Happy Saturday, everyone! I’m very excited this morning, because some new features and fixes have gone into place here on Needle ‘n Thread. I can’t wait to show them to you!
And trust me, these fixes aren’t due to any technical genius on my part. When I need something to happen that I can’t manage on the technical side of the website, I turn to Dan Holmgren and his crew at Imagemakers in Wamego, Kansas, because that’s what they do – they make websites work right, and they make them work beautifully.
So here’s the first Big Difference on the site:
The biggest change you’ll notice is in the comment section down below each post. This is so much fun – I hope you like it as much as I do! There’s a reply feature in the comments section now, so that you and I can reply directly to any particular comment. The replies are “nested” underneath the comment receiving the reply. This makes for much better interaction on the website, and it keeps conversation strings much clearer.
The previous situation with comment numbering was quite confusing, so that’s been taken care of! Up to 200 comments will show on each page, and you can easily navigate through the rest of the comments on each article by using the links at the very end of the page, to move to other pages of comments on the same article. The best place to see this feature in action is at the end of the most recent give-away here on Needle ‘n Thread, for the RSN Handbook of Embroidery.
If you scroll all the way to the end of that page, you can see the links to take you to further comments on the post. Previously, only 99 comments fit per page, and when you scrolled through the pages, each page started numbering all over again. That is now fixed, and my website life will be so much easier because of it!
Other updated features include the main navigation bar at the top of the website. You’ll notice a new link called “Shop“! Now, please don’t misunderstand this! I am not retailing needlework supplies. This is just a link to the area where you can purchase your spot in my online classes when they are available, or purchase my e-books. Considering there’s only one ebook available, things are pretty sparse in there right now, but I thought a shop area was necessary to keep things clearly categorized on the website.
The main navigation was getting a bit crowded, so you’ll notice that the “Pictures” link is no longer there. You can find the “Pictures of Hand Embroidery” button available in the right hand column.
At the top of the left column, you’ll see some social networking links available. Those have been there all along, but now there’s a new addition! The button on the right in that line of icons is a Pinterest button, so if you want to add anything from Needle ‘n Thread to Pinterest, you can do it easily using that button. You can also follow me on Pinterest through the same button. Granted, I haven’t done much on Pinterest yet, but it’s a fun site and a great way to collect online images for inspiration. I plan to make more use of it in days to come.
I’ll be spending some time over the next couple weeks doing some indexing of articles on the website, too – just catching up on categorizing some of the content, so that it’s easier for you to find it. There are a few less visible tweaks on the site, too, and hopefully they will all make your experience on Needle ‘n Thread a more pleasurable one.
Hope you enjoy the new updates and that you find them an improvement! Any questions or comments or suggestions, feel free to have your say below.
