoPress, built-in polls, etc.). Because WordPress.com gets new features implemented as they are developed, we don’t usually talk too much about big version releases. For example, WordPress 2.8 was released recently, but we didn’t announce it here because WordPress.com blogs had already been running the new features (like the new widgets administration panel) before the big open source release occurred.
The open source project is getting started on development of version 2.9, which is expected to launch toward the end of this year. The reason I think it’s worth posting about this here on WordPress.com is that the focus of the 2.9 development is going to be improved media features, and improved media management is one of the most frequently requested things in the support forums, support emails, comments and at WordCamps.
There have been many suggestions for how to improve our media functions, so many that we can’t build all of them at once. For the next couple of days, there is a survey you can take to vote on which media features are the most important to you. This will help us prioritize the development. Are you dying for photo albums? A redesigned uploader? The ability to crop, resize or rotate your images? There are 11 proposed media features listed in the survey for you to rank in order of priority.
Descriptions of each proposed feature are provided at the beginning of the voting survey, so you’ll be sure to know what each what means. Only the first question (pick your top choice) is mandatory. This survey isn’t very long. Question two lets you assign a general high/low priority to each of the 11 feature suggestions, while question 3 asks you to rank the 11 features in order of priority from 1-11. A text box or two allow you to make additional suggestions, and that’s it. The survey is anonymous, and will be open until Friday, July 10, 2009 at 11:59 PM UTC.
- July 8, 2009
- New Features
WordPress.com News 
A step towards YouTube style blogs to coinside with text blogs would encourage many large people from YouTube. I personally think PhillyD.tv is proof.
I know I came to WP because I preferred to write/blog rather than vlog.
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I lack the brainware to internalise fancy computer stuff, so advances do not interest me. It took me long enough to get as far as where I am at. But I do admire the whole Word Press achievement. Great going!
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I too came to WP because I like to write, but I’d like to have more control over how my writing is presented to readers. Specifically, I’d like to present something more “book like” than the “static” cover page approach with manually maintained chapter posts link/list pages. The way we do it now is even hard to describe.
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where is russian translate ?! when it will be?
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It would be cool to be able to upload to flickr (and youtube for the video lovers) at the same time time as to wordpress!
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Your poll is missing “Better Archiving”. For example, currently the URL assigned to each image includes the date it was uploaded. Without the date I can change the image, wherever it may be on my blog, by deleting the image from my archives and uploading the newly fixed image with the same name.
So:
saltedfiles.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/stuff.jpg to saltedfiles.wordpress.com/stuff.jpg
So if I want to fix stuff.jpg I delete it from the archives, load the new one, and it fits directly into the post without having to change the link. This makes even more sense if someone has the same image scattered through their posts.
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You can change the File URL when you upload your image. Making something like this a standard setting could potentially fall under creating additional default media settings.
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Yes! Just got done with the survey. But I think visuals is only second priority to texts. Sure, visual persuasion could generate interest. However, the drawback in concentrating on media features is the risk of DE-canonizing the quintessence of writing.
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yay for media!
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It’s good news. I love WP achivement.
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You can change the “stuff” part of the .jpg URL, but not the date. I think I can explain this better…
When I upload an image to WordPress its URL automatically has the date inserted into it… so the link inserted into the HTML is saltedlithium.wordpress.com/files/2009/07/friends.jpg. Once that’s inserted into a post, if I want to modify the ‘friends.jpg’ image the new upload is given its own new date. I have to then go back and change the HTML in each post to reflect the date WordPress has given the new file.
If the link was simply saltedlithium.wordpress.com/files/friends.jpg, and I decided to update the image, all I’d have to do is erase friends.jpg from my media library, then upload the modified image and all of the posts which have the friends.jpg image would be updated automatically.
In terms of archiving, having the date in the URL gets in the way of changing recurring images in our blogs.
Thanks for the voting opportunity.
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I enjoy the idea of moving toward the future. May the future always be a dangerous and exciting place to write about, or view about, or hear about! Thank you.
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thats good news, ill make sure to vote
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I really wish you would allow free customization of WordPress.com blogs, it allows for a lot more creativity and individuality. Otherwise, every other WP blog looks pretty much the same. Would also be nice to enable Shelfari/librarything widgets. These are a must for any book-blogger, and consequently some of the best book bloggers are on Blogger.
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I personally think it would be cool if we could upload videos to wordpress, just like youtube……. that’s would be exciting, spiderpoman
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We have the option to upload videos to WordPress.com with the VideoPress upgrade! Check it out.
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I like the idea of pretty ajax-y photo albums. currently I use an ugly table to show my artwork, it’s a bugger to update and doesn’t look particularly nice. my home page uses ajax photo albums and they work great, look stunning and are easy to maintain.
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What I would most like to see is better image quality when re-sizing images after upload. If you use IrfanView or some other software to scale down the images to size before upload, no problem, but using the WordPress software for that result in darker images. Would also like to see quick customisable re-sizing of images instead of the check boxes as they are now.
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I hope you consider automating quotes, bolds and picture insertion in comments. Look at Climate Audit.org for a baseline. It’s much better for commentors (the most important people, the same ones who make your efforts go). And I would like to be able to upload a text file- not too much memory there.
Consider it, the software isn’t that bad and it would put you way way ahead of the competition.
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Because wordpress is so search engine friendly, I want to be highlighted in the world of internet, so I am using it for that.
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Mini image galeries for the posts? That way you can have 1 place for image rather than littering blogs with 3-5.
example … I use 2 images in this blog but i wouldve prefered to have had one sliding/clickable gallery.
http://alanspicer.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/housing-markets-reccession-solution/
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This is certainly a very good option for wordpress users.
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I like the idea about “book like” blogs.
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The vote result of media features is useful for both WP user and WP developer.
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First thanks for your job ! Being able to setup sounds and music as part of “core” functionalities would be great too.
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I’d like to see ways to put info from social networking sites rather then handwriting HTML sidebar blobs. At least putting buttons to different sites in the sidebar. I think that would be more appreciated than advanced media features.
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I voted.. 🙂 I would personally like to see the ability to embed videos from more sources…Thanks for always improving the experience here at WordPress!
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Voted! Thanks – I do feel that WordPress is the best 🙂
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I like the idea of voting with many other WP users to help defining which most-wanted features shall come first. Waiting for the results!
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would like to embed direct from issuu
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GALLERIES! Yes! Also, forgot to mention in the other suggestion suggestion, I’d like to have a way to put text in shaded boxes, and to indent text with a gui.
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I’d like my blog theme/style creator to up date it as it’s limited in certain areas eg can’t add certain features like translation flags that work – I can get the flags but they aren’t linked to the translations! But love the look of it, Unsleepable by Ben Gray makes me look like a bloody genius! Widgets i think they are called cheers Dim but nice. ps love wordpress – super geekdom
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waiting for the results 🙂 thank you for asking our opinions, WP! ❤
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I just completed the survey. There are two new things I want to see on WordPress some day.
1. An embeded sketchpad or DoodlePad (like this http://www.onlinesketchpad.com/)
2. More options for Custom header images (like selecting header image from media library)
Cheers
Sudarshan (सुदर्शन)
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That’s a good idea, being able to select your header image from your media library. We’ll look into it!
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I use EasyCapture to massage photos. Was on the road recently and logged in from another state and updating the blog, but I really missed EasyCapture for the task. Worth a look.
One thing would be nice: a stand alone file name builder, similar to what you use to build the item url from the title. It would take an IN string and build an OUT string that conforms to the filename rules.
Thinking about a party when your clock matches mine again. ;–}
Enjoy WP.
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– Support to embed flash widgets, Javascript widgets and other custom widgets in ‘Text widget’.
– Better and more templates along-with more control on customizing it.
WP rocks, and i am a very happy blogger with WordPress.
thanks
Aniket
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Facebook integration would be nice. There’s currently a WordPress facebook app but it doesn’t seem to be able to link to the WordPress account I just created. My main need is to be able to blog in Facebook and have the ability to make some posts public and some private.
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I am all for flash widgets
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I am a very happy blogger in with wordpress
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Could the default Home page appear in the Pages Editor ? Because I have a problem with that an I don’t know how to remove it. I created a static page then another page for the posts and I have two home page now…
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good keep working on these!
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It would be good if WordPress automatically published posts as emails so as to enable archiving. This would aid Blog security and be a great help. Thanks for being so conscienscious about providing a tip top service and product.
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I’m not sure I understand… your blog posts are automatically archived on your actual blog. Are you saying you want them to be sent as emails instead of (or in addition to) published to the web? Are you specifically interested in a set of emails, or are you just saying an offline archive would be helpful? You can export your entire post archive at an any time and save the XML file on your computer by going to Tools > Export from the left-hand navigation on your Dashboard.
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Better file archiving, better searches, definitely better image control, and yes, more customisable text and blog looks. I do use the occasional video in my work but 99% of what I do needs to be done in text. Which is why I’m here and not at youtube.
I think most folks have mentioned that, but a good writing platform is important for writers – and that’s what the majority of us are. Writers on every subject under the sun! Which is one of the things that makes this place rock – please don’t forget that in the midst of all the new video widgets!
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Hi Chanah. We definitely haven’t forgotten about the needs of writers. Our primary focus in the version 2.7 overhaul was making it easier to create and manage posts and pages, and we didn’t have time then to address improving the ability to upload and manage media. We feel we need to make the experience consistently easy and enjoyable, hence the current focus on media features, but there will definitely be a number of text-related features coming out as well. When we have an official feature list for the upcoming version, I’ll make sure to post about it on this blog so you’ll know what’s coming.
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I would like the option to have sponsors like Google ads or to sell ad space on my wordpress.com blog
without having to upgrade to self-server.
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Ditto on future improvements for the sake of writing! But while we’re on the subject of media, I’d like to suggest some consideration be given to improving the way WP handles audio. I’ve given up on trying to make my off-site playlist work from a link that opens in a separate window. This has forced me to re-edit all of my posts that referred to it to include the ugly WP shortcode player instead. I completely understand the requirement for limitations on embedded audio players, but enhancements to the existing shortcode player could go a long way.
For example, I use Google Reader to catch up on blogs occasionally, and one of the WP blogs I was checking out had a beautiful audio player in it. But when I went to the actual blog, I found only the usual ugly shortcode player. Obviously Google is somehow translating the appearance of the player. Can’t WP?
Another example would be an enhacement that allows this better looking shortcode player to display as a selectable playlist when it is coded with multiple audio file URLs.
It seems to me that a lot can be done in this area without the requirement for any extreme programming effort. I can’t speak for others, but enhancements like this would be a significant improvement for my purposes.
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Heck Im new to the whole blog scene, got a late start I guess, I think wordpress is great the way it is, but take it with a grain of salt since im a noob
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I really like the way with blogger, in your blogroll, it shows when that blog was updated and you can choose to show title of recent post. Is much better than a bog-standard list of links to other blogs. Would be great if you could enable something like that.
At the moment I use a clunky workaround (RSS) but it’s not the same.
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Thanks very much for the excellent features. One thing I’d like to see is greater transferability between media libraries of one blog and others to which you might contribute. This saves double (or triple!) uploading of photos and other media. Perhaps making possible a downloadable file of all the media you’ve uploaded?
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I voted and then remembered something important for the “wish list” – the ability to print a post.
I write a local online newspaper style blog for a very small community with many summer visitors. I’d like to be able to create a “poster” that I could distribute around town to encourage new readers and entice our summer visitors to take a look at Torch Lake Views. Second, when a post features a person or event the subject or organizer often asks for the equivalent of a reprint. I’ve found some awkward workarounds, but an elegant solution would be very welcome, and would be a traffic-builder as well.
Thank you for the flexibility of WP.
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I can’t vote; all the options siound so awesome! And as I always say, WordPress ROCKS! I don’t like the new smilies, though; nor do most of my friends.
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I know it’s contrary to the intention in most blogs, but I’d like an option to reverse the display order of posts (that is, first to last, rather than most recent first).
“Previous Post” and “Next Post” links, so readers could browse through posts like pages in a book, would be nice, too.
Thanks for making WordPress available!
—DMB (for M.E. Windham)
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More support for javascript and such in the “Text” widget for the sidebars would be immensely helpful and cool.
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Thanks for the update!
Some additional feature that I hope WordPress,com could consider incorporating:
1) LinkWithin – http://www.linkwithin.com/learn?ref=widget
2) AdSense (like Blogspot)
3) More themes!!
WordPress rock!! 🙂
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my pleasure for joined wp
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yes, its a good decision.
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good keep working on these!
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As a new user, I may just be ignorant – however, I’d like to be able to automatically put a link in the text widget. Can’t seem to get that one. If that can be done, please let me know! Thanks, R
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At the moment, you’ll need to use HTML for that. If you’d like to learn how to use HTML, I suggest checking out W3Schools.
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Oops! Sorry to have missed the voting. WordPress.com do an incredible job to ensure that blogging is a cool, fun experience and I’m very grateful that you’re always looking for new ways to improve.
Others have mentioned wishing that we could embed custom widgets and I hold out the hope that it will eventually be possible. I’m particularly interested in http://issuu.com/ as a means of uploading my art work – in a way that allows images to be viewed properly whilst preventing copying.
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I think it’s great what you guys are doing right now. I really enjoy the feature of ratings. In the “Advanced Settings” section, perhaps you could give more insight. At first, I didn’t really know how the custom image option worked. After checking out your support page, I got it. You could give a “help” link in the Advanced Settings, and have it go to the WordPress support page. I also would like to see a way of turning on and off comment moderation on single posts and pages. This feature would help me a lot. Thank you, and keep up the good work.
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How about the ability to display an image in a post where the image is stored on the web and we have the web link to the image?
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Maybe if there are more features, it gets more complicated to use for beginners. So maybe there should be a beginners’ version with very few features, for people to get the idea, and once they know their way around they would simply click a button for a free upgrade with more features.
I always feel sorry for IT beginners. Two days ago I became a beginner in recording technology and have not yet recovered completely.
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Some of my patients (my target audience) are illiterate (really) so videos are needed to communicate with them
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the ability to easily add tables would be great.
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Would be a nice thing.
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I hope WordPress is gonna have lots of better features in the future. I choose WordPress rather than Blogger because I’ve always thought that WordPress blogs are overall better than Bloggers blog although there are a few things that are available in Blogger that I would like to have (The followers column, for example, and there’s a few more). But I really love some of the WordPress features like the Social Vibe, polls and the themes are beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
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One thing I would appreciate is making your blog platform more back compatible. I mean for people who have to use older operating systems like Windows 2000 and monitors that were designed to work best at lower resolution rates then those of the ones currently on the market. This shouldn’t be to hard to do I would think but I am no tech wizard, but rather a fairly well skilled amateur.
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It would be nice to be able to integrate javascript or embed code to enrich a blog with certain features from third party websites (feedburner email subscription, newsletter scripts, embed maps from live, mapquest …, mybloglog and others) would be nice. I see how this can be a security issue, but there should be a way to whitelist a whole lot of providers and automatically keep the code intact.
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I’d love to be able to crop, resize and rotate images there and then ;). At the moment I have to keep opening up Photoshop to to this kind of stuff :P. I’d also like it if you could get the custom HTML I put in to stick because at the moment whenever I put some custom HTML in and then come back to that post later on to edit it the HTML has gone :(.
Thanks.
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Floating Pictures:
I missed the vote so I hope I do not repeat something. First of all, I LOVE WordPress- great job!
I have several posts giving directions on how to build or do something so pictures are very handy to go with paragraphs. I find that when I have several pictures in a post, they do not stay where they need to. So I guess an easier way to insert pictures at a particular location would be wonderful (assuming this is not user error-ha). But it is still great. Thanks!
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Great Job WP
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You will need TinyMCE installed in “Text” widget. That’s will be useful.
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Weird, when I click the link iin the blog post, I just get to a page stating:
“Survey Closed
The survey you have requested is currently closed. Please check with the person or website that sent you here for more info.”
However, what I would see fixed is a way to link in image descriptions.
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More audio (streaming) shortcuts. There are plenty of video ones for YouTube, DailyMotion and such, but nothing to stream audio media (always javascript based) like Grooveshark, Deezer, Jiwa, …
23
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If you could add polls to the page because I have made a poll and it doesnt show what the poll looks like it doesnt let on the page that viewers look at it doesnt show the polls so what do I do to make that happen?
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Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh ! Too late !
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Didn’t get to vote, because voting was closed. Please take down the call to action from the admin dashboard…it’s too much of a tease!
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Sounds like a great idea and I just now (being today) joined. (:
I cannot wait. ❤
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Allow embedded video from any location instead of limiting to specific sites.
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The survey is anonymous, and will be open until Friday, July 10, 2009 at 11:59 PM UTC. I too late… !
But..
Thanks & Regards
to
Jane Wells 🙂
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Now I have to keep opening up Photoshop to to this kind of stuff. I`m looking forward to pic unloader. It will solve some problems
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Strange , this notification appeared today in my blog , so i didn’t have the chance to vote. What a shame , never mind , hope the vote went OK.
🙂
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Darn. Too late to vote… but I was just thinking today that it would be nice to be able to have a different set of links on the side panel on different pages – e.g. if I have a separate topic page, it would be nice if I could set up a bunch of links to other pages related to that topic, rather than having the same set of links on each page (tab) on the blog.
Thanks WP! I used Blogspot for quite a while, and I enjoy the ease of posting on WP.
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I beg you to do one thing regarding DePo Masthead Theme: please just move the entry tags to the BOTTOM of the post. In this way, all entry titles will read straight across the page making it easier for the reader. As the code is written now, the entry titles move up and down depending on the size of the tag entries. Beg. Of. You.
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Personally, I think WP needs to clean up its text editing program. I find that the “visual editor,” “HTML editor” and “View” almost always give differrent views and tinkering with this ends up a major waste of time. This is doubly true if photos are involved. I’d be overjoyed to have a text editor that was half as good as Windows Notepad, which I believe was part of the original Windows in the last century.
So I vote to shelve any more wiz-bang doodads, gizmos, widgets, bells and whistles, and special new “media” effects and just help us put the Words in a WordPress post.
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The adcert to vote now is still coming up – even though it is too late. One of the key media features I would like would be to allow more video types, such as the BBC, Daily show and others.
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I would like better control over the background. I want to make a background that matches my web page.
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good step to our fun
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