New Interface for Hub Groups
Hi everyone! Today we released an update to the Hub Groups interface in My Account. The new interface closely matches the About the Author UI and should be familiar to many of you. Please note that we did not make any functional changes to Hub Groups (such as integrating it with About the Author) in this update. For more detailed instructions on how to use the new Groups interface, click on the blue “help” link located at the top right corner of the page. Let us know if you have questions or experience any problems using the new page!
Hello Marina. I will be interested to see if other hubbers find this change as frustrating as I do.
Yes, I can see the hubs in each group when I click on 'edit' near the group title, but it annoys me that I can't see them all at once, can't change their order like we used to, and can't see how to add a new hub into a specific slot between existing hubs within that group.
I did click the 'help' link hoping there would be an instruction about how to see the 'big picture' (ie all hubs in a group at once), but sadly there's no such option.
It is of little use to me to view only three hubs in a group at any one time.In the groups box, on the right, you can drag to re-order the titles, I wondered about that, myself, and it does say that in the 'help' box..although it does seem worded a bit like an afterthought.
And yes, it would be nice to see at least as many title at once in that box as in the main box. But, overall, I like the feature.We will make the drag and drop functionality clearer in the instructions - thanks for the quick feedback! As DzyMsLizzy pointed out, you can change the order of Hubs within a group by dragging and dropping the titles in the second box on both the Add Group and Edit Group overlays. To add a new Hub into a specific slot between existing Hubs within a Group:
- open a group by clicking the "edit" button
- add the Hub
- move it to the position you want by dragging and dropping the title
You can see all Hubs in a group at once by scrolling through the list of selected Hubs. This isn't perfect, but it works.
Could you further explain the benefits of seeing all Hubs in a Group at any one time? Do you see this as fundamental to the Hub Groups feature or more of a 'nice to have'? I'd also love to hear more opinions about this!I preferred the way it was, but this does give one an opportunity to assess whether or not each hub was placed in the correct category in the first place. I can clearly see now that I could have done a better job. How important is it to have the hubs grouped correctly, does this grouping have any impact on the related hubs feature?
No, there's no impact on related Hubs.
I immensely dislike it. I still have Groups, but no individual hubs are listed under them. I tried fixing and dragging the hubs back to the correct groups, and they won't stay there. I don't want to have to re-categorize 152 hubs now. What a mess.
Hi Jean,
Your Groups should not have changed in any way. This was just a visual update to the page in My Account. brakel2 has the answer here: http://hubpages.com/forum/post/2754970Hate it... cannot add orphan hub to existing groups... awful!!! Why would you do this??????
Hi, Marina. Thanks for the new features and developments. But, I would like to suggest that when I am seeing my Hub Groups, I see only hubs that have been grouped. The orphan hubs or not visible in my Hub Groups page, right?
I would like to see my orphan hubs also here itself, if you can include one group titled "Orphan" there itself and put all orphan hubs in it. I hope it can be possible.
So, when I am viewing my Groups page, I can immediately know that I have left some hubs without grouping. For example, my total hubs are 32. But, when I am viewing my Groups page, I am seeing only 30 hubs when I add the totals in each group. So, balance 2 hubs may be shown as Orphan there itself so that I can immediately put them in the group that I may want.
Thanks, in anticipation.Venkatachari, When you edit any group you will see the orphans on the left. You can click the "add" button to add any orphan hub to the group you are presently editing. Or click " remove" and it goes back to the orphan list.
That I have noticed later and added orphans to the groups. But, still, I recommend for adding a "orphan group" by default to show how many hubs are lying orphan, so when you total all groups, the total is equal to your number of hubs at a glance.
I agree. it would be good to have the orphan groups together. I deleted one and then clean forgot which one it was when I was interrupted whilst I was doing it.
I agree - I always thought the problem with the last system and this one is that it's difficult to spot orphans AND then move them.
Having an Orphan Group would mean that they would automatically be added to that when removed from another group
Thank you for getting the Groups interface 'fixed' - it works fine, now. Much appreciated... better than ever!! ;-)
I LIKE it!! This is going to be SO much easier than trying to drag single titles one at a time, halfway or more up the page.
Thank you, team, for this new feature!Just wonder where I find the orphaned Hubs as I noticed I had one categorized in the wrong section and I deleted it and could not remember which one it was:)
It should be in the box on the left, sally. That's where available hubs hang out, waiting to be added to a group.
My thoughts...
The old way was the "map" method. I liked it.
The new way is a different gestalt perception, "listing methodology" as it were. It made me consider scrapping everything back to orphan and redoing using the new method. Still contemplating that.
I'd like both methods available, Map method and List method buttons. I think each is useful in its own way.Marina, you asked "Could you further explain the benefits of seeing all Hubs in a Group at any one time? Do you see this as fundamental to the Hub Groups feature or more of a 'nice to have'? "
Here's my thoughts on why it is so valuable to be able to see all hubs within a group on a full page ...
1) Every now and then I write a new hub that expands on a previous thought, or looks at a similar issue from a slightly different perspective, or is similar to one or more existing hubs and I can see it would be logical to position those hubs together within their group so they appear in the 'previous' and 'next' positions for readers.
2) Occasionally I write a hub that (intentionally or unintentionally) 'bridges' the gap between two hubs, and suddenly it makes sense to put those three hubs together.
3) I've also been known to look for alternatives as the 'previous' and 'next' - particularly if I'd like to draw a little more attention to a particular hub that's not getting much traffic - so perhaps a better strategy would be to embrace a popular hub with lesser known hubs for a while, just to see what happens.
In all those examples, it is essential to see the full list of hubs within a group. The new system prevents me from viewing the 'big picture' and by the time I scroll up and down the list, I've lost interest and therefore won't bother trying to make improvements and alterations.
Is it possible to add an option for viewing the 'full list' on occasions such as those I've outlined?
I understand that I could make many more groups than I currently have, with just a few hubs that are very specific ... but I feel that kind of defeats the purpose of 'grouping' to catch the attention of readers who may also be interested in other hubs relevant to a theme,Marina,
At first I liked the new design. I was immediately able to use it without a learning curve because it uses exactly the same interface as the Author Bio feature.
But after playing with it, I suddenly realized a major lose. For those of us who monitor "visitor flow" on our Google Analytics, this new interface limits our ability to manage our Groups well.
Just as LongTimeMother explained in her comment above, I also like to view the entire layout as "the big picture." This allows me to compare to what Google shows me as drop-off points where I am losing visitors.
I routinely go into my Group Management page and move things around accordingly to improve the flow so visitors find something more related to what they just read, in an effort to keep them around.
Now with the new interface I can't do that anymore.
This new interface is like peeking through a tiny peephole to view just a few hubs at once. This makes it impossible to see where we have placed things and how they relate to one another in our group lists.
I totally agree with all the points LongTimeMother had made in her comment above.
I hope this feedback is helpful so that a decision is made to leave the old interface, or at least give us both options.
One last thought - I perfectly understand what DzyMsLizzy was saying in another forum thread about dragging hubs so far that you drop it in some unknown place and can't find it anymore. May I suggest a solution - using the old method - but adding a holding location where one can drag a hub into, scroll up or down to the new location, and then drag from the holding location to the desired location. The holding location will be accessible no matter where you are in the list.Good points raised by you and Long Time Mother. It is really difficult to arrange hubs when a group contains even a bit more than 10 hubs.
Thanks for the detailed feedback, Glenn and LTM. You concerns have been noted, and upon discussion, we've decided to implement a compromise solution that allows you to view the "big picture" on the main page without having to open the overlays. This will be a view-only thing, i.e., you will not be able to move Hubs between groups via dragging and dropping like before.
One of the reasons we updated this UI to match About the Author was to streamline some code. Technically speaking, the two features work very similarly to one another. If they can share much of the same code, that means less overall code for us to maintain. It's important to do this type of cleanup wherever we can so that the site runs more reliably and efficiently.
I hope this solution will work well enough for those that like to frequently view and update their Hub Groups.Thank you Marina. At least it's a compromise. I appreciate that. It's still a two-step process now to maintain our groups, but at least we can do it in an efficient manner as before. Thank again.
Thank you. It is nice to be able to see the full lists within groups again!
I love it! thanks! I do keep forgetting to add a new hub to a group so this is really helpful!
I investigated - and then tried to add an Orphan Hub into a group - at which point I got a message that the name of my group was "not allowed".
Not allowed? Duh?
This is the name of an EXISTING GROUP which has been around for nearly a year. It includes an ampersand. I suggest somebody edits the software to make absolutely routine symbols usable within group titles!Group names currently do not support special characters like the ampersand.
Well, why the H-E-double-toothpicks not??!!
We have plans to address this soon and remove the limitation for special characters. We will make an announcement when that feature has been added. Thanks for your patience.
Well it has done for the last year! So what changed?
Does Hubpages not now use the standard symbols used in everyday English Language? That's a backward step in my book!
