Recently active topics in I want Sandy tagged with new

Howdy,

Just one of the various tweaks and twiddles I've been working on is today's fix for the Sandy jotters [http://iwantsandy.com/help/jott] among you.

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TWEAKED: Support for jotting multi-word special tags

Jott [http://iwantsandy.com/help/jott] to Sandy? If so, you've no doubt run into an issue jotting Sandy multi-word (or multi-word-sounding) tags like @todo, @noreminder, and @noreply. "Remind me to change the oil in the car tag with to-do" turned what should have been @todo into @to @do. "Remember to consider that offer on Monday @noreminder" ended up being tagged as @no @reminder.

We worked with Sandy over the weekend to recognize and re-assemble those multi-word tags for you on the fly. Now whenever you jott "...tag with to-do," @todo is what you'll get. And the same goes for: "no reminder," "no reply," etc.

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NEW: Turn Sandy's email replies to your jotts on or off

Prefer Sandy not email a reply to each and every one of your jotts? No problem! Turn Sandy's email replies to your jotts on or off at http://iwantsandy.com/settings/jott#r... .

Please note that we've asked Sandy _not_ to email a reply by default to avoid any unnecessary email cluttering your inbox. Feel free, however, to go ahead and turn email replies back on if you prefer.

Remember too that you can explicitly ask Sandy not to reply — on a jott by jott basis — by saying "tag with no-reply." And if you have Sandy's jott email replies turned off but would like an email reply to one jott in particular, just say "tag with reply."

To get Jott and Sandy talking, visit: http://iwantsandy.com/settings/jott

Learn more about Jotting with Sandy at: http://iwantsandy.com/help/jott

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Enjoy!

Rael

P.s. We thrive on your feedback! Be sure to let us know what you think, what you liked (or didn't), and if we missed anything (or made anything worse).

Ever find yourself sending Sandy a flurry of things to remember? For example:

> remember to pick up the dry cleaning @errand
> remember to stop by the paint store and find a nice color for the bedroom @home @errand
> remember to pick up my macbook @errand

Around the third item you're no doubt wishing for a shortcut.

Try writing that list as, well..., a list:

> remember +
> * [first thing to remember]
> * [second thing to remember]
...

The power is in that plus sign at the end of the first line: it tells Sandy to treat each item in the list as an independent item, as if it were written out long-hand as "remember [first thing to remember]."

For example:

> remember +
> * pick up the dry cleaning @errand
> * stop by the paint store and find a nice color for the bedroom @home @errand
> * pick up my macbook @errand

Sandy reads this list as "remember" + [each item in the list].

Useful, eh?

And there's more...

If all the items in your list have tags in common, simply drop those tags into the first line before the plus sign like so:

> remember @common_tag +

For example:

> remember @errand +
> * pick up the dry cleaning
> * stop by the paint store and find a nice color for the bedroom @home
> * pick up my macbook

Sandy reads this as "remember" + [each item in the list] + @errand. She reads the second item as "remember" + "stop by the paint store and find a nice color for the bedroom @home" + "@errand" and so tags it with both @errand and @home (and the same for the rest of the items in the list).

But wait, there's more...

Anything all of the items in your list have in common can be dropped into the first line before the plus sign.

For example, you can schedule all of those errands for the same day like this:

> remind me tomorrow afternoon @errand +
> * pick up the dry cleaning
> * stop by the paint store and find a nice color for the bedroom @home
> * pick up my macbook

Sandy reads this as "remind me tomorrow afternoon [to]" + "pick up the dry cleaning" + "@errand" (and the same for the rest of the items in the list).

In fact, you can pack all the details into the first line before the plus sign and leave only what's different to the list itself, for example:

> remember dentist appointments @dentist +
> * 11/27 4pm
> * 11/29 2pm

Sandy reads this as "remember dentist appointments" + "11/27 4pm" + "@dentist" (and the same for the rest of the items in the list).

= "Remember +" rules =

You can mix and match to your heart's content. The rules are simple:

1. Text, tags, dates, and times that appear in the first line between the "remember" or "remind" and the plus sign are added to all of the items in the list.
2. Text, dates, and times that appear in any of the list items override those in the first line.
3. Tags that appear in the first line are added to those in any of the list items (they don't replace them).

Powerful, huh?

Here are some examples of situations in which you'll find this "remember +" shortcut indispensable:

= Examples =

== You're a student and need to remember your irregular work, class, and exam schedule ==

> remind me to work at the bookstore +
> * 7/6 12-5pm
> * 7/8 12-4pm
> * 7/9 9-11am

== You have a series of appointments differing only in their dates and times -- and sometimes in their details ==

> remember well-baby appointment with Dr. Mayer @pregnancy +
> * Jan 2, 2-3pm @ultrasound
> * Feb 4, 9-10am
> * Mar 10, 1-3pm @lab

== Your meeting results in a series of action items all related to the same project or deadline ==

> remember due next thursday @project_x @todo +
> * Pat to produce initial forecast @monetization
> * Chris to write schedule of deliverables @"project management"
> * JJ to work with the art department on some mock-ups @design

Howdy,

Today's update brings some further user-interface improvements in preparation for the fun(ctional) overhaul we have in the works.

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TWEAKED: Inline action links

The action links we introduced last week brought those actions you perform several times a day — editing, deleting (forgetting), and archiving — inline (rather than having to click once just to get to them, and again to take action). Some of you — and, admittedly, me too — pointed out that these links took up too much room, enlarging the footprint of individual items a wee bit too much. So we've tweaked them still further, moving them over to the right and iconizing them so that they're within easy reach yet as unobtrusive as possible.

Thanks Jaclyn, Trevor, Waffles, and the rest of you [http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...] for making your feelings known!

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TWEAKED: Show/hide past events and done to-dos

You'll notice new "Show/hide past" and "Show/hide done [to-dos]" links at the top of any page you're likely to need them.

For example:

* Select "Your stuff > Appointments" from Sandy's menu-bar for all upcoming appointments; now click the "Show past" link and the list will also include past appointments.

* Select "Your stuff > To-dos" for your current to-do list; then click "Show done" to include done to-dos, "Show past" to include all not-yet-done and done to-dos past, present, and upcoming.

A shout out to Kate, Kevin1, and others [http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...] for pointing out the inconsistencies!

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IMPROVED: Empty results suggestions

We added suggestions for where you might find what you're looking for when your search resulted in, well..., no results.

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FIXED: Archives

You should find all you expect to when clicking the "archive" tag in the right-hand sidebar while looking at any view of your your stuff, appointments, to-dos, etc.

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DOCUMENTED: Mobile reminder instructions for T-Mobile UK customers

Having trouble setting up mobile reminders for your T-Mobile UK mobile? Check out the updated instructions and help documentation at: http://iwantsandy.com/help/mobile

Enjoy!

Rael

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P.s. We thrive on your feedback! Be sure to let us know what you think, what you liked (or didn't), and if we missed anything (or made anything worse).

Howdy,

As the week draws to a close, so too does a large swathe of work we've been doing tightening up, tweaking, twiddling, fixing, and testing Sandy's web site interface.

As usual, our focus has been on striking a balance between simple and powerful, friendly and unobtrusive, fun and functional. We've incorporated some of the incredibly helpful feedback you've all provided here on Get Satisfaction in the form of interface enhancements, bug fixes, and site- and email-wide improvements. And behind the scenes we've set some even more interesting developments in motion that you'll see surfacing in the days and weeks to come.

So you can regard today's update as a warm-up before the next phase of the performance we call product development.

We hope you like what you see!

Rael

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TIDYING: Here, there, and everywhere

You'll no doubt notice the spring cleaning we did on Sandy's web site, but here are some of the highlights in case you missed them:

* Sandy's site feels that much more pleasant to visit with that legal-pad-yellow vanquished.

* Gone are the filter and sort controls from the sidebar. (They were all but unused. Updates to the default filtering and sorting depending on whether you're looking at your to-dos, calendar, bookmarks, Daily Digest, ... should take care of just about all you formerly had to fiddle with to get to.)

* Subscription links for your iCalendar and RSS feeds are at the bottom of the page when you need them, out of your way when you don't. (They rather cluttered the sidebar and made entirely too much of themselves.)

* The calendar appears in the sidebar on all of "Your stuff" and "Daily Digest" pages (rather than just on Digest pages).

TIDYING: And email too!

We also worked with Sandy to tidy up her email messages — every single one, from replies to reminders to your Daily Digest:

* The same color-scheme you see on the Web is also reflected in Sandy's HTML email (turn on HTML email at http://iwantsandy.com/settings/email for a splash of color in your inbox).

* We moved the Home, Help, and Community links to the footer of Sandy's email template. (Those of you skimming a preview of Sandy's messages in your inbox — Gmail, Outlook, and iPhone mail in particular — will find more of the content in those previews rather than those repetitive links.)

* Repeating reminders, appointments, and to-dos now include mention — beyond their @daily or @weekly or other recurrence tags — of their repeating: "- Repeats weekly"

We're sure you'll enjoy the results of our reshuffling, polishing, and tidying!

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FIXED: The non-disappearing edit window

We had thought we had this licked in our 4/12 release, but there were still some corner cases causing some trouble. It was nailing this down that led to quite a bit of the refactoring behind today's release.

Again, thanks to all of you who posted and ultimately helped us narrow down just what was causing this inconsistency: Paul and Nobiq [http://gsfn.us/t/ghx], Nedflanders [http://gsfn.us/t/hwh], Thorsten [http://gsfn.us/t/hwr], Onorio [http://gsfn.us/t/hx1], and others.

We're sorry that this caused some of you some difficulty and will endeavor to avoid introducing bugs like that in the future.

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FIXED: Nits in toggling and rescheduling repeating appointments and to-dos

Those of you who ran into some of the nits in toggling and rescheduling repeating appointments and to-dos should find that all cleared and acting just as you'd expect it to now. Thanks to all of you who sent us the details we needed (and your assumptions about how things were working) that allowed us to make this all work that much better.

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IMPROVED: Toggling to-dos done

We've dropped the three-way to-do / done / not-to-do toggle in favor of a simple to-do/done checkbox appearing to the left of any to-do in your To-do list [http://iwantsandy.com/todos] or Daily Digest [http://iwantsandy.com/digest].

We think you'll find this much more intuitive than the good-in-theory three-way toggle. (You can still turn anything into a to-do by clicking its name, the "Edit" link, and adding a @todo or @done tag.)

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IMPROVED: Your Stuff

The lion's share of this update vastly improves, cleans up, and removes bugs in the way Sandy lists, sifts, and sorts your stuff.

* Sorting and filtering is taken care of for you (no more need of any manual tuning on your part) whether you're looking at the entire list [http://iwantsandy.com/list], your appointments, to-do list, contacts, bookmarks, lists, or notes. And each now has its very own URL: appointments live at http://iwantsandy.com/appointments, to-dos at http://iwantsandy.com/todos, and so forth.

* Want to reflect on to-dos already done? Head to your to-do list (Your stuff > To-dos or [http://iwantsandy.com/todos]) and click the "Show done to-dos" link.

* Repeating appointments, to-dos, and reminders are called out by the appropriate tag (e.g. [weekly] or [monthly]) right next to the event's date or time. Editing, forgetting, archiving, or toggling items behaves as you'd expect it to depending on whether you're changing the entire repeating series or an individual occurrence (and Sandy will confirm with you when there's any possibility of confusion).

* Repeating events show up whenever appropriate as individual occurrences on each and every day they're supposed to when you're looking across multiple days, weeks, months, or years.

* Your stuff is no longer cluttered with special tags like @todo or @weekly or the like when not needed: if it's a to-do, then the to-do checkbox appears; if done, it'll appear checked. Any other tags you've used show up as usual.

* Hover over the "Your stuff" menu on Sandy's site and you'll find — along with "Today", "Last week", "Next month", etc — new choices: "The next 7 days" and "The next 30 days." Kudos to those who thought to ask — these are now my two default views on Sandy's site!

* Sandy now abbreviates dates and times as appropriate anywhere they appear on her site and in her email messages: an event at 9am today won't list the date; an event at 9am tomorrow will; neither will show the year if it's this year; etc.

Take a new look at your stuff at http://iwantsandy.com/list

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IMPROVED: Daily Digest

You've told us quite precisely what you'd like to see in your Daily Digest and we're bringing most of it to you in the coming week or two, starting with today's many improvements:

* You'll no longer see duplicates in your Daily Digest — when, for instance, a to-do scheduled for today appeared in both the "Calendar" and "To-dos" sections. If it is scheduled for today, you'll find it in the "Calendar" section.

* Your Daily Digest — whether today's or next Tuesday's — now includes overdue to-dos, those due today (or next Tuesday if you're looking at next Tuesday's digest), and unscheduled to-dos. (If it's not yet due, it no longer shows up until its time has come.) Many of you requested this feature and we're glad to have finally had the chance to bring it to you.

* To-dos are sorted by status and due-date: past-due, due today, then unscheduled.

* Overdue to-dos not yet checked off as done are slightly highlighted so that you can spot them and get them done.

(Please note that we wanted to get this update out and into your virtual hands so the emailed version of your Daily Digest will sport the same improvements as the version on Sandy's website in short order.)

Visit your Daily Digest for today at http://iwantsandy.com/digest

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IMPROVED: The "New..." form

Something that was chapping my hide — and I know it was bothering some of you too — was the way that telling Sandy about something using the "New..." form (from Sandy's toolbar on every page of her site) popped up a small notification but didn't take you to the stuff you just had Sandy remember for you. You'll now be redirected to the new content a moment or three after you click the "Send" button.

"Email" Sandy right from the iwantsandy.com web site at http://iwantsandy.com/new

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TIDIED: Print

We tidied the Print version of your Daily Digest and any views of Your stuff.

Print a pocket-able, portable, paper copy of your Daily Digest: visit http://iwantsandy.com/digest and click the "Print" link.

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P.s. As always, we'd love to know what you think, what you liked (or didn't), and if we missed anything (or made anything worse).

Happy Monday!

Despite having just served up a large batch of fresh-baked features and fixes [http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...], we just couldn't help but strike while the oven was warm and make just a couple-three more.

—Rael

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NEW: Special tags: @birthday and @anniversary

It didn't take a rocket scientist to notice the co-occurrence of @birthday and @anniversary tags with the special tags @yearly or @annually. It just took a little time for us to twig to a simple solution: turning @birthday and @anniversary into special tags, of course!

Never miss another birthday or anniversary! Leave the remembering (and any angst) to Sandy.

To have Sandy remind you about a friend's birthday, write to her with the person's name, birth date, and tag it with @birthday like so:

> remember Mimi's birthday 7/8 @birthday

Sandy will schedule a repeating yearly reminder (just as if you'd used the @yearly or @annually tag).

May at least the one anniversary you remember be your own! Ask Sandy to remind you about your anniversary, your parents', your children's, your sibling's, ...

> remember Our anniversary Aug 15 1993 @anniversary

(A word of caution: be sure you've got that date right; there's nothing that deflates a hearty "Happy Anniversary!" quite like being off by a month.)

A hearty "Thank you!" goes out to Alex Foster for teasing the solution out of our brains with his detailed write-up on "Using IwantSandy to remember birthdays" [http://www.alexfoster.me.uk/2008/04/0...] — and for sporting his Sandy flair [http://iwantsandy.com/sandbox#flair]!

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TWEAKED: Saying "Thursday" on a Thursday

Now this is one that's perhaps harder to explain than to intuit (try saying it three times quickly yourself), but here goes:

Sandy now assumes that when you say "Thursday" on a Thursday you mean Thursday of next week rather than the Thursday of today.

Sandy's client JRK kindly noted that saying "Remind me to do something on Thursday afternoon" had Sandy confusingly scheduling that something for that very day (when that very day was a Thursday) when if that's what you actually meant, you'd have said "Remind me to do something this afternoon" [http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...]. Thanks, J!

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TWEAKED: Simpler, cleaner, shorter SMS

Squinting at a 5:30pm @weekly Sunday @home @todo reminder text/SMS from Sandy yesterday, it occurred to me just how much simpler, cleaner, and shorter Sandy's mobile reminders would be without the useful-yet-an-eyeful list of trailing tags.

And so, in the spirit of our optometric approach to fit and finish ("Better here... or here? A or B?"), we asked Sandy to leave those tags out of text/SMS reminders for what we believe is an improvement in both aesthetics and readability.

Better?

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TWEAKED: Your stuff sorted in reverse-chronological order

A recent update twiddled default sorting of "Your stuff" so that appointments and scheduled to-dos appear in chronological order; contacts, bookmarks, lists, and notes alphabetically. What was perhaps confusing was that the default (if you just chose "Your stuff" from Sandy's menu bar) also defaulted to alphabetical order.

So we've switched the default back to reverse-chronological order with your most recently updated stuff appearing first.

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DOCUMENTED: Time-zones, @birthday, and @anniversary

We've added details on Sandy's recently-announced [http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...] support for specifying time zones and the promotion of @birthday and @anniversary to special recurrence tags to Sandy's Guide and Cheatsheet.

Grab a fresh copy of Sandy's cheatsheet: http://iwantsandy.com/help/cheatsheet

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Hello!

Last night's update — and I apologize for just now getting to the update notes — put in place some work we've been doing in the background to enable Sandy to do a few things we'll be talking about in the coming week or so. Additionally, we put in some fixes for things y'all have pointed out and a couple of nice new bits you should enjoy.

NEW: Print style sheet

We completely reworked the print stylesheet so that printing any of Your stuff or your Daily Digest produces a nice all-but-greyscale paper copy for you to take with you as you head out in the morning. We've even added a few blank lines under the Calendar, To-dos, and tagged sections so that you can write things in as they come up and synch up with Sandy in the evening. And we've included a calendar in the right-hand sidebar (Daily Digest only), otherwise leaving you plenty of room to jot down assorted notes to yourself or things to tell Sandy about.

NEW: Unnamed reminders

Sometimes — whether by accident or otherwise — Sandy is asked for a reminder without any clue as to what the reminder is all about (ex. "Remind me in 15 minutes."). She does her best to extrapolate from the subject of the email message, any other text nearby, etc. If she really couldn't find any further detail, she would just let you know so that you could give it another whirl.

Now, even if there's nothing else to go on, she'll deliver that reminder (along with anything relevant she can find) to keep you on time and on track. (You'll see these show up on the web and in email as "A reminder.")

NEW: Special @goal tag

If you've not yet checked out Sandy's new Goals functionality, you should take a gander at http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy... .

IF you're among those of Sandy's clients who have already set a goal (Click the "Customize" link on your Daily Digest page at http://iwantsandy.com/home) and are having Sandy keep it front-and-center, you'll love the new @goal tag. Simply tag something with @goal and it'll replace your prior goal and appear in both the web and email versions of your digest. For example:

> Remember "The difference between theory and practice is far greater in practice than in theory" @goal

TWEAKED: Your Daily Digest is home

Thanks to a great suggestion by Nik [http://gsfn.us/t/al5], when you log in, return to iwantsandy.com and are already logged in, or visit a few days later after checking the "Remember me" checkbox on the Login page, you'll always return to either the Welcome page or your Home/Daily Digest page on iwantsandy.com. This means you can just go straight to http://iwantsandy.com and (if you're logged in) you'll be whisked off home to your Daily Digest.

Of course if you want to visit Sandy's home page at http://iwantsandy.com, you can click the the "I want Sandy" link (formerly "Home," which was confusing to say the least :-\) and you'll be taken to http://iwantsandy.com/iwantsandy (the self same page as you'd see if you weren't logged in and visited Sandy's home page).

TWEAKED: Past events don't disappear from Digest tag sections

Some of you asked that Sandy not remove past events (appointments, to-dos) from tag sections in your Daily Digest. Now they'll stick around until you @archive them or mark them as @done. Good idea!

UPDATED: The Tags menu is gone, long live the Your tags sidebar!

In response to lots of great feedback from you and some hand-wringing at Sandy World HQ about just how to make it better, we've removed the "Tags" menu from the menu bar and put those Special tags (i.e. todo, done, archive, weekly, twitter, ...) in the sidebar beneath Your tags.

So there's now just one place to find and browse by tags — yours and all the special tags, whether you've used them or not — and that's in the right-hand sidebar.

TWEAKED: Daily Digest is home

Nothing's really changed here, but we did away with the confusing "Today" menu bar text and replaced it with "Daily Digest" which more accurately represents what it is — a digest of your day, no matter which day you choose.

TWEAKED: "Remember me" off by default

The "Remember me" checkbox on the Login page now once again defaults to being unchecked.

TWEAKED: Dates and times more concise

Dates and times in your Daily Digest and Your stuff (on the Web and in email) are now even more context-sensitive than they were before. We went out on a limb and assumed you know what year it is ;-).

FIXED: Reminder statuses now completely independent

A handful of you received duplicate reminders via SMS and email — I do apologize to those affected — when Twitter was down the earlier this week due to a bug in the way reminders were related to one-another (all versions of any one reminder were re-tried — and so re-sent — when only the Twitter reminder was failing). Reminder statuses are now completely independent of one-another meaning that this won't happen again.

FIXED: Expired SSL certificate

While we update our SSL certificates on a regular basis and did just that the other night, one server didn't get the update and so caused some browsers to pop up a warning each time you visited a page on iwantsandy.com. This has since been fixed — thanks to the valiant efforts of some of you folks in pointing it out, taking screenshots, and troubleshooting.

Phew! — I need a nap after just writing all that up. But we've plenty more afoot and so I leave you for now and return to helping Sandy better help you. Keep that feedback coming...

—Rael

Many of you mentioned that you'd love Sandy to simply remember an entire email message you forwarded to or composed to her. And now you can!

1. Compose email To, Cc, or forward email to Sandy.
2. Throw a "remember" or "remind me [when to remind you]" into the Subject or body of the note without specifying anything in particular to remember or remind you about.
* (Optionally) add a tag or three: "remember @meeting @notes".
3. Send!

Unless sandy notices anything that looks like an appointment or contact or the like in the first paragraph of the message, she'll simply remember the entire message as is. She'll use the subject of the message as its name; if there's no subject (or the subject is just "remember" or "remind me [when to remind you]", she'll use the first few lines of the first paragraph of the email message.

Sandy effectively sees this as a note -- and that's just where you'll find it if you're browsing iwantsandy.com and click My stuff > Notes. Search, sort, and sift as usual.

A warm thank you both for the suggestion and your patience to Sporb [http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...], Cupcake 44721 [http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...], and more!

I'll be adding a help section on "Notes" which includes more detail shortly.