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Do you like the new Squidoo Workshop editor?

December 18, 2008 by John Dilbeck
Filed under: Poll, Sitesell and Site Build It, Squidoo Lenses 

In the last day or so – I don’t know exactly when – Squidoo released a new Workshop editor for editing lenses.

I didn’t know about it until I was editing a couple of lenses yesterday and there it was. Everything looked totally different, and for a moment I wasn’t sure what to do.

So, I did what I normally do. I started poking around to see what would happen when I clicked on things.

In just a few minutes, I felt pretty comfortable with the new editor and started liking it.

Many things are much faster. It looks like they’re using more AJAX to speed things up.

Although I haven’t tried adding a module or changing the order of the modules on a lens, it looks like the new system will be faster. I’m going to try that later today.

Well, why wait? Hang on a second while I go edit a lens and republish it…

I have a lens about Ken Evoy that hasn’t been updated in a long time. So, let’s update it.

Ken’s role at Sitesell changed in 2008, so I wanted to add a text module for updates.

With the old Workshop, I’d have to click on the Add Modules link, go to a completely different page, add the modules I wanted, drag them to the correct order, and then go back to the editor. That took some time, especially for people on dialup connections.

With the new Workshop, I just went to the right column and clicked the plus sign next to Text module. At the bottom of the list, I clicked Add. That’s it. I wanted to change the position of the module, so I went to the next section in the right column, Reorder Modules, and dragged the title of the new text module to where I wanted it. When I clicked the Apply button, the page reloaded with the new module right where I wanted it. This was much faster than the previous method.

Once I had the new text module where I wanted, it was just a matter of writing the content and visiting a couple of sites to get the proper URLs.

Done.

Publishing the lens worked as expected and it’s now live in its updated form: Ken Evoy.

Everything that I tried worked great, but there is one thing that is a bit irritating.

I’m using a Mac and Firefox 2.

At the top of the new Workshop, there is a gray section across the top that has links to several things related to the lens, including the Publish button.

For some reason, that section deactivates the scroll bar and the scroll up button. Now, I’m an old dinosaur and I prefer the scroll arrows on each end of the scrollbar, and not next to each other. As a result of the changes in the new Workshop, I can’t scroll up by using the up arrow. This really bugged me, at first. Then I found a workaround. All I have to do is click in the scroll down part of the bar until the scroll button (what used to be called the Thumb) is below that gray section. Then, I can drag the thumb back up to find the part of the page I want to see. It’s a bit annoying, but easy enough to work around.

All things considered, I like the new Workshop. I’m sure they’ll get the bugs worked out in the next few days.

So, what do you think?

I’m looking forward to your thoughts and comments.

Act on your dream!

JD

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14 Comments on Do you like the new Squidoo Workshop editor?

  1. Joan Adams on Fri, 19th Dec 2008 11:06 am

    2. The new workshop is much much faster!

  2. Patricia Sanders on Fri, 19th Dec 2008 1:11 pm

    3. I like the new workshop better. The one thing I notice is missing is the ping we could do.

    Patricia Sanderss last blog post..Moondance

  3. John Dilbeck on Sat, 20th Dec 2008 1:48 am

    4. Good morning.

    Joan, I agree. I’ve used it a couple of times since posting this and it really is faster.

    Patricia, I noticed that, too. I’m wondering if they are automatically pinging SquidCasts, now.

    Thanks for your comments.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  4. Dennis Edell on Sat, 20th Dec 2008 4:45 am

    5. This is kinda good news for me. It would have really sucked if I just started using it, got used to it and BAM!

    I really don’t take kindly to that. :)

    Dennis Edells last blog post..Free Permanent BackLinks: Are You A Subscriber Or Follow Me On Twitter?

  5. John Dilbeck on Sat, 20th Dec 2008 11:31 am

    6. Good morning, Dennis.

    I know what you mean. I don’t like surprises, either.

    That’s why I was all prepared to really dislike the new Workshop, until I used it awhile and realized that it really is a big improvement over the previous version (which was a big improvement over the one previous to that).

    The folks at Squidoo don’t always do what I want, but most of the time they are on the right track.

    I still want to be able to put live Aweber subscription forms on my lenses, but I’m still waiting for that. At least the folks at Aweber are looking into it.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  6. John Dilbeck on Sat, 20th Dec 2008 12:49 pm

    7. I was just reading on the SquidBlog that the old workshop will be discontinued and the new one will be phased in as the only editor on Monday, December 22, 2008.

    Megan Casey writes about it on the SquidBlog: Workshop 2.0 Alive and Kicking

    Looks like we have a winner.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  7. Dennis Edell on Sat, 20th Dec 2008 6:16 pm

    8. That reminds me, did anyone from Squidoo ever respond to your Aweber email?

    Dennis Edells last blog post..Free Permanent BackLinks: Are You A Subscriber Or Following Me On Twitter?

  8. John Dilbeck on Mon, 22nd Dec 2008 12:50 am

    9. Good evening, Dennis.

    No. I didn’t hear back from Squidoo, yet.

    I’ll give them until late January and follow up with both Aweber and Squidoo.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  9. Dennis Edell on Mon, 22nd Dec 2008 12:43 pm

    10. I must say I find that interesting. I mean Seth and company are big, but…well, they ain’t Aweber. ;)

    Dennis Edells last blog post..UPDATE: Free Permanent BackLinks: Are You A Subscriber Or Following Me On Twitter?

  10. John Dilbeck on Tue, 23rd Dec 2008 11:40 pm

    11. Good evening, Dennis.

    Squidoo is a tiny group of people riding herd on a fast-growing service. I’m sure they don’t have time to answer every email.

    Still, it reflects well on Aweber that their CEO took the time to reply, and I’m happy that it was an encouraging reply.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  11. Dennis Edell on Wed, 24th Dec 2008 2:32 pm

    12. The Aweber CEO ain’t busy?? Well, come to think of it, perhaps by now he isn’t. LOL!

    You’re right though, that’s a helluva testimonial for Aweber right there. :)

  12. Dennis Edell on Wed, 24th Dec 2008 2:33 pm

    13. Eek! No commentluv!! LOL

  13. Howdie on Fri, 26th Dec 2008 6:31 pm

    14. Did you try editing your Keywords in the tags section? I still haven’t figured out a way to
    do this? If anyone has the answer to this,
    I’d appreciate an email to let me know how you
    do it. Since the new workshop was installed, I
    have not been able to update any keywords!

    Many thanks,
    Howdie

  14. John Dilbeck on Sun, 28th Dec 2008 12:16 pm

    15. Good morning, Howdie.

    Welcome to our discussions. I hope you’ll feel free to come back and join us often.

    I have been able to modify my keywords in the tag section on several lenses with no problems.

    All I had to do was click the arrow next to Tags so that it opened the section on my browser. Then, I was able to add, delete, and modify tags as I expected.

    The one difference I noted was that saving the changes did not close the edit window as it did in the past. Now, for me, it just shows a status line that says my tags have been updated, and that shows below the save button.

    I’m using a Mac and Firefox version 2.

    Have you still been unable to edit your tags?

    Act on your dream!

    JD

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