The Content Creator That You’ve Always Wanted Is Here - CoSchedule

The Content Creator That You’ve Always Wanted Is Here Back in March I started making calls. Tons of them. The recipient? You. Since this past April, I’ve talked to more than 100 different customers or potential customers that were trying our product for the first time. I learned a few things. There are a lot of marketing projects, and teams, that need organizing. There are even more spreadsheets that still need eliminating. There was a lot more that we could do here at to make your life way easier. Like waaaaaaay easier.   So, we began what has became known as the â€Å"Content UX† project here inside of , which was short for â€Å"content user experience.† It was a cumulation of everything that I learned on those calls. The goal was to make the experience of editing and managing content inside of easier and even more team-oriented. In short, we want to eliminate your spreadsheets and clumsy workarounds. The Content UX project was born, and we  made our first code changes in July. Today you finally get to use version 1.0. We’re pumped! Here are three big changes that roll out today, plus a few amazing new features that are up next. For a detailed look at every change launching today, please see this post. Here, I will be covering the bigger goals behind the features. Change #1: We Hid The Things You Didn’t Need One of the problems we wanted to address was the â€Å"clutter† that had taken place in the content creator.  As we’ve added new features, we’ve been forced to augment our existing design which wasn’t built to handle all of that power.   We’ve made it work, but it’s was ultimately time for something better. is powerful, but that doesn’t mean it needs to look complicated. #ui #redesignWith this redesign we wanted to accomplish a couple things: Hide things that you didn’t need. A few examples of this include making the headline analyzer an optional integration, along with the social queue itself (which has been renamed to Social Campaigns). Utilize the entire screen. Our new â€Å"full-screen† editing experience on the calendar gives you the space you need to do your best work. I think the results speak for themselves. The interface is cleaner, more user-friendly, and better organized around keeping your entire marketing process right on track. Change #2: We Made Even More Team Friendly Teamwork is important. To make it easier for teams to work together, we’ve added an all-new sidebar to manage all of your project activity. Tasks, comments, and team contributors are now managed in separate tabs rather than our long long-running lists.  This redesign will prevent the excessive scrolling that sometime came with larger projects. Additionally, we’ve introduced some major updates to our task management features such as the addition of unscheduled tasks, drag and drop task sorting, and an all-new â€Å"files† tab which will be launching soon. The new activity sidebar also does a better job of reporting new activity and clearing out older comments and data that are no longer as relevant. Some of our users have reported that on-boarding new team members to can be a challenge. We hope that these changes start making that process much easier. Change #3: Make Content Creation Easier   The content editor in has undergone an extreme makeover. First, we’ve completely replaced the built-in text editor with a brand new version. The new editor supports more formatting and is far more reliable than our previous solution. Creating content inside of should now be a seamless experience. Second, we added some clarity to the editor selection process, which we learned was a regular source of confusion. Now, when you create a new piece of content in you will be asked to select a single editing mode. The options include: Our *NEW* built-in text editor Google Docs Evernote WordPress File upload (Microsoft Word, images, etc.) Of course, many of you love to create and edit your content in Microsoft Word, and we’ve even added some great new features just for you. File Version Control Now, when editing our content using a traditional word processor like Microsoft Word, team members can download the file, make changes, and then re-upload the file as a new version. will maintain a history of all previous versions, which can be accessed at any time.  Everyone on the team will see that edits have been made, and will have access to a full file history. It’s the best way to bring a real-time like workflow to those tools that aren’t quite real time! Soon, we’ll also be adding support for converting Word Docs into WordPress Blog posts, so be on the lookout for that update. New to : File Version Control.Change #4, #5, #6, and #7: Coming Soon! We have a lot more in store for our content creator – all based on your suggestions. Here are a few of the things that are up next. Custom Content Types We will be rolling out an update in a few weeks that will allow you to customize the menu you use to add new content to . Fill it up as much or as little as you want. Further down the road we hope to add even more ways to create custom content types as a way to separate your content. Multiple Color Labels This feature will allow you to select multiple color labels for each piece of  content you create. This overhaul will also include the ability to add your own custom labels. Tags! Tags! Tags! Wouldn’t it be great if you could add tags to each piece of content you create for further customization? We think so too. Look for this to ship soon. Marketing Projects This feature will allow you to combine several different pieces of content or social campaigns into a single project. With this update you’ll be able to manage even the most complex of marketing projects from . Look for this one early 2017. And More! Of course, there’s a lot more to come that we aren’t ready to share. Please keep your features requests coming as well. We are always on the look out for the next big thing!

How To Stop Being So Distracted While You Write In WordPress

How To Stop Being So Distracted While You Write In WordPress Simple, less, fewer, quiet, white space–these are the trends. We want to live by the motto of less is more. We want simplification. We want our lives to be free of distraction, and we want our technology, devices, and apps to reflect that. Minimalism then, with complete functionality. This has carried over into other activities, like writing. Simplified distraction-free writing is all the rage. Written on inkpen.in, one of many online distraction-free writing apps. Distraction free writing app Draft works great, too. SimpleNote will work, too, if you want a basic writing program. Do a search on distraction free writing and youre going to find an endless number of apps and software for every device and operating system: everyone is going distraction free with their writing. Why Use Distraction Free Writing Tools? A 2011 research project by Nathaniel Welch  explored the viability of minimalistic writing software. He began by surveying people who wrote, asking them what they wrote, and what they liked and disliked about the tools they used to write. In Welchs survey, he discovered two kinds of writers: People who wrote in a corporate or academic environment want lots of features and formatting options. People who wrote for their own enjoyment or wrote fiction wanted something more minimal. What can we take away from what Welch discovered? Distracting Tools Slow Us Down Welch points out that software is made to be generic.  Microsoft Word (the king of bloated writing software) can do just about anything for everyone whether academic or corporate or personal use. That means it is so packed with features (spreadsheets! ebooks! resumes! posters! desktop publishing! memos!) that most of us dont use half of them, though if you pool all of the users they all get used somehow. Bloated and distracting software comes when you make a tool for the largest common denominator.   This means writers are carrying a 200 lb. backpack as they climb the mountain of creativity when they only needed a 5 lb. backpack. You might just want to write poetry, but youre carrying the entire toolset for corporate word processing. Distracting tools slow us down. #DistractionFreeWritingWe Are In A Battle Against Features Welch also discovered that [e]very single one of my responders despised Microsoft Word’s auto-correct but thought spell check was the most essential feature any word processor could have. We all want some features and formatting options, but we dont all want the same amount of features. Features quickly become bloat and take up space both on the screen and in our decision making process. Welch then went on to do an overview of several word processing programs, explaining that you could minimize some of those excessive features that many writers didnt want, but that it wasnt easy. Its not a simple one-click option like it is in WordPress (more on that in a bit). You had to fight against the software to make it less distracting. Why go through all that work just to turn off the features that a writing app or software is touting as its strength? Because most of us need to go into Do Not Disturb mode to really get things done. No, multi-tasking doesnt work. No, youre not going to write a detailed an insightful post with useful facts when theres a three-ring circus around you.  It wont happen. Features and options are just more things to fiddle with when you really need to just get words written. Too many features require more decisions, a waste of creative energy. #DistractionFreeWritingWriting Is Like Flying A Plane When I was a student pilot, one of the things that was drilled into me was being aware of cockpit distractions, referred to as keeping a sterile cockpit. Essentially, during any stage of flight that isnt cruise flight, pilots are required to avoid distractions that keep them from performing taxi, takeoff, landing, etc. This includes unnecessary talking, using electronic gadgets, and so forth. Pilots are supposed to pay attention and be mindful of what needs to be done. Distraction-free writing is the sterile cockpit rule for writers, especially  with blogging where  simpler is better, both in the visual look and how we approach content (even  long form content). Of course your writing isnt the same as flying a plane of people safely, but the point is clear: distractions all around us keep us from doing the job well. Noise, discomfort, and visual: these are all distractions.