​​750 Words V2
​​NOTES / What's new with V2?
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  • ​​What is this? I’ll keep it super simple and just keep this doc updated with the latest changes and news and thoughts happening as V2 is being built. Feel free to add comments or questions.
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​Latest updates: 

  • ​​Improved the dark theme for writing words, and added a new lower contrast dark theme. Go to Account > Edit Preferences to switch them on or off.
  • ​​Added a page for badges.
  • ​​Added a button to write a note of inspiration to the writer’s page if you’ve earned a badge in the last month.
  • ​​Added a ​❤️​ button to notes of inspiration
  • ​​You can now tab​ in the entry writing composer thing, and hitting shift-return​ will create a newline without the extra spacing of a new paragraph. 
  • ​​December:
  • ​​Added an unsubscribe link to the daily nudge email
  • ​​Fixed the pie charts on the stats page that were sometimes backwards
  • ​​Added a link to search your entries on V1 (from the search results page) if you’ve linked accounts
  • ​​Updated profile pages so the CURRENT BADGES section shows up-to-date and precise stats instead of the generic badge description
  • ​​Added testimonials to the daily nudge, if any exist from the last 7 days. 
  • ​​November:
  • ​​Added new.750words.com now that we’re moving out of the super early adopters enter at your own risk stage of things.
  • ​​Added badges for the Epic Trilogy (500k words written) and NaNoWriMo (writing 50k words in a month).
  • ​​Added current badges to the post-login screen. Let us know if you like it or not!
  • ​​Invited a bunch of new people because V1 was down for a day. Welcome!
  • ​​October:
  • ​​There’s now a ​✏️​ icon on metadata pages that allows you to fix typos, and archive metadata that you don’t mean to create.
  • ​​September:
  • ​​Working on upgrading Tiptap, which is the framework I’m using for the composer (the thing you type in that formats text and allows some formatting. 
  • ​​Fixed entries to properly display all international characters.
  • ​​July: 
  • ​​Playing around with a “word of the day” on the post-login page.
  • ​​Added a way to resend email confirmations (finally!)
  • ​​Fixed the problem with the dark theme getting reset after logging out
  • ​​Added “mindset” to the entry stats page, and labels to the charts
  • ​​Added a banner for when your “Free trial” is running out
  • ​​Changed the subject line of daily nudge emails when you’ve already completed your writing
  • ​​Fixed the “Cheat Days” feature so it actually opens now
  • ​​June:
  • ​​You can browse months from profile pages, and see your streak by hovering over days.
  • ​​Re-arranging some of the archive pages to make them (hopefully) a bit more intuitive.
  • ​​Profiles will now indicate if they’re a V1 or V2 member. 
  • ​​March: 
  • ​​Added a search box to the account page.
  • ​​Added an export button to the monthly entry page.
  • ​​Added links to metadata on the entry stats page to list all other entries that used that metadata.
  • ​​Added a “protect your streak” option to the account page that will patch your streak for one missed day. Also hinting at future features around scheduling days off and vacation days.
  • ​​Added writing streak to the compose page so you can get a better idea of how many days you’ve written in a row as motivation.
  • ​​Added 2 new badges, the Novella and Book badges for 10K and 50K words written, respectively. 
  • ​​February:
  • ​​Putting the finishing touches on a way for people to get a series of prompts when they first join the site. 
  • ​​January: 
  • ​​Added 4 new badges for simply showing up and writing any number of words. They are triggered at 100 days, 1000 days, 2000 days, and 3000 days. I will likely add some badges in between these, but wanted to get the major milestones in there first.
  • ​​December: 
  • ​​Starting to work on groups, which is a big big request over the years. Basically the ability to pair 750 Words with classes, courses, and other challenges. If you have thoughts about this stuff feel free to leave a comment here.
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​Known issues:

​​Email support@750words.com​ with any feedback and issues you don’t see listed here.
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​Recently fixed (please let me know if you are still seeing these problems)
  • ​​July 6th: Entries were not saving properly the first few hours of July 6th
  • ​​July 6th: Safari lagginess issue part 2 (happens when passing 750)
  • ​​Mostly fixed… but not 100% fixed. Will return to it a bit later since I want to make progress on other things, but please report any lagginess you experience!
  • ​
    Sat, May 23, 2020
    ​May 15th-July 3rd: Safari lagginess. There’s an issue on iPad/iPhone (and in Safari) where the writing becomes sluggish after a while. Perhaps some kind of javascript issue? [via Jon, Christin]
  • ​​July 3rd update: Pushing the fix to production. Hoping everything is now working.
  • ​​June 29th update: Still trying to figure this out. So frustrating. Now going to take the drastic measures of re-building the writing page up from nothing, to try and find the culprit here.
  • ​​June 11th update: it fixes it sometimes, but it’s still happening… the search continues!
  • ​​June 1st update: Pushed a potential fix to this on Jun 1st, waiting to see if it fixes the problem. 
  • ​
    Sat, May 23, 2020
    ​May 23rd: Some of the stats on the front page are incorrect (it might say you have a 0 day streak when in fact you have a streak). [via Evy]
  • ​​There was a save error for a specific badge that prevented saving. I fixed that case but it may come up again.
  • ​​May 22nd: Some people reporting that a stray distraction is showing up at the end of a day’s writing. [via Evy] 
  • ​​July 3rd: I can’t reproduce this. I think there are some ways to make distractions visible to people so it’s easier to know when they happen. 
  • ​
    Sat, May 23, 2020
    ​May 18th: There’s no “forgot password” flow for people who forget their passwords. If this happens to you, for now just send me an email at support@750words.zendesk.com​ and we can work it out. [via Vicki]
  • ​​May 23rd: A rudimentary “reset your password” flow was implemented.
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​Launch checklist:

​​Things that need to work before launching this to beta testers.
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  • ​​Basic site stuff
  • ​​Signing up, logging in
  • ​​Reset password
  • ​​Resend email confirmation
  • ​​Make sure the site works in all browsers
  • ​​Make sure performance is okay on iPad 
  • ​​Migrating stuff from the old 750
  • ​
    Fri, May 1, 2020
    ​Linking accounts to the old 750 is possible, stats are imported
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    Fri, May 1, 2020
    ​Track subscriptions on old 750 so people don’t double pay
  • ​​Import entry text from 750
  • ​​Import metadata from old 750
  • ​​Import monthly challenge badges from old 750
  • ​​Add people to monthly challenge when they connect accounts
  • ​​Writing and stats
  • ​
    Wed, Apr 1, 2020
    ​Can write words on web and it doesn’t suck
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    Fri, May 1, 2020
    ​You can see your words from past days
  • ​​Badges can be earned
  • ​​All existing badges are drawn
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    Sun, Feb 21, 2021
    ​Nest
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    Sat, Oct 24, 2020
    ​Griffin
  • ​​Sphynx
  • ​​Rooster
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    Tue, Mar 9, 2021
    ​Night Bat
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    Tue, Mar 9, 2021
    ​Patron
  • ​​Muse
  • ​
    Tue, Nov 30, 2021
    ​NaNoWriMo
  • ​​All new badges are drawn
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    Thu, Dec 17, 2020
    ​Badges for showing up and writing any number of words
  • ​​Early Adopter (signing up before end of 2021)
  • ​​Anthology (750k words)
  • ​​Opus (1M words)
  • ​​Magnum Opus (2M words)
  • ​​Tour de Force (3M words)
  • ​​Historical Treasure (4M words)
  • ​​Interplanetary Archive (5M words)
  • ​​Galactic Library (6M words)
  • ​​You can see how many people have earned a badge and how each badge is earned
  • ​​Can see basic stats for your entries
  • ​​Even better stats
  • ​​Support linguistic analysis in other languages
  • ​​Collective stats
  • ​​A new Eternity page that doesn’t break the site
  • ​​Metadata is captured in entries and shown on the stats page
  • ​
    Tue, Mar 30, 2021
    ​Metadata can be searched across entries
  • ​
    Tue, Oct 26, 2021
    ​Ability to edit/hide metadata from past entries
  • ​
    Tue, Mar 30, 2021
    ​A way to search and export past entries
  • ​​Search through all V1 entries too
  • ​
    Sat, Jul 3, 2021
    ​Writing works well on mobile
  • ​​Customization of the writing page
  • ​​Supports all languages (ttf)
  • ​​Dark mode
  • ​​Invisible text mode
  • ​​Low contrast dark mode
  • ​​Larger text / higher contrast mode
  • ​​Colorblind-friendly mode
  • ​​Full-screen writing mode (fluid width)
  • ​​Other cool modes
  • ​​Groups
  • ​
    Wed, Feb 17, 2021
    ​A way for people to create groups that allow customization and coordination with courses, classes, and other things off 750
  • ​​A way for the group owner to pay for other members of the group with volume discounts and fair billing and invoiced billing
  • ​
    Wed, Feb 17, 2021
    ​Custom challenges and courses
  • ​​Private groups where people don’t show up in the main writer’s page and get a separate experience
  • ​​Informational pages
  • ​​A homepage for logged out people explaining what the site is about
  • ​​About page, Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, etc
  • ​​Profile pages
  • ​​Badges
  • ​​See how many days a person has written in the current month
  • ​​Ability to share summary stats for entries
  • ​​Upload a profile photo
  • ​​Monthly Challenge
  • ​​Support what 750 already does with these
  • ​​Make it even better
  • ​​Allow custom challenges
  • ​​Testimonials
  • ​​Import existing from the old 750
  • ​​A better way to leave testimonials that others can read
  • ​​Email 
  • ​​The daily nudge
  • ​​With testimonials 
  • ​​When you earn a badge
  • ​​Monthly summary
  • ​​Monthly challenge updates
  • ​​Membership
  • ​​People can pay for a membership
  • ​​People can cancel a membership
  • ​​Writing is gated by membership / trials
  • ​​People can gift a membership
  • ​​Extras and goodies
  • ​​Buy a streak patch (for future missed dates)
  • ​​Vacation mode
  • ​​Regular days off
  • ​​Different goal word counts
  • ​​Localization
  • ​​Set up a system to allow localized strings to be used
  • ​​Tag all the strings
  • ​​Come up with a workflow for translating strings
  • ​​Support another language
  • ​​Community
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​Development updates and changelog 

​​Any items a ​✨​ emoji are things that may be of interest. Everything else is as much for my own record keeping as anything else. 

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​September 2020

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​Sunday, September 6
  • ​​You can now see how many days a person has written in the current month on their profile

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​August 2020

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​Wednesday, August 26
  • ​​Pushed out the first set of features to support courses, starting with the One Month Challenge. You can join, but it’s still very ugly.
  • ​​Added ability for people to set their own “midnight” in account preferences.
  • ​​Updated the writer’s page with a timer for the end of the day and the next monthly challenge.

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​July 2020

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​Friday, July 3rd:
  • ​​Finally pushing the bug fix for the lagginess in Safari, along with a couple other small changes to the way the navigation works. 
  • ​​People should start getting an email when they earn a badge, with a link to leave a note of inspiration about it. Please report any bugs you see with this new feature!

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​June 2020

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​Monday, June 29th: 
  • ​​Seeing 8-10 people completing writing every day. I’ve personally been stuck on a very pesky bug in Safari that causes lags to happen unpredictably for the last couple weeks. Sorry for the lack of improvements lately, once I figure this out things will quickly get back on track. 
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​Tuesday, June 2nd
  • ​​Starting to think about profile images… brew install imagemagick​

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​May 2020

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​Saturday, May 23rd: 
  • ​​​✨​ Changed the layout of the logged in homepage to group people by badge that they’ve earned. I think it looks a bit better… still more iterations to go.
  • ​​Implemented a very simple “reset password” flow using Devise, which is pretty solid. Can do a pass on the flow and text for this when localization happens, but for now it works.
  • ​​Added labels for a few of the scoring possibilities that I had missed.
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​Friday, May 22nd: 
  • ​​It’s early days! But still cool seeing 5-10 people testing things out. Known issues, launch checklist, and more here.
  • ​​Started this doc to keep updates in. 
  • ​​Starting to think about re-building the “monthly challenge” feature. Super excited about it.
  • ​​Upgraded the database off of Heroku’s free one to the lowest one that is technically supported by them (Standard-0, which is $50/month). 
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​Tuesday, May 19th: 
  • ​​​✨​ Invited about 10 enthusiastic 750 Words users from our Facebook group. Already getting lots of good feedback!
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​Wednesday, May 6th:
  • ​​Integrated with Stripe, so you can technically pay for 750 words, even though we won’t require it of any early testers for quite a while. 
  • ​​Added some analytics (Amplitude, which is pretty nice) so I can track how many people log in and write and finish writing every day. 
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​April 2020

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​April 17th:
  • ​​Added Stripe’s Checkout integration
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​April 8th:
  • ​​Implemented Mailgun so I can send emails (just email confirmation so far)
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​March 2020 and earlier

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​Screenshots along the way

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