A few little updates....

It is all so neat and you tucked them all so perfectly away that I cannot access them. I don't know how to “log out” and/or do any changes to my settings. Nothing drops down on my navigation screen.

Any help with this would be appreciated. In the meantime, I'm hoping I am logging out when I just click to close my gaia screen.

Thanks Siona and Gaia Team!
peri

Yes, there is a bit of a bug (not a butterfly, either) in the works.  If you are using IE7 you cannot log out.  Period.  Nor can you access your “settings” page.  I closed IE7 and reluctantly booted up FF to see if I could log out, and yes, I did manage to do that with FF.  But then closing FF and going back to IE7 I found that I was still logged in, and able to post this here.  Yeah, you'd probably like me to use the Support Pod for this, but I'm no longer a member of that pod due to earlier remarks about my unwillingness to “get with the program” and switch over to the FF browser (which, IMHO, sucks big-time!)  Just wondering if this new trick also blocks anyone using IE7 from signing up or logging in, if they were off-line when you introduced the changes.  Guess that's one way of enforcing which browser we can use here! ;>=)

1. Siona, “Updates” such as this can't be buried under an Explore-Team Blog tab. it is non-intuitive and newbies and others will never even know to find this blog to find an update.

2. You have an Update tab right on top; which should show this, rather than Conversation week; or along with that.

3.Help should not be required to find the Help feature. It should be like a beacon, shining out there on every page.

4. I  prefer the following as drop-down features on my name tag: Blogs, Groups, Friends' BLogs, Settings

Siona, looking forward to hearing what you sound like !!!

Unfortunately I am less than enthused about some of these changes. I will try to say what I see as their downside for Members.

First of all, this blog arrived in my Notifications a day AFTER I could no longer find Settings, Help, or Logout. Also, I usually click on my nickname up in that corner so fast, the dropdown never appeared for me in IE7, until by chance I “hovered.” If you click fast, you don't get the display, you get a default which sends you to your profile, as usual.  At least that bit could be tweaked by developers….. And this morning, the dropdown won't display at all, so far. [Later: it works now, and so does logout.]

I think it is an extreme disservice to bury one of the two already-nearly-invisible links to Help in a sub-menu.  I feel very strongly that HELP is too important to be buried in a sub-menu at the top and the end of a long list of small print at the bottom. At 1000+ a week of new folks, HELP needs to be majorly featured !!!!! It would be much more user-friendly.

There was PLENTY of room beside the old display to add one or two items. I really urge the Team to go back to that. The new “cleaner” look extremely sacrifices sensibleness and ease of use, user-friendliness. IMO.

Will @gaia.com have all the functionality of @gmail.com, including a monumental Help library and a blog from the folks there and filters, and chat and conversations-accumulating and color and fonts and automatic display of attached photos and……? If so, I might switch. It would be pretty spectacular if you managed to incorporate all that makes gmail.com IMO so incredibly superior……. 

OTOH, most of us have at least several hahahahaha (rueful smile) email accounts, and I'd love yes to have one be @gaia.com, That would be cool. But it would not be my main account, unless…..

I won't get on my usual soapbox about the functionality of our internal email system here, and how I wish the developer efforts would have gone into that before adding something new…. I am extraordinarily impressed that there IS an internal system, protected from the Internet, Lordy, that is so great. And it does have some great functions, like search, and tags for Inbox mail, a certain number of which get displayed…..

Hooray for bug fixes, I know how much of a never-ending task that is in a site of this mind-blowing complexity. But now I know to check for those on Thursdays !! Cool !!!  I can check for my favorite bug and see whether it's “gone to see God” as my mother used to say about bugs…..

I hope I have been respectful enough, and given constructive suggestions. My passion is to optimize this site for users, not to complain.

Blessings upon you and all the awesome Team. You know by now, I hope, that I worship the ground you all walk on !!!!!

OM Bastet

P.S. I didn't see Meenakshi's comment before posting mine. I musta been writing mine a long time….   Agree, this is not “little” updates, and needs the top spot.

The glow button being gone is not “little” either, IMO, and has been thoroughly discussed in the Ambassadors Group and even more at length in The Gaia Community Group.

I wish and hope a lot of folks will participate in Conversation Weeks around the planet.

I'd like to clarify my wish: Every link in the new drop-down menu, I would like to see up there in the one-click horizontal menu where there are now only name and mail. In this case, I believe user-friendliness should trump “cleaner look.”

P.P. S. A bug in my face at the moment is that at least for me, bolding and italics don't work, in the Blog Comments textbox. They used to, but they haven't for a long time, and others have noted this too. Hope it's on the list to go see God….

Again, thanks and blessings !!!!

OM Bastet

I tested on IE7, and was able to get to Settings and Log Out and all the jazz. 

I have a feeling that the problem for a few of you is that your browser is holding onto (at least part of) an old version of the page.  You can always get an absolutely fresh version of the page by pressing Ctrl-F5.  (F5 is just your regular Refresh button - Ctrl-F5 says “go get everything anew”.)  That's a good common fix for many ailments on the web.

c.m.g

I am, have been and will continue to use Microsoft Windows XP (professional 2002).  I am not interested in using FF … I'd really like to be able to use this wonderful site as I always have. I sure hope you all will take this into consideration. Plus, it is very difficult to find out how to get “help” when you need it here. 
As it stands, I don't know how to:
1. log out
2. Access my Settings
3. Get Help

It would be wonderful for myself and any new people who are joining Gaia to see where these are displayed in a clear and prominent format  … like on any other website.

Thanks again and I'm willing to share my tea and some candlelight …. (no chai or incense here)
Peridot

OM, just tested bold and italics on Windows IE7, and I got the same problem.  Thanks, I shall get it into our bug-tracker, and hopefully 'send it on its way'  :)

Peri, Gem?  I'll always be an IE7 user on XP, so never worry.  I love Firefox, too, but we are absolutely committed to supporting both (and Safari on Mac).  Just sometimes differences appear between those browsers, and we don't have a big enough support staff to test everything on every new release :( 

So sorry for inconveniences - please keep reporting them, and I promise we'll remain dilligent about resolving them.

Thank you so much, Chris, for the IE7 “refresh” tip!!!  It solved the problem.
I have to agree, though, with Meenakshi and OM above, that getting to Help and other things should be more easily found.  I suggest another way that the “look” at the top could be less messy or “in your face”, though perhaps on monitors bigger than 17” it maybe isn't quite so cluttered looking.  At the resolution where I can read things (800 x 600) I have all but the last inch and a half occupied by “Gaia stuff” (Update bar, the “seeds” and log-in/out bar, the Gaia Community and links bar, an inch and a half of advertisements, and then the standard page bar) before I get to the “meat”.  When I scroll to the bottom of the page (or hit “end”) I have a full six inches (at times more) of adverts, links, etc.  Any wonder that I can sometimes go nuke a coffee while a page loads? :)  Yeah, I know - you have to pay the bills…….  Oh, and I've suffered in silence about the lack of bold and italics on comments for a looooooong time - thanks to OM for mentioning that!

Thanks Chris! That worked for me as well! I would not have known to do that! Brilliant! I am a self-taught computer playster … I bet there are many more tricks I could be using!

Thanks too for looking into being able to use BOLD and italacs in our comments!!! Sweet!

:-) peri

I don't know if this is related to this latest update, but the timing seems to be right. I've just noticed that the custom colors on gPro pages (in the section tabs) don't work anymore.  Is this intentional or a glitch?

~G

Added to our list, Grey, thanks! 

Any more bug reports go here: http://pods.gaia.com/zaadz_support

Love the subtle changes - the drop down menu works nicely and cleans up that corner nicely. In the grand scheme of things - they are minor changes, but effective. IMO makes the flow of the site smoother and in step with what is a common feature for boards and other social networking sites. I suppose it was a matter of timing but I had no problems at all using the changes.

I will miss the glowing circle myself - I thought it was a simple and unobtrusive way of identifying those people who are particularly involved in the site - much nicer than noting the grand total of posts etc that other sites do. Ah well - people find their way all the same to what they need to find or are interested in :-) Can't wait for the email feature to roll out.

Keep up the good work everyone!

much love,

Leigh-Anne

I'm already on my gaia mail- totally sweet. :)

Hey there all!

I'm glad I stumbled upon THIS information by accident! The Ctrl F5 worked great and I'm sure that there are many people like myself who don't know this trick! I'm going to head over to Z-NETWORK and post this so that more people will get a heads up!

I like the new drop down thing and I think that HELP! is prominent enough for even a person who doesn't read the entire page before freaking out (that's me!) to get to the resources they need! ~grin~

I'm off to check out GaiaMail!

Smiles to the Gaia Team!
amber

there are many “minor changes” in a short period of time ,
and in the moment it's a bit inconvenient,
because (with firefox) i don't have a link to my profile or even to my mails.
at least in the upper right corner.
i also agree to the posts before that  “help” should be in plain view.
i do like the fast changes and responses to input from the gaia people,
but perhaps sometimes slower is faster in the end? ……..
if it were a voting i would give my vote
to the old style before drop down …..
i'm glad that you are experimenting
and that there is this direct feedback between
gaia team and members.
keep up the enthusiastic work.
an other question:
where can i express ideas for new features?
is there a pod or an adress?
from cologne  with
love and light
benjamin

Yes, Benajamin, there is a whole pod for that, with several Boards to choose from. It's called Thinktank.   I made that word a hyperlink to take you right there. !!!

Good thought, perhaps sometimes slower is faster in the end….

Namaste, OM Bastet

Impressed and delighted to see Logout and Help back in the bar (hmmmmm….is there a potential joke in those words somewhere??)

Since profile and messages in the dropdown are now redundant links to what is already in the bar, one could just put Settings back where it was, relabel the nickname to read either just MyProfile (ooooh I like that !!!) or 1Vector3's profile, and put the word mail instead of the indecipherable icon for same, and presto. The menu bar would be superior to before (It takes Newbies awhile to figure out their nickname there is a LINK to their profile,) and viewable by ALL. Again, for me, user-friendliness trumps any aesthetic that deems all that to be “clutter.” The bottom and top of all the pages is extreme “clutter,” in that aesthetic… LOL !!!!

And I can tell you it will take Newbies awhile to figure out what that number refers to. Didn't the word Mail used to be there, to help with that?

Thanks for listening to us, you sparkly Team folks !!!

Namaste, OM Bastet

Sorry, but glitch-alert on this very matter. I've been on dozens of pages here on the site in the last day, and on A FEW OF THEM, the link to my profile and the mail icon and number end up on the LEFT side of the menu bar, buried under the 3 Gaia links normally there. Just peeking out from behind, that's how I know they are there.

But only on SOME pages, and I'm not even sure it matters which pages. Will try to detect a pattern.
 
Blessings, even glitches are expressions of God, eh?
OM Bastet

Glitch seems to be fixed now. Thanks.

WHY DIDN'TCHA JUST SAY that the new @gaia.com IS a gmail account. WOOO HOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nothing but the best for Gaia Community folks (Gaia+ subscribers, in this case.)
Never heard of such an arrangement before, but smart for gmail, and great for organizations !!!! “Such a deal” !!!!!

Blessings, OM Bastet

Thanks for the update Siona!

I'm passionately re-engaging here at Gaia.com after disengaging a bit upon the swith from Zaadz.com to Gaia.com. 

I'm excited to report that the next chapter in the Clovis/Uganda story from early on when this site was Zaadz is being written, as Gaia members and others are rallying for him to venture here to the US to attend Prosperity For All 2008 in Austin, TX this June.

Prosperity For All 2008 is a VisionForce iStand Experience intended to launch a global movement of visionaries willing to face everything, avoid nothing and stand for prosperity for all in our lifetime!

We have scholarships to award to Gaia members who are standing for prosperity for all already.

Onwards!

Michael Skye