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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This is a fantastic addition, I can’t wait to implement it on my site. Thanks alot =)
unfortunately it seems I am not one of the 10% but I would love to be in the next lot of people to receive this feature. thanks!
I love it.
I was waiting for this feature!!
I hope to be available for everybody soon!!
Thanks WP!!
I would love to participate in the next phase of testing!
Pretty cool. My blog had it for a few hours – sign me up! :p
http://atinyblip.wordpress.com/2006/12/30/i-got-snap/
Thank you, WordPress folks. It’s a neat little feature.
I just want to say that, having joined the WordPress family less than a year ago, I have been nothing but impressed with how you WordPress folks quietly roll out features to improve what is already a paramount experience in blog publishing. A true mark of professionalism and class.
Keep up the great work.
hi, i realy like it, i tried it in my personal weblog but i have an English weblog here and can’t do anything i like. Snap is great but size of preview is too large if we can change it (some options like small,medium,large) i would be great.
my weblog on WP is hadi.WP.com ,let me test
me too, please! =)
count me in
Er… I’m getting in line, as usual.
Nobody even saw me. Gosh! Is that how slow these things usually are?
And also, on the Snap website, I saw that it has a “large library of websites that can be previewed”. Does that mean that only pages that are in their so-called “large library” can be previewed, because just because my blog is on Google doesn’t make it in their large library, right?
I’m one of there who just saw it briefly. I think it’s great! Can you please give it back to me 🙂 Thanks. P.S.: Keep on doing your great work.
Matt, I m really impressed by your quick approach and looking forward to have snap on my blogs. Lack of widgeting options on wordpress free blogs is the only reason that keeps the glass half filled. We obviously want it fully filled.
This sounds like a great plugin. I’ve seen it before. I would love to test it out! 🙂
I am using snap for my blogspot blog, but could not add it to my wordpress blog. Would like to see snap as an addon to wp blog soon.
Thanks for the effort
Savvybytes.com
Cool, I’d love to try it.
thanks.
very nice, Love it!
But it doesn’t work with urls like
http://klassik.oan.at/suche?search=Wiener Philharmoniker
Great idea, thank you!
I’d love to check it out!
i would like to test it
happy new year
🙂
I love this kind of feature on a web site. It saves the time of clicking a link, realizing it wasn’t worth the click, then having to find your way back to the section you were just at.
Great extra, keep them coming!
I’d like to trail this one – looks good guys
any chance of getting the possibility to use lightbox?
I like this new function … 🙂
….I want the plugin !!!!!!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR
very nice …
Cool. I want to be in line for it.
I saw this on another wordpress site, and it looks really neat. I’d love to have it on mine! Put me on the list, please!
I would love to be in the next round of testers…thanks Matt!
First, it’s fun to see what new things you guys are going to come up with next! Good for you for having so many ideas and for putting them out there for people to try.
Here’s my feedback: Psychologically, I think readers find the appearance of boxes that obscure the text they’re trying to read annoying, particularly on posts where the information is contained mostly in the text, rather than in the links themselves. It’s jarring and unpleasant to have your attention drawn away, without your permission, from text you’ve just been drawn into.
That said, I can imagine that this option would work very well with posts that aren’t primarily text-driven — posts where the point lies in the links themselves, and a reader might prefer to preview the link rather than navigate away from the post entirely.
Given that this feature works with some posts, and not others, and with some links and not others, I’d like to have the option of enabling this feature on selected links rather than having it apply universally to every link in every post. Put another way, this feature would be most useful if you offered it as an option when a blogger is setting up a link, rather than as you have it now, a sort of all or nothing feature that you must use everywhere if you wish to use it at all.
And Happy New Year to all you guys!
Sounds cool. Add me to the list please
i will love to try it, i was wondering if you guys will includ it in the near future!!!
Actually, it is a little irritating. I mean, I get the idea and understand why people would like it. It just reminds me a lot of those, what are they? You know, I think they’re called super text or something. They look like an ordinary link, but they are double underlined and green, and thy’re on about every popular word (such as ipod, or tv) on websites that use them, and when you roll over them this big ad comes up and you can’t get rid of it.
By the way, I checked and I’m pretty sure if you actually go to WP.com, it’s either a spam site or one of those directory sites. If it’s a directory site, you should buy it. They have tons of those on every domain they can think of.
Oh yes, I remember seeing this feature during one of blogging ventures. A very nice feature indeed it is, and I hope all on WP get this one soon! (I know I look forward to it!) 🙂
count me in – I’d love to test this!
I think it’s the cat’s pajama’s baby. Count me into the masses. 🙂
Hello,
I would love to display Snap Anywhere Preview (SPA) on my blog. I actually wanted to sign-up for it a few days ago and found that I couldn’t because WordPress doesn’t allow most Javascript. So, I already created an account, I just need the ability to put it on my blog.
Please include me in your next wave of testing.
Thanks,
JP
Hi Matt ,
Add me to the beta using Snap it .
Thanks
Boy o boy, I would love to have snap… pleasypleaseepleaseyyypleasewithacherryontop?
I can’t wait until SPA is available for everyone. Now if you will enable StatCounter, I’ll think I’ve died and gone to heaven!!
As one of the people who requested this feature, I was hoping to be able to at least be able to try it on my blog. Is it possible to enable this for me? Thanks!
Ooh and there I was trying to get SPA to work a few days ago! I thought it was impossible for WordPress.com at the moment but bingo! you guys started working on it!
Please include me in future trials too! Heh!
Happy New Year to all in advance!
Happy New Year everyone from Australia where New Year comes sooner 🙂 I’m afraid I have turned SPA off though. I found it interfered a little with the functionality of the links.
Wheeeee. I’m one of those lucky ones! It’s fun hovering around the links and pictures, haha. Thanks for such a wonderful feature, Matt! 🙂
I’d love to try it. I saw it on a Blogger blog, and was peeved that i couldn’t use it on my lovely, shiny WP blog. Please add me, please, please….
Thks,
Juno x
This is a cool thingy, but it’s not for that kind of blog I have, but I think that some people here will really really enjoy it!
hppy nw yr
Thanks for including “Carlos’ Chronicles” in the lucky 10% !! I really like this new add-on, although yesterday it was worrisome since my blog would never actually load!
Anyhoo, like I said – its a great feature, I like it alot and its as smooth as butter now!!
😀
Oh…i’m sorry,now i haven’t it anymore… why?
I like it 😦
Well…. i love this stuff very much now i am going to try this in my site even …!! 😉
Hi,
“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.”
Yesterday I was looking for a way to get Snap to my blog…now I understand there wasn’t. Yes I would like to have it!
Happy New Year, from Finland
/Erik
I’d love to try it!!!
Does it show flash or just html?
Found this accidentally on a blog and it was very good. Think it’s a useful little tool, although irst time I couldn’t easily access the link. Only really starting to use links now, but I think it would be a useful Widget to have.
Cheers…
Love it! Glad to be a beta-tester too. 😉
I want it please.
;_; i haven’t it…
But i’ll hope that i can try it… Do you think to include this one in free wordpress mode?
Thanks!!!
Astasia
Totaly cool feature! I really like it. Thanks for adding this to my blog, make it so much more fun to view the links!
Happy New Year to all of you. And thank you WP!
I have tried visiting blogs belonging to some of the commenters here who have ‘SPA’ already, but have yet to see this new feature in action. Is it still active? I really want to see it working, and was hoping to get on the list for the next round.
it looks like i am one of the 10%. thanks 🙂
it looks pretty cool 😛
Please add weboffortune to the next wave for SPA… so cool.. thx
i wanna be a beta tester in the future
Snap to it! Sounds gay…but useful lol
That looks awesome!
I WANT IT=D
Hi and Happy New Years to all….
I would lve this feature too, so add me to the next list please…
Thanx
With 250+ comments, I haven’t read a single one… I’ll just leave my own POV:
I installed the script for Snap to it about a week-10 days ago and it didn’t work. Suddenly it’s working, but I guess that wasn’t my doing then.
Anyway, STA works in the body of my text but not on any other text links, like in the sidebar. I have mixed feelings about the sidebar links, because I wrote my own alts/titles to pop-up when they are hovered over.
MOOD: AMBIGUOUS
I like the feature a lot, but it causes weird annoyances. For instance, 9 times out of 10 I open links in a new tab. But on Firefox 2.0.0.1/Linux (KDE), right-clicking opens the menu for clicking on an image, not on a link. I’ve reproduced it several times, making sure that I wasn’t actually clicking on the pop-up when I right-clicked. The workaround is simply to re-click, but it shouldn’t happen. A better workaround would be to create a user-definable delay or the ability for users to just turn it off locally. I’m not yet prepared to turn it off globally – the only option I currently have.
Posting this here ’cause feedback is shut down atm. Sorry.
It’s fine posting feedback on this entry, that’s what we want.
awesome! love to see it on my blog!
Ok, where is my SPA? I would like to have it… 😉
Happy new year (from a brazilian living in Poland)
😀
I saw this on some other blogs and I’d be interested in trying it out.
Cool. I want to try these feature.
I’d like to try it, glad to be beta tester too
Happy New Year to all!
Hey Jeremy: try using middle click on the mouse while on hover over the snap preview – not sure if the Linux version of Firefox supports that but it should I would think.
Matt, a few first impressions. I like Snap and I think it should be rolled out. I do know that the biggest benefit will be to readers. But one useful feature for bloggers would be to customise the settings so that commenter’s URL is able to be Snapped. IE: hover over their Homepage link that you put in when commenting. Maybe include in that blog links?
Otherwise I think this a worthy addition to the WP feature set. Thanks.
It seems that I’m one of the “chosen” 😉
The plugin seems to work perfectly, and I think it’s a nice extra to have in the blog. Keep up the good work!
Happy New Year!!!!!!
I like this hovering thing – pick my blog for testing!! 🙂
I’d love to try this. Thanks.
Please, count with me in the next phase of testing. Cool addon 😉
I’d like to try it, thanks Matt
Excellent plugin, really differentiates wordpress from other blog platforms (again). One suggestion: I always have a image in each post, and link it to file for a bigger view – this is previewed by snap and really doesn’t need to be.
I just like the new beta snap preview. In fact it´s sounds great. So I just step up in line to be one of the beta testers 🙂
This is a really great extra. Thanks for including me in the beta. I agree that t would be great for commenters URIs as well.
Next in line!
I’m actually looking for ways to implement it in my blog with no luck without access to the directory.
Looking forward to it!
I would like to try that out on the next round of testing. Thanks for all your hard work and happy new year.
Great idea… 😀
I’d love to be able to test this out. Thanks!
I love it.
Thanks for picking me to test it out. I link a lot. Very cool. It makes me feel so high-tech although my only talent on the computer is I type fast. So geez, don’t I look snazzy.
Peace.
Hmmm…
I noticed Snap Preview first on photomatt.net and, frankly, didn’t like it. It slows down page loading times and slows the page itself because of the JS involved.
I just have read this article and I agree with most of the points in it.
The feature looks cool, but rather distracts you when reading a page. People using internet now are wise enough to know what links would represent interest for them – there’s the link’s optional TITLE which may give you more information, and shows as unobtrusive tooltip when link is hovered; there’s the URL which shows in the title bar; so why would we need a PREVIEW of the page? Easier is to open the link in a new tab in the background, and see it later, right?
This is my personal opinion, of course:) You wanted some feedback – here it is 🙂
Hi I would love to have this on both of my blogs :
snowbroader.wordpress.com
wearedikonaca.wordpress.com
Thanks a million and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Hey any word on when this is going to be open to the unlucky 90%??? Thanks for keeping me posted 🙂
Oh, like in the Opera browser, when you mouse over the tabs, it shows a preview of the web page on that tab…
Just had it briefly on my blog and i think this was a seriously awesome feature!
Thanks to enable it on my blog as soon as you can!
Gimme gimme please please pretty please. Like to have this precious, yes we does 🙂
yes, there is the snap in my blog 🙂
thanks Matt
If you decide to use this permanently, will every user get this or will you just add it as an upgrade?
Thank you!!!
Can’t wait till it’s available for all!
Seems like a great feature. I’d love to have it. I love WordPress!
I think it’s really cool. But it does slow down loading time and such (minutely, but it does).
I think that what you currently have, the whole you can opt to have it on your journal, or not to have it or never to see it, is a great idea. 🙂 Everyone’s satisfied that way. 🙂
Cool. I’d love to have it. Thanks!
Hey Matt. How about letting me test this out. It’s pretty cool, and I’d love to have the capability on my blog. What do ya say?
😎
I think it is a great feature. Would like to have it on my blog!!!
I would love to be in on the next phase of testing, please add my site to what ever list you might be making, thanks 🙂
I don’t like this feature. It is just a bells-and-whistles thing adding no particular functionality to blogs -instead it can be quite irritating sometimes. Thanks for your good work anyway.