vlaze.com

One of the most requested features since we first launched this sucker has been the ability to sort your friends that appear on your channel. So-called "top friends".

Today - IT HAS BEEN DONE. Go now, sort some friends!

Head over to your page, scroll to your friends list and hit the "sort & edit friends" button. From there, it should be pretty self-explanatory. Just remember - changes to the order of your friends (just like is the case w/your content editor) are not committed until you click "Save Changes" at the top. Deleting friends, however, occurs immediately - so don't get too trigger happy.

This next part is for geeks and those of you who like to know the "under the hood" stuff. If you just wanna get on w/the goods - you can stop reading now :)


THE PROCESS

It goes without saying that a certain "other social networking site" (OSNS from now on) is the first place most people saw any kind of drag/drop AJAX effects - and it was probably the first and only social network they saw that offered such a feature. As is usually the case with features on the OSNS, it felt shabbily contrived and hasn't been updated or fixed since then. I'm not here to fling shit at them, but let's face a few problem issues :

1. How do you find that new friend you just added, and put them in your Top 8? Do you just click around from page to page until hopefully you come across them? This might work fine if you have 20 friends, but if you've got more than a few hundred... man, you're gonna be there for awhile.

2. How do you quickly find and delete a friend?

3. Why can't you delete friends while you're sorting through them to pick a "Top x" number of friends, anyway?

4. How easy is it for you to choose exactly how many friends you want on your profile page? Or... can you only choose in multiples of 4, up to 24?

Their answers to the above questions would be something like :
1a. Good luck.
1b. Pretty much.
2. Uhh...
3. Because..? uhh..
4a. Not very easy at all.
4b. You can only choose in multiples of 4 up to 24

Our answers to the above questions are :

1. We have a search box along the bottom of the page. Type in part of a friend's username OR display name, and it'll filter the list to show you just the friends you're looking for. Optionally, you can page through your friends 40 at a time if you like the old-fashioned "browse for neat people" method.

2. Deleting a friend is as simple as clicking their icon, and hitting "Delete Friend(s)". You can even delete a whole page full of friends all at once if you wanted to.

3. You can :)

4. Very easy. Just add/remove whichever friends you want into the friend editor pane on the left and there ya go. We limit you to 40 friends on your profile at one time - but we have no restrictions on whether or not you need to have a multiple of 4 or anything like that.

As you'll see (if you haven't already), we've put a lot of work into this thing. I had to do some serious CSS/Javascript hackery to get a fullscreen, cross-browser, cross-platform interface going. Mucho props to Mikey for his exceptional work with the Script.aculo.us Javascript library - which not only makes the dragging/dropping possible, but he even took the time to add in fade effects when you delete friends. Oh, and he coded the badass search engine, too.

We've got something even more exciting coming in just a few days here (maybe sooner) - so be on the lookout for that. We think you're REALLY gonna dig it.

Thanx again for your continued support - you rule our world. Like for serious.