Let me know if you see any new bugs that the changes might have caused, or any old ones I can try to fix while I’ve got the site open. I’m considering making some other improvements to the site, but there’s a lot of junk I want to clean up in the code before I add any more big pieces.

By way of apology, here are some stupid sound clips to sneak onto friends’ (ok, acquaintances’) playlists.   What, why are you looking at me like that?

We got to see the wonders of how a bot is built, and Joe even made us some Servo heads that we were able to be goofy with at the show (hoisting them when Servo was mentioned or alluded to).

Anyway, the show was excellent, and I’ll be running some of the pictures for your capping pleasure Monday June 22 @ 8 PM Eastern on Inventing Situations. You can preview (and well, caption) them by clicking the image here (that’s the end of the stream, the start is here).

And do let me know if there’s any other lingering bugs from the improvements.

(Though you should probably hit refresh at least once before letting me know.)

• Navigation free capping: No more shuttling between the gallery and the newest screengrab. Everything’s on one page, the gallery still autoupdates, and now as soon as a new grab is available, a thumbnail appears that you can click to cap.
• Chat! After years of resisting and arguing against, I’ve finally given in and added chat. In part because I figured out what I think is a sufficiently unobtrusive way to present it that still doesn’t require cappers to switch it on. With things like the favorites gallery making captions available out of context, I should’ve given cappers a way to remove their chat from their captions ages ago. You do need to be mindful of the caption/chat button, and I’m not crazy about it appearing before the gallery, but it was the best compromise I could come up with.
• The autocappomatic is in a transitional state. I’m tempted to remove it all together, but for now, editing one of its captions means you get full credit.

Feedback and bug reports are welcome. Keep in mind that while I’ve made an effort to make the site usable without javascript, a lot of the new features hardly translate without it.

“What’s the deal with these icons?”

Weren’t just because it was clever and visualized all the icons that would show up, but because well, people might just be wondering what the deal is. So, just a quick rundown from the info page:

: Lets you e-mail a copy of the caption below to a friend.
: Lets you vote for the caption as one of your favorites.
You must be registered and logged on to vote. Voting is anonymous and you can vote for
your own captions, although doing so is considered gauche by some. Favorited captions appear on the favorites page for up to two days after they’re capped.
Once you’ve voted for a caption, the thumb becomes a medal - -to indicate your choice.
: A link to the profile of the capper who made the caption.
The profiles are hosted at the Capper Wiki.
Actually, there’s no guarantee it belongs to the same user, but if I catch people linking to other people’s profiles, I won’t be happy. Once you’ve created a profile there and registered here, you can set up a link on your preferences page (also linked from the greeting in the upper left hand corner). You can choose between having it show up on any caption you make while logged in, or just the ones for your regular handle (which is useful for holiday handles).

: Edit a caption you made a typo on. Appears next to any captions you’ve made while you’re logged in, even if you changed handles like a sneak.
: Saves your edits.
: Cancels any unsaved edits to a caption.

: The logo of the Autoccappomatic 4500.
In the links, clicking it will ask the AC4.5K to write a caption for an image it picks, and share the credit with you. In the gallery, it denotes a caption written with the AC’s help.

Note: the Cappomatic does not become available until after you’ve written a caption and taken our cookie.

[The blue number]: Shows how many cappers have favorited the caption below.
And of course the [f] lets you share the cap on your Facebook profile.

[alt link to the photo]

Wow, an indirectly mst3k inspired t-shirt I designed in the presence of Trace and one time t-shirt factory employee Joel. At the school whose rejection letter sent me into a nearly two decade long downward spiral. This means something.

* Limited to the tiny number I could sell.

(word cloud of the captions made during Turkey Week, courtesy Wordle.)
I’m thinking of scaling things back next year to four or five days, which I know means some people may not be able to get to a computer during the festivities, but I hope will mean we’ll get more concentrated crowds and a more festive atmosphere.

And in other news, for those of you who’ve long wondered what the F in HanoverF is for, apparently it’s for Farm. I’m as surprised as you are.