Some messages only need to be shown once. Message and template settings now offer an option to only show the message on first page load or hide the message for remaining page loads if it's closed by the user.
Biggest new feature: messages can now be placed relative to screen (think "top left", "bottom right", etc.) This makes it easier to create new messages as you don't need to find an HTML element on your page to place the message next to. You can of course still use your existing placements.
Placing messages to screen coordinates makes it easy to create cookie notifications or other messages that everyone needs to see when entering the site.
Dashboard shows separate lists for active, upcoming, and past messages.
Some messages need to be shown on multiple locations. For example a message about special opening hours could be shown on the front page and on a contact information page.
Message editor now lets you add multiple placements for a message. No need to create separate messages with the same content.
Messages, placements, and templates can now be divided into groups. Groups can currently be added in edit view.
This should make finding the correct placement or template a bit easier!
A couple of fixes:
Documentation is coming piece by piece. A getting started guide is almost ready :)
This week was mostly about cleaning up things. Among others:
Documentation was also finally started!
A bit bigger task, long in the works: you can now preview messages before going live if you have a separate test environment.
Preview mode works in two different ways: either by entering your test domains or by using a separate JavaScript file in test environment.
The easiest way is to go to Site Settings and add your test domain names. When messages are loaded from the test domain the loader will notice it and load previewed messages separately. Preview messages can only be loaded from your test domain so there's no worry of leaking them outside.
You can also use a separate JavaScript file (found from Site Settings as well) that includes your previewed messages. This method requires you to take care that the preview file is not used in production.
Preview mode can be enabled in each individual message's settings.
Message templates consist of HTML, CSS, and JS that can be reused for multiple messages. Template HTML specifies places for message-specific text using variables.
Templates can now specify variable types (starting with text and long text) that affect the editor used to create a message. Long text offers a bigger text box suitable for editing longer paragraphs of text.
In addition template CSS now also supports variables, for example if you want to specify a highlight color per message. A color picker is also coming.
Some crucial IE11 fixes to both the message loader and the app itself.
A bunch of small fixes:
Summer vacations were had but some progress was made:
List of all messages is now improved a bit: currently active messages are labeled and a dropdown of quick actions allows activating and deactivating a message without even opening it first.
One basic feature has been sitting in the backlog for quite a while: companies should be able to invite more users to their account.
Part of it waiting so long was that it always seemed so simple. Enter an email address of someone, send them an email, and let them accept the invitation. Well, turned out there were a couple other considerations. How many people can you invite? Has someone been invited already? Does the invited person have a user account already? How long should the invite stay valid? What information do we collect from the inviter and what from the invitee?
Fast forward five days and the feature is finally here!
Template editor has now been added to the app!
Template editor now also displays and links to messages that use the template.
Template system is nearing completion. Templates can be defined as HTML / CSS / JS, and they can be used across multiple messages.
A template's HTML can contain variables that can be filled in when editing a message. In practice this allows defining message styles and functionality in one place and creating multiple messages that only differ in their content.
An example:
HTML:
<div class="banner">
<header>
<h2>{title}</h2>
</header>
<div class="content">
<p>{content}</p>
</div>
</div>
This very simple template would allow us to create
messages where {title}
and
{content}
can be filled in for each message.
Message editor will show a preview of the message with
all the variables filled in.
A LOT has already happened to make InfoToggle what it is. This changelog will document future improvements that make InfoToggle even better.