News
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13th October 2009
 The change in the site has gone underway.
It's such an overhaul of the LawsLoop website we feel it's only right to justify the change to our existing members.
We are shifting away from a general political social-networking site with lots of different aspects and instead focussing on what is the backbone of LawsLoop - the Manifestos.
So what made us take the leap and change the site so dramatically? Where are the Unions, Compendium and Elections?
The issue with Unions, Compendium and Elections was that in order to work, we needed enough active members to justify creating them. Unfortunately instead, we'd get lots of new members who would register, click the Elections page - nothing there, click the Compendium page - nothing there either and click the Unions page - again, nothing there. To them, it must have felt like they'd joined a half-completed website and so they'd leave. In short, it was a vicious circle for the site.
 For other reasons, having Unions, Elections and the Compendium seemed to dilute the point of the site a little. The Manifestos are always the main focus of the site and the changes we've made has reflected this.
The site is now easier to use, faster loading and much more inviting to casual visitors.
You can see that there are now lots of options at the top of the page for users to see the Newest, Most Read, Most Commented pages and so on.
If you are a member, you now have more links in the sidebar box. The Updates and Private Messages images change if you have new updates or messages.
Some of the other links that used to exist in the top menu such as the News, Contact Us and Social Networking pages are now in the bottom bar.
We hope you like the change, if you have any suggestions, please use the Site Comments board on the Forum.
The Official Parties page has also been given an update and is now Official Manifestos. Each Manifesto gives you a lot more information than before. Only the United Kingdom has any Official Manifestos but over time, more and more Manifestos will be added from all over the world.
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8th October 2009
 Profiles weren't showing properly in Internet Explorer, this has been fixed. Also, new buttons have been added below your Profile Information, including the ability to see all of a member's activity on LawsLoop since they joined.
A major change is the ability to edit your Profile Information directly from your Profile instead of having to go to the Account Settings page.
Text in your posts, Manifesto pages, Private Messages and Profiles can now be underlined or centered!
 Some aspects of the site such as Elections say that once we reach 300 members they would become active, however, because we've been unable to advertise the site, it isn't quite busy enough to justify it. We're currently at 299 members.
However, a recent development means that we will soon begin advertising again - and with a bigger budget. When we advertised in the past, we didn't really have a great layout, nor was there that much on the site. Now that we have some foundations, it's likely we'll get lots of new members.
The Welcome page has been redesigned. It's the first page you see after you register, most people only see it once!
Bug Watch: Until recently, there was a bug which wouldn't allow your main Manifesto information to be saved.
Bug Watch 2: Also until recently, Welcome messages to new members weren't being sent, thats been fixed too. Sorry about that!
The Social Networking page has now been completed. You can look up the Manifesto of anybody on the site (including yours) and post it all around the web.
Updates have been slow this fortnight, currently we're thinking of perhaps implementing a big change to the feel of the site. Nothing is certain but plans are being drawn to see if/how it would work.
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23rd September 2009
The Updates system got the full works and the old page for Updates has now disappeared!
Updates are now available on the Sidebar. Your Updates will appear in an alert box. If you have new updates, the alert box will show you them straight away, otherwise you'll be given a full list of your Updates.
Not only that, on the same alert box you can also see your subscriptions to Manifesto Pages, Forum Threads and Profiles. If you didn't know already, you can subscribe to these things so that you receive an Update whenever they're posted on.
 Usernames can now have uppercase letters. Up until now, all usernames have been lowercase.
If you're an existing member and would like your username to have any uppercase letters please use the Contact Us form.
We will not change your username any more than converting lowercase characters already in it to uppercase letters. This offer is open until October 5th.
 The Mail system is the latest feature to receive an upgrade.
Like the Updates system, the whole Mail feature appears inside an alert box. It means you're able to message anybody wherever you are on the site, rather than having to go to a separate page, much more convenient.
Everything is far more compact and yet looks so much better than it did before. New features include an unlimited Inbox and Outbox and the ability to see whether the recipient of the message you've sent has read the message yet.
Not only that, the entire way the Mail system works has changed, instead of looking through your messages one-at-a-time, continued conversations between you and another person will appear in the same window so you can read your conversation from beginning to end in the same box.
There are still a few more small features to be added but at least you can now read and send messages.
What we've been doing for the past couple of weeks has been to go through all the pages that existed right at the beginning of LawsLoop and bring them up to date. Before, we just needed something on the pages to get us moving, but now we have some kind of infrastructure, a little more focus on presentation is being taken on. Manifestos, Profiles, Updates and Mail are all done. The Account Settings page and a few others pages still need work. Lots to do!
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17th September 2009
 The mathematics behind the Demographic Stats has been improved. Results are now more accurate. The Right/Left Wing pages according to your query actually works correctly now. It wasn't working properly before but we'd just hoped you hadn't noticed.
Just to top it off, the Demographics Stats page will also show you the political scale coordinates of your query (coordinates start from 1,1).
On the topic of statistics, the Top 25 List page has been updated, it isn't finished but there are some useful statistics there for you.
Forgot to mention in the previous News that Manifesto front covers now have lots of information on them, scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll find statistics about every page!
The site underwent a massive upgrade of the way it handles posts on the site (Manifestos, Profiles, Forum Threads), we've tested as much as possible to iron out as many errors that may have arisen as a result but if you spot any, don't hesitate to contact us.
There was a glitch where the Text Area in the posting sections wouldn't expand when you pressed the  and  buttons. This has now been fixed.
The quoting system has been given a massive upgrade.
Clicking on a quote link will take you to the quoted post if the it's on the same page.
If the quoted post isn't on the same page, a new box will appear and will show you the post. Try it now! 349
There are lots of plans for this new alert box. By design it should appear in the centre of your screen no matter how far scrolled down the window you are, it should also stay in the centre even if you resize your screen. If it doesn't do either of these things, please get in contact.
You now have all the formatting options available (Smileys and BBCode) when editing posts.
Profiles have been given a huge makeover. Its a job we've been meaning to do for ages, they look much better now.
The Updates system is getting an ... update. New Updates will have an  symbol next to them. At your own leisure, you can deactivate the Update by clicking on it at which point it'll look like this:  . You can reactivate an Update at any time for future attention. More work is coming to the Updates page soon.
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3rd September 2009
The News page is back with a redesign. It used to have its own button on the Main Menu but has now been moved under the Information header.
Yet again the layout has had a massive redesign in our quest to rid the site of excessive green.
More links have been added to the Submenu, more work to do but it's going to look great when its all finished.
The icon  has been added to differentiate our female members from our male ones, sorry it took so long, ladies!
The LawsLoop homepage has undergone 4 massive redesigns. Our new one now allows people to create a Manifesto page as soon as they visit the site before registering. It also allows them to see previews of pages before visiting them.
Typing 'lawsloop' into Google no longer brings up the message 'Did you mean laws loop?', this is a good thing...
 LawsLoop now has RSS Feeds, these are a great way for you to keep up with the latest goings-on on LawsLoop, even if you're not on the site at the time!
We currently have RSS feeds to show you the newest Manifesto Pages created, the most recently rated Manifesto pages, the latest posts on Manifesto pages, the most recently updated threads and finally, an RSS feed for the most recent posts anywhere on the site (Profile, Manifesto or Forum). More RSS feeds will be coming soon.
The Political Scale has also been updated. Instead of having two separate scales on Manifesto Pages, one for your rating and another for the average rating, they've now been merged into one.
Your rating is the lighter marker: 
The average rating is the normal marker: 
The Top 25 Lists is currently being worked on right now, then the My Stats page. Then Profiles will probably get a redesign. The Compendium, Unions and Elections will be here one day, be patient and keep making Manifesto pages, posting on the Forum and so on, its great to see so many new members.
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