Moving to New Servers
November 6th, 2011
We'll be moving things over to new servers today. Stay tuned...
—Stephan Smith
Account Updates this Week
October 30th, 2011
The account section will be down this week for updates. Sorry for the inconvenience! We've been overhauling most everything this weekend and will have a new Account App up and running soon.
—Stephan Smith
Minor Updates
September 11th, 2011
Things have been a bit hectic lately; several other projects have pulled us away from WallCollective for the last couple of weeks. However, throughout the next few months you should see some nice improvements headed your way.
Today we've released an update for all Walls, which makes things substantially faster than the previous versions.
Also, we'll soon be providing an updated Account App which should fix issues that an unlucky few of you have been experiencing with Chrome.
Another major project in the works is the compliation of our Public API. As soon as this is completed and documentation has been compiled, those of you who feel so inclined can begin building your own WallCollective powered sites, widgets, and such.
Updates to the official WallCollective Portfolio Sites are also in order, as well as optional themes.
Stay tuned, and thanks for using WallCollective!
—Stephan Smith
more build 1.0.1.1 stuff
June 1st, 2011
In continuing with the current roll out of the new WallCollective build, we've brought many additional pages throughout the site up to the current build version.
artist directory
The Artist Directory has received the most substantial reworking. Artists are now browsable by thumbnail-profile images. Clicking on these reveals the artist's name, short bio, location, profile image, as well as links to their wall, profile, and website.
et cetera
All pages have been updated save the documentation and artist profiles; these will follow soon. Be sure to visit the updated Goodies page and grab a button for your site or blog!
We've also added some better error pages, should you have the misfortune of running into one of those. Check them out if you like: 404, 500, construction.
Hope you enjoy these updates! There are many more soon to follow.
—Stephan Smith
new account release
May 15th, 2011
We're proud to unveil a completely redesigned, streamlined, and updated account app. We've added even more HTML5 magic and we're sure you'll be pleased.
automatic saving
That's right, no more clicking "save". Simply make your changes and we'll take care of the rest. Your changes are saved automatically. How do you know it's working? We've added a connection monitor which will let you know if anything goes wrong. So long as you see a large green light in the upper-right of your screen, you've got nothing to worry about.
new artwork tools
Managing your artwork details is now easier than ever. Simply click on a piece's thumbnail to bring up all relevant details and options. Edit your title and tags and delete your pieces from one place.
We've also updated our HTML5 drag-and-drop uploaders. You'll find faster, slicker looking drop boxes. Profile images are now uploaded using this great technology as well. And as an extra perk, we've added some slick CSS3 animation for those of you running Webkit based browsers (Safari and Chrome) or Firefox Aurora.
Hope you enjoy!
—Stephan Smith
infinite walls
April 9th, 2011
Well, not quite infinite. But we've added a nice little update to our main walls. At the bottom of each you'll find a "load more art" button, the clicking of which will add another 150 images to the current wall. You can continue clicking this button until you've gone through the entire newtork's art database (right now we're at around 1,750 pieces).
We've no doubt this will make your browsing much easier and enjoyable.
—Stephan Smith
full-featured sites
March 26th, 2011
We're glad to roll out our newest addition to WallCollective: full-featured user sites. Now every user has the option of a complete portfolio website.
While, we realize that many of our users already have their own websites, there are also many who do not. We believe that this will provide a fantastic alternative for those of you who want to start your own site, but lack either the know-how or time to do so. Anyway, we don't think artists need to spend a lot of money and time on web coding when they could be spending it on art and supplies; this is just one more way we hope to make your lives easier.
And like most things here at WallCollective, we've made it super easy. Simply go to the Website Tab of your Account Page and click "activate". That's it. If you've uploaded artwork and filled out your basic info and profile, you've got a full site up and running in one click.
Want to learn more? → Read More
—Stephan Smith
drag-and-drop uploading
March 5th, 2011
We're glad to finally be rolling out what is probably the largest improvement to the site so far: HTML5 Drag-and-Drop uploading. This new feature comes complete with file info and progress bar. Simply drag an image file from your computer to the drop-zone and watch the upload progress. Super easy. Not only is it easier to use, it's also substantially faster than our previous upload script.
This is something we've been wanting to implement for some time, and we're very excited to be able to finally do so.
Drag-and-drop uploading is only available in the following browsers: Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
We hope you enjoy this new feature!
—Stephan Smith
the latest, et cetera...
February 24th, 2011
So we've got so much work on the network now (over 1100 pieces) that it's getting more time consuming to sort through it all and keep updated with additions and such. Thus we've added a new feature and greatly enhanced an already existing one.
First, we've added a new button on the main menu, "latest." Clicking this will pull up a main wall with the most recent 100 images added by all members. This is a super easy way to see what's new, from who.
Additionally, every wall now incorporates the search bar we added last week. It's now a breeze to search through art by keyword, subject, et cetera.
Hope you enjoy!
—Stephan Smith
tagging artwork
February 18th, 2011
We've finally added the tag feature to all accounts. Now you can control how your images will be displayed in search results, and ensure that your images show up at the appropriate times.
We're very excited about this feature, as it helps make the main wall--and its new search feature--much more powerful for browsing art.
From the user guide:
Tagging your artwork ensures that your pieces are returned in search results and get as much exposure as possible.
To tag your artwork, navigate to the artwork tab of your "my account" page. From there, click on the tag icon attached to the appropriate thumbnail image. A textbox will appear under the image title; simply type in your keywords, separated by commas, and click the appropriate save icon.
—Stephan Smith
new search feature
February 17th, 2011
We've added the initial version of an artwork search feature to the homepage. Now artwork can be found by the piece title, or by the username of the artist. This is a very early version, and we do plan on adding further scope to the search, as well as incorporating it globally throughout the site.
On a related note: we will soon be adding the ability to tag your individual images with keywords and phrases. This will help not only in our search, but also in those of the major search engines.
Enjoy, and we'll have further updates soon!
—Stephan Smith
wallCollective unabridged
February 8th, 2011
UPDATE: this feature has been discontinued in favor of a more efficient approach.
We've added a new feature, which we think is pretty great.
WallCollective unabridged combines every piece of art from every artist on the network into one very impressive wall. At the moment we're sitting somewhere around 600 pieces, so that should keep you busy for a while. It's quite something to see these talents and styles stacked together.
Additionally, our main walls (unabridged included) now allow you to view enlarged images without being automatically redirected to that artist's wall; so now they now function like large versions of the individual walls.
We hope you like the updates!
—Stephan Smith
and the public beta begins
February 6th, 2011
And so we've opened up the network to everyone. So if you're already a member, invite your artist friends that we're sure you have; if you're not a member, sign up! (and then invite your friends!)
Cheers all; and thanks for stopping by WallCollective!
—Stephan Smith
wallCollective private beta
February 5th, 2011
We've been in private beta testing for the last four weeks and, so far, everything's been coming on quite nicely. A HUGE thank you to our fantastic members (all 57 of you) is in order; we truly appreciate your involvement and patience with us as we work hard to sort out those pesky bugs that seem to crop up here and there.
More than just smoothing out the wrinkles, we've been using this time to add a bunch of great new features. We've dramatically improved the main wall, which now accommodates up to 180 pieces from 30 different artists at a time, making for quite an impressive collection. The directory as well has been improved, and walls are now searchable by both member name and id.
On the individual wall end of it: users can now title their individual pieces of art, link to these pieces, and share walls through Twitter with our WallCollective Tweet box. In fact, Twitter's fantastic API has been implemented throughout the site; users can even tweet right from their accounts page.
We've also added a completely new feature: the professional profile. Each user can now create a page filled with contact info, links, and up to 4500 characters of self-selling-info! We hope that this will be another useful way for our artists to get their name, skills, and personality out there for potential customers.
And there's much more to come! We're looking at beginning public beta testing within the next week or so, which is quite exciting. So keep creating, uploading, and sharing!
—Stephan Smith