Gridllr

Browse all your Likes in a grid view.  Easy reblogging.

[gridllr]

Logjam fixed!

Thanks to all the people who messaged me about the issues on January 21. The server is now fixed, and I’ve made improvements so it can’t happen again. You might notice the whole site is a bit faster and more responsive now.

I’ve also made some changes to the Settings panel (click on the gear) so that should hopefully be a bit clearer now.

[gridllr]

Better downloads

Gridllr.com is updated today with a small improvement.  The Download button on image posts will now download the image immediately (one-click downloading).  

It will always download the largest size available from Tumblr, usually that’s _1280.jpg.

Note that often the poster’s original image is less than 1280px, so the file you download might be less than 1280px wide.  There’s nothing we can do about that.  But you can try the built-in search function, which uses TinEye - TinEye can maybe find a higher resolution version of the same image somewhere else on the web.  Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t, there’s a bit of luck involved!

If there’s any feature in Gridllr you’d like to see, you can mention it in comments.

[honedperfection]

December 17th - a rescue plan

Some good news, I’ve been talking to two developers now and got them working together, we just had a meeting with the guys behind an existing large (millions of users) site similar to Tumblr, with a vibrant and open-minded community, and more importantly, it has open-minded owners who believe in free speech. They think we can get something done here to rescue the whole community.

I’m not allowed to reveal the site name yet. I can tell you it’s mainstream, open to everyone, open-minded and welcoming. (It’s not WordPress or any site owned by Facebook or Twitter. It’s not Pillowfort, that’s in closed beta. It’s not Ello, that’s mainly for artists. It’s not kinkspace or fetlife, those are too specialist. It’s not jux, that seems to be closed. It’s not Soup, that seems still in development and too small.)

One of the reasons for delaying the announcement for next few days is they don’t want a “land grab” where people take the names of current popular Tumblr users over there (cyber squatting). So they are looking at ways for existing Tumblr users to keep the same names on the new site.

More info over the days to come.

The plan is, broadly:

1. By December 9th-10th, further details of the new site and how to secure your username there

2. An online tool for bloggers to copy their existing content to the new site automatically, with the same tags and captions.

3. Bloggers will need to copy their content across between December 11th and December 17th if they want to use the automatic tool.

4. My understanding is that after December 17th there will be no public access to any “flagged” posts on Tumblr, but the original poster will still be able to see the flagged post (for a short time at least). Therefore, the original poster may still be able to manually download a post to their own PC or phone, after December 17th, and manually upload it to the other site. But if you have lots of posts that will take a long time, it will be better to use the automatic tool before December 17th.

Please understand that these dates are approximate and may change for technical or other reasons.

There may be a few rough edges or not so perfect looking site design on the transfer tool. Everyone is doing their best. The main goal here is to help as many people as possible preserve access to their content, in the short space of time Tumblr has allowed us, and preserve as much as possible of the Tumblr community spirit somewhere new.

The new site will cater for photo, GIF, text and html posts. It will not offer video and audio posts, due to cost reasons - maybe in future, but for now you will need to preserve video and audio content yourself in some other place.

If your Tumblr blog has a mixture of original content and reblogs, or all reblogs, all of that can be copied over to the new site. Reblogs will become “your” original content if nobody else posted them yet, otherwise they will be shown as reblogs. The devs are looking at ways to preserve attribution of reblogs back to the original Tumblr poster, if that person also moves to the new site.

Important: your Likes cannot be copied from Tumblr to the new site. You will have to go find the same posts again on the new site, and like them afresh.

(Similarly, existing reblog comments, asks, messages and other user interaction on Tumblr cannot be copied to the new site - that’s just too much to do, in the short time available.)

If you want to preserve any of your existing Liked posts on Tumblr, you will need to either: (1) download the post to your own PC, or: (2A) reblog it now to your own Tumblr blog, and then (2B) use the automatic tool, before December 17th, to move your whole Tumblr blog across to the new site.

If you have Liked a lot of posts here on Tumblr, the gridllr.com webapp should be able to help you do steps 1 and 2A quickly, I mean download or reblog.

(Someone complained to me today about the appearance of Gridllr on a phone. It’s best to use Gridllr on a PC, Mac or Tablet with a large screen.)

If you have liked a post here on Tumblr and the original poster decides to delete it, or even to delete their entire blog, some time before December 17th, then that post will be permanently lost. So if you want to be sure to preserve any of your Liked posts, you should best download or reblog as soon as possible. If it’s reblogged to your own blog it is safe from deletion, at least for next few days.

Obviously, you will lose access, after December 17th, to all past posts you have liked, if Tumblr has flagged them as NSFW. Again, the steps (1), or (2A) and (2B) covered above will be the only way to hold on to these posts.

[gridllr]

17 December

We are aware of the devastating impact of Tumblr’s new “Community guidelines” for a large part of the Tumblr community.

We are now rapidly looking at what steps we can take to:

* help the community retain access to current blog content and Likes

* create an alternative home for safe, equal and non-judgmental posting of all legal content, built on free speech principles.

For now, we recommend that users download to their own PC any content which they want to be sure of preserving.  For PC and Mac users, Gridllr.com can be used to help download photos and GIFs you have liked (but not video or audio, sorry).  For photos and GIFs, the download button automatically gives you the largest image size available.

Pro Tip: For fastest downloading on a Windows PC, right-click the download button and select “Save Link As...” (Firefox / Chrome), and save immediately to disk.  This download button gives you the largest size available from Tumblr - it is not limited to the current size seen on the screen.

This weekend (8-9 December) we will update with more information about what Gridllr plans to do to help the community after 17 December.

[gridllr]

There are five main types of Tumblr user:

1.  Content Originators - these are the people who post fresh content, they crave Followers, generally they don’t have time to browse and re-blog from other blogs

2.  Rebloggers - the engine of Tumblr, these users spread the word from the content originators - often through their own carefully curated, strongly themed blog - or some of the best curated blogs are a blend of original content and reblogs.

3.  Browsers - these users view a lot of content on Tumblr, and give Likes for the good stuff, but hardly ever reblog - their own blog has just a few posts (maybe with a theme very different from all the content they like)

4.  Silent Browsers - these users browse but never Like or reblog, their own blog will have zero posts (c’mon guys, enter into the spirit of it!)

5.  Personal bloggers - these users use Tumblr to maintain a personal blog or diary of things from their own life, or things that interest them, like photos, memes, quotes and music.  Some of it is fresh content but it’s not intended for a large audience, only for themselves and friends.

Gridllr is here to help the Browsers and the Rebloggers.  The more posts you have Liked, the more useful it will be.  Gridllr shows all the posts you have ever Liked, and makes it easy and fast to reblog from your Likes.

[gridllr]

Introducing Gridllr, a free service for Tumblr users.

All your Likes in a beautiful grid view

Go back in time, see your older Likes

Easy and fast reblogging

Automatically copy tags

Automatically create tags from photo caption

@unwrapping