On a limited number of blogs, about 10% we’re testing out a plugin that allows you to have Snap Preview Anywhere (SPA for short) enabled on your blog. SPA is a little widget that shows people a preview of the page on the other end of a link when they hover over it for a few seconds.
I tried it out on my personal blog and really liked it, we’ve had a fair number of requests for it, and we think the Snap guys are fun to work with so we thought we’d give it a go here on WP.com.
If you’re a lucky member of the beta group be sure to send in your feedback about what you think about it to help shape how/if we roll this out for everyone.
Finally if for whatever reason you dislike it, you can disable it for your blog under Presentation > Extras. If you never want to see it again anywhere in the world on any site click on the question mark in the preview box and they have a link that sets a cookie so it won’t show up anymore.
Update: If Snap isn’t on your blog or you only saw it briefly, don’t worry. If you like it just leave a comment and you’ll be first in line for the next stage of testing.
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Snap! I don’t have it… but it sounds kinda cool!
This is looking nice indeed. I tend to write more than I link, but it’s still a feature that would be pretty useful for any lazy people who don’t want to click.
I had it briefly too and I loved it! I would love to see this feature for WP. You guys are awesome and Happy New Year!
I find it extremely annoying, especially on blogs with numerous links.
Same here… I had it this morning and I really love it !
i have it too!
feeling very honored to be part of the ‘snap’ program!
Hi there. My website is one of the lucky 10%. The feature is a useful addition and is a very attractive way of letting site visitors know what your links are all about. Thanks. It should be standard WordPress option for all blogs. Btw, I migrated to WordPress from Typepad, and though I was fumbling in the initial stages, I’m now very much a convert. I would love to see more WYSIWYG editing tools (colours especially!) and sidebar additions but on the whole, am happy with WordPress (as long as I use IE and not Opera or Firefox).
Awful. Hate hate hate hate hate. Have disliked Snap Previews on every site I’ve encountered them, and haven’t yet found a good use for them. Pop ups beyond the users control, that start wasting my bandwidth without me asking it to (I’m on dial up), unaccessible and pointless.
IF you’re going to let them run, then the preview should be a separate, clickable link, not automatically generated on hovering over a link. I don’t want it to happen, and shouldn’t have to hack my browsers functions to disable them. It’s VERY rare that I agree completely with Lorelle, but in this case I do. Bad for accessibly, bad for usability, bad for dial up and other bandwidth deprived users, and gives very little net benefit to anyone that I can see.
LOVE IT 😀
+1, nice
I like it… I hope I get this one…
Am 😦 not Beta.. Matt 🙂
Cheers!
I’d like the plugin please!
Give it back, it was Awesome!
I want it!
Hey Matt,
SNAP is excellent.I’d like to have it for my blog.Thanks.
Yay! I’m one of the lucky few who are part of the beta release. But when I apply it, I don’t get the preview. Can anyone explain this anomaly to me?
Sorry guys,
this feature does nothing for me… When I discovered I was “one of the lucky”, I immediatly turned it off. Not my cup of coffee.
Well, I like it, though I would like to allow it to be enabled for the sidebar links.
I’d love to have it as well, please.
Would love to beta test during the next stage! I’m on a MacBook Pro using Firefox and Safari so could offer testing in that arena.
That’s one of the best features in the Opera browser. Very convenient. Would be cool and useful on WP.com.
Thanks!
Annie
It’s working well for me, an excellent feature. Thanks!
Always a willing lab rat. Let the testing begin.
I love this, but I can’t have it in my blog… Why??????? I want it a lot and I like it a lot too.
I’m using “Benevolence” and there’s no “extra” there. Can I have it.
Hugs and Kisses and Happy New Year!
I’ve seen it on a couple of places today; it left me a little confused at first, since I thought my Firefox Cooliris extension was behaving strangely, until I worked out what was going on. I like it, and would love to have it on my blog.
Im jealous. I didnt get it. I like it. I think its a cool idea. I want it. Give it to me!! NOW NOW NOW!!!
HAHA.
I will sit patiently by and wait my turn. Please hurry. Im not really all that patient!
Thanks!! We are part of the beta test group. We really like the widget, it is very useful. Best regards and Happy 2007!!
Another nice widget for those who have it at the moment. Thank you WordPress, you’ve done it again!
Nice! I like it on my site themolitor.com!
Hi, I want to be one of the beta testers please, I think it is a great improvement.
SPA appeared in my blogs only for a couple of hours . I’d really love the snap-it function in my blog.
It was on my blog this afternoon and damn right I liked it! I want it back!!!!
Nice! You people are really impressive! You always come up with new and cool ideas while keeping wordpress.com as simple as possible. And thats why I like wordpress.com. Thank you very much!
I like it on my blog too!
I didnt get to test the feature, but i checked it out on some peoples blogs and i think its awesome. Id love to have that feature on my blog. WordPress.com is the best 🙂
I think it’s neat on the sites where I’ve seen it.
I think it’s very nice and useful Thank you.
Fantastic! I thought WP ‘ld ask money for this…..but, am skeptical whether u can do a preview on my Telugu pages too
I’d really like to be betatester…
I am of two minds about this, but thanks for giving me a hook for today’s entry. 😉 I am happy to trial it, and also that it can be turned off. I’ll keep it for a while at least. I tend to think it is a bit unnecessary, but can understand why many would like it. On the plus side, it just might encourage lazy readers to investigate links. Quite often a post is better understood, or means more, if readers do go where you point.
Honestly, when I tried this it reminded me of those pages that have the words highlighted as links but were really only ads in disguise. Plus, I do not like having unexpected pop-ups come up at me; is this stuff Javascript?
All right. I’m queued up for the features! And I don’t like waiting; even in a theater I’m annoyed of the short lines at 12:00 AM.
I don’t have it 😦 i want it 2 …
Fine! I asked on the forums about SPA a couple of days ago and received a negative feedback, so I am glad to hear this news. I really would like to join the group of beta testers, if possible.
Anyway, Thanks for your excellent work and A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Will this maybe be a feature that will be a widget or will it be pay for only? I would love to have it, as it seems (to me anyway) that people really frequent blogs with the newest info and the newest gadgets on it.
thanks 🙂
snap has had an excellent new concept of searching, and it’s great to see their system implemented on other sites ! party on guys !
Love the plugin. Adds that extra bit to the blog that some other blogging hosts do not have. Thanks for the continued work.
jb
This is an awesome feature! Thanks so much for making it an option; it really increases the usability from the reader’s point of view. So often I hesitate to click on links because I don’t want to end up at some godforsaken pop-up farm or on a media-rich site that’ll take forever to load. The loading time for the Snap window varies directly with the loading time for the actual site (although it’s faster) so that conveys all the info I need right there.
Thanks for this feature which I asked to consider before it was enabled on wordpress. Unfortunately i do not seem to belong to the beta testers…
I really like this idea of seeing the link in a preview. I have this on my blog and I think I would leave it on at this stage.
Thanks for choosing me and my blog to test this out, I will let you know of any problems if I come up with any over the next few days. But, for now just with a cursory look, everything looks fine 🙂
V
“I’ll be first in line for the next stage of testing” after those 66 previous responses… oh well! I can wait, I guess. 🙂
Very Nice! 😀
I got it briefly but now it’s gone 😦
Anyway, it was really good.
I want the plugin!
I want on the list of Beta stuff. How come I’m not on the list? Do you have to be somebody special, somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody else? Do I have to trade “favors” to get on the list? Why aren’t I with the in crowd? It’s because I’m a girl isn’t it? 🙂
Austin of Sundrip Journals (I’ve been up too long. I need sleep.)
That willy really help because some of my titles are kind of boring! But, if they use SPA they can see how intresting this post will really be!
wow~ cool!
I like this new function.
I believe we had it for a short time – and it would be a very useful feature, especially if it works on links in comments. I like the idea of being able to see what you might be letting yourself in for…
Can I please, please have it!!!!
oooh, i just saw this on one website the other day. i kinda like it 🙂
Me please!
kystorms, it’ll be completely free.
This is an excellent way to dynamically annotate a link.
Annotations are editorial metadata (metadata is data about data), and also one of my favorite topics 😉
I have only one suggestion: Introduce intelligent placement for Safari. All previews are placed above the link. In many cases, I had to scroll up, and then mouse over the link a second time to see the preview. This is a minor inconvenience. However, it is also a usability issue that detracts from the overall value of SPA. In other words, can you add some code to figure out where it’s best to place the preview – i.e., above or below the link. (It looks like you’ve already got the right/left placement figured out.) Note: None of this applies to Firefox on the Mac.
This is a great addition, and I look forward to production deployment.
Thank you 🙂
One more thing: This is an efficient and effective way of rapidly validating the links I’ve included in any of my own posts on my own blog.
I think I like it. I’m not sure how it feels with dial-up, though. I wouldn’t want our readers leaving because the page wouldn’t load.
Thanks for making me a part of the beta group! I think Snap is a handy thing to have for my journal, especially when I have links to pictures. 😀
This is an excellent addition! I like it very much!
Thanks!!
-bill
Ei! I want it too! I have it in my family blog
I don’t have the Extra tab. But I don’t want it. Thank you.
Me too!
I think Snap is a kind of cool feature. It might get old after a while, but right now I think it’s nifty.
I wouldn’t mind trying this either.
I would love Snap on Free Hogg. Gracias.
It’s a great feature for those who want it, and anyone can use the FF extension if they really need it, but thanks anyway
I saw it on my blog but seemed a bit annoying.
hi, Snap was on our blog (Noshowerfamily.wordpress.com) yesterday, but it’s gone now.. i liked it, but my blogging partner thought it was confusing. i think it’s because yesterday was the first time she ever saw a Snap-ified site. i like it though, and i think it’s useful.
Excellent! I like this new plugin
Hi Matt
I noticed that I have been given this feature on my blog. Looks a useful additional tool in the short time I have had to play with it.
Thanks for the hard work improving the service.
this is really good plug-in….
I want it on my blog too…
plz add it to WP.com or add me in beta testing
Thanks 🙂
I see I am one of the few which doesn’t really like this “extension”.
While it can have sense occasionally, on singular and short post, when applied on a daily basis to longs, very linked, posts (may I use the word “article” ?) it becames a PITA.
It is disrespectful of people with slow internet connection, it is in any case a waste of bandwidht and I do ask myself what happens about web accessibility from the ‘differently able’ people.
I saw SPA only briefly and I liked it … want to wait in a line
thanks,
Pina
I had SNAP briefly on my blog, and indeed I liked it! Use your wizard wand and make it work again, please! Thank you.
hmm how much does snap.com pay for it? 🙂
There’s also a solution with less branding, less html, and less foreign-html: http://www.websnapr.com. Using it on my private blog for months and works great.
I..I want to give it a try. Please make the links at my blog snapable.
Count me in!! I love the preview idea. Anything to make the web more appealing is a great addition, in my book.
I can’t wait until it’s available on my blog too!
Keep up the good work guys!
Wow – this has super awesome potential.
I love wordpress and am always recommending – this is definetely another way where you guys are on top of new and cool things!
I love it! I am very pleased that you have included Rooster’s Rail in the beta. I use a lot of screen shots and this is just a bonus. Great addition, Pleeeeeeeeeze keep it. Make it an optional thing to turn off though for those that don’t want it.
Tops… now I am off to test it out… goody goody goody…
I’ve seen this in other blogs and I find it very interesting, could I have it on my own blog?
I don’t have it. but I want it!!! xD Pleeeeeease 🙂
I put my hand up to be in the next stage of testing! 🙂
Love the idea. PLease make it avaialble to all… been trying to implement is for a while, but cannot. Also, I cannot seem to put any javascript in any widgets… any help?
I want it………….. 🙂
I want it too, it’s really good ^_^
Can I be on the list?
I want it! I didn’t even know you were testing this out, and I sent a message asking how to use it. It’s a great addition and I can’t wait to get it.
It came….it went 👿
What a fun idea!
I saw this yesterday on raincoaster’s blog and wondered how the heckity she managed to do that! Totally coolisimo Matt … pleeeease can I have one too? (if there was a grovel smiley I’d be using it)