We’ve been working hard to make some enhancements to the Dialogue App. You can either watch the embedded video or read below to find out about them:

Tweet button

If you use Twitter, you can now share a good idea with your followers by clicking the “Tweet” button on that idea. A “Share this on Twitter” window will appear where you can customise the text of your tweet and then send it.

Facebook Like button

Similarly, if you use Facebook you can share your support for a good idea with your friends by clicking the “Like” button on that idea. A link to the idea will appear in your feed where all your friends will be able to see it and visit it to read more.

Locked Ideas

Moderators can now lock an idea for commenting. Locked ideas are visually distinct from other ideas so that you can see at a glance whether a given idea is open for discussion.

Rejected comments visible to moderators

Moderators can reject an individual comment from an idea if it is offensive. Rejected comments are clearly marked. Ordinary users are no longer able to read the contents of rejected comments, however Moderators can still them and can reinstate a comment if it was rejected by mistake.

Improved WYSIWYG

When you add an idea to a Dialogue, you can format the text of your idea using an interactive editor that is built into Dialogue App.

For instance, you can emphasise a specific sentence,
create a bulleted list, highlight a block of quoted text or paste pre-formatted text from a program such as Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.org.

We have improved the interactive text editor in Dialogue App to make it easier to use and more accessible to people who use assistive technology such as screen readers

Admins and moderators comments highlighted

Comments made by administrators and moderators are now visually distinct from comments made by ordinary users. Moderators and administrators can upload a profile picture which is displayed on any comment they make.

RSS

You can subscribe to a feed of the ideas on a discussion using an RSS reader such are Mozilla Firefox’s Live Bookmarks or Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. An RSS button appears on the “All Ideas” page for each discussion.

Ideas will appear in the RSS feed only once a moderator has reviewed them and deliberately approved them. This ensures that ideas containing offensive content will not be published to RSS subscribers by mistake.

Welcome e-mail to users after sign up
When you register an account for a Dialogue, it now sends the user a welcome email. This helps them get started and gives them a reminder of where to go so that they can track on top of the discussion.

So those are the latest updates to the Dialogue App. If you have any suggestions as to how we can make it better, or you’d like to discuss using one, get in touch: adam.cardew@delib.co.uk