Twosday
When does Tuesday come before Monday? When Mint 2 with an overhauled haveamint.com (Peppermill!?) and a brand new shauninman.com are all launched on a Sunday night.
Mint 2
Mint has always been about a well-defined base feature set: Visits, Referrers, Pages and Searches; all presented succinctly and beautifully. Anything a basic Thin Mint installation couldn’t tell you about your site could be added with Pepper.
But Mint has been looking tired to me lately: the washed-out grey, the sideways gradients, the minty stripe overload, the wasted screen real estate, the tabs that were tabs in name only…I could go on but you get the idea.
Incremented version numbers have historically meant an increase in features. As designers and developers we’re all sensitive to the problems that arise from feature bloat—whether trudging through the latest versions of Photoshop and Illustrator or our own legacy product code.
While some new official Mint 2 Pepper introduce additional features, Mint 2 features many improvements.
Here’s just a few of my favorites:
- staggered loading of Pepper panes improving Mint page load time
- tons of interface and hierarchy refinements (including support for custom styles)
- improved pane tiling that reclaims wasted screen real estate
- css-based Visits graphs
- a bunch of tabs can now be filtered by timespan
- a new Domains tab added to the Referrers pane groups referrers by domain and sorts by the number of referrers from each domain
- Watched tab of the Pages pane has been expanded to display referrers of Watched pages
- Searches differentiates between image and web searches
- an additional easter egg
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Mint 2 now fully supports IE PC.
New Pepper
The new star Pepper is Bird Feeder. From its description:
Your RSS and Atom feeds attract all kinds of colorful wildlife, Bird Feeder is a window onto that activity. It highlights subscription trends across multiple Feeds and clicks on individual Seeds. What’s a seed? That’s bird-ese for an article or link within a feed. Poo-tee-weet?
Bird Feeder is savvy (and a fan of Kurt Vonnegut apparently). Online aggregators usually provide the number of subscribers for whom they fetch your feeds. Bird Feeder takes note of this so numbers should be comparable to hosted services like Feedburner. It even integrates with an updated User Agent 007, adding an additional Readers tab so you can see which tools are being used to subscribe to your feeds.
The Window Width Pepper has been retired and reborn as the Real Estate Pepper. In addition to tracking the width of your viewer’s browser window (minus chrome) Real Estate also tracks the height. The perfect compliment to User Agent 007’s Resolution tab—which we all know at this point, is not analogous to browser window size.
Then there’s Secret Crush. You have a blog or an account center on your site. People leave comments or login. You probably set a cookie to remember them. Secret Crush uses that information to identify your visitors so you can find out if that Stan is still stalking you. Mint used to track IPs but never displayed them (without using a third-party Pepper). In order to conform with your existing privacy policy, recording IP addresses is now Secret Crush’s responsibility.
While not exactly a Pepper, the Junior Mint Dashboard widget has been polished up and is worth mentioning. The new Dashboard dock icon and widget design look more like native widgets and received some of the previously mentioned visual-hierarchy love. There’s also a spinner to indicate when the widget is updating. The old widget has been renamed Stale Mint in case you decide to keep an odd Mint 1 installation laying about.
And lastly, all of the updated and new Pepper use extensions to the Pepper API unique to Mint 2, including simple CSS graphs, filter-widgets and automated database table management. I’ll be working to document these new features in the coming weeks so that third-party Pepper developers can start updating their Pepper and creating new ones that take advantage of the free functionality.
The new Mint Account Center, Forum and Peppermill
The day is finally here. One login to rule them all. The trusty ol’ PunBB forum has been retired in favor of an integrated Account Center and Forum. User titles in the Forum clearly indicate whether someone is licensed to use Mint. No more fielding support requests from pirates! And once a contribution to the new Peppermill is approved the contributer automatically receives the title of “Pepper Developer”.
What is the Peppermill? Until today tracking down third-party Pepper involved checking the Pepper Development forum religiously or subscribing to Sam Brown’s Peppermint Tea. And there was always the chance that a developer’s site and Pepper would disappear. The Peppermill is the place to download the latest version of Mint, official Pepper and widgets, and now third-party Pepper and inter-op scripts. While individual Pepper developers will still be responsible for supporting their own Pepper, the Peppermill will allow me to ensure a higher level of quality in third-party Pepper and stave off the eventual link rot of developer-abandoned Pepper.
The Peppermill also makes it easier to stay up-to-date. Now when the “Updates Available” link appears in your Mint installation or Junior Mint widget, clicking it will send you to a page in the Peppermill with links to the version of Mint or Pepper that require updating—specific to your installation.
Si10
One moment, let me catch my breath.
With version 10 of ShaunInman.com I decided to go back to my roots—both literally and figuratively. No more entire-site-in-a-cleverly-named-top-level-directory. And I’ve reverted to Univers Ultra Condensed.
The fifth redesign of ShaunInman.com is the earliest version of this site that I’m still fond of design-wise. Remove the pop-up window, photo background and iframe, mix in some of the time-dependent styling from the more recent iterations, add a touch of Swiss and you end up with the current design.
The previous design had a number of interesting relative-context details. Conceptually interesting. While the stripe may have been visually interesting on the year and certain category archives, the overall haphazard programmatic combination of colors that appeared everywhere else left a lot to be desired. And if you look at just about anything else I’ve designed—ever—it’s pretty obvious I don’t care for vertical rules. So good riddance.
This time around I opted for a largely duotone palette throughout. A single date-based color dominates the page, contrasting against the white text and occasional black tint. I need to refine a few of the summer month colors—white on yellow? you should be outside in the middle of June anyways—but there’s plenty of time to fix that. In case I don’t get around to it in time there’s a Toggle high contrast link in the footer that will toggle the entire site to white on an 80% black (true high contrast could probably burn a hole through the back of any normal person’s skull).
Lastly, because this is the future and we need to document everything, I’ve set up a script that uploads a daily capture of the homepage to Flickr—it’s about time I put that Pro account to use. Screen captures are provided by the delightful Paparazzi!’s AppleScript support. The script I cobbled together is a hybrid of the Flickr Uploader Folder Action for OS X and Galarrhea.
064 Comments
Great work Shaun! Sorry for refreshing every second.
Haha, make that two of us. I can’t club ya now that I see this. ;) We need to do a follow-up LFT101 episode for this.
This looks great. :)
Thanks guys. Bryan, I’m game. Email me to set up a time. And let me know if you see anything else amiss. I don’t know what I was thinking launching two sites and an upgrade to Mint at the same time. Seemed like a good idea a few weeks ago. :)
Mint 2? I wasn’t even expecting this for ages…
Oh what a monday!
:D
Wow Shaun! I definitely must update. :P I’m really digging the new Mint features and UI.
The redesign if your site is sweet as well. :D
I love both the new designs + features Shaun. However, why should we have to pay for an upgrade to Mint 2? It seems a bit unfair.
Just my .2 cents.
yeah, I’m not so excited now.
I understand the reasoning behind it, but even so, will have to wait for a while to upgrade I think
Alex: Let me answer that question so Shaun doesn’t have to —
Why do we pay for things in this world? Well, usually it’s because we are seeking to gain utility from something someone else is providing. A slice of pizza. Rent for your apartment. A copy of Photoshop.
So.
Shaun spends several months of his time creating Mint 1 and the world beats down his door to pay $30 a copy for it. Yay world! Yay Shaun!
Those that are happy with Mint 1 can continue to use Mint 1 until the day they die. Yay software licenses!
Since Shaun’s such a perfectionist and a great software developer, he says to himself “Wow, maybe I should spend several more months of my time creating an even better Mint!”
He then does. He keeps the price at $30. He even gives existing Mint users 1/3rd off that price. $20! The price of two drinks in Manhattan! Yay Shaun!
And so then the world rejoices as they can either a) keep using their existing version, or b) skip two martinis and try the new stuff!
What’s unfair again? I don’t get it.
What friends have said regarding Mint 2.0 on aim:
“new design is beautious”
“OOOOF slick as hell”
“blast! i forgot my paypal pwd”
“man. now im finally going to update. havent updated in like… forever”
Mike: I’m too young to drink. That gives me more money, right? Okay, it does.
Anyways,
I didn’t really think about that. Shaun spends a lot of time creating the awesome piece of software that we have today, Mint.
I like to be paid for what I do and my time. Someone asks me to make a new web site for their company, I put a lot of my free time into that. I go to school in the day, I do work at night.
In agreement with your comment,
Shaun has the right to charge for the upgrade. It’s infact very smart of him to do so. I believe his time, or my time, or any body’s time is worth more than $30. Especially more than a month of time.
Yay Mike! Couldn’t have put it better myself.
I’ll be away from this thread for a bit resolving an issue with PayPal. If anyone has purchased an upgrade to Mint 2 and is still waiting for an email or the Account Center to reflect this please see this thread. I appreciate your patience and apologize for the inconvenience.
Brilliant! I’ll be upgrading my Mint license this week. Awesome job on both sites, as well as Mint 2 :)
One thing … it’s hard to see the “Toggle high contrast” on pages with low contrast … perhaps this should always be a higher contrast?
Just stopping by to say that I’ve been using Mint 2 for months as part of Shaun’s beta testing, and it’s freaking brilliant. Trust me, you want it. It really does blow the socks off of the original Mint, which was already pretty damn great.
Go ahead, call me a claquer. :)
I’ve fallen in love with Mint all over again. Great work, Shaun!
Everything looks great, Shaun. You’re my new inspriation when it comes to type on the web now.
Quick question though: I just purchased Mint for a non-profit exactly a week ago. There isn’t a chance I could get a free upgrade for them, is there?
Ditto to Jeff’s comment above - I’ve been beta testing M2 for months, and it has almost killed me to have to keep using M1 on some client sites until today :)
Mint 1 was worth more than $30. If you own Mint 1, you owe it to yourself to upgrade to Mint 2, and you’ll thank yourself for it later :)
Lenny, all licenses purchased since January 1st, 2007 GMT have already received an automatic free upgrade to Mint 2.
Shaun, thanks so very much for Mint v2, and your free upgrade for recent purchasers. I just bought a license about two weeks ago, and definitely wasn’t expecting this! I’m installing v2 as I type this.
Again, thanks for your incredible knowledge at such an awesome price!
FWIW, my favorite part of the linked SIv5 is the little IE logo in the upper-right. How times have changed!
I love SI v10. Univers looks good on you, my friend. Let the ripoffs commence.
Thanks for “stealing” 40 (2 mint accounts) of my hard earned dollars by making me want to upgrade. :) Awesome work.
absolutely amazing. I’m speechless. It’s mint, but its better.
the rss stats are great, just trying to make it work with my podcasts now!!!
thankyou shaun!
Great site, again a wonderful piece. Im sure going to make the small step to Mint now. Thanks for it!
Hell, i like this design more than the not-so-recent design (SI v9). Heaps better!
Damn, just purchased my second mint license in november, should have waited two months. But 19$ seems fair to me, and from the screenshots — I have to update. Nobody can resist version 2.0.
Well done, Shaun. Oh, and ShaunInman.com: Great.
Incredible work, Shaun.
I love the attention to detail and the level of micro designing in your work (like the comment displays with the highlighted significant figures in the comment number, and the highlight on the border above “Author” and “Posted”).
I keep noticing little details all over the place, and I know that each have taken ages to perfect. I’ll aim to upgrade to Mint2 ASAP as much to see more of these details than to get at the improved and added features.
Keep it up.
Shaun - big congrats on the new design and the new Mint. Can’t wait to upgrade. I’m sure there will be more people out there who aren’t pleased with having to pay for an upgrade but frankly, if they take a moment to remember what it is they got for $30 in the first place and consider just how much work you must be putting into this, then I’m sure they’ll not mind paying for an improved service. And as Mike points out - it’s not like Mint 1 is going to stop working all of a sudden.
Fantastico. Love it. Great work as always.
Lookin’ Good, Mr. Inman!
I’m going to go with the high-contrast version for now. Then maybe, on Friday’s, I’ll let my hair down and go low.
Great work, Shaun. Hopefully I can drive a few customers to you with my short Mint 2 review on aetherworld.org Personally I can’t wait to upgrade!
I also dig the new layout of your site, well done with the duotone colour scheme.
Thank you for the jan 1st grace period Shaun. Very much appreciated…
Just wanted to say I really like the new inman.com (but you have just ruined my next post by updating darn it!) and Mint 2 certainly looks tasty. It looks like I’m going to have to find a way to get involved in the minty action, particularly with my blog readership beginning to grow!
Great job, Shaun! Mint2 is so great looking and your new peppers two ;-)
Yesterday I was very excited about what you would serve us - now I have to say that I’m really impressed!
*Mint2 website totally rocks. *I love the Heap. *si10 sux.
New Mint, awesome! As always, great job on the new designs!
A 3 week grace period for free upgrades (!!!!) That’s ridiculously short.
Shaunn definitely has a right to charge for the upgrade, but c’mon — users who just bought your software in the last couple of months should be given a break and not charged the full upgrade.
I agree that a grace period of 3 weeks seems a bit short. My Mint 1 license is from the end of November I think.
However, it’s not like Mint 1 suddenly stopped working. You can still use your old Mint 1 license and decide not to buy an upgrade (which of course would be totally worth the $19, considering it’s just the equivalent of two drinks in a club).
If you buy, say, Apple OS X 10.4 now, or maybe Microsoft Windows XP, do you really think you’ll get a free upgrade in a month or so, when Visa and OSX 10.5 will get sold?
If $19 for the upgrade is too much for you, just don’t pay it. You say “That’s ridiculously short”. What’s actually ridiculous however, is that Shaun is offering a grace period at all. You know, he doesn’t have to.
Personally, I won’t upgrade to Mint 2 but I’ll buy a new license for aetherworld.org and transfer the Mint 1 license to one of my lesser used domains.
And if you - like me - totally dig the new version of Mint, skip a Mojito or three next weekend and enjoy the sleek interface of Mint 2 for the next year.
Wow, only a couple of upgrade fee whiners in the entire thread!
Either Mike D’s smackdown was effective at quieting the cheap and chatty or the human race has just made one small step in achieving greater intelligence.
Considering the state of the rest of the world, I’m going with Mike’s effectiveness at stamping out the whiner crowd.
I will also add to what others have said and comment that the $19 upgrade fee is worth just to get the new Visits graphs. Hot, hot, hot.
I dig the new redesign of shauninman.com, but the links’ readability sucks. Too bold and too small. But, hight contrast makes up for it.
Speaking of the current design, I’m assuming you proceeded with FF DIN for logo/headings once again?
Love the simplicity.
Sorry to post again, but just realized you kept the same idea from Heap — it’s fantastic!! The colors and use thereof are even better this time around.
Paid and upgraded! thx. btw, love the High contrast!
I love the new version of your website, and the new and improved Mint 2.0. Now if only the “Update Available” icon would go away on my Junior Mint and Mint installs. = ]
Nice friendly place here … I’m labeled a ‘whiner’ and sub-intelligent for saying the grace period on the upgrade is too short.
Most small apps like Mint do have a decent grace period so that people who just bought the software 4 weeks ago aren’t charged again. A grace period of a few months is common. It’s ridiculous to compare Mint to OS X or Vista and say their upgrade policies should apply here. Those are enormous pieces of software with major release schedules predicted well in advance.
Of course, Shuann doesn’t have to offer any grace period. And of course users who just bought Mint don’t have to upgrade. But a great deal of the benefit of Mint comes from third party peppers, all of which will now be developed and maintained for v2.0. So there is a much greater need to upgrade than some people here are letting on.
Congrats on Mint 2 Shaunn. It looks great and I’ll probably upgrade shortly. But I really think that the grace period should have been longer.
Likeing the new design mate, on both sites for that matter, although I do feel that maybe the header section is a little too big between the links , even though this was probably done to draw attention to Mint.
Anyhow, great job! the High contrast works well, I’m using it right now.
Hey Shaun
Just wanted to say add my congratulations, everything looks very cool. When i went to haveamint.com last night, i actually got one of those “it’s christmas tomorrow” feelings.
One question for you or anyone else that might know… I see that you’re using an opacity change for your link:hover styles. do you know why, in firefox, this opacity change affects everything?
just something i’ve noticed here, and on other projects.
anyway, great work. i’ve already bought a new license and upgraded an old one.
peace(:
Personally, I enjoyed the previous design of Shauninman.com
But that is just me.
Congrats on the release of Mint 2 though!!
Kudos on the Mint 2.0 update! Very nice! Love the site too, although the old one still was good imo.
Unfortunately I must say that I don’t like the new SI that much … maybe it’ll come with the days, but now I’m not convinced (yet). That might be due to the fact that from a developer’s point of view - as you say so yourself - the old version rocked hard. Very hard.
Anywho, time to transfer some cash to my paypal account ;)
B!
Congrats to Mint 2.0, great effort. Not so optimism with the new relaunch imho. Liked the previous much more (and also si9) than this. Like you and Bramus! said - the old one rocked.
I’ve upgraded a few installations already…the new CSS graphs are great.
Do you have any plan to sell the graphs as a separate product? I think there could be a market for that, even at US$10/copy.
I should probably clarify - firefox 2 on OS X
Everything is very nice! Shaun, do you care to touch on the framework that you used/made for si10 and haveamint.com 2?
@m:
I didn’t mean to be unfriendly, sorry if I was. Also I don’t mean to label you ‘whiner’ or worse yet, ‘sub intelligent’.
Of course it’s ridiculous to compare Operating systems to something like Mint. That was meant as a response to you saying the grace period of 3 weeks was ‘ridiculous’.
I’m agreeing, the grace period should be longer but on the other hand I accept that Shaun charges for the upgrade and that I will gladly pay it. It’s just worth it.
Again, no offense meant!
Nice work Shaun! goes to look for that paypal pass.
Damn, I wish I would have waited to purchase the largest lump of my mint licences until January. But I like the Mint Chocolate style so it’s great!
It’s going to cost $95 USD to update all my licences. ;_;
I think that you’ve gone for a two-tone sIFR where the first word is white.
But I’m using Firefox2, Flash 9 and Linux, so all I can see in the headers is the second word, printed on an inch-high, full-width white bar.
Is there some way you can both set the background of the flash headline to be dark grey and then make it transparent? ‘Cos the transparency doesn’t work at all here, which makes this the first time the no-Flash-transparency thing has ever made me unable to read something at all.
So… if there’s a way of applying an actual colour before the transparent mask, that’d be nice. Ta.
Hey John, you might have to kill your cache but I changed the
#FFFto#2E2E2E(which should match the high contrast BG if you want to forgo the colors all together).Thanks for the words everyone, kind or otherwise. ;)
Great work. Simple but effective.
Now this new SI design I like, especially in high contrast mode (didn’t get along with the previous veriosn to be honest). Well be hunting around here for a better look. The floating comment is box pretty damn cool too (by which i also mean useful). Also Mint 2 looks extremely promising.
Shaun, is somewhere possible to view the Heap (SI10) version? Thanks
Yay. Can read everything now and I’ll stick with high-contrast in honour of your effort.
cr3n, not yet but there will be shortly.
Wow, fantastic new website. Love it. Well done. I don’t know where you find the time to update it.