ThumbStrips

We are working on the next release of TS, and have been scouring through your comments for ideas on what to fix, add, or change about TS. There are so many, but a couple big ones we’ve heard from a lot of folks (and will definitely be in this release):

• “Figure out a way for TS to use less of my CPU” / “it takes too long to save a TS”
• “Let me choose the sites I don’t want TS to record”

So here’s your chance, vote for the feature(s) you think should be in the next release - and tell us why:

• Annotation - write extra details about the pages in your TS
• Customized order - change the order of the pages, drag & drop maybe?
• Menu bar - reduce the size of the buttons on the menu bar
• Navigation - get rid of the arrow buttons, just use mouse or bottom bar to scroll
• Plug-ins - let me show my TS in different places… Facebook app, Blog This button, others?
• Website - make it easier to share my TS and check out what other people have posted
• Customized preferences - let me set how I want TS to start up and work
• Customized look - let me choose a different look & feel for my TS
• Docking toolbar - let me move the whole viewer
• History - tie TS to my history, and the history preferences
• Other - don’t see the one change you really want… what is it?

Vote for as many or as few options as you’d like. Comment here on this blog, or over in the forum post - and remember, the feature with the most votes will be included in the next version of ThumbStrips.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for taking the time to submit your feedback about ThumbStrips. We read each and every comment so we can better understand how you are using ThumbStrips, and our goal is to build future versions based on the improvements we hear from you, the folks using it. In order to keep track of all the feedback, suggestions, bugs, etc. we’ve setup an internal database that we use to catalog all of your comments.

So keep the feedback coming – we love to hear it!

You can check out other discussions that have been started about ThumbStrips on the Mozilla site here.

I’ve started thinking about what future versions of ThumbStrips will be, and it’s always fun to brainstorm about the possibilities with the iLab team. But a big impact on our thinking is actually coming from your posted feedback. There have been so many different ideas rolling in from all over the globe (woo hoo!), some things we guessed might happen, as well as some great ah-ha’s we hadn’t thought about before. And, although nothing is set in stone, I wanted to give you a little peek into what we are thinking / talking about right now:

>> Building a website. What if there were a place for people to save and find their ThumbStrips, or look through other people’s? Could people view a ThumbStrip without actually having the add-on installed? What else would people want to do here?

>> “Do-Not-Record” list. There are certain sites when I’m online that I will never share or need to go back to in my history. Based on the feedback, many of you guys feel the same way. Giving people a way to set that list themselves would add a level of privacy and customization.

>> Reducing CPU usage. There is a lot of information packed into a ThumbStrip - graphics, content, timing - and while we have taken measures to minimize the impact to memory / CPU, there are some times where it spikes. I know that Scott is always looking for ways to improve this piece, and it’s just a matter of time before he solves the puzzle, imho.

>> ThumbStrips for IE. Always something that is in the back of our minds. If Firefox users are finding this useful, what about all those IE users?

Like I said, by no means is this a fixed list or even an exhaustive one, but it’s a glimpse into what we are thinking about. So, what do you think?

It’s a strange thing to see a product you’ve worked on hit the “social” web - blogs and such. The Thumbstrips Firefox extension has been out for a few weeks now. Its download count quickly surpassed the other roughcuts here.

I shared my first filmstrip today. I live near a lake, so of course I have a canoe that is a bit tippy (aren’t they all?). I wanted to get a stabilizer to make it easier to add a motor and zip about the lake to fish. I bought it a couple of days ago, but it occurred to me today that others might be interested, so I quickly revisited a few sites with canoe outriggers to show where I’d been.

When I logged into this blog, I could see the links coming in from other places via technorati, and it is cool to see Japanese and German blogs talking about thumbstrips.

I did encounter this weird feeling of being out of control when I wrote some free radio monitoring and EAS logging software and put it up on a blog. A studio in American Samoa told me “thanks” and asked some questions. I know there are at least a dozen radio stations using some of my stuff, but I don’t actually know who they are.

We really don’t want to control the destiny of the the roughcuts on this site - rather we want to learn and let the people who use them control their destiny.

Which roughcuts have you tried? What do you like or not like about them? Give us some feedback and help control the destiny of a roughcut.

- Matt