It's been ten days since my second of two back-to-back diaries on the DK4 beta (the beta site is here, and this diary will be there within fifteen minutes of it being posted on Classic Kos).
In Part I, I talked about the opening of the beta, and gave you a link there, as well as giving a brief introduction on what you might find there.
In Part II, I discussed where you could find your own "page", and how it differs from your own current DK3 page. In particular, I told you how to find where the "Diary", "Comments", "Ratings", "Subscription", and other tabs across the top of your current page when on DK4.
Today, I take you on a tour of the main Daily Kos Menu on the right-hand side of the main page, an abbreviated form of which can be found on most DK3 pages, and point you to their DK4 equivalents. The tour starts just over the jump; be prepared to add this to the cheat sheet you created from Part II.
Once again, this diary assumes you've logged in at the beta site. You can look around as a lurker all you want, but some of the features I want to discuss require you to be logged in. Apparently, you can log into the regular site and the beta site at the same time on the same browser, and it won't be confused. Reminder: your password at the beta site is the password you had back around May 25, 2010. If you hadn't yet joined Daily Kos back then, you can create a new account at the beta site to join in the fun. (Click on Become a Member in top orange bar at the right edge if you aren't yet a member; click on Log In just to the left of Become a Member if you have been a member or have set up an account.) If you had subscribed, your subscription should still work once you've logged in, but if you subscribed after May 25, it won't, because the beta doesn't know about the subscription. The final DK4 will know.
DK4 continues to change. I would be remiss if I didn't note that within a week of Part I's publication, sections of it were out of date: the "Most Viewed Today" and "Most Commented Today" lists on the front page have been dropped, a new "Recent Rec'd" list has been added (Recent Diaries that have gotten at least one rec from a site Trusted User), and the Recommended list has expanded again, from ten to twelve diaries.
So you've logged in, and are on the Daily Kos home page. In DK3, in the right-hand column under the "The State of the Nation" header, you can see a series of orange bars with headers in them; under each bar is an area of white background with one link per line. The section headers are: Menu, About, Tools, Diary Drafts, Recommended Diaries, Recent Diaries, DailyKos Feeds, and Blogroll.
Here's where to find these, section by section. DK4 is more variable with its page headers: while the Home Page and some others will have "Daily Kos" to the left of the flag guy and "The State of the Nation" to the right of that picture, looking at Diary and similar pages will have the name of the person logged in or the diarist to the left, and "a Daily Kos Community Site" to the left. I'll generally refer to them home page equivalents—Daily Kos and The State of the Nation—but remember that the headers can vary. Further, I've rendered the DK4 headers in mixed case is used for easier reading, even though the bulk of DK4 headers are all caps.
Menu has six items: Home, [username]'s Page, Diaries, DKosopedia, Search, and either Logout if you're logged in, or Login if you haven't logged in yet.
- Home (DK3) maps to Home (DK4) at the left side of the line of menu links under the "Daily Kos" banner. Click on it to take you back to the home page if you're on some other page. If you're already on the home page, it will refresh the page for you. You can also click on the "Daily Kos" banner itself (to the left of the flag) to get to the home page.
- [username]'s Page (DK3) maps to a few places. To get the closest DK4 equivalent—your Diary list with other menu links/tabs—look on the right side of the page below the Feature box for a "Welcome Back [username]" box, and click on Diaries in that box (which takes you to My Page->My Diaries). Other options include clicking on the [username] in that "Welcome Back" box, which goes to your Profile page (My Page->Profile) and from which you can click on "My Diaries", or click on My Page, which is second from the left in the menu under the "Daily Kos" header, which will initially display your My Stream listing (My Page->My Stream), but from which you can redirect to "My Diaries".
- Diaries (DK3) maps most closely to Diaries (DK4), which is the fifth of six menu links under the "Daily Kos" banner. By default, it takes you to a "list view" of the most recent Daily Kos diaries: each entry has a diary link (that, when moused over, will display the first couple of lines of the diary), author link, date/time posted, number of comments, number of recs, and number of people who have hotlisted the diary. There is no "blog view" of the Recent Diaries feature; blog view is only available for your own diary listings.
- DKosopedia maps indirectly to the Frequently Asked Questions link way down at the very bottom of the page below the double black lines, to the right of the copyright notice, on the second line headed About. Once there on the FAQ page, you have to click either on the blue picture at the upper left, or on the "Main Page" link just below it, to get to the main page of the dKosopedia.
- Search maps to the right side of the line of menu links below the "Daily Kos" banner (actually, it's under "The State of the Nation"), with the search term going in the textbox and the "Go" button taking you to the search page. Whatever is in the textbox will be pre-filled on the search page.
- Login/Logout map to the top orange bar on the page. If you're not logged in, the new Log In (now two words) will appear second from the right end; the new Log Out will be on the right end of the bar.
About has six items: About (yes, the menu header and in the menu), Advertising, Contact Us, Daily Kos Store, FAQ, and Candidates.
- About maps to the Masthead entry in the "About" line at the very bottom of the page below the double black lines. It's in the section to the right of the copyright notice, on the second line. Note that the History and Writers links currently take you to subheadings on the overall "About" page below the masthead.
- Advertising maps to the Advertising Overview entry in the new "Advertise" menu line at the very bottom of the page below the double black lines. It's in the section to the right of the copyright notice, on the third line.
- Contact Us maps to the General Inquiries entry in the new "Contact" menu line at the very bottom of the page below the double black lines. It's in the section to the right of the copyright notice, on the fifth and last line.
- Daily Kos Store maps to the "Store" menu line at the very bottom of the page below the double black lines. It's in the section to the right of the copyright notice, on the fourth line; at the moment, the only link on that line is Shirts.
- FAQ maps to the Frequently Asked Questions link way down at the very bottom of the page below the double black lines, to the right of the copyright notice, on the second line headed About.
- Candidates maps to the Candidates link way down at the very bottom of the page below the double black lines, to the right of the copyright notice, on the second line headed About. This is currently a link to the 2008 ActBlue Daily Kos "Orange to Blue" page; at some point it will presumably be updated to the 2012 version of this page.
Tools has up to four items, depending on whether you're a subscriber and/or a Trusted User: New Diary Entry, Your Hotlist, Show/Hide Ads, and Hidden Comments.
- New Diary Entry maps to a number of places:
a) In your "Welcome back" box, under "Diaries", click New
b) From My Page->My Diaries, click Create New Diary
- Your Hotlist has three distinct sections on the resulting page:
a) The top section, "[username's] Hotlist" maps to My Page->Following->Hotlisted Diaries can be found in DK4 on the user's page next to Blogroll under the Following header.
b) The second section, "Diary watchlist", is now part of your My Stream list: all the diaries appear in chronological order there, including those on your watchlist of people you've subscribed to (now your "Following" list of people). The list of people can be found on your profile page: it's the "Following" list there. You can also get to it via Following in the People section of the submenu. It maps to My Page->Following->People
- Show/Hide Ads: This only shows if you are a subscriber, and have the option not to see ads. In your "Welcome Back" box it will either say Show Ads or Hide Ads.
- Hidden Comments: This only displays if you are a Trusted User. You can find it in your "Welcome Back" box under "Comments". Trusted users have both a "Recent Comments" link and a "Hidden Comments" link.
The remaining sections can be more quickly described:
Diary Drafts: although this doesn't show the diaries you have in draft on the front page, you're just a click or two away from that list:
- In your "Welcome back" box, under "Diaries", click Drafts
- From My Page->My Diaries, click Drafts
Recommended Diaries is called Recommended on the home page, and appears under the "Welcome back" box on the right-hand column. Note that you can now get additional pages of recommended diaries by clicking on the "Next" link underneath the list; each click brings the next twelve (currently it's twelve) without having to refresh the page.
Recent Diaries is mapped to the Diaries menu item at the top of the page, located underneath the guy waving the flag.
DailyKos Feeds: I have no idea where this has gone (if it exists at all) or how feeds work. Sorry.
Blogroll: the Daily Kos blogroll seems to have disappeared. Only the Other Kos Sites subheader information remains; it's been moved to the "Daily Kos Network" line at the very bottom of the page below the double black lines. It's in the section to the right of the copyright notice, on the first line. The following subheaders seem to have been orphaned: Kos Blogfather, Kos Alumni, Blogroll, Dems and Allies, and 10 Random User Blogroll Links (changed daily).
Before I end, a potential problem, and how to fix it (was going to be "some potential problems", but time ran away): The Daily Kos text can come up to your browser's left margin: there's no white space, and it's hard to read. Fix: make your browser window wider. It should get to the point where the white space starts expanding. Widen the window until it has the white space you'd like for it to have. If that doesn't happen at some point, report a bug.
If anyone has any questions about DK4 or the DK4 beta, I'm happy to try to answer them.
~~~~~
The comments below aren't test ones (or even tested or testy ones) this week either, and there were a reasonable number of submissions today in the Top Comments gmail account. I thank those who took time today to transport their favorites to the Top Comments mailbox despite the beta distraction, and for doing so by the 9:30pm Eastern Time deadline. The address of our mailbox for top comments submissions remains:
TopComments AT gmail DOT com
(change " AT " to "@" and " DOT " to ".")
Anyone can send great comments to our address. Be sure to include the direct link to a comment—the URL—which is available from that comment's date/time; we need that to find your choice. Please always include your Daily Kos user name in the body of your message, so we can credit you properly. If you send a writeup with the link, we are able to include that, too, though we reserve the right to edit; if you don't do a writeup, we will.
From Jan F:
In my diary, I mean, Miss Mayta's diary on EtiKos, in a discussion about Hedwig's red and green tie, addisnana makes this request, which led to a string of chuckles downthread.
*addisnana wasn't done, however, for this comment at the end of the above diary sums up (in a very non-snarky way) the move to DK4.
From BlueJessamine:
In today's #sekritarmy boxing (with pooties, woozles and other critters) diary, Meteor Blades posted a video explaining why moderating at Daily Kos is so much fun.
From weatherdude:
This comment was made by Gooserock in my State of the Skies diary tonight. It struck me on an interesting note, and really made me think.
From BeninSC:
Here is a two comment thread between In her own Voice and War on Error which I can recommend without reservation. Positive, caring, heart-filled: comments I really appreciate. Hope you do too!
From sardonyx (your beta beta beta Boxing Day diarist):
In kos's DK4 status update, which I wanted to spend a lot more time in, but had some diary text to write instead, Stumptown Dave reminds us why Daily Kos is a force for good, and he's excited about DK4.
Please add your own comment finds below!
~~~~~
Finally, we have today's top mojo using my revision of the cskendrick-devised mojo-to-Excel process.
First, Top Mojo excluding miscellaneous cute animals, search-identifiable tip jars, and first diary comments:
1) If capitalism has anything positive to offer by xxdr zombiexx — 75
2) Wake us all up teacherken by helmhere — 59
3) Some Lao, I'd hardly rate it as high as by ban nock — 53
4) I am not hostile to those who serve by teacherken — 52
5) I don't think capitalism itself by Dauphin — 50
6) Even before I read the diary, by Mnemosyne — 49
7) I have waited patiently for the Socialism by xxdr zombiexx — 48
8) It's like Wall Street... by fly — 46
9) Did you spend too much time by blue jersey mom — 44
10) oh I don't doubt his figures by teacherken — 43
11) I still need a kidney... by Kitsap River — 42
12) Your grandaughter is educated. by Atilla the Honey Bunny — 41
13) It's informative to read with all of the added by Angie in WA State — 41
14) I had assumed these machines properly tested by Cartoon Peril — 40
15) Great diary. by sceptical observer — 40
16) Ancient Egypt and Africa by Ojibwa — 39
17) Tell Your Grandaughter NOT To Go To by mattman — 39
18) the big insurers ARE Wall Street, they are the by Angie in WA State — 39
19) Diaries like this by karmsy — 37
20) who gives a shit? by LLCoolJ — 37
21) Most of the poor bastards don't even know... by cosbo — 36
22) Meteor Blades has posted by teacherken — 35
23) one more fact from column by teacherken — 34
24) The people who waterboarded people... by SuperSonic Dog — 34
25) take your point but their job isn't to troll by Cartoon Peril — 33
26) Health insurance companies must die by semiot — 32
27) Hang in there, Pat! by Oye Sancho — 32
28) Is it acceptable for me to call this diary by wader — 31
29) Teacherken, I've always said that the true mark by llbear — 31
30) I wish I had a solution for your granddaughter. by shpilk — 31
31) Dear Miss Mayta by smileycreek — 31
32) What a nightmare! by Shockwave — 31
Top Mojo with No Exclusions:
1) Tips for the end of the Old System by xxdr zombiexx — 285
2) Tip Jar by Pat K California — 216
3) I could not sleep by teacherken — 215
4) Tip Jar by ban nock — 210
5) Tip Jar by Hlinko — 198
6) Tip Jar by Badabing — 131
7) Tip Jar by Cartoon Peril — 120
8) Tip Jar by Deep Harm — 107
9) tips by whoknu — 107
10) Just one more thing... by juliewolf — 87
11) Tip Jar by Ojibwa — 87
12) Tip Jar by Haole in Hawaii — 77
13) If capitalism has anything positive to offer by xxdr zombiexx — 75
14) Wake us all up teacherken by helmhere — 59
15) Happy Boxing day from our by blue jersey mom — 55
16) Some Lao, I'd hardly rate it as high as by ban nock — 53
17) Oh Hai Whoknu: by leonard145b — 53
18) I am not hostile to those who serve by teacherken — 52
19) Here's why moderating at Daily Kos... by Meteor Blades — 52
20) Tips/Flames by Rimjob — 51
21) Oh Hai BJM! Happy Boxing Day: by leonard145b — 51
22) can't have 'boxing' day by whoknu — 51
23) I don't think capitalism itself by Dauphin — 50
24) OK I Am Getting A Dog by webranding — 50
25) Yeah, Good to See You Too by JekyllnHyde — 50
26) Tip Jar by mHainds — 49
27) Even before I read the diary, by Mnemosyne — 49
28) I have waited patiently for the Socialism by xxdr zombiexx — 48
29) Sekritarmy Practicing Spying & Improving: by leonard145b — 48
30) Tips for moving along by Miep — 47
31) Tip jar 1: 2010 in review by Neon Vincent — 47
© sardonyx; all rights reserved
All quotes are the property of the original authors or the websites that held them