A lot has changed since the last updates announcement, and I'm excited to share the news! Here's an overview:
- Introduction of FAQs, topics and guides to help people learn about the platform
- Replacement of an external support desk with a new internal support system
- Multiple enhancements to chord sheet display and export, including capo support
- Text editor improvements for blogs, newsletters and profile page customisation
- Improvements to the artist profile theme customisation, including a live preview
- A "new songs" carousel on the home page
- Design improvements, especially the email template
Guides and FAQs
There's now a guides and FAQs section, where you can find FAQs (frequently asked questions) and guides organised by topic. Currently, there are only a few guides, but the number will be growing over the next few months, focusing on artist features first.
Learn - guides and FAQs - Unified Praise
Unified Praise is a music streaming and discovery platform for Christian worship. Artists can share their songs, and worshippers can find new worship music.
unifiedpraise.com
New support system
I was using an external system to handle support tickets, but I spent a long time battling with poor notifications. Messages were slipping through the net, and I just needed something simple without all the bells and whistles that this external service offered. Now, when you use the support form, you'll get an email confirmation with a ticket number, and I'll get a corresponding one. We'll just take it from there via email - simple.
Chord sheet improvements
Alongside some bug fixes and layout improvements, you can now set a capo number for chord sheets, which is handy for us guitarists.
Text editor improvements for blogs, newsletters and profile page customisation
As I type this, I'm writing on the new improved text editor that's used in various places across the site. If you're an artist, it's the same editor that you'd use to write blog posts, newsletters and custom content on profile pages. New features include:
- Embeddable songs, albums and playlists from Unified Praise
- The ability to add featured links (see the earlier update about guides and FAQs - there's an example of a featured link there)
- Embeddable videos, e.g. YouTube
- Quotation blocks
- Better support for image customisation (full width, bordered, etc)
- Improved support for lists
Embeddable songs, albums and playlists are particularly cool, if I do say so myself. Here's what that looks like:
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1. Wait | Rebecca Beese |
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2. I Cry Aloud (Psalm 77) | Daniel Snoke |
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3. O Lord, Open Our Lips (Invitatory) | Elise Massa, Drew Elliot |
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4. Walk In the Light (Isaiah 2) | Daniel Snoke |
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5. Not Here Yet | Peter Assad, Kate Bluett, Grace Assad |
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6. Just To Know You | Peter Assad, Jason Riel |
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7. Spirit of God Descend Upon My Heart | Daniel Snoke, George Croly |
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8. Lord Jesus, Stay With Us | Elise Massa |
Better artist profile theme customisation
There are now more options for artists to customise their profile, and better clarity over the effect that changing options have on the design. Some of the new things are: being able to change the transparency of the title background; use a solid colour or gradient for the header; and set a background blur on the header image.
Also, there's now a "Live preview" tab that will let you see the changes before saving, so you can experiment without committing!
New songs carousel
On the home page, you'll now see a rotation of the most recent songs added to the site. Not much more to say, but hopefully you'll find it eye-catching!
Design improvements
Lastly, you may notice some design tweaks around the place, if you're particularly eagle-eyed. The email template has had a bit of overhaul, with the intention of making it cleaner and simpler.
Something I've wanted to do for a while that's now in place is that, if you play a song, anywhere that song appears on the page will show that it's playing with a visible pause button. And you can pause and resume by clicking the button:
