Feedback on Tabular View & other things

[brownrice]

The tabular layout is great. Reminds me of what Furl looked like...
before the redesign. But missing some important features THAT FURL
USED TO OFFER. The whole redesign is still a major downgrade, NOT an
upgrade.

Where is the group file management feature? Why do I have to delete or
move files individually, instead of simply being able to check a box
and delete/move file groups LIKE I CAN IN EVERY SIMPLE E-MAIL PROGRAM?
(Like I could do before the redesign?)

Why is it so slow?

Why is the search feature so weak?

Why is there no sub-folder feature?

Why can't I sign non-furl users to my "share" list, like I used to be
able to do?

All these are simple features offered in basic e-mail programs (except
the sub-folder feature)

Still really disappointed in this program. If it is sold, I hope the
new owner will develop it to its full potential and make it a really
useful tool.

[Furl_PM]

Thanks for your feedback, and for highlighting key features that you'd
like to see live on Furl. Your feedback is tremendously helpful for
us to prioritize our development queue. We have a ton of changes
queued up for Furl. If you haven't already, please take a look at
the posting on our blog from yesterday. It highlights some features
that are live, but may be too hidden in our new UI.
http://blogs.looksmart.com/furl/2008/03/did-you-know.html.

A few answers to your questions from below:

>Where is the group file management feature? Why do I have to delete or move files individually, instead of simply being able to check a box and delete/move file groups LIKE I CAN IN EVERY SIMPLE E-MAIL PROGRAM? (Like I could do before the redesign?)

Furl_PM: We moved this feature to something called 'bulk editing". To
manage multiple items at once go to: http://furl.net/my/archive
scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Enter Bulk Edit Mode".
You'll have the option to click any Furled item(s) on the page and
then click the "F" icon menu to add them to a topic, move, mark as
read, change public / private status or delete. We'll take this
feedback on managing your items back to our design team to see if we
can't make this more usable feature.

>
> Why is it so slow?
>

Furl_PM: In regards to performance, we're fine tuning our new system
now. The bottom line is that when you have a new system you have
kinks to iron out. Think we went a little overboard with graphics and
advanced logic in our first implementation that is unnecessarily
complicated.

> Why is the search feature so weak?

Furl_PM: Need more detail about which Search function you are using
and what you find weak.

> Why is there no sub-folder feature?
>

Furl_PM: Great suggestion - this is one commonly requested feature
that we'll need to investigate implementing.

> Why can't I sign non-furl users to my "share" list, like I used to be able to do?
>

Furl_PM: Simple answer : Spam. We'll take a look at reimplementing
now that we have a better way to identify and remove known spammers on
the site, but to enable this feature we'll need to count on the Furl's
community flagging Spam items actively.

> Still really disappointed in this program. If it is sold, I hope the
> new owner will develop it to its full potential and make it a really
> useful tool.

Furl_PM: We hope that you find Furl useful today and all of it's
future versions. We'll also work on a better way to gather your
thoughts on what features are important to you guys so we ship those
changes sooner rather than later.

Thanks for your feedback.
Regards,
Furl_PM

[brownrice]

Furl_PM,
thanks for responding to my kvetches. It's nice to know someone's
actually paying attention. SInce I know it's being read, I'll try to
adopt a less whiny attitude :-)
I do wonder why you would bury the "bulk edit" feature at the bottom
of the page and not offer it as a default main view, next to the
tabular view.
Your new design is a bit too streamlined; it's difficult to find
features which you may have included but which are now buried under
one or two intermediate icon clicks. Would rather it were a bit more
cluttered but required fewer "drilldowns."
RE: the search function, it just doesn't work too well; often I've
looked for stuff I know is in my archive & only gotten a system error
time after time. Eventually I will have to find my item manually.
Other times I've searched for keywords and gotten nothing when again,
I'm able to find the item manually and the keyword is there.

[matt3830]

I'm also having similar problems with the search. I've tagged items
with specific keywords, but when I search for them nothing comes up.

[Furl_PM]

Thanks for reporting this issue, turns out our search index was
running behind and required a quick reboot. Search should be back up
and running as expected. If you continue to see issues with Furl
Archive Search, or any other odd behavior, please post here or email
our Furl CS inbox. (furl at furl dot net)

Thanks,
Furl_PM

[Furl_PM]

Sorry for the delay in posting. Took your feedback to the development
team so we have additional UI changes going into testing this week and
hope to have them live later this week. The changes are minor but
include moving bulk editing, making RSS feeds more prominent and
improving our current pagination.

Thanks for your feedback on our current UI. We are rethinking the
functionality of the "F-menu" and would love to get this user groups
feedback on what features you click most often in Furl? Edit?
viewing cached copies? Going to the Furled site? Other? Let us know
so we can update the UI accordingly.

Finally, don't know if you saw my earlier posting, but search should
be back up and running.

Thanks!
Furl_PM

ps - take a look at this blog posting that hopefully sheds some
additional light on our new UI and how to leverage its features -
http://blogs.looksmart.com/furl/2008/03/did-you-know.html

[brownrice]

Thanks for moving the bulk edit feature up. It took me a while to
figure out that the options were under the "f". I think your older/
slower users may have trouble with that. Otherwise it looks like you
can't do anything with the items once you've checked them.
A streamlinedlook is wonderful, but it has to be user-friendly. To all
your users.
Next question, it would be great to be able to add new folders or
topics from the "furl it" window. Right now if you realize you need a
new topic for your file, you need to go into the archive, create a
topic, go back to your story and furl it. Be nice to be able to skip a
few steps there.
I have no idea how difficult that may be from the development end,
however.
Thanks,
n

[matt3830]

I think you just type the new topic in the furl it window.

[Furl_PM]

Glad you like the bulk Edit change. We're working on making the
editing options easier to find and use across the site. we'll be
introducing them to production incrementally.

Hopefully you also like our new prominent RSS feed icons across the
site as well as what we think is improved pagination.

Regarding new topics, matt3830 is right - you can create new topics
any time by typing them into the Topic section of the save dialog
box. To manage or remove them you'll need to go to the Topics page in
Furl.

Hope this helps and have a good weekend.
Furl_PM