Hello everyone,
and welcome back to our little EMayl-Special.
And today’s surprise is all about
improving the comment section
And I also have a little favor to ask you, but we’ll get to that later.
So, I have added a new feature to the comments this week that might be a very cool addition.
But before we get to that, I want to talk another new feature… something that has to do with formatting.
I added this a few weeks ago and most of you have probably noticed it already.. here’s a screenshot
This is basically a bunch of formatting options for you. You basically just select part of your comment and click the formatting option and that’ll automatically add html-code to the comment that’ll make it look … well… a bit more formatted.
And because I’m pretty sure that many of you are not really sure what those mean, I wanted to give you a quick overview. So here’s what the options do:
First, there’s the stuff I would use myself:
b – makes the part bold (adds <b>the part</p>… shortcut is ctrl+b)
i – makes the part italic (adds <em>the part</em> – shortcut is ctrl+i)
link – let’s you turn the part into a link
ul – creates an unordered list like this one:
- blah blah in English
- blah blah in German
ol – creates an ordered list like this one:
- blah blah
- also, blah blah
- …
spoiler – hides the marked part in a spoiler box that expands only when someone clicks it… very useful especially for all the movie and series reviews we’re doing :)
And then there’s the stuff I don’t know about:
b-quote – no idea, to be honest :)
u – again… no idea
code – special formatting that’s used for computer code. We won’t need this.
Do you have to use them?
Of course not! As long as you try to make a comment easily readable that’s fine. In fact, I might not use them myself, because often I answer comments from a comment feed directly and there I DON’T have these options. And it’ll take a while for me to get used to them.
Maybe just use bold and italic, those two are really easy and quick to handle.
But yeah… I found the option and I thought why not have it there.
Cool, but now let’s get to the actual new feature, which is… drumroll…
Comment mention feature
Many of you probably know this from Insta or Whatsapp or Twitter or Facebook – you can mention a person by @their-username and the person gets notified that they were mentioned.
Well… I recently upgraded the comment system and now we can also do that here. You can either type it directly, like you see here:
… or you can use the little button at the bottom right to search for other readers, like here:
What I’m not sure about is the notification.
First of, I you have a WordPress.com account, I’d love to know if you see the notification in your comment feed (those who are on WordPress.com will know what I mean).
More importantly though, the software offers to send a short notification email to the person who got mentioned.
And that’s where I’m of two minds…. right now, the feature is OFF, and I am not sure if you guys actually would want this.
I wanted to ask you first, so here’s a little poll… and please… don’t be shy to say “No”.
I get way too much notification mail for all kinds of stuff so I’m really not sure.
I’ll see how you all feel about it and then I’ll decide. Unfortunately, there is no opt-out option as far as I could tell. So you can’t say “Don’t send me an email when I get mentioned.”
Can’t wait for your thoughts on this.
And if you have other thoughts about the comments, please leave them in the comments, as well :).
All right. So that’s the little surprise for today.
Now for the little favor…
Review me on Facebook
I don’t do much social networking with the site but the one platform I am using is Facebook. No idea why. I had to pick one, I guess.
So those of you who are on Facebook… it would be really really cool, if you could leave me a quick review. I mean… a good one obviously. Four or five stars, pelase :D.
Das wäre super toll!!!
Here’s the link:
And that’s it for today.
I’ll see you with the next surprise in a couple of days (and yes, the surprises get bigger each time).
Bis dahin, genießt euer Wochenende :)
Audio Speed
Dark Mode
Hallo. A suggestion for the comment section:
When a post has answers, in the current layout it isn’t very clear what post the answer belongs to. Look at the first posts below, for instance. “German-is-easy” answers have dotted lines on the left, but visually they are not really connected to the post they are answering.
When answers are chained, it is clearer because the chain of dotted lines connects the answers in the thread visually.
A possible improvement, without having to redo everything could be the following:
– if a top-level post doesn’t have answers, display it as it is now
– if a top-level post has at least an answer, then display a dotted line on its left. This way it will be visually connected to the answer below it.
Makes sense?
Not sure I understand.
Top level comments should have no lines at all at the moment. The answers get one line, answers to that get two lines and so on. It’s pretty clear on my computer, but maybe it looks different for you. You never know with css :). Could you send me a screenshot?
Like… if a comment doesn’t have a line, then it’s not an answer, usually.
Hallo Emanuel
May i ask you if you could add font size Feature to your website, which will be very helpful
I don’t think I’d want an email notification. I actually used to (sometimes) get notifications via WordPress, but not anymore.
Also, more recent issues, while we’re talking about site functionality: I haven’t been getting the emails for the E-Mayl series so far. Also, the “mark as read” button isn’t an actual clickable thing anymore, at least on the newest articles.
Oh boy… this spring seems to be software issue season. I’m losing so much time with this crap :/
One feature I would really like would be a like button! Sometimes it’s the main article that really appeals to me, sometimes it’s something in one of the comments – I’m so conditioned by using Facebook I just instantly reach for the like button.
Ps. What’s the like button called in German?
We also say “Like-Button”, mostly.
I have had a like button for a long time but I removed it because very very few people used it and it slows down the site. And it would be even more so with the comments.
I mean, I would totally do it if people actually were to use them but my experience is different. It was like 3 likes for 2000 reads :)
You Asked. My first venture into German was via “Barrons” Learn German in the fast fun way. By Paul Graves ISPN 0-7641-7024-4 a great way to get started in which I still can remember some example after quite a few years. Which is the name of the game. nicht war In this book there where examples that one could use, this was about cars, hotels, directions and stores. NOT “My cow is wearing a hat today” (Thats one I really need to know.) The second book was By Joseph Rosenberg GERMAN How to speak and write it. ISPN-13: 978-0-486-20271-6 or ISPN-10 :0-486-20271-2. A great book!!!!! Stories, examples and tests, my go to book for help although I’m still having problems with past tense. This book covered animals, seasons, garments, and good facts about Germany. Although really out dated but still a “really good book” (a great example on how to write a book on learning German.) I still use it and have worn one out and had to buy another. Another book, German made simple by Eugene Jackson and Adolph Geiger ISPN 0-385-19911-2 another book which helps on past tense, correct endings on ein words. Any books from Gothe PASS on they are so bad.
DO check these out. A combination of all of these books would be an out standing publication.
Ive been learning German for 15 plus some years, and find it engrossing. I’ve been to Gothe school, Emory College for German, and will not give up.
Nice suggestions! Vielen Dank for sharing them!
This is fun! Did I do it right?
Perfectly :)!
Was hast du denn getan, dass es so viel Spaß gemacht hat? Obwohl ich lebe unter einer Brücke, bin ich keinen Troll.
Er hat den Text dick gemacht :)
Obwohl ich unter einer Brücke lebe, bin ich keinen Troll.
Fast richtig. kein Troll, ist es.
Let me try. German is easy. In Erlich zu sein, ich würde es wiedersprechen. Ich glaube, dass Deutsch lernen macht viel Spaß .
(excuse my mistakes in Germsn, as I am a beginer .
Danke,
Pierre
Ein paar Korrekturen:
um ehrlich zu sein, würde ich dem wiedersprechen
ich glaube, dass Deutsch lernen viel Spaß macht.
Hiya,
Only one tiny typo:
“I want to talk another new feature” (talk about)
I find the features (bold, italic, etc.) useful (and they can’t harm, anyone who’s not interested can simply not use them!)
But I remember a few times when I wanted to highlight something and couldn’t, so the addition of formatting options will help me.
I find the @ feature cool and not intrusive.
As for notifications, I’m really unsure… I mean, I usually look the article up to see your answer to my comment a day later! The big drawback I find with notifications is that people cannot opt out. If we could, super (users could then do as they please); otherwise, I’m on the fence (and the poll results actually show most people either find they receive too much info or are on the fence like me!)
And yeah, although there’s no trolls on this site, as you mentioned, it opens up the possibility… and we all know there are people out there who seem to have nothing better to do than to annoy others, although I haven’t seen anyone do that on this blog yet…
I don’t have Facebook – sorry, I can’t post a review there :((((
I also don’t have Instachat, Snapagram and so on… all I have is an e-mail account. So I’m unable to review your blog, although I’d like to – but I’ve been recommending it to all my German learning friends :)
Hope my comment was helpful and bis bald!
I’m getting confused :D. I should have had a “follow comment” option since a long time. I see a little check box next to the “post comment” button. Do you see that as well? I’m beginning to suspect that half of you actually don’t even know this feature exists becaue it is not properly displayed.
The follow box is displayed, but I don’t actually know what it does (and maybe others don’t either)!
Oh, I see :). So I think until a few weeks ago it might not have been displayed because I disabled some font things to make the site faster. that’s the follow comment check box, so you get a notification if someone answers.
This is also a test.
Now you know what the block quote does (the first test), and what the
does (the second test). :-)
Great new features!
I would like a notification by email feature (because I’m hardly ever logged in to WordPress) but only if it could be turned off for particular people, or posts. If we had control of it, I think it would be great!
As it is, I never know if anyone ever replies to anything I’ve ever written.
@yourdailygerman
Also I hope you don’t mind me testing the @ function!
Wait, the option for you to follow a comment that you have written should always have been there. It’s a little checkbox next to the post-comment button, and if you click it, you’ll get an email when someone replies.
Do you see that? Let me know if not please, I feel like many people miss out on that feature so maybe it actually doesn’t show.
The new option, the one I’m not so sure about, lets others mention you in comments no matter whether you even read the post or not. So you might get a notification out of the blue, just because someone wanted to ping you.
I just recently noticed the follow button show up, but before it just said post comment.
Ah, then it was gone indeed. I wasn’t sure. It was there a year ago, then I changes something about the font and then I wasn’t so sure anymore :)
By the way, I totally didn’t get a notification. But my comment feed is messed up now, so yeah… not looking good for the new feature :D
Hi Emanuel! When I leave questions or feedback on websites, I often like to be notified when answers are posted and I definitely want to be able to decide whether I am. If I understood correctly, if you were to add the notification feature, people who leave comments would not be able to opt out of the notifications. Are you sure that’s the case? I doubt this would be in line with the Datenschutz-Grundverordnung. I am not sure: do check. If the system you are using is not made in Europe, it might mean that some functions don’t meet German/European regulations in terms of data protection.
Very good point!! I’m pretty sure it’s NOT in line with that law, so I probably have to pass… not too bad though, since most people so far are either against it or not sure (the new feature, I mean)
Seriously, this might be fun for some people but it really doesn’t teach me any German…
It’s not supposed to ;)
lol have a sook bro–
I worry that the mention feature would be easy to abuse by trolls.
There are virtually no trolls on this site, but yeah, I see your point.
u is for underline
Duh! I really should have known U, at least :). Thanks for the completion!!