After many members have cried, begged, pleaded and even offered money...ok, I made that one up...I have finally relented and come up with a few new navigational tools to make it easier getting around Blotanical. In particular, it seems from many comments that Faving blogs and blotanists has become a chore rather than an easy thing to do.

So, as most people seem to congregate around their Plots (we're gardeners, why wouldn't we?) the logical requests asked for some improvements here. The first update is the Quicklinks module that you will see in your sidebar. It looks like this;

At first glance you will notice two buttons directly below their relevant selection fields. The first one, titled "Visit a Blotanist", allows to go directly to the Plot of the person you select in the field above. This is helpful if you know the member's Alias name.

If not, but you do know their blog's name, then the options below it may help. A selection field of all the blogs listed on Blotanical sits above the button titled, "Visit a Blogger". After making your selection click this button to go to the Plot of the person who authors that blog.

The next feature is the helpful Faving buttons as illustrated below;

The first button is fairly straight-forward and obvious. By clicking the "Return to My Plot" button it will transport you safely and directly to your own Plot from anyone elses.

The next button "Fave this Member" is a one-click process of Faving the Plot owner. These people are then stored in your "My Favourite Blotanists" section of your Plot. At present, these people aren't ranked or carry any score at all and the benefit of faving them is that you can readily access your list to visit their Plot without wading through 1000's of members.

The last button is new and I can hear the crowds giving a hearty "Hooray" already. This button allows you to now Fave the Plot owner's blog (or blogs) if they have one. Clicking the button will bring up another window listing the blogs that this person has registered with Blotanical. The window looks like this;

You will notice that I have already faved Crafty Gardener's blog "Crafty Gardener" but I haven't faved her blog "Sow then Grow". The first blog has been dulled out making it unavailable for me to choose again but I can select the other by checking the tick box. Then if I'm happy to fave this blog I can click the Fave button and immediately the blog has become a new Fave for me. If I don't want to make a selection, then I can easily click the Cancel button or the Red Cross at the top of the window to close it.

BTW - Kudos to Patient Gardener from The Patient Gardener for being the first to notice the changes.