Here are the latest changes to the JS-Kit platform in the last week!
Highlights
NEW: All new Echo Template [snaky]
The new Echo Template (Seen at the bottom of this post) is a cleaner, more modern comment look for the JS-Kit comment service! We love it, we hope you do too. You can switch templates in the admin dashboard.
NEW: New JS-Kit logo and Website Design [Chris & Oley]
The new logo and Look+Feel reflects some of our future direction, there’s much more to come on this front too.
Other updates
Website
NEW: User Login Status is now listed on every page [Oleg]
UPDATE: Changed Terms Of Service [Kay]
UPDATE: Comment Product Page now has improved information and information architecture [Oley]
Performance
IMPROVED: Optimization processing of top & hot items [Oleg]
IMPROVED: Converting “polls.js” script to use JSRVC [Andrew]
3rd Party Integrations
IMPROVED: Twitter message now read: “I just commented “[First 80 characters of comment]…” on [short URL]” [Siden]
IMPROVED: Simplified FB Connect setup by auto-generating the FB App for the user [Siden]
FIXED: Wordpress sync does not work after deployment of AMQ scheme [Zaa]
IMPROVED: Wordpress Sync diagnostic information [Zaa]
IMPROVED: Wordpress import to honor comments “SPAM” status [Zaa]
IMPROVED: Wordpress plugin now provided as zip instead of tar.gz [Zaa]
FIXED: Blogger comments still appearing under JS-Kit comments for Wordpress-converted templates [Lizard]
FIXED: Comment Sync fails for blogs with UTF-8 characters in their title [Zaa]
Client
FIXED: Wrong comment count displayed on blogger for IE [Lizard]
FIXED: Editors Picks on the Navigator are not committing for some users [Oleg]
FIXED: JS error after submitting an edited comment [Lizard]
FIXED: Loading User information fails partially in Safari 3-4 [Leon]
FIXED: WYSIWYG editor interferring with comment editing [Lizard]
FIXED: Linebreaks are being destroyed by the Comment Edit feature [Lizard]
UPGRADED: Improved signup workflow – users are now lead to the Install page after registration [oleg]
NEW: Localization to Spanish [kay]
UPGRADED: “Get started now” button now leads to the pricing page to clearly explain the options for new customers [kay]
UPGRADED: Pricing options to allow users to have more control over their desired features and price point [aovchinn]
UPGRADED: Color scheme of Pricing page is now blue sale rather than green scale [aovchinn]
UPGRADED: Tool tip text on the Pricing page to make feature descriptions more clear for users [Kay]
FIXED: In some cases, comments do not show on blogger pages even if all comments were imported successfully and the gadget was inserted into template with success. [lizard]
RESTORED: New Admin Dashboard excluded the ability to export comments, this has now been restored in the new user interface [lg]
FIXED: “Allow URL field in ‘Leave a comment’” option does not hide the field in some cases [snaky]
FIXED: Mininav on star ratings is displaying multiple times if the user click-spams the ratings widget [andrew]
FIXED: IE8 display glitch on “Controls” link [kay]
FIXED: Invalid URLS are being accepted by ‘Add a site’ workflow [oleg]
FIXED: Missing space in the MiniNavigator [andrew]
Website
FIXED: Support page doesn’t work for non-english language users [kay]
FIXED: The support form is producing false possitive field validation in some cases [aovchinn]
Authentication
NEW: Password recovery feature for JS-Kit logins [leon]
FIXED: Moderator edited content looses quotation marks [vlm]
UPGRADED: Language on Experience ‘Full Report’ button [andrew]
Integrations
NEW: Integration into Bunchball Nitro Platform [andrew]
FIXED: Blogger Gadget is loading Comments.js incorrectly [lizard]
FIXED: Blogger comment counter was reflecting an incorrect comment count while the page was loading – not shows 0 until the proper count is loaded [lizard]
Imagine if your flash app (video, game, etc) could have built in comments – comments that follow your content around no matter where it gets embedded. We did. So did Brightcove. So we worked together with one of our 3rd party developers to deliver a flash based JS-Kit chat product that runs on the JS-Kit platform and API.
Flash Comments are here!
You can learn more about integrating JS-Kit comments into your ActionScript 3 project on the wiki page here. There’s also instructions for BrightCove 3 specifically.
Thanks for your hard work Lisa.
We look forward to your feedback about this early preview.
Here are the changes to the JS-Kit platform over the last month.
Highlights
New Admin Dashboard!
The new JS-Kit Admin Dashboard is a cleaner, more robust experience for users to configure and moderate JS-Kit widgets. It’s only a first step, the Admin Dashboard is about to get very, very cool. [Evgeny]
Improved User Profile
User Profile look and feel has been dramatically improved [Andrew]
Twitter Integration
Users can now log in and tweet their comments from the comment form [Denis]
Google Friend Connect Integration
Users can now log in and share their comments via Google Friend Connect [Denis]
Other updates:
Administration:
UPGRADED: Intermittent “Damaged data” error message improved to be more user-friendly [Alexander Ovchinnikov]
NEW: Admin Dashboard now reflects a site’s account level (Free, Pro and Pro+) and unlocks features as appropriate [Evgeny]
Authentication:
UPGRADE: Administrators can now specify their own Google Friend Connect key rather than using the generic JS-Kit Key (which is used by default) [Denis]
NEW: Administrators now need to log in or register to install JS-Kit Widgets. This will improve the robustness of the administration process/workflow [Oleg]
NEW: New users are now asked for an email address when creating their account so that they can receive important system updates when necessary [Leonid]
FIXED: Case sensitivity in OpenIDs was causing some login/functionality to break [Oleg]
NEW: Two-legged OAuth support [Vlad]
Clients:
CHANGE: The URL field is now turned on by default for all sites. Administrators can toggle the URL field off in the Admin Dashboard [Yuri]
FIXED: Visitor Profile now public by default [Andrew]
FIXED: Pages with HTTPS were not loading comments [Lev]
CHANGED: Comment form is now open by default for new implementations [Yuri]
NEW: Pasting content into the Comment form is now stripped of some formatting to improve consistency and cleanliness of imported content [Igor]
UPGRADED: Admin Settings for Polls Widget now appears as a separate configuration palette [Andrew]
FIXED: Closed potential security loophole in Firefox by stripping script tags from permalinks [Andrew]
FIXED: Ratings were hanging the browser for IE7 [Andrew]
FIXED: “Help” link update [Andrew]
FIXED: adminDBColor attribute does not affect posts made by moderators with OpenID accounts [Igor]
FIXED: Navigator Admin Palette position often displayed in poor locations [Andrew]
FIXED: E-mail checking function was triggering false positives for email formatting errors [Denis]
FIXED: Visitor Profile Close ‘X’ clickable surface was limited in IE – improved clickable area [Andrew]
FIXED: Intermittent “JSKitGlobal is undefined” error on Admin Dashboard [Leonid]
FIXED: Transparency and rendering errors on certain images in IE [Leonid]
FIXED: Minor layout issues in Experian Advisor Application in IE8 [Andrew]
FIXED: A number of visual artifacts appear in standard pulldown menus [Dmitry]
FIXED: User Profile comment pagination is not clearing the previous page before displaying the next page [Andrew]
FIXED Incorrect Links to Comments and Ratings in Navigator [Yuri]
FIXED: Keybord behavior in Navigator Admin Console [Andrew]
FIXED: Closing Advisor popup before ratings loaded causes error
FIXED: Buttons now conform to size of label text for non-english languages [lizard]
Performance:
IMPROVED: Blogger import has been dramatically improved to support many more simultaneous imports [Vlad]
FIXED: Reply loop in reply-by-mail feature [Igor]
Third Party Integration:
UPGRADE: Blogger comment sync now performed via OAuth [Alexander]
NEW: Blogger install wizard [lizard]
FIXED: Third Party Integration Blogger. Bulk importer now preserves information about a comment’s permalink [Alexander]
FIXED: Improved handling of a case when a comment Atom entry does not have thr:in-reply-to tag [Alexander]
IMPROVED: Facebook Connect 4th Party Integration [Denis]
FIXED: Comments imported from Blogger sometimes end up in the incorrect chronological order due to poor granularity in Blogger date/time stamp references [Alexander]
Website:
UPGRADED: Login and registration text on Admin Dashboard [Oleg]
UPGRADED: Support form improved to make logging support requests easier for customers [Alexander Ovchinnikov]
Notification
UPGRADED: Email notifications now differentiate between “New comment…” and “Reply to your comment…” via the subject line
FIXED: Google’s “forwarded” text included in comment when replying by email [Igor]
FIXED: Notification email address must be case insensitive
Over the last 12 hours we’ve had reports of false positive virus warnings from NOD32 about one of our component scripts.
We’d like to assure customers that this is a mistake on behalf of the NOD32 anti-virus software. This script has not been modified since late last year and does not contain a virus.
The alert appears as follows:
File http://js-kit.com/extra/tiny_mce/tmce.js
Threat Type JS/Kryptik.Dtrojan
"Event occurred on a new file created by the application: C:\Program
Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe. The file was moved to
quarantine.
You may close this window."
Please rest assured we are working with ESET, the company that produces NOD32, to rectify this error in their software.
Stay tuned to this post/blog for more details and subscribe to @jskitstatus for system status updates in real-time.
Update 1: From Lev our CTO
As a temporary measure, users can disable WYSIWYG mode in their Admin Dashboard to temporarily suppress TinyMCE loading. This will avoid NOD32 warning for their users at the expense of rich text mode in the comments form.
Today we have shipped a fantastic new upgrade to our Blogger integration.
Existing Users
For existing users, we now use a new and improved blogger sync process. Your JS-Kit Comments continue to sync with Blogger.com in real time as they always have. Now, however, it uses OAuth to get the job done. This is a more secure, robust and scalable solution for users.
If you already use JS-Kit on blogger, be sure to authorize JS-Kit to sync with Blogger by clicking here. This will ensure uninterrupted sync between JS-Kit comments and Blogger comments.
New Users
For new users, we’ve made installing JS-Kit on Blogger even easier. A new installation wizard will walk you through the comment import process. The installer also uses an all new Blogger Gadget to get JS-Kit comments on your blog rather than a template HTML modification.
For new users, get started here and follow the prompts for Blogger install.
Our CEO Khris Loux spoke at The Next Web 09 in Amsterdam the week before last and by all accounts he rocked the room! You can watch the video by clicking the image above. The slide deck that didn’t quite make the projector is also embedded below or check out the google doc.
You will see more from us on these themes in the coming weeks and months – stay tuned!
As many of you may have noticed, you can now log into JS-Kit comments using your Twitter Account. Doing so loads your Twitter Avatar and gives you the option of sharing your comment with your Twitter followers.
But we didn’t stop there. If you also log in using Facebook, Yahoo! and/or Google (also new!) JS-Kit comments will allow you to cross post to any or all of those services at the same time!
Share your thoughts with your friends, get more traffic for your site.
We are currently experiencing some intermittent service interruption. We are aware of the problem and working to resolve it.
Updates as I get them.
Thanks for your patience!
Update (11:50am PST): Full service should be restored. More details to follow.
Update (1:45pm PST): Growing pains are the culprit again. Due to a high level of new users (particularly import processes from users migrating their comments to JS-Kit) and new comments the system became unstable.
At approximately 07:00am untill 07:20 was a full outage.
After the full outage was resolved, there was intermittent problems writing new comments, poll answers or ratings until the 11:50am resolution.
We have been working on upgrading large parts of our system for greater scale and fault tolerance for the last 3 weeks, a few enhancements have already been rolled out with many more to come in the coming 4-8 weeks.
Once this process is completed, scale issues like these will no longer be a contributing factor to any outages for the foreseeable future.
