Buffalo Rising Online

Jul 23rd 2007, 12:17am By queenseyes

Thanks to all of you who responded to last week’s ‘header’ post. Because of the comments, we brought back a mini-header that also functions as a featured story lead. BRO will remember which one you prefer, but if you ever want to switch, just click on the little white icon that can be found at the top right hand side of the image (only on the lead page - not the continue page). The idea was to keep the functionality and still have a new image at the top of the day. And I'll try to be more diligent about keeping them fresh. As you can see, the header is not as big, though the message hopefully still comes across clear.

For those of you who may have been wondering about the 'favorites' and 'friends' features, those were down momentarily. Now they're back up... or, they will be soon (lower left-hand column), and there is a new toggle box to switch between the two. The search field has also been cleaned up and should be easier to find. Even the print option has been optimized to print out select post and comments.

If you were wondering what the 'tags' were for, they have been added to help users navigate subject matter. Since this is a new feature, the listed words may not bring up many key-related posts at this point, but as tags continue to be added, more and more relevant posts will surface. For example, in the YUM Channel, if you click on Street Cafe, then all other articles on the Street Cafe will be listed (recipes, reviews, etc.). I'll have more information on the ability to track events soon... one thing that you may not have noticed is the ability to have BRO notify you one day in advance of an event. Just click on the 'email me ( 1 day ) in advance' link and the link is replaced with an 'alert added' so that you know BRO will send you an email reminding you to attend the event.

The registration process has been tuned-up too. There are easier directions plus an assortment of icons to choose from. In order to make a comment you must register. Hey, you also get to contact other registered BRO viewers if you have something to say and you don't want to do it publicly. Just leave a note, or look for messages in your BRO 'IN' box. You can list your interests as well- favorite books, movies and music. For example, al-alo's interests read: "common sense, creative ideas, occasionally running for office and whatever wikipedia tells me." (His/her comments have been ranked 217 times with an overall rating of 2.72 out of five) If you dig what al-alo has to say, then you can add him/her as a friend. Mister Chips’ interests are as follows: "Dismantling historically inaccurate claims and flimsy arguments." (His/her comments have been ranked 155 times with an overall rating of 3.33 out of five) Check out other registered users' profiles and learn a bit more about them by viewing their biographies.

On your personal page you can review all of your past comments and see how other commenters have responded to what you said (the star system). Oh, and don't forget to send a confirmation email to BRO the next time you visit your profile page. This will ensure that we have your legitimate email is registered so you can continue to utilize all of the dashboard profile functions. *In order to confirm that your email address is valid, we will send you an email. You then simply click on the link to confirm the address. It's that simple.

Thanks for helping us out when it comes to optimizing BRO and its functionality. We're pretty happy with it now... even though we are always interested to hear how it could be better.