Happy 2023 to everyone!
I would love to hear what new features you would like to see for 2023. Reply to this topic with your ideas. Of course, you can also share your ideas by email ([email protected]) or by messaging me on Twitter (@owlstown).
Owlstown continues to improve because of ideas, suggestions, and feedback from Owlstown users. Thank you so much!
If you’re curious what features have been added in 2022 and before, checkout the blog archive.
Hi @owlstown! I love this idea to collect ideas and suggestions! I realize that I need a sort of database for my publications, and the “publications” tab on the site doesn’t work great for that, as it’s more a list of citations versus direct links with PDFs (or links to publishers’ sites), etc. I am almost thinking something similar to an AirTable or Notion database would be helpful, including a place with a formatted citation, Google scholar link, publishers’ site link, PubMed link and PDF! Thanks so much!
Hi @whaley, thanks for the suggestion! Also, thanks for being the first Owlstown user to post in this forum.
So I understand the request, do you mean you want publications to be viewed in a table with columns for citations, Google Scholar link, PubMed link, etc.?
If you have a screenshot or a sketch you can share, that’d be super helpful.
Cheers,
Ian
Hi Ian,
You bet! Please see here for something I’m building in Notion to accomplish something similar.
Cheers, and happy new year!
Colin
Thanks for sending the screenshot, Colin. I understand now how you want it to look.
What benefits have you found by displaying your publications in a table? I’m concerned that a table view will not be mobile-friendly, but if I understand the benefits of a table, I may be able to figure out a design that has the benefits of a table, but also mobile-friendly.
Hi,
If the OP is asking for a way to link to PDFs of articles, that is easy to do. If you go to my “Publications” page, you’ll see a link, click on it, and then you see a page that includes an abstract and links to various PDFs of the article.
I also was a bit puzzled at first–perhaps, Ian, how to do this could be spelled out somewhere more specifically?
Best,
Cynthia
Hi Cynthia,
There currently isn’t a way to link directly to PDFs from the publications list page. It is in my todo list to figure out how to support something similar to this.
Cheers,
Ian 
Hi! So sorry for the delay. When I have needed to fill out my CV on online portals (in my case medical residency applications), having access to the URLs readily would have saved me a lot of time! I totally get that making it mobile friendly would be challenging, though! Thanks as always for your time Ian!
Hi, Ian
I think it would be nice to have the option to have certain pages password protected. If I have some content only meant for lab members, I would do that on the protected pages.
Thanks
Taotao
Hi @owlstown! I was wondering whether it would be possible to add RSS support? I don’t really like subscribing to loads of mailing lists individually, so I love it when websites I want to keep up to date with offer RSS links for me to follow.
FW
Yes, this is a great idea! It’s in my list of features to include in a set of Owlstown features specifically for labs. Stay tuned!
Hi Floris,
RSS is already supported in all Owlstown websites. Just add /posts.rss to the end of your Owlstown website’s domain name.
I’ll add documentation about this. Also, I have plans to put a link to RSS in the footer so visitors can discover it more easily.
Cheers,
Ian
Hi Taotao,
Yes, GIFs are supported. You can upload the gif and it will display. The Picture block documentation has an example: Owlstown - Picture block
Cheers,
Ian
Hi,
I’m interested in having comments on my blog posts–moderated by me, perhaps, to keep out spam? Or if not comments, an option for an emoji reaction, perhaps?
Thanks!
Cynthia
Hi Cynthia,
Good question. I don’t have plans to support commenting in blog posts. It’s very spammy, so you end up primarily moderating the spam. The signal-to-noise ratio is so low that I think it’s not worth it. If your viewer really wants to comment, encourage them to e-mail you or to message you via your website’s Contact Form. Another thing I’ve seen is people add a link to a tweet about the article or Reddit post where people can leave comments.
I do have plans to support liking pages on websites. The number of likes would be displayed on the webpage. Having emoji reactions is an interesting idea. I’ll add it as one of the ideas to consider when I plan out how I will support liking pages.
Cheers,
Ian
Hello everyone,
I think adding support for embedding Java widgets / HTML code would be an interesting option that would allow to extend the website customizability. Also i suggest allowing to duplicate pages, i thinks that can be helpful for various purposes.
Cheers,
