Features Gallery

Contents:

1. Document Appearance
1. Switching Views
2. Sorting Comments
3. Full Screen


2. Commenting
1. Joining a Conversation
2. Starting a Conversation
3. Comment Display Options
4. Skimming All Conversations
5. Hovercard


3. Managing Your Documents
1. Creating Documents
2. Public vs. Private Documents
3. Sharing Documents
4. Setting Access Dates


4. Folders and Groups
1. Folders
2. Create Groups
3. Sort Documents


5. Favoriting Groups and Documents


6. Account Settings and Personal Contacts
1. Account Page
2. Address Book
3. Private Reply

1. Document Appearance

1. Switching Views

The "Views" drop-down menu lets you choose your preferred page view: "2-Pane" (original document to the left, comments to the right), "Comments in Context" (document and comments together in one pane), "Comments Only" (sorted comments), or "Document Only".



In 2-Pane view you can drag the arrows to change the relative width of each pane.



2. Sorting Comments

"Comments Only" view gives you four sort options:







1. Commenter's Name — see at a glance all of each person's comments
2. Date — sort based on when comments were made (so you can see the earliest comments, or those made right at the deadline)
3. Tag — if used by your group, shows you all the comments with similar themes
4. Document Sequence — shows comments on Paragraph 1, then comments on sentences within Paragraph 1, then Paragraph 2 comments, etc.

Here's a sample sorted by Commenter's Name (we've cropped some text to fit this page):





3. Full Screen

   Click the "Full screen" button on the bottom toolbar to expand the browser window.

   
   
   

   The Full Screen" button changes names when clicked to "Normal" so you can reverse the expansion.




2. Commenting

   1. Joining a Conversation

      Click "reply" (at the end of an existing comment) to respond with your ideas and reactions.

      
      
   
   
   2. Starting a Conversation

   To bring up a new topic or theme (rather than joining a current conversation) create a comment on a paragraph (by double clicking its blue outline in the left pane), a single sentence (by double clicking on the left pane text), or the document as a whole via one of the "Document-level Conversation" links. If you single click a passage you also get a "Start One" link to create a new conversation.

   
   

   Both starting and joining conversations use this "Add Comment" window:

   
   
   
   3. Comment Display Options

   The Comments drop-down menu on the bottom toolbar gives you five display options:

   1. Show New - show, with a blue background, only comments made after you last viewed the document
   2. Show Everything — show all comments in full (the default)
   3. Show Summary Lines Only — Text of comments aren't displayed, just the summary lines
   4. Hide All — Show no comments but indicate which passages have them
   5. Custom — shown when you've manually expanded or collapsed some threads via "more" links, "less" links, or the triangular controls.
   
   
   
   
   4. Skimming All Conversations

   Every NowComment comment has to have a Summary Line; like an email subject line, it should concisely summarize the commenter's main point. The "Show Summary Lines Only" option lets you skim a document's conversations quickly to get an idea of everything being discussed so, when time is short, you can decide which comments to read in full.

   
   
   
   
   5. Hovercard

   Mousing over a commenter's name in a comment makes a hovercard pop up to show that commenter's picture and give a link to his/her Profile page.

   
   
   

3. Managing Your Documents

   1. Creating Documents

   Go to http://nowcomment.com/documents/new and specify whether the document you want to discuss is:

   1. a Microsoft Word document (.doc, .docx, or .rtf file extensions only)
   2. web content from "regular" web pages (see below)
   3. text you're typing in now

   For more information and screenshots see the text or video screencast versions of our hints on Uploading Documents.

   2. Public vs. Private Documents

   Public Documents can be viewed by anyone and commented on by anyone with a NowComment account. A private document is one that only people you invite can see and comment on.

   3. Sharing Documents

   Sharing lets you invite others to read your document(s) and discuss them with you and/or the group.

   
   
   
   4. Set access dates

   These settings let you control when those you've shared a document with can read it, comment on it, and see others' comments (as the document owner you can always do all three). For example, a teacher could:

   • post a document Monday and make it immediately available for reading, but
   • block students from commenting before Wednesday afternoon lecture, and
   • block students from reading each other's comments during the Wednesday-Friday online commenting period
   • allow students to see everyone's comments as of Friday midnight
   • encourage/require students to respond to their classmates' comments (a fresh round of engagement)
   
   
   
   
   
   

4. Folders and Groups

   1. Folders

   NowComment provides several standard folders to help you manage and locate documents:

   • My Library contains the contents of three sub-folders:
   • My Uploads — all the documents you've uploaded
   • My Favorites — all of the documents you've marked as your Favorites
   • Shared with me — all of the documents that others have shared with you.
   • Recently Viewed — documents you've viewed during the past month.
   • Public Documents — all the documents users have chosen to share with the world (i.e. not password protected, indexed by search engines).
   
   
   2. Groups

   Groups have two purposes; they let you share documents with many people at a time and also provide an organizing structure for your documents.

   3. Sharing Documents

   Sharing is how you allow friends and coworkers to access your documents. You can share more than one document at a time via the "Options" menu on your My Library page:
   
   
   
   or share a document you're viewing via the Share Button on your Toolbar.
   

   Note: if it's a Private Document that you didn't upload then you can't share it; the Share link/button will be either grayed out or missing.

   Whichever method you use will take you to the document's Sharing Page. From here, click the "share" button and, one at a time, create a list of individuals (by entering their email addresses) and/or the names of Groups you've already created (via your My Library page) that you'd like to share the document with. Click the "Add Person or Group" button for each. When your list is done click the "Share now" button to share the document with the list. You can add or subtract names later from the Sharing Page.

   
   
   
   4. Sort Documents

   Click any of the column headers above your list of documents on the My Library Page to sort your documents based on that header. To sort by most recent activity, click the numbered square. To alphabetize by title click "Title." To sort by who shared the document, click "Shared By." To sort by number of comments, click "Comments." Click the same header again reverses the sequence.

   
   
   
   

5. Favoriting Groups and Documents

   From your Notifications & Favorites page you can "Favorite" any documents for which you'd like to be notified (by email) about each new comment made.

   Similarly, you can Favorite a Group to get notifications about comments made on future documents shared with that Group (and documents shared within the last 24 hours).

   Sample uses of Favoriting to regulate your email notifications:

   • Favorite a Group — you join a group and want to know when other members make comments
   • Favorite a specific Document — useful if there's an older document in that Group (or a Document not in a Group, or a document in a Group that you don't want to Favorite) that you also want to monitor closely.
   • Unfavorite a specific document — when that document stops being important to you and you don't want to get emails about new comments
   • Unfavorite a Group — if you leave the Group or no longer need to closely monitor its comments (remember, you can Unfavorite specific documents while still Favoriting the Group!).



6. Account Settings and Personal Contacts

   1. Account page
   
   
   
   2. Address Book

   The "Address Book" module gives you easy access to friends and collaborators you want to share documents with. You can maintain names of previous collaborators and import names from an email account. For more information see our Address Book hints page.

   
   
   
   3. Private reply

   If you want your reply to been seen only by the person you're responding to and the Document Owner (who can always see everything about a document they own!) you can click the private reply checkbox as shown below.