Hey folks! Sorry for the slow week. I’ve been battling the flu. But Marco’s been holding down the fort and we did get a few cool things out the door today.
Link Descriptions
Probably our second most requested feature. You’ll now see a link to “Add a description” when adding a new Link Post from either the publisher or bookmarklet. This will pop open a field to edit the link’s description.
To anyone using custom themes, you can add the descriptions by putting this inside the Link-block:
{block:Description}
{Description}
{/block:Description}
Quote Size Tweaks
After some great feedback, you guys steered us to thinking that explicitly applying a span-class to Quotes is pretty inflexible behavior. It also doesn’t account for things like adding quote-characters (”) to the beginning/end.
So instead, we now send a variable {Length} inside the Quote-block. It uses the same values we had been sending as the Quote’s span-class. So {Length} will be set to either “short”, “medium”, or “long”, depending on the length of the Quote.
If you’ve already applied dynamic quote sizes in your custom theme, the easiest way restore them is to wrap the variable {Quote} in a span like: <span class=”{Length}”>{Quote}</span>
Sorry to waffle on you. We hate making operating changes to theme rendering, but we wanted to nip this in the bud and implement quote sizes gracefully.
New Ways To Import Feeds
If you check out the Import Feeds panel, you’ll now see two more ways to import posts.
“Links with descriptions” imports RSS posts as Links with the new description field set to their body contents. Works great with Delicious feeds.
“YouTube Videos” will grab tagged YouTube videos, or videos belonging to a YouTube user, and import them as embedded videos for playback on your tumblelog. You can learn more about YouTube RSS feeds here.
Bookmarklet V3
Thanks to tons of great feedback and suggestions, today we were able to make the Tumblr Bookmarklet a whole lot cooler.
The most apparent difference is the ability to change which type of post you’re creating. Now if you want to link to a photo instead of posting it, you can click the “Link” tab. Or, if you want to use the selected text inside a Regular Post instead of a Quote, just click “Regular”. This also lets you do things like enter Photos or Video embeds from any site on the web. Auto-detect still works the same, and the bookmarklet will automatically grab Flickr photos, YouTube videos, Quotes, etc.
There’s also a really nifty new interface on the “Photo” tab. Now, if you click “Photo” on any page where we’re not sure which image you want, the bookmarklet displays a thumbnail of EVERY image on the page. Just click the one you want and save.
Some of the new things you can do:
- Post a video embed from any site on the web
- Select text on a page to appear inside a Regular Post
- Add a description to Link posts
- Link to a photo or video instead of posting it directly
- Post a photo from any page on the web (no need to open it in its own window)
We’ve also added auto-detect support for Metacafe videos.
Have a great weekend everyone! Marco’s headed to Long Island, and I’m snowed-in watching Casino Royale.
35 responses so far ↓
Theron Parlin // March 16, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Thanks for the updates!! Great stuff!
Deepak // March 16, 2007 at 11:12 pm
The “links with descriptions” is great. Thanks
Jeff // March 16, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Great updates! I will definitely use the description for links!
Joel // March 16, 2007 at 11:59 pm
I find “links with descriptions” great too!
Thanks also for the explanation of what the new bookmarklet could do. Now I understand how it functions now.
Awesome updates overall. I have been a convert to Tumblr and I really see no reason to leave. Congrats!
Deepak // March 17, 2007 at 12:56 am
Hmm .. the description is not showing up on the main page (does show up in the edit section)
Luke // March 17, 2007 at 4:29 am
Wow, you guys just keep on giving!!
I think that’s covered all the requests I emailed you, and even one I forgot!
Chris // March 17, 2007 at 8:15 am
The bookmarklet was already great, and when I used it this morning, I found that it just got 100x better! Thanks!
Dr Nic // March 17, 2007 at 10:18 am
Some brilliant additions. Also, thx for explaining the page template changes to get quote resizing etc - ppl need to remember to add “div.quote span.short/medium/long” css to their custom templates, e.g.
/* Quote Post */
div.post div.quote {
letter-spacing: -1px;
color: {color:Quote};
}
div.post div.quote span.short {
font: Bold 30px Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
div.post div.quote span.medium {
font: Bold 28px Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
div.post div.quote span.large {
font: Bold 24px Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
Adora // March 17, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Minor correction, DrNik…the biggest size is long, not large. Here’s what I added to my css:
div.post div.quote span.quote span.short {
font: 35px Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
div.post div.quote span.quote span.medium {
font: 28px Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
:: Lisa
:: adora [at] techslut [.] net
div.post div.quote span.quote span.long {
font: 20px Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
Adora // March 17, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Ahh crap, my signature went in at the wrong place. *curses the lack of an edit function* Let me try this again:
div.post div.quote span.quote span.short {
font: 35px Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
div.post div.quote span.quote span.medium {
font: 28px Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
div.post div.quote span.quote span.long {
font: 20px Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
:: Lisa
:: adora [at] techslut [.] net
Sylvain Carle // March 17, 2007 at 1:06 pm
While happy with the new features of the bookmarklet, I lost the best thing about tumblr in this update, namely the html (tiny mce?) box for quotes.
I liked it *a lot* as it enabled me to cut and paste html (with links) from other pages, that wa the killer feature for me (combined with quick posting). Will it come back? Is it a temporary loss?
Baba // March 17, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Thanks for the bookmarklet update. Just what I was looking for.
GreySheepDuo // March 17, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Yay! I can’t wait to see the API — I want to integrate Tumblr into Quicksilver/Automater on the Mac. Unless you beat me to it.
brianru // March 17, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Great update to the bookmarklet. I have to suggest something, we need a way to track the amount of traffic to our tumblelogs.
naum // March 18, 2007 at 2:07 am
A bug with the new bookmarklet — the quote/photo forms are displayed in HTML, even though there is a bold button/italics button, and the small form is a hassle… …this is not the way the old bookmarklet worked…
Marco Arment // March 18, 2007 at 10:35 am
In the new bookmarklet, we disabled TinyMCE, the standard rich-text-HTML editor component we use. You can still use it in the regular Publisher interface.
We’re not sure whether we’ll keep it this way, but here’s why we did it:
- TinyMCE is a very “heavy” editor, and results in significant load and render lag for most people. Loading a bunch of them in the new multitab bookmarklet would significantly slow down its loading and rendering speed.
- It takes up a lot of space.
- At the smaller sizes required by the bookmarklet, TinyMCE shows more bugs.
- The vast majority of posts don’t do any formatting.
As with everything on the internet, this is always a work in progress. We’ll weigh the options, seeing how people use Tumblr and the bookmarklet, and see if it makes more sense to turn TinyMCE back on.
naum // March 18, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Re: TinyMCE disabling
Understand the points, however it now has giant UI flaws:
1. Un-resizeable form with HTML makes editing very difficult. At least if form was bigger (see how blogger does it!) OR resizeable, would make for easier editing.
2. TinyMCE is disabled, but there are still buttons for bold, italic, link. That is incongruent…
Just my take…
Sylvain Carle // March 18, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Why not put Tiny MCE as an option in the prefs for the bookmarklet and make it disabled by default?
Dushan // March 19, 2007 at 3:15 am
Has anyone out there managed to join Quicksilver to Tumblr? Pleeease let me know! :-) (shtikl@shtikl.com)
Sarah Lane // March 19, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Anyone else having trouble adding descriptions to links via the new bookmarklet? I can add them fine, but they don’t carry over. When I go to edit my post, there they are again. Just not live.
Dean Strelau // March 19, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Does anyone know what the quote length divisions are? What exactly is considered short/medium/long?
Marco Arment // March 19, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Short: Less than 100 characters.
Medium: 100 to 249 characters.
Long: 250 or more characters.
We may make small adjustments to these boundaries in the future if we feel it’s necessary, so please don’t code anything that depends strictly on their lengths. For something that specialized, the Read API with additional processing on your end might be a more appropriate choice.
Marco Arment // March 19, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Sarah Lane:
Since the link descriptions are a new field, they have to be manually added to any custom themes (like yours). We added them to all of the built-in themes, but there’s no way to add them to custom themes automatically without breaking people’s formatting.
Within the Link section, add:
{block:Description}
(div or whatever you like)
{Description}
(/div)
{/block:Description}
Sarah Lane // March 19, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Thanks Marco. Clearly I didn’t read the blog entry well enough the first time. Yikes!
DanD // March 20, 2007 at 7:04 pm
I looove tumblr! One thing that would be cool: some way to preview how a given feed will look in each of the different formats would be nice; or at least the ability to return to an added feed and change it from one format to another if it doesn’t work out. I love sticking weird feeds from my favorite sites in there and seeing what happens. It feels so good to be blogging just by using the sites I’m already using. Thanks.
dep // March 21, 2007 at 9:49 am
Nice! I wish the tumblr pop-up had a tab for “discussion” — I’ve needed that several times. Makes no sense why that’s not in there.
Sarah Lane // March 21, 2007 at 10:00 am
I’ve taken out my tumblr “title” and replaced it with an image in the description section, which looks fine, but now I’m coming up as “untitled” in Radar. Is there a way to pull the title info from the page title instead?
David // March 21, 2007 at 10:12 am
Sarah: You can set that title on your Settings page (http://www.tumblr.net/settings). This is the same title that gets sent in your RSS feed, so it’s definitely worth setting. Hope that helps!
bradsucks // March 21, 2007 at 11:56 am
Why no conversation posting abilities in the bookmarklet?
Sarah Lane // March 21, 2007 at 6:34 pm
I know I can set it in the settings page, but I had removed it in favor of an image in my description instead. If it’s my only option, I guess I can add it back in and hide the text somehow. Thanks!
David // March 21, 2007 at 6:45 pm
So long as you’re using a custom theme, your easiest bet will probably be simply removing the {Title} variables from the header and <title> tags in your theme code. Please let me know if you need any help.
Helen Schauf // March 22, 2007 at 8:22 am
New bookmarklet is wonderful. Can we also have some indication of the current user logged into Tumblr? I have several tumblr blogs and when using bookmarklet I can’t see in which of the blogs current post will go.
Abhilash Ravishankar // May 8, 2007 at 4:45 am
The bookmarklet is nice, but then I think it’s great if you can add an option of sourcing conversations from other websites too.
Example: I see a great piece of conversation happening over a blogpost, I would want to tumble that!
Makki // September 20, 2007 at 3:23 pm
When i added some feeds like LastFM and Twitter i then deleted the feeds because i did not want them but they still show on my site. What gives?
Laura // July 28, 2008 at 4:39 pm
im new to tumblr and i dont know how to use an image as my title,
im sure its simple but i really have no clue
can someone please help!
-thanks
Leave a Comment