BodySpace Official News Blog

Both: "Wonder Twin powers, Activate!”

Jayna: “Shape of a condor!”

Zan: “Form of water!”

Yes, boys and girls, it’s time to transform your BodySpace profiles and BodyBlogs into truly marvelous works and wonders!  Shaping and forming your body has never been more fun!

Since we recently started highlighting BodySpace member profiles and blogs on the SuperSite main page, people have been wondering how can they get picked?  Well, it’s easy, actually - take it up a notch!

SuperSite Community Section

Each week we’re selecting 16 new forum/BodySpace members to be featured on the SuperSite main page in the “Community” section:  four (4) each in the areas of “BodySpace Members,” “BodyBlogs,” “Photo Gallery,” and “Featured Forum Topics.”

We’re featuring the most active and motivated BodySpace members, and it’s not hard at all to enter into the running!  We’re looking for:

- BodySpace Profiles that are completely filled out (including stats, favorites, videos, photos, etc.)
- Active commenters
- Active quality forum posters (no trolls)
- Activated BodyBlogs with frequent posts
- Those with active mutual friends lists (not just stalkers)

In short, just help us test out all the features of BodySpace Beta (as they continue to evolve), and we’ll help direct traffic your way!   =)

If case you missed it, there is a slick feature in your BodySpace profile control panel that let’s you see who is visiting your profile, broken down by date, with links to member profiles and also a guest count.  Check it out!

Oops, Skippy did it again (watch out, Britney)… he added another wonderful feature to BodySpace!  Now, you can receive instant email notifications when people add you as a friend!

What’s more, the emails are smart - meaning that they will reflect whether or not that person was added as a fan or a mutual friend.  Pretty slick, Skip.

This feature has been activated for active members, but if you wish to turn off the emails, you may do so, of course, by visiting your friends control panel and looking for the appropriate setting.   =)

The observant among us might have noticed today that the latest profile pics are now displayed in a “paged” view, instead of in a huge column.  This allows for faster loading times, and also for making more total profile pics viewable.  Kudos to Skippy for this improvement!

Look for this type of paged view in other sections of BodySpace soon!  =)

Michael has added a cool, behind-the-scenes feature into the Search For Another User page.  It’s an Ajax routine that tries to pre-guess who you’re searching for (or suggest who you might want to search for).

Pretty slick, Mike!  Reps.

Mike has fixed a somewhat esoteric, yet strangely potent bug in the BodyBlogs (discovered by Richard - thank you, thank you…) where if a URL contained a question mark (and hence contained a query string) and there were more than 30-40 characters after the question mark, the rest of the blog post would be broken.

This has been fixed.  So, blog away, all you long-ol’ URL-linking, query-string-writin’, power-user blogging fiends!  =)

Skippy divulged a top secret BodySpace link today, partially against his better judgement.  (Sssshhhhh!)  Check it out, but don’t tell anyone…  (Oh, and you didn’t hear it from me.)

http://bodyspace.bodybuilding.com/activity.php?section=friends

UPDATE: this link was three separate, secret links, but have now been consolidated into one ginormous page with all three.  It’s also been linked to on the left-hand navigation on several pages, entitled “Most Friends.”

UPDATE #2: this link is no longer “hidden”… it’s now on your profile page in the left-hand column, at the bottom.  =)

UPDATE #3: oops, it’s hidden again!  Teehee.

Two new feedback mechanisms have been added today to the BodyBlog section by Mike.

1) For those that has seen the mysterious token problem when trying to edit blog posts, there is now a token feedback input form on that error page - use it to submit feedback on the token problem to help us track down this slippery beast.  =)

2) There is also a main BodyBlog Feedback Page linked to from the BodyBlog main page (under “Other Features”).  Use it to submit various and sundry types of feedback, including (but not limited to):

• Bug Reports
• Praise
• Suggestions
• Kudos
• Feature Requests
• Dating Solicitations, etc.  =)

Mike has added improved support for “HTML entities” (special characters like foreign letters with accents) in the BodyBlogs.  If you’re blogging in another language, you may now add accented characters from different alphabets into your blog post with greater ease, using the standard HTML entities in common usage on the web.

Skippy has impressed me yet again, this time with a total rewrite of the member listing.  Clicking on Member Listing used to take you to the forum’s list of 5 gazillion forum profiles, which was not only slow but completely cumbersome.

Now, however, it takes you to a nice, fast, user-friendly member listing and search feature that shows all 381,364 members*, completely searchable, and accessible by first letter of the alphabet.  In addition, their avatar is shown along with their rep points, # of posts, date of last activity, and their BodySpace goal.  Nice!  Check it out here:

http://bodyspace.bodybuilding.com/members.php

*As of the time of this post.

Michael has implemented the new “Totally Random” feature of the BodyBlogs.  Every time you visit the following page, it’ll be different - so give it a try (and a try, and another try…)  Kudos, Mike!  =)

http://blog.bodybuilding.com/activity.php?feature=Totally_Random

For some yet unknown reason, we had thousands of hits this morning from the nether regions Netherlands to one specific inactive profile, which is completely weird.  No harm done, other than we had to scratch our heads and wonder why anyone in their natural mind would waste their time like that…?  Bizarre.

Skippy, in an effort to seem friendlier (apparently), has rewritten the whole BodySpace friends module, and the results are OUTSTANDING!  If you visit your friends control panel, you’ll see what I’m talking about!  In addition to the friends count being 100% correct now everywhere, you now can see your friends classified into three distinct groups:

1.) My Fan Club (people who added me, but I haven’t added them - in other words, the people stalking me)

2.) Mutual Friends (we both have added each other)

3.) People I’m Stalking (I’ve added them, but they haven’t added me)

Pretty darn slick, if you ask me, and funny as crap, too!  Kudos, Skippy!  =)

Skippy made it easier (and faster) today to add friends.  Instead of using the forum “Buddy List” like it previously was, BodySpace now bypasses it. Yes, a minor change, perhaps, but it makes it faster and simpler to add friends.  And, if you’re like me, and have over 200 friends (yes, I’ve been called a BodySpace whore!), all those extra saved seconds start to add up! Kudos, Skippy!  =)

We’ve officially launched our group blog for the 2006 Olympia!  We’ve hand-picked 5 contributing authors to help keep you up-to-date on all the buzz surrounding the big ‘O’ for the next 3 weeks!

Look for introductions from our writers today; followed tomorrow by predictions, rumours, competitor previews, photos, and more - here:

http://blog.bodybuilding.com/OlympiaBlog

…followed by reviews and photos by SecondFocus (photographer Ian L. Sitren) and our writers, as well, after the event.  You won’t want to miss it!

Our crack team of literary genius includes the five following BodySpace/forum members:

• bmal89
• Crissy
• Lintford
• sirjinkz05
• surfgod777

Plus some yet-to-be-revealed special guest bloggers, as well!

So, be sure to bookmark the official Bodybuilding.com 2006 Olympia Blog today (and, heck, subscribe to the RSS feed, as well)!

Las Vegas, here we come!   =)

Mike has added the ability to change the “slug” in BodyBlog category URL’s.  This can come in handy in several situations, so if you find yourself wishing that part of your BodyBlog URL was different, try changing the slug!  This feature can be found in your BodyBlog “Manage Blog” section, under ‘Categories.’

Mike has also fixed one of those annoying token problems that some people are seeing.  (If you see more, please let us know.  We need your help in identifying these issues since they are hard to recreate sometimes!)

Comment counting on BodyBlog entries has been fixed.  (There used to be a bug where even if you deleted that first annoying default comment in your very first blog entry, it would still say you had one comment even when you had none.  This has been rectified.)

Additionally, Mike has fixed a minor blog editing annoyance with how double quotes (") and other HTML entities (ampersands, brackets, etc.) are displayed in the editing interface.  (They’re displaying properly now - thanks, Mike!)

Well, Skippy and Jeran have been busy making some graphical improvements to the BodySpace main page, including an nicer-looking image replacement to yesterday’s yellow menu bar, and also comment and image counts on your profile for your gallery images.  Kudos to Skippy and Jeran!  =)

In addition to the new "favorite videos” section that Skippy finished earlier, he’s now added a section specifically for videos of you (also using YouTube)!

In addition, you can see who has added video to their profiles via the new yellow bar on the BodySpace main page!

Michael B. has been a busy beaver!  (Ha ha, making light of his tooth situation.)  Here’s a list of improvements he’s made to the BodyBlogs:

1) A new “Featured Blogs” section is now available.  Are you listed??

2) Below each blog post (on both your blog main page, as well as your category/archive pages), you’ll find a new, spiffier shaded comment box.  This easier-to-use section now not only displays the current comment count, but also displays a bit of the most recent comment for your viewing pleasure, in addition to making it more apparent to your blog visitors how to leave a comment.  =)

3) Managing your blog just got easier!  There is now a sweet little administration area at the top of your blog pages with 3 of the most commonly-used features: “Manage Blog,” “Write Post,” and “Change Settings.”  Enjoy!

4) All BodyBlogs now have context-sensitive blog stats.  What does that mean?  Well, take a closer look - your blog stats (located in the left-hand column on your blog pages) will change depending on which section you’re in (main blog page, blog category, blog archive, blog post, blog page).  This shows you such things as how many people have visited that section, when it was created, when it was last modified, etc.  A boon to you closet statisticians out there (you know who you are)!

5) There is also a “What We Are Working On” section on the BodyBlog Portal page, for those that would like to get a glimpse of what’s coming down the pike.

Kudos, Mike!  =)