Website Change Log 2013 (archive)

Hi all,

we received several requests to list the most important website changes in one document for easier reference. Here goes!

Bart&Natalia

2013:

December 18th Post your comments here
* Wall Thickness Visualization available to all users - read all about it and post your feedback here!
* We've added additional countries for VAT Registration
* Beta Users: more sneak peek changes to future improvements.
* Shipping tool improvements so we can ship out more efficiently!
* Internal updates so we can make changes to the website faster...Clean-up-a-thon!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS ALL!

December 11th Post your comments here
* Account Updates: we have added a link to "My Sales" under the account dropdown menu - so you can see your Shop Sales faster
* We've also added links to Favorites, Wishlist to the account dropdown that is accessible by hovering over your avatar
* SEO updates: we're working hard to make Shapeways and all your amazing products get found first in searches on Google and other search engines.
* Beta Group: another sneak peek into changes we will roll out site-wide very soon! Should make being a Shop Owner even easier

December 5th Post your comments here
* New Full Color Sandstone tutorial. In order to help our designers and makers get the best possible results using our FCS material, we have put together a tutorial for how to best get the expected results from textured model prints. This tutorial illustrates the differences between RGB and CMYK color scales, the impact of wall-thickness on color uniformity, and what to expect in terms of color bleeding and contrast.
* Starting a new test with the 'Beta Group'. We're currently testing some new upload functionality with a limited group of community members called the 'Beta Group'. I'm not going to tell you what it is just yet - we'll release it as soon as we can!
* New newsletter signup popup. On your first visit to Shapeways, you may now see a signup window asking you to register for our weekly shoppers newsletter.
* Many internal updates.

November 13th

* Shipping Sale Offers "LIke free shipping over $100 orders" - hopefully we can entice your customers to shop more this holiday season.
* And a LOT of backend work this week to help our printers run more efficiently

November 6th Post your comments here

* Guest Checkout - now you don't need to sign up to buy something on Shapeways, making checkout easier and faster for your customers.
* Faster Lead times!! - White Strong and Flexible Polished drops from 12 to 9 business days and Frosted Ultra Detail Plastic from 8 to 6 business days! Woo now you can get your models faster, especially useful for the holiday season coming up!
AND
* NOW SHIPPING USPS TO CANADA!! That's right, read all about it here.

October 31st Post your comments here

* Ceramics Repricing - read all about it here
* New Layout for the Shops page - a cleaner look, more of your products on display


October 24th Post your comments here.

* Three New Steel Finishes - check them out on the Materials Page
* Material swatch selector on product pages - so your customers can better see their options - this is a great example
* Our Holiday Gift Guide is here to help shoppers find your products!

October 16th Post your comments here.

* Updated Content and Layout on Support Pages and Info Pages - we're continuing to improve these sections.
* Worth noting is that we were down for maintenance while undergoing a bit of internal construction over the weekend and this caused some disruptions in the upload and model checking process. The issue has been fixed and all uploads are being reprocessed.
* Improved shopper tools - making it easier for shoppers to find your products


October 10 - Post your comments here
* Shipping options in the US - the first in a series of Shipping Solutions. VERY EXCITING STUFF
* More granular Email Preferences - so you can chose exactly what you want to get from us. Check it out under your Settings when you are logged in.
* New Material! Raw and Polished Bronze - you asked, we listened, and now we have the quality ready to offer these alternate Bronze finishes.
* Continuous improvements to the Tutorial and Support pages! Making our processes easier to understand, like this timeline.

October 2 Post your comments here
* Sterling Silver has a bigger bounding box, so you can make bigger, more beautiful things! Read all about it
* The 3D viewer in the Upload page is clearer and easier to use. It spins into view, the lighting is better and it is more responsive to your mouse movements.
* For Shop owners - the 'Related Items' on your product page are now more relevant, so your product is getting easier to find (and by that token, hopefully easier to buy!). We're working with some amazing data scientists to make this improvement, and we should have it really great in time for the holiday season.

September 26

* Our community asked and we delivered. Introducing Raw & Polished Brass.
* Sterling Silver finishes now sport more accurate, shopper-friendly names: Raw & Polished Silver
* Video is now prominently exposed on product pages e.g. Sprout.
* Visitors can now switch currencies from any page on the site using our Country Selector on the navigation bar. (Members can change currency by updating billing address.)
* Product Boxes now display images of a selected material when used in wishlists, curation, or search by utilizing the new material tag on images
* Elegant new designer banner extended to Shops and Profiles
* Droneways: new category featuring DIY drone parts & new system of curating categories
* Quick wins on the EDU Program: Added International
* Easier to understand email opt-ins

With a few other internals that make everything better


September 18
Some exciting updates this week!
* Improvements to the upload page: We listened to your feedback and have changed the tabs to say "Edit Model" and "Edit Details" so its clearer what you are working on.
* New Product Page: To make it easier to sell your products, we have made the banner all about you and moved "More from this designer" right up into the header next to your name. The product has its own title too. We've integrated Favorites and Ratings right into the sidebar so they are more prominent too. With this, we've also removed ratings in favor of Favorites and Comments. FYI: Ratings were never connected with Comments, so they didn't work like Amazon Ratings & Reviews for instance. They also didn't play a part in how your product came up in search. In the future, the number of comments and favorites your product has will help it get discovered on the the Category Pages, so this is a small step towards making your products easier to find!
* Revamped Tutorial and Support Pages: Check them out! Now much easier to search through so they should be far more useful to you. Also, if you have suggestions of your own to add, please help us write new tutorials!


September 12

* Revamped upload page! We just released the first step towards a completely overhauled and improved upload experience. This release includes Initial Printability Check (checking bounding box) for ALL materials, allowing you to immediately update and re-upload your file if needed, a WebGL model viewer (only available to the model owner) so you can see your model render right away, and a full redesign of the entire page.
* Credit Card payment is now available for all our users world-wide.

September 5

* The EDU programme (10% discount for all students and teachers) is now available world-wide.
* Updated tutorials: Design for 3D printing; scale, hollow and carve, Polygon Reduction with Meshlab, How to hollow objects for 3D Printing and Shapeways' tips for character modelers.

August 29
* The Feed is back! You'll now find it in the Shop navigation bar.
* A link to Gift Cards has been added in the Shop navigation bar.
* The 3D Printspiration Newsletter has a new layout and is now mobile friendly.

+200 for communicating
Thanks!

Thanks Stony

Hi Bart

Howza about the euro/usd payment issue for EU member countries that was raised over a year ago, any news on the horizon?

Cheers,
Paul

Hey Paul,

it's still on the to-do list, I'm afraid. We're focusing on some other areas that are considered higher priority at this moment..

Bart

Hi Bart,

Asides from the other nonsensical rejections of previously printable models, the fact the Shapeways pay me in USD and notify me of sales in Euros. One of my biggest bug bears with Shapeways is the fact that I cannot pay for my own models in the advertised USD.

I know that paying PayPal more money than they need is not an issue for Shapeways, but it is for me.

The issue has been on the to-do list for about a year - how much longer?

Cheers,
Paul

The issue has been on the to-do list for about a year - how much longer?

Cheers,
Paul

Hey Paul,

I really don't have an answer for you. We know about the issue and will handle it, but right now we have prioritized other issues. There is no planning for this one.

Bart

I'm excited about the new upload page!

I feel like exposing all our printability checks is a good start towards making the whole complex web of 3D printing a bit clearer.

And I LOVE the 3D viewer, so cool to see my model right away. (I know Im biased, but as a shop owner as well this is really neat)

Interesting.

You have now a complete list of materials direct on the upload page. Wouldn't it be better to integrate the material availability/pricing there.

The change of the model page is a major update on the shop owner interface. Maybe you should start a moderated thread in the bugs session to collect bugs and feedback?

It seems that there is a reporcessing of the models going on in the background (maybe to gather the data for the new 3d view?).

In my shop I have seen that a lot of old models do not show the "Upload file" button to update the 3d mesh. Additionally they show "processing" for some materials.

I would assume that the "Upload" button is placed after the loading sequence and therefor not shown.
Maybe your development can check that.
- giving a hint if more models are affected
- if so how long the update may need

Still moving around in my products is a mess - no next/previous button in the product page. Was still in the hope that the item pictures on top of the product page get this functionality and that the arrow is though to move that view quickly, but it simple shows always the same items and moves back to the first side of your shop.
So "Edit" a product and going back to the starting point is loosing filters and side context ... no chance to make some similar changes without loosing context

Hi Bart

Back again on this issue that can have repercussions...

The sales overview gives USD amounts which may or may not tally with what I set my markup to be.

Originally I set my markup in USD as was the pricing then, now the pricing is in Euros, my markup is in Euros - not USD as is still the pricing.

The 'Yippee: you've sold models' emails some through with Euro amounts, which may or may either be the actual USD amount I set or the actual Euro amount I set.

Going through the sales overview the total tallies with the amount shown on the sales history page in USD, however the USD figure is different to the Euro amounts added up from the email messages then converted using Shapeways current exchange rate.

Also Natalia may have told an untruth when she said last year that it was being worked on.

As pricing is in USD, I should like Shapeways to honour the advertised USD pricing and not cause aggravation by using a different currency... please can that be arranged?

Cheers,
Paul

Shapeways T&Cs state that pricing is indicated in either USD or Euro - the pricing is not indicated in Euros, pricing is indicated in USD (check the materials pages!)

T&Cs also infer that I can pay in USD or Euros, which is not the case.

T&Cs do not state Euro or USD payment is location dependant.

I am not going to leave this subject alone.

Please act.

Paul

Just released and added to the notes.

Bronze! In raw and polished!

Great

Please can someone get back onto the 15+ month plus issue of allowing the choice of USD or Euro payments.

Admin: not the place for product placement

Cheers,
Paul

Hey guys, I'm going to lock this thread so we just keep it as a change log, but each weeks release is going to have its own entry so any comments and feedback can be left there. That way we can keep the conversation relevant to each release!

Thanks!
Natalia