Changelog for November 17

We've got a big art project happening on Pipeline and it's resulted in tons of great bug reports and feature requests! Here's the latest breakdown:

* Private messages - resurrected from an earlier version of Pipeline, private messages are back! Your inbox is accessible from a link in the top right corner. When you have new messages, the number will appear next to the link. Send messages to any user and get email notifications when they reply.

* Lockable discussions - trusted members can now lock discussion topics, meaning they no longer accept replies. They can also be unlocked with one click.

* New look for discussion lists - similar to lists of tasks, projects, etc. these should be easier to scan now.

* Snippets for projects and tasks - sometimes titles aren't quite enough, so now each project or task in a list will also show a snippet of their descriptions. This should make it easier to find what you want before clicking.

* Admin page - if you run your own Pipeline, now you'll have a page that summarizes all activity across your Pipeline, including new projects, new users, and recent activity. Really helpful for getting a bird's eye view of what's happening on your Pipeline.

More improvements are on the horizon, so check back often.

Pipeline demo at Georgia Tech, November 15

We will be demoing Pipeline for the FutureMedia Fest, from 11:15am to 2:00pm, on November 15, 2011. The location, as usual, is the third floor of the Tech Square Research Building (TSRB), 85 Fifth St NW, Atlanta, GA, 30308. It looks like you will need to be registered for FutureMedia Fest to see the demos, which costs between $125 and $400.

More info: FutureMedia Fest

Changelog for November 8

Lots of updates in the past couple of weeks!

* Private projects - you can now create private projects, which are only visible to project members, invited users, and people with the project link. This option is currently only available at project creation time.

* New lists interface - lists of items, like projects or tasks, have a new, cleaner interface. It should be much easier to skim a list of items, and soon you'll be able to sort by column, too.

* Project suggestions - we found that new users often aren't sure what to do after they register. Now, their dashboard will suggest public projects they might want to join. Once they join a project, the suggestions will be replaced by their own list of projects.

* Contributions and Contributors - The Contributions panel now shows all contributions to a task, not just the latest for each member. The latest one shows the status (e.g. "seeking feedback"). Earlier contributions by that member are marked "old". Also, the Contributors panel has been renamed Task Members because not everyone who joins has made a contribution yet. Finally, the order of the panels now depends on your relationship to the task: if you've joined the task, the "Contribute" button will be most prominent; otherwise, the "Join Task" button will be.

* Leaving tasks - you can now leave a task by clicking the "Leave Task" button on the Task Members panel. Previously this was much more confusing: you had to post a contribution with the "stopped" status. (This status has been renamed "finished".)

* Birth date - your full birth date is no longer required -- just the month and year. This better respects your privacy and also makes for a quicker sign-up.

* Forgot password - if you forget your Pipeline password, you can now reset it from the Login page.

Pipeline demo at Georgia Tech, October 26

We will be demoing Pipeline from 1pm-5pm on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011 at Georgia Tech as part of the GVU Fall Research Showcase. The location is Technology Square Research Building, 85 Fifth St NW, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Look for our setup on the third floor of the building.

More info: GVU Fall Research Showcase

Hope to see you there!

Changelog for October 23

It's been about three weeks since we launched the latest version of Pipeline. We're extremely grateful to all the folks who have given Pipeline a try and especially those who have sent us feedback. Here is the latest round of enhancements, in addition to the usual bug fixes:

* Start a Project - previously you could only join a few projects we created, in order to focus feedback on member features. Now, we're opening up Pipeline to new projects created by you. Just click the "Start a Project" link in the header after you've logged in. You'll be asked to provide some basic info (title, description), some optional fields (e.g. deadline), and invite members. We're excited to see the projects our users come up with!

* Edit Attached Files - previously you could only add files to a new Task or Contribution, but we knew this was inconvenient if you wanted to add more files or delete them at a later date. Fret no more. Now, when you edit a Task or Contribution, you can add or delete attached files.

* Auto-linked URLs - Pipeline will now automatically create a hyperlink if you post a URL -- no need to do the HTML markup yourself. This includes URLs in Tasks, Contributions, Comments, the Pitch, and elsewhere.

Changelog for October 5

We launched our most recent version of Pipeline last week and the feedback is coming in. We've made more changes, some big, others not so big.

Bigger changes:

* Diff: Previously you could see edits in the Recent Activity, but just knowing something was edited wasn't that helpful. What exactly was changed? With Diff, now you can know. Just find an edit event in the Recent Activity and click the "diff" link below it. A dialog will pop up and show you the old and new versions. If it's a lot of text, like an edit to the Pitch, the old and new versions will be overlaid, similar to Wikipedia.
* Layout changes: We experimented with a wider 3-column liquid layout to take advantage of larger monitors. Unfortunately it didn't work so well on smaller windows, so we reverted to a 2-column static layout. We also moved uploads and comments to be within the Task and Update panels, to emphasize their relationship to each other. Finally, the home page has been modified to be a little cleaner.
* Protection for younger users: We are now hiding profile info for users younger than 18. This includes their name, age, location, and biography. As a result, Birth date is now a required field when you register.
* Last login: You can now see when a user last logged in on their profile.

Smaller changes:
* The adult consent form now has clearer language to explain that your name is optional.
* The box explaining your relationship to a project (e.g. "You are a member of this project") has been moved to the header bar.
* We fixed some bugs with special characters (e.g. quotation marks) and clarified which HTML tags were allowed, and where. This info is now in the Help page as well as located contextually around Pipeline.
* A minor bug where the bottom of icons were getting cropped is now fixed.
* Lists of discussions now properly show the latest post.
* Logging out of Pipeline now always takes you to the home page, instead of the page you came from. This prevents lots of inevitable Access Denied messages when you redirect to a page you no longer can access.
* Now when you create a new task, you are the default leader for that task.
* Contributors are now sorted alphabetically on the Task page. For each contributor, you can now see their total contributions, not just a link to their most recent.

Hope you enjoy the changes! Please contact us with any feedback.

New version of Pipeline

Fall is the season of change and Pipeline is no exception! It's been a busy couple of months. Our first round of beta testing on Newgrounds produced a huge batch of great ideas and feedback. Since July, we've been working on integrating that feedback into Pipeline. The new version is now available for testing and we believe it's the best one yet!

The new Pipeline is quite a bit different from the last version. Here are just a few of the biggest changes:

* Pipeline is now a platform, not just one website. Previously, Pipeline was a single website where people started and worked on projects. We broadened that idea, because different kinds of projects attract different communities with specialized needs. Now, anyone will be able to download the Pipeline source code and set up a customized instance on their own server. In other words, now anyone can have a Pipeline. We will still host a Pipeline instance for demo purposes (check it out here), and a few more for research/testing purposes.

* Pipeline has a brand new visual design. It's cleaner and makes better use of screen real estate, especially for folks with widescreen monitors, which are increasingly common.We've also moved color-based CSS out of the main stylesheet, which means it's really easy to customize the colors of each Pipeline. We now have two out-of-the-box styles, a dark version (default) and a light version.

* Pipeline has a new code base from the ground up. Pipeline evolved so much from its original conception that the old architecture just wasn't cutting it anymore. We took the opportunity this summer to rethink the basic site architecture in terms of our latest ideas and user feedback on what Pipeline should be. Most users won't notice these changes, though lots of bugs will be fixed, performance might be faster, and improvements should come more quickly. Developers, however, will appreciate how much more sense everything makes, and that's crucial for an open source project.

* Pipeline has a new workflow. The old Pipeline was based around concepts like "scenes", "submissions", and "versions", which were unfamiliar and confusing to many users. With this new version, we redefined the workflow around something more straightforward and familiar: tasks. Trusted users now create tasks, which any logged-in user can join. Once joined, users can post contributions (files, updates, etc.) and edit their status (in progress, seeking feedback, completed, etc.) Both tasks and contributions can receive feedback from anyone with an account.

* Pipeline has comprehensive support for multimedia files. Previously Pipeline had inconsistent support for media uploads: for example, you could stream video but you couldn't see thumbnails for uploaded images. The new version of Pipeline fills in these gaps and expands them. Now you can upload video, audio, images, or Flash animation. Pipeline will handle the rest: generating thumbnails (if applicable), rendering streaming versions, and providing in-browser playback support via the open source flowPlayer.

We hope you find these changes as exciting as we do!