Easy User Workarounds While Minds Coders Construct the Future

Like the rest of us, you're on Minds, in effect a spaceship headed for online freedom, and you've gotten on board while everything is still being built. The coders keep tabs on what we need by putting a representative of the team in Support -- so that's where you go to make feature requests or to get help with something that's not working.

This article is getting shorter by the moment, as the coders load upgrades. Still, while it all comes together, there is a set of common "asks".  Minds users have come up with some simple workarounds:

                   CLEVER TRICKS TO USE DURING CONSTRUCTION

SAVE: We don't yet have a "Save" function for those things that you want to read later.

Three workarounds to choose from on that: Either 1) bookmark the post you want in your browser. or 2) note who posted it and go to that channel later to read it, or 3) remind it to your channel, giving it some hash-tagged keywords so you can retrieve it easily.

SNAP TO COMMENTS: Unlike most social media sites, we post and write many long-reads and people here actually read and comment on them, which is zenith. When the discussion is ongoing on a long post, however, people want to skip the post (which they've already read) and snap down to its comment section.

The workaround: Press "end" on your keyboard, says @rodfather. 

TO SHOW SOMEONE ELSE A PRIVATE DRAFT: The capacity for team work on a shared draft lies in the future.

The workaround:  Set the post on Unlisted -- so most people cannot see it -- then send the Unlisted post's URL to those whose comments you want..

ALBUM UPLOAD: Bulk album-upload is already in the works, but we don't reliably have it yet.

The workaround: Upload images individually. Rfjardim@rfjardim suggests, "Upload the contents to the album, then remind them, so they appear on your page".

STREAM EMBEDS INTO A BLOG: To tighten security against malware, we can no longer manipulate a blog-post's source code. That has temporarily cut us off from streaming video. Since protests like Standing Rock could get news out only because of streaming video, many wonder how to embed streaming video now. 

The workaround: John Ottman, Minds' co-founder and chair, recommends streaming to Youtube, then embedding the Youtube video in a post.

ALTERING THE SIZE OF MINDS GRAPHICS

The Metadata (available at https: Minds.org) is logged to update the image resizing in blogs.

The workaround: COO Jack Ottman's suggestion is to crop the photo in another program like photoshop /sketch so that it is say, 900 px wide.

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If you need a workaround not listed here, go to Help and Support or to MindsUserGroup. Have a workaround you'd like to share? Please put it in comments below. 

Signing up as dragon@authorpendragon when Minds was still in early Beta, I've been here for over two years, since July, 2016. On another Minds channel, under my real name, @GailMcGowanMellor, I'm writing an UNauthorized history of Minds which contains interviews with the principles, with new installments coming out as Minds unfolds. To start reading the series and/or to get links to all its parts, see Part I: Bill Ottman's Minds, Leading the Charge Against the Globals.

Some of my @authorpendragon blog-posts explaining aspects of Minds:

Hey Folks! How To Be A Useful User On Minds

Your Special Powers On Minds Over Internet Trolls

Culture Shock: From Facebook to Minds

Dragon's Interactive Treasure Trove Of Resources For Learning And Using Minds is a list of useful posts from others, also explaining aspects of Minds. 

Thanks as always, everyone!