Tech's dashboard

Shelbyrayl replied on August 11, 2008 13:51 to the question "Am I just missing a spell checker?" in PBwiki:

Thanks for the update Cliff...I will just use the good ole cut and paste into Word for a spell check...or learn to spell...one or the other. :)

Clif replied on August 09, 2008 19:12 to the question "Am I just missing a spell checker?" in PBwiki:

We do have one of our engineers working on a spell checker. Don't hold your breath though. It still needs much work and testing.

As you might guess, getting something like that to work in several different web browsers is a lot of work.

Shelbyrayl replied on August 08, 2008 20:35 to the question "Am I just missing a spell checker?" in PBwiki:

This was over 7 months ago...can you please give an update on the spell check? I tried to use the spell check on firefox but it does not work for the editor. Update please!!

Wayne replied on June 02, 2008 03:00 to the question "Am I just missing a spell checker?" in PBwiki:

FireFox will provide spell checking in the comments box and, importantly, in the source view of the editor, but not the WYSIWYG view of the editor. Not so Internet Explorer -- I checked. This means that I can spell check as I edit. If you know some html, it's a good idea to check your code anyway.
Wayne

Nick replied on May 01, 2008 13:39 to the question "How do I find earlier versions/revisions of my wiki pages?" in PBwiki:

I'd like to echo this concern. I almost abandoned PBWiki because I thought there was no revision history feature.

Vu Nguyen replied on February 13, 2008 19:44 to the question "Am I just missing a spell checker?" in PBwiki:

The current version of FireFox has a built in spell-checker too: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Tech replied on February 01, 2008 13:01 to the problem "Blockquotes break layout in IE6/7" in PBwiki:

I was gonna suggest that. Can I be a tester?

Mike replied on January 31, 2008 22:20 to the problem "Blockquotes break layout in IE6/7" in PBwiki:

One of the changes we've made in PBwiki 2.0 is moving the sidebar out of the flow of the page. This should help solve a lot of these kinds of problems.

Joel Franusic replied on January 30, 2008 21:47 to the question "How do I find earlier versions/revisions of my wiki pages?" in PBwiki:

Tech, I've also had trouble finding the "History" link. It will have a more prominent placement in the PBwiki 2.0 design.

Joel Franusic replied on January 30, 2008 21:45 to the problem "Blockquotes break layout in IE6/7" in PBwiki:

Thanks for the demo page! We'll be looking into this.

Tech reported a problem in PBwiki on January 30, 2008 15:25:

Blockquotes break layout in IE6/7

Blockquote elements are breaking the layout in IE6 & 7, if they appear beside the floating sidebar. It's a float clearing issue. I've done a demo page of the problem for you.

http://newsandskews.pbwiki.com/test_b...

(Firefox is fine. Haven't tried Opera)

Clif replied on January 30, 2008 06:14 to the question "Am I just missing a spell checker?" in PBwiki:

Sorry, you aren't dreaming. We don't have a spell checker here yet.

However, don't lose hope. There are some great free spell checkers out there that will work fine in any web page, including ours.

See this article I wrote:
http://freewarewiki.com/TinySpell

Or maybe this one?
http://freewarewiki.com/FreeSpell

David E. Weekly replied on January 29, 2008 18:34 to the problem "Do you know about the CSS bug in IE6 over search box?" in PBwiki:

Okay, I've reproduced the overlap. You're right that on the Minimalist skin, the login badge overlaps the top few pixels of the search box. I've notified our designer to see if a quick tweak of adding some padding, such as you suggest, would be an effective fix. Thanks for reporting this!

Tech replied on January 29, 2008 18:03 to the problem "Do you know about the CSS bug in IE6 over search box?" in PBwiki:

No changes to any skins yet. It really looks crappy.

Tech asked a question in PBwiki on January 29, 2008 14:20:

Am I just missing a spell checker?

Most CMS systems and forums of any kind have spell checkers these days. Am I just missing it in pbWiki? Is it in the Premium version. The feature list on the pricing page says very little. There are no questions about spell checkers here. Is there some trick to spell checking long documents, already formatted with wiki markup (which does not always play nicely with spell checkers?)

David E. Weekly replied on January 27, 2008 21:10 to the problem "Have you ever tried to login to your own service?" in PBwiki:

Tech,

Thanks for voicing your frustration. It could be very helpful for us if you were to sketch out what a better login interface would look like - you could end up inspiring an improvement for all our users!

Tech replied on January 26, 2008 21:16 to the problem "Have you ever tried to login to your own service?" in PBwiki:

Thanks Nathan. I understand versioning toward the future. I'd still suggest that your current base is trying to sign up new potential customers, so fixing at least someone as basic as a login screen might make some sense.

What's the ship date on this new release?

Nathan Schmidt replied on January 26, 2008 21:01 to the problem "Have you ever tried to login to your own service?" in PBwiki:

Hi Tech,

You're right, there are some seriously confusing steps there, and the login screen isn't up to snuff. We use PBwiki all day and we get just as frustrated at times, but there's good news on the horizon.

We're well along on the process of making this make much more in line with user's expectations, better designed, and obvious. Much of the last few months of development work we've done on PBwiki are around refining the mechanisms and design of logins and the various access controls but for the time being it's not reflected in what you're seeing on the site right now. The upcoming release of our next-generation layout and wiki system address logins and access, much-improved editing experience and performance, and overall look-and feel. There are lots of improvements in addition that but the core of your frustration here, logins, is much much better.

We've been laying plumbing for the new PBwiki and some of the confusing parts of what you see now are a result of rolling out portions of that plumbing without really working through the usability on the current generation of the product. Some of the features and forms feel tacked-on because they are, and they're temporary until we are ready to go live with the full redesigned product. I'm frustrated too, but the new system is so smooth (and pretty) that we think it'll be worth the wait.

Tech replied on January 26, 2008 20:43 to the problem "Have you ever tried to login to your own service?" in PBwiki:

To make things even worse, your Form design breaks completely in IE6. If the user's window is too small, all the text boxes wrap down and outside the PbWiki identity login box. Thus, the user doesn't even see the fields unless they scroll down the page.

Tech reported a problem in PBwiki on January 26, 2008 20:37:

Have you ever tried to login to your own service?

When people visit a pbwiki site, and try to edit a page, they are greeted with a simply ridiculous page that is hopelessly convoluted. I have not had one single person not need help with something that should be effortless.

Have you ever pretended you were a plain dumb user, unfamiliar with your concepts, and studied your "Log in Page?"

What is an invite? They have no clue. Next, they try getting an account on the left. That fails, so as most sites require some form of login, they naturally want do do SOMETHING, so they try entering an "identity" on the right.

Unless they have a wikiword already, (you do not even tell them they need one), they will struggle with at least 3 ways of signing in, and they all fail.
The only way they will ever find a signup screen for pbwiki--which you don't even explain why this is useful at all--is if they click the LOGIN button on the identity side. Most never do. They just leave.

You cannot get satisfied users if you run them off at this early stage. I sent a few dozen people, and most are still emailing me, totally confused.

I am very disappointed that with all your staff, someone doesn't take the time to write a clear and concise login text with logical links on on it. If you would like me to do it, I would be happy to help, but something has to change.