The Channel 9 beta has been updated

Posted By: Duncan Mackenzie | Sep 29th, 2007 @ 2:42 AM | 171,189 Views | 35 Comments
Hey folks, it has been awhile since we first published the Channel 9 beta site and we thought you might be wondering where we are with the whole 'new Channel 9' project. Well, we have been moving forward on many different areas of the code and we even shipped a new production site (http://Channel8.msdn.com) built on the exact same code base. All of the work done since we last updated the beta site is hard to describe in a few lines of text, but let me give it a shot anyway Smiley

First and foremost, we have added the idea of 'managed tag pages'. These pages take the idea of filtering content by a certain tag and then add in the concept of an 'editor' for that tag's area. The editor will be your guide to the topic in question, selecting content from Channel 9 to feature on the page, blogs that should be included and more. We haven't fully configured it, but you can see an example of what I mean on the Silverlight tag page, where Adam Kinney is designated as the ownere of that page. You still get your straight filtered list of videos (right in the what's new area) but you can also see recommended or featured content along the upper right. We have more planned for the managed tag pages, but for now I hope this gives you an idea of what is to come in that area.

The other major change is around the style of the site. In addition to a ton of minor changes, (many of which were as a direct result of feedback from you Niners), the site was made much more consistent overall. The fonts, HTML tags and information displayed have been standardized around the site; an entry displayed in the sidebar on one page should look exactly like another... this has the benefit of a better experience for you, and it also really simplifies our code, which is a great help for when we need to make ongoing changes or even launch a new site based off the same code.

Finally, we heard your comments around the new AJAX asynchronously loading of posts, threads and comments, and we acted on some of that feedback in this update. Your back button should work now, even when all you are doing is paging through the videos on the media page or all the comments on the current post. If you watch the address bar you'll also see that the page number is part of the URL, and that it is being updated as you page back and forth. With those URLs you'll be able to link someone right into a specific page in a discussion, as requested by your feedback on the first Beta site we shipped. The AJAX features have a bunch of other improvements added to them as well, including a 'throbber' animation to let you know when we are loading data and other less obvious changes.

Check it out over at http://beta.channel9.msdn.com and let us know what you think in the beta forum here on C9.

About the video: This was made today by Erik (HumanCompiler here on C9) and Sampy, shortly after we shipped this update... and was, as many of you already know, inspired by the recent set of Halo 3 videos Smiley  
Tag: EvNet
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#Oct 3rd, 2007 @ 2:58 PM
figuerres
figuerres
???
HumanCompiler wrote:

figuerres wrote: well I think this page:

http://beta.channel9.msdn.com/Tags/

is a mess but the pages it points too are ok.

i have seen some "tag" bars on blogs and such that look like a "Ransom Note" IMHO... totally junk.

I guess the /Tags/ page should have some kind of format
seems to me that it is an index based on what I see so I would do that as a list or a tree.
A
B
C
and so on.

if it's just a mass of links with no stucture then how is the eye supposed to use it?

Go ask Bill Hill for some input on this one... see what he says!


Don't worry about this page right now.  We ran out of time to do with it what we wanted.  We just brought it "up to par with C9 Classic" for now.  We have plans for this page that are pretty much the same as what you suggest.  Sooooo, good thinkin'.    I'll sound like a broken record, but remember, we're not done.    Thanks for bringing it up though so we could be more transparent about our plans.


cool!  no big...

now if we could just tell folks who have the "Ransom Note Tags" how ugly they are... Tongue Out
#Oct 3rd, 2007 @ 10:31 PM
Joiseystud
Joiseystud
You need to add a full screen mode to the built in silverlight player. 
#Oct 4th, 2007 @ 1:12 AM
HumanCompiler
HumanCompiler
Compiling humans...and code
jerseyj wrote:
You need to add a full screen mode to the built in silverlight player. 


Yup, that's the plan.  The skin you see on the silverlight player is basically just a modified base player from Expression Media Encoder.  You can check out a video of Sampy talking about our player for more details.

There will be a design change for the player in a later release.  For now, you can double click the video while it's playing to go full screen.
#Oct 4th, 2007 @ 1:14 AM
HumanCompiler
HumanCompiler
Compiling humans...and code
figuerres wrote:
I think he means that the beta site is getting blocked / banned by the firewall / Proxy server he has to pass thru at work.

not surprising really I know many corp. networks block a lot of the internet from internal staff use for many legal and work related resons....

linkage:  http://www.websense.com/global/en/


Gotchya.  I wonder why the beta and not c9 classic?  Maybe because the word beta is in the url?  Maybe because of using javascript?  hhhmmm.  I'd like to know why.  Smiley
#Oct 4th, 2007 @ 9:37 AM
mcp111
mcp111
Why is there so much unused white space at the top?
#Oct 5th, 2007 @ 10:44 AM
HumanCompiler
HumanCompiler
Compiling humans...and code
mcp111 wrote:
Why is there so much unused white space at the top?


Whitespace?  Where?
#Oct 8th, 2007 @ 8:18 PM
prencher
prencher
HumanCompiler wrote:

figuerres wrote:I think he means that the beta site is getting blocked / banned by the firewall / Proxy server he has to pass thru at work.

not surprising really I know many corp. networks block a lot of the internet from internal staff use for many legal and work related resons....

linkage:  http://www.websense.com/global/en/


Gotchya.  I wonder why the beta and not c9 classic?  Maybe because the word beta is in the url?  Maybe because of using javascript?  hhhmmm.  I'd like to know why. 


Probably because of 'beta'; Channel 9 as is already uses javascript in the form of postbacks and the community bar, and I kinda doubt they'd block js in the first place, let alone have specific knowledge of asp.net postbacks Wink
#Oct 9th, 2007 @ 10:47 AM
Marcus1081
Marcus1081
My best guess would be that the new forums have the word "Forum" in url and the old forums do not.  But its just a guess.
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