Announcement: JoeUser 2 In Development!

We even have screenshots to prove it!

from JoeUser Forums

1998 - JoeUser.com is a "news aggregation" site that tries to summarize major tech news and events.
2000/2001 - JoeUser becomes exclusively the personal blog for Brad Wardell
September 9th 2003 - JoeUser is transformed into a blog community site where anyone can sign-up, post and participate.

Four years ago, JoeUser went live as a blogging community for folks tired of the isolation of traditional blog sites.  The level of community interaction here, and the amount of promotion articles receive across the site is still something unrivaled in the blogging world.  In those four years, not a whole lot has changed visually or functionally.  We've made periodic tweaks and fixes here and there, even upgraded the underlying forum system that supports the site, but the site itself has pretty much remained the same.

Today, I am pleased to announce the impending arrival of JoeUser 2, a complete from-the-ground-up redesign of the site.  Instead of trying to continually patch an aging system, the web development team was given the green light to tear the whole thing apart and build new.  We've gone through the entire site, noting key functionality, and then went around to some of the most popular blog sites on the web looking for what features people liked the most.  Based on that, we drafted a list of requirements and set about rebuilding JoeUser.


A preview of the new JoeUser front page.

JoeUser 2 has already been in development for over a month now.  Remember when I asked for your #1 feature requests?  We were in the planning stages and wanted to make sure we delivered at least a handful of new features that you all really wanted.  I make a point of saying it's been in development because this isn't a promise of an "eventual" upgrade.  It's something we're working on right now and have already made a lot of progress on.  We're even planning on giving you a hands-on demo of the site closer to the end of the year so you can take it for a spin before we launch the "final" version.

So, what is going to be improved?

  • Completely New Account & Blog Management Tools
    JoeUser will now have a set of tools to make managing your account information, and blog posts much easier.  No more paging through hundreds of articles to find the one you want to edit
  • Faster, More Stable Foundation
    Moving to ASP.Net 2.0 and a redesigned database specifically built for speed and scalability.
  • Redesigned Layout
    Gone will be the days of a narrow sidebar that scrolls on forever.  We've looked at every single page and asked how we could better present the information, how to organize and place it on the page so it makes sense and is easy to read.
  • Improved Posting Tools
    JoeUser2 has a completely new editor that will make posting and editing your work much easier.
  • Designed for Future Expandability
    JoeUser2 isn't going to be a fire-and-forget site.  We have plans for future expansion of features to make the site even better.  Those of us working on the site are really excited about what we can offer here over time.
  • Fixes Fixes Fixes!
    You know that Blacklist feature?  The one that hasn't worked for over a year?  That's going to work again.  Since we're rewriting the site, we have the opportunity to make sure everything works as intended, so many of those super-annoying bugs you're currently dealing with.

An early version of the JoeUser "Dashboard".  Notice the stats breakdown on the right.

There are a ton of changes coming in the new version, a full list would just go on and on.  In the coming weeks, I'll be posting articles walking you through the new features, showing off the new tools and design.


A new, easy to browse way to manage all of your posts.  Edit or delete from the list, search all articles for specific content, sort by date and by category.

Like I said, we're really excited about the new site and can't wait to show it off to everyone here.

blogging
5,797 views 21 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
JoeUser 1 ate my comment, so . . .

*licks lips with anticipation*
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
Yeah, the site ate this post 3 times before it went through.
Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top

OOOHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I'm all a-flutter with anticipation!!!!!!!!  I was here about 5 months after the current JU went public, so I'm very excited to be a part of JU nombre deux.

Blog on, people!

Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
Hey, I'm famous.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Wow, fantastic! Looking forward to it!
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top

*licks lips with anticipation*

Took the words right outta my....

 

All I can really say is go developer team and bring on the goodies when they're ready

Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top

I'd better keep my points and articles.

Well, I think it's been long overdue for an update...now I'll have to learn something new.

~Zoo

Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
We will be porting all articles, comments and blogs over to the new system.  You won't have to worry about any of it going missing.
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
Wow, it sounds pretty awesome. I look forward to the test drive. Kudos to all who are part of this development.
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top
Many Thanks to JU and the Development Team for this great news. Looking forward to the JU2 and wish you all the best. Please keep the "recent posts", "recent forum activity" and the ability to edit the post (or comments) AFTER it has been published available and easy to see. These three features are very unique to JU as far as I know. Hope they dont disappear from the new version.

PS: why not put a "Log Out" button on the top bar along with the 3 existing functions?
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
Looks great. Very Vistoid.

Thanks for all the hard/fun work, guys.
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
Looks great. Thanks for the hard work so we can have fun.
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top

Fantastic news!  Thank you!!

How does that song go?  "Anticipation"  is making me....HAPPY!

Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
I am happy with Joe as it is right now (free ice cream is yummy and I've never had issues)....but I have to admit that Joe 2 is making me all giddy and excited! I love new sparkly shiny toys!
Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top
I'm in the troglodyte level with using computers.....so this new stuff sounds simply MARVELOUS to me.
Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
Looks really great.

Thanks for all the hardwork you folks are putting into this. Thanks to Brad for supporting JU and the green light!
Reply #17 from JoeUser Forums Top
This is great news.  I look forward to it.
Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top
off topic, but as you are using an oooold version of my cursors in the previes you might still be interested in this.

Grounation cursors (latest version)
for Windows: http://customize.org/cursor/54131
for Linux: http://customize.org/xcursors/53323
for Mac: http://customize.org/cursor/51338
for CursorXP: http://customize.org/cursorxp/54565
Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top
Looks awesome! It took me forever to convince my boss that it would be way easier to rewrite to .net 2.0 then continually update a 1.1 app.

Cant wait!
Reply #20 from JoeUser Forums Top
It looks great.  Can't wait. 
Reply #21 from JoeUser Forums Top
If this is a suggestion box:

The current JoeUser (or perhaps SDC) has an oddity that I hope is fixed in JU2. When I first navigate to the JU home page in SDC, I'm not auto-logged on. As soon as I select Forums, I'm auto-logged on when the next page opens. Can't go directly to a featured article on the home page & reply, for instance, until I've logged on in some fashion, either manually or by going first to another page. If I happen to choose to go back to the home page by clicking JoeUser in the left pane of SDC or clicking JoeUser Home at the top of the JU window, I'm no longer logged on to JU, even if was previously. Happens on all the machines I use to access SDC/JU.

SDC logs me in automatically, so I'm not sure why JU doesn't do so when I view it from within SDC.

Oh, and could you put the navigation bar (My Account | Watchlist | My Posts | My Replies | Private Messages) at the bottom of the page as well as at the top? - would really help because hitting the back button does not take you back to My Replies, for instance, if that is where you started.