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Our latest product updates: June 2020

What’s new on Mobile Apps (iOS and Android 3.11)

Messaging

Following our recent improvements to Messaging on Web, we’ve now brought these improvements to Mobile Apps as well. One of the biggest things we’ve done is a significant facelift to the whole Messaging experience which you can see in the video below.

Here’s a list of what we’ve updated in Messaging:

  • To highlight unread messages we’ve created a new message button on the bottom navigation.

With this change we’ll be recommending to Hosts that any links to Messaging are removed from the side menu. And if you’re a Host with Messaging disabled then of course this icon won’t appear in the bottom navigation.

  • To encourage members to message each other, we’ve changed the old Add as friend button to Message.

Improvements to the messaging on Disciple

Next month we’ll be improving the ability for members to find each other to start a conversation with enhanced search functionality. In the meantime members should be encouraged to visit profiles through posts and comments to start conversations.

Multiple pictures on a post redesign

We’ve given multiple pictures on a post a little overhaul to improve its design and experience. This new design introduces the Image indicator dots to encourage people to scroll through all the images. We’ve also improved the experience of swiping through images by adding a fluid scroll animation.

To give a better overall experience when viewing images in detail, we’ve made some tweaks to the fullscreen image page – this creates a more streamlined appearance between the two states.

All the above changes are now available on iOS, Android and Web

Improvements to image Aspect ratios

For communities that use a lot of imagery, we know how important it is for members to share images with their desired dimensions and aspect ratios. We’ve continued our work to improve multiple pictures on a post. Previously all images were cropped to a fixed 4:3 aspect ratio and although we still recommend using this aspect ratio, we do now support all aspect ratios.

Here’s some more guidance on image sizing and aspect ratios:

  • The best dimensions for a single portrait image post are 720 x 960 pixels.
  • The best dimensions for a single landscape image are 720 × 540 pixels.
  • As a note: 720 pixels wide is our max horizontal pixel count before we crop vertically on an image. Technically you can post larger images than this but it will receive a vertical crop.

Event attendees improvements

When we introduced attendees on events the text describing who was going wasn’t very informative. We’ve now added a whole load of different text combinations to let members know who’s going to an event – for example ‘You and 2 others are going’.

New font: Proxima Nova

As part of our efforts to improve the visual design for our apps and improve text legibility, we’ve updated our font across all the apps to Proxima Nova. We chose this font because it has a large x-height (which means it’s easy to read at small sizes), its style is informal and modern, and it looks great alongside photography. These attributes make it perfect for communities on the Disciple platform.

Old (Open Sans Regular)

New (Proxima Nova Regular):

We’ve also implemented scalable font sizes in some sections of our apps (all sections will be covered in future releases). This means that the size of the text will respond to a member’s phone text size settings, allowing legibility to be personalised based on member preference.

Other improvements:

  • The notification badge icon on the iOS homescreen now includes the sum of unread notifications and unread messages.
  • As part of our efforts to improve the onboarding experience for members, we’ve done some minor UI improvements for accepting Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policies.
  • PDF files can now open full screen on iOS with the ability to zoom in and out.

What’s new on the Console

Ability to hide Folder names

A lot of Hosts use Folders for important navigation mechanisms throughout their app. To improve the visual design of this we’ve implemented a simple toggle in the Console for Folder names not to appear if desired across iOS, Android and Web.

Improved colour customisation

An update for our Web only customers is a vastly improved experience for choosing community colours. There are now 13 different colours that can be customised. Colour changes applied by Hosts will go live in approximately 10 minutes.

Although not available for our Mobile App customers yet, rest assured that your Customer Success Manager will have access to this feature and it’ll be available for you in the coming weeks.

What we’re working on next

  1. Finding and searching for members
  2. Monetisation for Web customers
  3. Custom user fields management through the Console
  4. Navigation customisation in the Console
  5. Live streaming from your laptop using RTMP
  6. The ability to remove like, share and comment functionality
  7. In-app purchases (IAP) on Folders
  8. Visual and usability improvements to groups
  9. Email notifications
  10. Member created groups

Looking to grow your own community with Disciple? Contact our Community Specialists – info@disciplemedia.com

Need help with your existing Disciple powered community? Contact our Customer Support team – help@disciplemedia.com

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