Site Status and New User Flow

Since our last release, we've focused on existing interfaces and adding features in our continuing effort to improve the CloudCannon experience. These improvements are driven by your feedback and support.

Site Status

Users were repeatedly missing our indicator for Jekyll build errors. We've made this much more prominent in the user interface by integrated everything related to the health, state and activity of your site in one section called Status. The sidebar link for this section displays a quick status of your site and indicates if there is an error.

The Status section displays the build progress for your site in real time as CloudCannon processes it. There are site statistics and a stacked bar graph displays your file composition. Suggestions are shown for your site, such as adding a site map file or making use of specific CloudCannon features. Trailing underneath is the redesigned site activity feed.

We plan to improve this section over time. We will expand on the build progress, increase the useful errors and warnings shown, and add additional suggestions.

Empty Interfaces

Many of our interfaces were rather underwhelming when empty, preventing some users from progressing through the app. Some new users were creating accounts without adding files to their first site. To encourage users to progress, we've added guidance text and artwork to the empty File Browser section.

Other sections will offer short descriptions and guide the user back to this section when there are no files present. We hope that these updates allow new users to discover the full potential of CloudCannon.

New Create Menu

In addition to our File Browser improvements, we've consolidated our file creation options into one menu. The commonly requested feature of creating a folder within the app is also available here.

The new create menu, and other File Browser features are also available in the Collections section. Among the most notable requests, folders can be created, files can be dragged into folders and new posts/collection items are automatically opened for editing when created.

We plan to add an archive (.zip or .tar.gz) upload for browsers other than Chrome that don't support folder upload.

Thanks again for all the suggestions and feedback. Keep it coming by contacting us in the app or at support@cloudcannon.com.