https://make.wordpress.org/core/2014/09/30/press-this-meeting-20140930/
(I sure wish I could use our PT to create posts like this.)
Recent Updates
Embed mockups
Started styling for embed UI
So far, just an oEmbed iFramed object and a video:
I need to research native WP video/audo/playlist UI before I mess with that. (we should probably use that for uploaded media if it’s nice on touch devices.
5/21 meeting recap
Overall, a pretty quick meeting. We’re getting closer.
Install user flow
I really want to look how the bookmarklet, extension, and app are installed this week.
User color scheme
We should look at pulling the user’s admin color scheme.
A/V embeds
Mockups/design needs to be addressed.
So far so good
Our first meeting will be Wednesday (tomorrow) at 16:00 UTC in #wordpress-ui.
For those jumping in, here’s a pretty good summary of what we’ve been up to so far:
- @melchoyce has already interviewed six people.
- @folletto mocked up how Press This could look on desktop.
- @folletto added a summary of possible architecture choices for the multi-blog component
- I put together some initial mobile mockups of Press This as a web app and bookmarklet.
- Additional feedback.
- Github repo created
For Reference:
- @ryan pointed out the brevity of the Press This Codex Page.
To do:
- Make a darn cool plugin
- MOAR INTERVIEWS!
- Some research on what we can and can’t do with phones/tablets
- Figure out a good place for users to find/install Press This
- See if we can be ultra clever and add site-switching functionality
- More mockups probably
- And whatever else I’m forgetting
Interview 6
This interview was an email exchange, so it took me a little longer to run.
Mel: First off, Press This aside, how often do you write posts?
Aubrey: Personally, I write 3-4 blog posts on my site a month. I always plan to write more, but only ever attack my site when I want to write about some project I’m working on.
Mel: What kinds of topics do you write about?
Aubrey: I write a lot about WordPress, Web Development, How-to’s, and I delve into Buddhism here and there, then finally about personal stuff. Most of my site is geared around WordPress and WordPress Projects (Plugins, Themes) I am working on. (I always feel I should do more actual writing all the time!)
Mel: How long are the posts you usually write? Short: 0-2 paragraphs, Medium: 3-5 paragraphs, Long: 5+ paragraphs
Aubrey: I probably average in the 3-5 paragraph range.
Mel:How often do you use Press This to write posts?
Aubrey: I’d say, on my blog, once a month, maybe twice.
Mel:What kind of things do you use Press This for? (links, images, video, etc.)
Aubrey: I usually only use Press This when I want to share something that I see quickly on my blog. I don’t actually use it often because I feel like it could be more robust than just creating a link. It tries with select and embed codes, etc, but it doesn’t seem to nail it. But, I intend to write a new post without having to /wp-admin, etc. Usually these posts and sweet and simple, not a full written post.
Mel: Can you walk me through your process when you compose a post with Press This? From “oh hey I just found this thing” to “published”
Aubrey: I usually land on something that I want to share. I click Press This and it comes up with a link to it. I usually go back and copy a quote from the page and block quote it (because the select method doesn’t do this). Underneath I usually write something about why I like it. Then I make the link open to _blank. I categorize it, tag it, publish.
Mel: Do you find yourself sharing media in Press This despite how difficult it is?
Aubrey: Not much really. Video’s maybe, and it works okay for that.
Mel: Do you ever…
Mel: Change post formats?
Aubrey: Not really, I’m not really a fan of them.
Mel: Add tags or categories?
Aubrey: Always adding taxonomy to posts, categories and tags.
Mel: Schedule posts?
Aubrey: Rarely, but when I do it’s because I’m writing at 12am and want it to post in the morning.
Mel: Add featured images?
Aubrey: When I’m using a theme that supports it, yeah. But, I rarely use a theme that does.
Mel: Do you have a smartphone? If so, what kind? (iphone, android, windows, etc.)
Aubrey: iPhone 5S
Mel: Do you ever write posts from your phone? If so, do you post them from the WordPress iOS app, or from your phone’s mobile browser?
Aubrey: Definitely from the browser version, it works great now that it’s mobile. The iOS app is just to limiting, and even though I am a developer, editing using code isn’t optimal. But, yeah, for sure the wp-admin pulled up in Chrome on my phone.
Mel: Does your process for adding a new post on your phone end up being any different than if you wrote a post from your desktop/laptop?
Aubrey: See below. Usually forces me to write mostly text, maybe an image. I rarely use the phone interface, I usually use it more to edit current posts, maybe manage posts, etc. Not much writing.
Mel: Does the type of post you write change if you’re writing from your phone?
Aubrey: I usually am writing a smaller post, obviously, because I have to use a tiny keyboard haha. Maybe I might upload a photo from my phone, but that’s about it. I still tag, categorize, etc. I don’t usually add many images and those are usually all text for the most part.
Press This Weekly meeting
Any objections to Wednesday at 16:00 UTC?
Third Interview
Mel Choyce: First of all, Press This aside, how often do you write posts?
sara cannon: maybe 120/year
sara cannon: ish
sara cannon: so not much 🙂
Mel Choyce: More than I do, haha
Mel Choyce: Maybe 1-2 a week on an average week?
sara cannon: well i’m sorta thinking about all the various places i post combined
sara cannon: more like 3/4week than two weeks off. I get into streaks
Mel Choyce: (y)
Mel Choyce: What kind of things do you write or blog about, across your various sites/blogs?
sara cannon:
1. sara-cannon.com / design & web & wordpress & professional stuff
2. Ran.ge / client projects, code, updates
3. artcation.com / art journal of various shows I go to and artists I like
4. art.sara-cannon.com / personal art journal, my art process
5. saracannon.wordpress.com / mainly just IG and Pinterest goes here, i rarely log in and actually post
and
6. airportbeers.com / post beers from airports using the WP app.. haven’t in a while though
5. fruitcakefruitcake.com / posted a fruitcake recipe once (mentioned just for laughs)
Mel Choyce: fruitcakefruitcake.com <– This is amazing
Mel Choyce: So you have a lot of places you post. 🙂 On average, how long are the posts you usually write?
- Short: 0-2 paragraphs
- Medium: 3-5 paragraphs
- Long: 5+ paragraphs
Or is it all over the place depending on the site?
sara cannon: short.
Mel Choyce: (y)
Mel Choyce: How often do you use Press This to write your posts?
sara cannon: long posts are rare for me. but i deal a lot with Photos. so a post might have 1 sentence but like 20 photos
sara cannon: I use press this for art cation.com often
sara cannon: when i see a work of art i like on the internet and want to share, i most often use press this
Mel Choyce: Do you end up using it for any other kinds of media, or mostly just images?
sara cannon: images mainly
Mel Choyce: How often do you find yourself changing or adding image titles, captions, etc.?
sara cannon: not often but i’m bad at that usually anyway
sara cannon: usually just sideload them in and be done. 🙂
Mel Choyce: Haha, okay
Mel Choyce: Do you add any tags or categories?
sara cannon: yes. 🙂
Mel Choyce: Both?
sara cannon: yes. specific cats, and then random slew of tags that i think up real quick off the top of my head
Mel Choyce: Do you use post formats with Press This?
sara cannon: not usually
Mel Choyce: Do you ever use Press This from your phone?
Mel Choyce: (If you have a smartphone 🙂 )
Mel Choyce: (I’m guessing you do)
sara cannon: haha i didn’t know you could!
Mel Choyce: I actually didn’t either until earlier today
Mel Choyce: I don’t think it’s very easy
Mel Choyce: Do you use the WordPress apps at all?
sara cannon: just for airport beers
sara cannon: but its been a while 🙂
Mel Choyce: So you do almost all of your posting from computer?
sara cannon: yes
sara cannon: well.. unless its instagram auto posting from ifttt
sara cannon: but that doesn’t really count 😉
Mel Choyce: Haha
Mel Choyce: Looping back a bit, what’s your process like when using Press This? Can you walk me from “oh hey I just found this thing” to “published”?
sara cannon: hit “press this” -> edit title to something unique or better -> type a bit -> sideload in images before the attribution link that was auto inserted -> type in “via” before the attribution link (and sometimes edit the link title) -> select cats -> type in tags -> hit “save draft”
sara cannon: the biggest blocker from hitting “publish” right then is the featured image
Mel Choyce: Do you always add a featured image?
sara cannon: every time 🙂
sara cannon: so i might go to in in the browser right away.. and do it then publish.. or i might forget about it then see it a week later lol
Press This Objectives
@folletto mentioned, which I completely agree with:
In terms of principle, I’d say that we are aiming for:
* Automate as much as possible
* Fast 1, as start-to-end journey
* Fast 2, as technical speed of execution
We’ve discussed making Press This functions as a web app, a Chrome extension, and as the bookmarklet.
I would like the web app to really focus on really quick posts and photo/video upload.
For the bookmarklet/Chrome extension, we could get pretty creative with content scraping. It currently does alright with links, YouTube, and images from websites (although the images are in a hidden spot). I also want it to be a really light version of the editor. The process of scraping/selection/writing should be super efficient and clear. I also want to take advantage of feature detection and build in the ability snap a photo with a webcam or possibly add geolocation of some sort.
I want all three to support Markdown. Markdown is a very efficient way to write content on touch screens and doesn’t rely on highlighting content to use the WYSIWYG toolbars.
Second Interview
melchoyce: First off, Press This aside, how often do you write posts?
jazzs3quence: prolly every couple weeks
melchoyce: What kinds of things do you write or blog about?
jazzs3quence: i write about geeky stuff, i write about plugins/projects i’m working on. i have another site on wpcom where i write about soccer and another nother site where i write exclusively about music (though not very often)
melchoyce: Nice. 🙂 Are your posts usually shorter (0-2 paragraphs), medium (3-5 paragraphs), or longer (5+ paragraphs)?
jazzs3quence: longer
jazzs3quence: hence writing less frequently 🙂
melchoyce: Haha yeah
melchoyce: Hard to write frequently when you end up writing a lot at once
melchoyce: How often do you use Press This to write your posts?
melchoyce: (or even just start posts)
jazzs3quence: often enough that i can say that i use it, but it’s probably one in every five posts or so
melchoyce: What kind of things do you use Press This for? (links, images, video, etc.)
jazzs3quence: all three of those
jazzs3quence: not really much else
jazzs3quence: usually just to share stuff i come across
jazzs3quence: so, mostly for post-format-worthy stuff
melchoyce: Can you walk me through your process when you compose a post with Press This? From “oh hey I just found this thing” to “published”
jazzs3quence: okay, well there’s two scenarios that are probably the most frequent…
jazzs3quence: scenario a) i’ve found an image on some site that i want to share
jazzs3quence: “hey, i want to post that on my site”, hit press this, go into the add media tool thingie, find the image from the page that’s the one I want to share, insert, maybe write a few sentences about it. slap a category/tags on it, set the post format to image and publish.
jazzs3quence: scenario b) I found a link/quote/article I want to share
jazzs3quence: hit press this. If it’s a link it’s already there, but usually I’ll change the link text and the title from what press this sets (actually, i do that for images, too…missing step). Maybe write a little bit about it, but probably not much. apply cats, tags, post format, publish.
melchoyce: How long does that usually end up taking you?
jazzs3quence: not very long. a few minutes. that’s the reason i use press this for those sorts of things.
melchoyce: Do you have a smartphone, and if so, have you ever tried to use Press This on it?
jazzs3quence: i’ve always been a really big fan of the fact that press this will grab media from whatever page i’m looking at
melchoyce: Yeah, probably one of its coolest features, IMO
jazzs3quence: i have a dumb phone and an ipod touch. the ipod has the wp ios app on it, so i don’t use press this
melchoyce: How often do you end up using the app?
jazzs3quence: the ios app? not very. but then, i don’t really use the ipod for a whole lot other than music. it’s sort of “well if I wanted to it’s there, but…”
melchoyce: Okay, cool 🙂
jazzs3quence: i find posting from a mobile device really tedious tbh
jazzs3quence: i’m not that dextrous with my thumbs 😉
melchoyce: Do you post from any other services on your ipod? Like twitter/facebook/etc.
jazzs3quence: twitter on occasion (usually because i’m afk), and I use pressgram
jazzs3quence: sometimes facebook, but i’m not a huge fb person. mostly i troll fb on the ipod if anything
melchoyce: How often do you use pressgram? Is there anything about it you really love?
jazzs3quence: i’d probably use pressgram more if i had an iphone with a data line. i use it now to just take photos. I like that it will post stuff to my blog/twitter without much hassle. basically i use it as an instagram replacement.
jazzs3quence: so the thing that i love is that the stuff is on my site instead of instagram’s
melchoyce: That’s how I use the official iOS app but it’s not super optimized for that use case, IMO
jazzs3quence: yeah
jazzs3quence: it’s okay for that
jazzs3quence: but not great
melchoyce: Yeah
jazzs3quence: i’m kind of hot/cold on pressgram. i was a kickstarter backer, so i’ve used it from the beginning
melchoyce: What’s the cold?
jazzs3quence: and i believe in the philosophy of it
jazzs3quence: eh, implementation could be better
melchoyce: What about the implementation do you struggle with?
jazzs3quence: ux is so so.
jazzs3quence: with the last update there’s weird helpful tips i can’t get rid of that cover the post area
melchoyce: Ouch
jazzs3quence: i could of course report a bug 😉
melchoyce: Haha
melchoyce: “patches welcome…”
jazzs3quence: i do like that he’s added new filters and stuff as paid extensions
jazzs3quence: but it’s not overly obvious that they are, in fact, paid extensions
jazzs3quence: so there’s that
jazzs3quence: 🙂
melchoyce: Have you bought any?
jazzs3quence: no, but i’ve thought about it
jazzs3quence: there are a couple i’m tempted to buy
melchoyce: Does it come with any base filters?
jazzs3quence: it comes with a ton of base color filters. which is great. but it’s sort of overwhelming. the first go round had only a handful, so that was a problem. then he found this library that added, i dunno, like 80 and now i feel like there’s too many
jazzs3quence: instagram they all have cute names and specific identities. these are all labeled BL05
jazzs3quence: RD03
melchoyce: That’s a lot of vague filters
jazzs3quence: yeah
jazzs3quence: but i also get that if you’re a photographer, having more would be ideal
jazzs3quence: you can get something that fits the situation
jazzs3quence: and there aren’t really other (free) ios photo apps that can easily add subtle color filters like that
jazzs3quence: i know a lot of the folks who really like pressgram are hardcore iphone-ographers, so i can respect that
melchoyce: I like that term, “iphone-ographers”
First Interview
melchoyce: First — in general, how often do you write new posts?
saltcod: I’m probably a different use-case for PressThis. I use it on this bookmarking site http://bookmarkie.waterstreetgm.org/
saltcod: Some days I don’t create any bookmarks, some days I’ll create 20. So I use it a far bit
melchoyce: Oh, cool — kind of like a person replacement for delicious?
saltcod: Exactly. That’s when I started it
melchoyce: Nice. And you use Press This exclusively for that?
saltcod: yeah. That’s the only way I’ve created a post on that site
melchoyce: Is it just links, or do you ever include any kind of media?
saltcod: Just links
melchoyce: Can you walk me through your process of adding a link to that site? From “oh hey I just found this thing” to “published”
saltcod: [ Here’s the theme if you’re interested….. ] https://github.com/saltcod:/treasureisland
saltcod: I’ve got the bookmarklet in that bar in chrome, and so when I want to bookmark the site I’m on, I’ll click that, tag it and I’m done
melchoyce: How long does that usually take you?
saltcod: It’s a different use case for sure. That probaly takes me 5 seconds maybe?
melchoyce: Nice 🙂 Do you ever add anything other than tags? (categories, etc.)
saltcod: Interestingly, I use it daily for bookmarks, but have never ever used it for any of my other sites
saltcod: Just the tags for this site
melchoyce: Do you always publish it immediately, or do you ever schedule or save as a draft and publish later?
saltcod: Immediately
melchoyce: Cool
melchoyce: Do you have a smartphone, and if yes, do you ever use it to add links to this site?
saltcod: Does anyone actually use it for publishing?
melchoyce: I’m not if anyone uses it for longform
saltcod: I tried to use it for bookmarking on my iPhone, but it was too clunky
saltcod: The Add To Reading list was just more convenient so it won out
melchoyce: But I’ve learned never to exclude anything someone *might* do, because there’s always one person, haha
saltcod: true true true
melchoyce: Add to reading list?
saltcod: In mobile Safari — it’s hooked up to all the apps
melchoyce: Ah, okay
saltcod: in twitter or HN or whatever, I can always add to reading list
saltcod: then I’ll comb through those later
saltcod: I’d love to be able to easily make bookmarks through pressthis on my phone though
melchoyce: What was the process like, trying to use Press This on your phone? (If you remember)
saltcod: I don’t actually. But I remember trying to use that, and then trying to use the wp.com app, but neither was convenient enough
melchoyce: Cool cool
melchoyce: That’s all the questions I have. Thanks! 🙂
saltcod: done and done!
Press This Working Group for Core 