Our Latest Release…
Last night we made making our latest release which includes several additions, fixes, and features.
The highlights include our new install method which is designed for a better user experience and to make the install more seemless and intuitive.
Next, our comment system has undergone a facelift to make it simpler and easier to use. This comes with ability for users to substitute several buttons with text links. The effects of this change create a dramatically less intimidating comment system for publishers who feel that less is more. This has been one of the most requested items by our users. The feedback we received raised the priority of simplifying our comment system.
There are also options for small, medium, and large versions for those that would like to customize the size of the comment system.
Another requested feature since our open beta launch has been the ability to customize your OpenID for a user account. Once again, this is based on user feedback, which we love.
Finally, there is now an ability to edit the URL, RSS, and title for a blog after install. This was definitely needed as sometimes we all make a spelling error or need to change our blog title later on.
On a side note, we unfortunately had a couple bugs this morning from this release. We worked as quickly as we could to solve the problem and I apologize for any inconvenience. If anyone sees any further problems please let us know (contactus at intensedebate dot com).
If you have any feedback on this release or would like to shape our next release, feel free to ping us or make a request in the forums.
Update: To change the size of your comment system, visit the comment theme link under your blog’s tab. You will also find a way to convert from buttons to text links on this page if you are looking for a simpler interface.
Posted by Isaac Keyet in News
IntenseDebate - Official Blog 
Guys – very nice release. I had some pain from the bugs that crept in but you got on top of them and fixed them quickly. A week in and I'm really enjoying ID – I'm definitely interacting with my comments much differently than I did before.
Trackbacks. Please.
Also, I've tried importing my existing comments on two blogs and it didn't work. One blog gave an error and the other showed the sql import but nothing when into the iD system.
I know I could do this manually (trackbacks), but it would only work if I went with ID for all comments not just new ones.
Thats great! We are definitely pushing hard. There are more great things on the way.
My main concern with the bugs in the upgrade was a lack of communication. Emails were not responded to, there was no notice posted anywhere on Intense Debate that the problems were recognized and being worked on, and meanwhile I watched traffic and readership suffer because of a confusing popup that made it seem like readers (many of them new) were somewhere they weren't supposed to be.
Half a day to fix is fast enough but next time I would recommend a "sorry, we're working on it" post to this blog or to the Intense Debate post-login screen. That shows that you are primarily concerned with serving your users rather than hoping people won't notice there's a problem before it's fixed. It also provides some comfort to those of us experiencing the problems because we know you actually do know there is an issue and are working on a solution. You have a very young product and trust is crucial to build and maintain your user base. Please consider including some sort of alert or notification step in your bug fix protocol in the future.
Thanks for a nice service and for all you do.
Thank you for the feedback Jeremiah. We will definitely try to do better at communicating with users during downtime. We sincerely apologize. Our biggest concern was getting everything working. We will definitely take better care during our next release.
I'm new to ID, having just added to my weblog this evening. I have to say that thus far I am impressed. You guys have put a lot of work into this, and it definitely shows.
Just one thing… I tried importing my existing WordPress comments into the ID database, and it didn't seem to work. My blog is over 4 years old. Perhaps there were too many, or maybe this feature is still being worked on?
Also, I really like the way you have the comments show up on the same page on this blog. Can you tell us how that is done? Is it something the rest of us can do? (I was using a show/hide comments plugin with the WP comment system.)
Thanks… and sorry for babbling on so!