Monthly Update — August 2020
Welcome to the August 2020 update from the Interactr Development team.
These updates are to keep our users in the loop with what changes have been made, what is being worked on, and some sneak peek screenshots of future updates in the pipeline.
Due to holidays, August is never the most productive month nevertheless we still have plenty of exciting things to update you on…
2.0 Update
Let's cover the most important one first. We know everybody is eagerly awaiting this update and we’re getting to the final stages now.
Whilst much of the app may appear the same once released the whole codebase has been given a much-needed service. Most of the foundations for Interactr were written in 2017, a lifetime in software years and it desperately needed an update.
We’ve re-written all the foundational code to bring it up to date with the modern tech stacks including that latest versions of React, Laravel, and GraphQL.
We plan to be ready for Beta Testing by the end of this month (September) so we will be looking for users who will be willing to help us iron out all the bugs before we make the update live.
I’ll post a link to signup for beta testing in next month's dev update.
New Share Page Design
We’ve given our share page a redesign this month to make it look more clean and modern. The background color and logo can still be changed by agency users and underneath the Headline and Description. We also still have a comments section which is now followed by a “More Videos From” section instead of them being side by side.
For now, the functionality of the share page is the same but we have plans add much more functionality in later versions of the app.
Check out the section on our 2.1 updates for more info.
New Popup UI
The last major item to rework is our Popup’s functionality. Some older users will remember that originally you could create and manage popups outside of the video timeline. This allowed you to open popups based on events like a user clicking a button. It also allowed you to create a popup once for the whole project and have multiple events open that same popup.
We’ve had a high demand to bring this feature back. That meant the popups need their own UI for editing them outside of the video timeline. We’ve developed a popup window that will contain the popup and all its elements and allow you to easily edit the popup from any node.
Popups are also used for Interaction Layers and Surveys / Quizzes. To make this simpler we’re merging the features of popups and interaction layers so both are able to be animated (background and the elements).
To help make things clearer we’re also changing the naming “Interaction Layer” to “End Card”. This is to clear up some confusion about the difference between Interaction Layers and popups and when each can be used.
Fullscreen Update
We now have a working beta of fullscreen functionality across desktop and Andriod. As fullscreen API is still not supported on iOS we can’t offer fullscreen on iOS at this time. However, due to popular demand, we decided to implement this feature into all platforms that will support it.
We’re going to update the icons in the video play bar and then it’s nearly ready to go. I’ll post an update to the Facebook Group as soon as it’s live so if you’re not part of that group join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/interactrusers
Survey Results
In response to the recent survey, Ryan (Interactr co-founder & CEO) has broken down all the results and how we’re using that information to improve the platform in the video above.
Last week we moved all the suggestions into our feature requests list which you can check out here: https://shipright.community/interactr
Feature Requests
We monitor all the requests in our feature request page every month to decide what features we’re going to implement next.
Based on your feedback here are the 2 areas the next app updates are going to focus on.
2.1
When we first started the 2.0 update the next thing want wanted to look into was the agency accounts. We would love your feedback on how we can improve the agency side of the platform so please comment below with any suggestions you may have.
One of the big things we want to improve is the share page. We’re looking into custom branding and logos on a per-project basis for our agency users as this is a highly requested feature. We’re also looking into how we can provide an unbranded version of the share page for our pro users which may be included in this update.
I also want to look into how we can make the share pages more useable, maybe implementing some lead capture element to it. It’s all still in the ideas stage right now and we will focus on this more when 2.0 is released.
2.2
After the fullscreen feature (which will be released soon) the next most demanded features are; some basic video editing, and allowing users to change the audio on templates.
Whilst it is still in the very early stages and we won't be planning this feature out until 2.1 is close to release, I’d love your feedback on exactly what video editing features you’d like to see in the app.
Changelog
Here’s a full list of all changes made to the app in August:
- Fix downgrading refund could delete account bug
- Fix issue with player wrapper when embedding multiple projects on the same page
- Fix initial data fetch stalling for users with large projects , making it look like login failed
- Fix DNS server error when verifying certain domain names for agency users
- Fix Project’s Engagement analytics performance bug, engagement charts data took forever for very big projects
- Fix form element layout issue when on multiple lines
- Improve the performance of node and popups loading
- Updated the app with the new support desk links
- Only add player’s minified css to production
Wrap Up
That’s all for this month. It's head down for everyone here in the dev team working on the 2.0 update for the rest of September. We should have a beta ready for everyone by the end of the month.
Any feedback or questions you can get in touch with us via the Interactr User’s Facebook group or through our help center:
