Site Feature Requests

I guess I’ll be the first ungrateful bastard to say “Well, this is nice, but would be really cool is…”

Quote button: The forums are actually really well put together. (I’ve been struggling with the god-awful GuitarHero.com forums for a couple of weeks now, so I’m especially sensitive to wanting easy to use/read forums.) However, there is no easy way to reply to/quote another person’s post. You don’t necessarily even have to include who said the comment as long as you can include a short blurb from the post you are referring to.

Wishlist / Bookmark / Favorites: I love to browse for new comics (something the wonderful cover thumbnail view make really easy, BTW!), but frequently come across titles that I don’t want to buy now but that I might want to pick up in the future. It would be great to have a way to tag them so I can keep track.

Title View: When you select a title (for instance: http://heavyink.com/title/247-Powers), it would be nice to see a list of what issues/trades/novels are available for that title. Now, you just get a general search result which (especially in the case of Powers) includes a number of issues that don’t belong there. (Update: It seems that this is only an issue when you click on a link from the search results. It gives you a “preview” with no link to the title’s summary page. The actual summary page [which I just found] is actually perfect!)

I guess I’ll be the first ungrateful bastard

Nah, we’ve already had a couple other ungrateful bastards helpful customers suggesting things… for which we thank you. Really!

A wishlist is already on our to-do list, fairly high up. I’ve added “quote button” to the list as well, though I’m afraid I’ve added it pretty far down at the moment.

The search result page… that might be a bit confusing at the moment. The idea is you search for something (ie Powers, just read the first trade for that, liked it), click on it, and you get the summary of the item you clicked on the right of the page while still keeping all your previous search results on the left of the page. In theory, that lets you quickly look at different things that might be the one you’re looking for. But, once you’ve actually found the right one… to get to, for example, the title page itself you need to click on “Remove Results” to the left. I think that last part is what’s confusing, and we should clear that up.

Thanks for the feedback!

The summary is great – if I was going to grab a single issue, that is a perfect method! It would be handy to have a link there, however, to take you to the full page (or a larger, shinier “Remove Results” button!).

What is the best way to order something that is not a subscription, but is available via Diamond/solicits already?

Here’s my example: I wanted to get the tie-in issues to the upcoming Batman crossover that are NOT being run in the main Bat-titles. This means two issues of Robin, and two issues of Nightwing.

What I did: I filled my cart with all four issues, and then clicked “buy.”

Which is great, except that those issues will sit as an order on my page and in the system until the issues come out—next January. Does that clog your system at all? I assume you guys will be triggered to ship when the items arrive?

My only suggestion here would be that there is some kind of system set up to handle the individual items that can be preordered as they are solicited in Previews. It would be nice if there were some way for those items to appear on a separate page before they come out, maybe in such a way that they can be easily deleted until shipping if one changes their mind…although I assume I can cancel an order for something that hasn’t come out yet?

The other issue it brings to my mind is the issue of updating solicits. I’ve already noticed several items throughout the site with outdated solicitation information, whether it be the write-up itself or a change in release date. Is there a system in place to pull the latest information from Diamond and update existing solicits?

Thanks again.

Here’s my example: I wanted to get the tie-in issues to the upcoming Batman crossover that are NOT being run in the main Bat-titles. What I did: I filled my cart with all four issues, and then clicked “buy.” Does that clog your system at all?

That will work just fine! You’ll just have line items in our system marked as pending, and every time we do shipping we just ship every line item where we have stuff in stock. If for some reason we don’t get the expected number of copies, people with subscriptions get priority, but otherwise we’ll ship stuff in the order it was ordered

My only suggestion here would be that there is some kind of system set up to handle the individual items that can be preordered as they are solicited in Previews. It would be nice if there were some way for those items to appear on a separate page before they come out, maybe in such a way that they can be easily deleted until shipping if one changes their mind…although I assume I can cancel an order for something that hasn’t come out yet?

Actually, you can cancel anything you’ve ordered up until about, oh, five minutes before it ships, regardless of whether it was a preorder or already instock or whatever. We realize that we’ll probably lose some money doing that, but hopefully we’ll also gain some loyal customers. I mean, why should buying comics suck? We do not like suck.

Given that, I don’t see a need for a separate preorder section, unless there’s something else I’m missing.

The other issue it brings to my mind is the issue of updating solicits. I’ve already noticed several items throughout the site with outdated solicitation information, whether it be the write-up itself or a change in release date. Is there a system in place to pull the latest information from Diamond and update existing solicits?

Sigh. No, we don’t have anything in place yet for updating solicits. Solicits are turning out to be one of our bigger headaches. Lots of data, and the data isn’t at all nicely structured. We think we have a good approach (thanks to TJIC’s lexing and parsing skillz and Tyler’s code juggling skillz) but it’s going to be a work in progress for a little while.

Could you give an example of one or two things that you know are currently out of date? Particularly where a description has changed? Thanks!

This is the big example I noticed, Superman 668:

http://heavyink.com/comic/1167-Superman-668

The content of that issue has been shunted to an Annual, and that issue (I believe) actually has the content of issue 669, which is part one of a new storyline.

Also, on my Subscriptions page, a few of the issues I haven’t gotten shipped yet (Fell, Local) have release dates in the past (October 31 for Fell, for example) and I know the issue hasn’t come out yet, because it has been delayed. (Or maybe the issue IS out, and you just don’t have it in stock—is that something worth noting on the subscription page?).

Saw the “Recent Happenings” box on the main page, by the way, and I love it!! Though it may need to get bigger once this place starts rocking. :)

Sorry, I really am. Please tell me if you want me to shut up. Privately, so as not to humiliate me in public. My ego is fragile, and I cry easily.

The “Recent Happenings” page—does it have any kind of time limit on how/what it pulls for the boxes? Looks like it grabs random bits of content from those four areas, which is fine…except I’d suggest limiting it by date, so that it’s only the material from one day, or one week, or something.

Otherwise it could start pulling in posts that are months old at some point, which wouldn’t really represent the latest and greatest activity on the site.

I will go do work now.

Good grief. I was aware that we can get updated information on the release dates (and that will be built into the next version of our solicitation tool), but jeez on the Superman thing. We’ll figure out something.

As for “Recent Happenings”... It pulls randomly from a limited number of the most recent events. Its not by date, but its close enough.

The truly sucky part is that I don’t know if there’s even an existing electronic database where solicit information is updated to draw from…especially crap like that Superman thing, which is happening more and more at DC especially as creator delays push storylines back and forth.

So good luck with that! :)

So I think I came up with an idea to maybe at least put one approach to the communication issue, and how it’s done, along with the issue of how to track stuff that appears on the site:

1) There’s an RSS for tracking blogs on everyone’s profile, right? What if you can choose what you want to track; blog posts, blog replies, comments, or all activity? Also, could this feed be spit into a page on the feedee’s user page, so that I can click on a spot in my page and see a list of all the RSS stuff that I haven’t read yet? (Basically, a small RSS reader for the site itself, is what I’m thinking.) My friends on the site: I will want to track everything they do. New friends on the site: I will want to start probably by tracking their blogs, maybe comments. It’d be nice to have those options.

I’m trying to use the RSS feeds wherever possible to track the parts of the site I want to follow, but it would be nice if that functionality were integrated into the site itself, so I didn’t have to surf to a feed reader or mentally “exit” the site to scroll thru my feeds using Firefox.

2) In terms of tracking new blog posts, new reviews, new forum posts, and new messages throughout the site—again, I think an (optional?) RSS feed is one thought. Right off the main page, where you have the Recent Happenings, there would be buttons for each, or at least, for the blogs and reviews. Maybe not the forum and probably not the new members.

I can’t speak for everyone here, but for now at least, I would love to know when someone has posted a new blog, and when someone has posted a new review, site-wide. I guess as this place grows, that becomes an unseemly number of items to plow through, but even then, if I’m really into this as a community, then I want to participate in the community, not in my limited circle of the community. And the RSS option makes it up to the user—you can put up a page that just has a link to your blog on it, which you will probably never touch (I’ve already seen that happen), or create a page with limited content, or jump in and really get into the whole shebang.

For my part, I can say that I rate the effectiveness of an online social networking site totally on its functionality. This is why MySpace sucks, and I only go there when I have to. This place is really close already, which is AMAZING.

One other thing: Any plans for private messaging between members?

Matt, your comments on RSS dovetail nicely with some conversations we’ve been having here, particularly the part about the “small RSS reader for the site itself”. RSS is great for finding out when new stuff exists, but it doesn’t really work in the context of poking around and interacting on the site itself.

We originally thought an RSS feed for “all reviews” would be too much, but it’s probably easy enough to add that we should probably just do it.

What do you think about the idea of the RSS feed by default containing all blog posts and reviews of one’s friends?

Also, any thoughts on the usefulness of email integration for this stuff? I think I might like to be able to specify that I get notified about any blurbs sent to me, or replies to comments I leave, etc.

I do think we’ll add private messaging as well, probably in the medium term given the amount of stuff to do on our list!

Re: e-mail integration…great idea. If it could be customizable, that would be great too. You could offer that either by e-mail frequency (notification as items appear, or in a “daily digest” format) or by type of stuff to get e-mails about (e-mail about new orders, no e-mails for new blog posts).

Re: default/blog posts/reviews…so if I understand correctly, what would happen is that if I add a friend to my RSS feed, it will automatically send me a notification about both their blog posts and their reviews? I like that a lot too.

Then maybe items like blog post comments and page blurbs are RSS feeds that aren’t automatic, but added manually—there’s a button if you want to add it, but it’s not an automatic part of everything.

I think the first goal should be moving the communication so that it isn’t dependant on the blurbs to any serious extent, other than as a “hey how are you,” unless there’s an RSS feed. But even so, any conversation I’ve had on the blurbs could just as easily have become a post on the forum. Dunno how you start “training” users to move over here and converse; hopefully it will happen naturally.

So the blogs and reviews are for users to communicate with the world. Replies to blogs and reviews are for comments on your communications. The forum is for conversations, and the blurbs are for greetings. That’s how I see it, at least. :)

So the blogs and reviews are for users to communicate with the world. Replies to blogs and reviews are for comments on your communications. The forum is for conversations, and the blurbs are for greetings.

This sounds right to me! I wish I could say we had this clear of a picture when we we started building it, but at least we realized that a lot of the usage would emerge organically. Thanks for being, um, organic!

Something my current retailer does that might be helpful is offer title groups. Say, for example, that I want to buy everything related to X-Men. If I put down a subscription to that title group I get every regular series, mini-series, one-shot, etc. without having to stay on top of it. It’s an especially great thing for titles like BPRD/Hellboy where you’re dealing with what’s solicited as a series of various mini-series.

They offer additional discounts for getting title groups as well.

Overall though, great job on the site. My current retailer is a friend of mine that I’ve known since high school and I’ve been buying from them since they first opened, but you’re seriously making me consider switching. Free shipping (as long as it’s insured) is a major boon that would save me around $5 a month and mean I don’t have to just get my subs shipped monthly.

Something my current retailer does that might be helpful is offer title groups. Say, for example, that I want to buy everything related to X-Men.

Absolutely! We plan to offer subscriptions by franchise, by author, etc. etc.

My current retailer is a friend of mine that I’ve known since high school and I’ve been buying from them since they first opened, but you’re seriously making me consider switching.

We’d love to have your business, but you’re also welcome to hang out here to talk or read about comics even if you still buy them locally.

Free shipping (as long as it’s insured)

I’m afraid insurance isn’t something we offer on free shipping.

I wanted to add a few comics to my cart from the same search results page and had to add one at a time to the cart. That is add a comic to the cart, go back a page add another comic, go back a page, add another comic. This is a common thing among on-line retailers. Maybe some kind of check box or something so that you can add a few without having to go back. That would be nice.

BTW, looking good for just opening up the shop.

Here’s an idea: Can I have a single page to display all the books coming my way from subscriptions and individual pre-orders, preferably sorted by expected release date?

What I’d like is a way to quickly skim my selections to figure out .when. I can expect to get stuff and .what. I can expect to get. I’ve only placed one actual “order” from you guys so far, and that won’t come out until January, so I can’t tell how much info I’ll find on my Orders page.. but I’ve made a few subscriptions, one of which had an issue come out this week, and I can’t find any info on whether my title’s on it’s way.

The front page seems to be a mix of books, ranging from just came out this week to coming soon. I’m thinking, to highlight the social interaction bits of HI, how about a “New this week” page? And if I can click on a title and get a little pop up like this that will allow me to rate and review, we’re laughing.

I see it serving two important purposes – first, I’ll get the one thing NO comic shop gives you. A complete list of what became available this week. Most comic shops, at best, will show you what was new that week that they brought in. Most, have a new rack, and when a title is gone, if you never saw it, and never expected it, you’ll never know, until months later, and you see issue #3, and you’re like, “Maaan. How did I miss this?”

Secondly, it’ll help fill up the ratings and reviews really quick – right now, it’s a three step process (two, if the title happens to be on the front page) – you search, click, and click to rate/review. It’s not a lot faster this way, but the searching is gone, and the searching is the one step that makes people go “I dunno – too much hassle.”

I post this, in spite of the fact that I am dead certain the HI guys are already thinking about stuff like this. I post regardless, because Matt says lots and I feel left out.

You’re right. We are already thinking about stuff like this. ;) Something similar to this will be available rather soon.

I did not, however, think of the popup idea. Interesting.

Ok, to give some background, I haven’t read comics, graphic novels, or so on since I was a wee kid who would pick up an issue once every blue moon of G.I.Joe, Transformers, or X-Men (mostly because I couldn’t get enough of those cartoons :p). So now I’m really interested in the stuff, but have no idea really where to dive in. Recommendations are cool, but since they require me to rate, and I’ve not read ANYthing, it’s a bit hard for me to rate. So thus my suggestion would be to have some sort of wizard-type-thingy that I could go through that would divine my tastes from the questions it asks then spit out what it thinks I might like.

On the Browse pages, can you please put the “Next Page” bar at the bottom, rather than at the top of the page. I want the next page after I’ve gotten to the bottom of the current page, without having to scroll back up to the top. Thank you.

On the Browse pages, can you please put the “Next Page” bar at the bottom

Yup, should be fixed this coming week!