The FirstVoices development team has been working hard on the new release, which sees the launch of new features, as well as solutions to bugs and glitches on the site. All of these updates have been prompted by the hard-working Language Teams and community members, whose valuable feedback, ideas and suggestions have been crucial in making FirstVoices a better platform.

If you have questions about any of the updates listed below, or have ideas for ways to improve FirstVoices, please contact us at: hello@firstvoices.com

Major bug fixes

Reliability improvements on FirstVoices.com

Tired of running into errors all over the site? Does "CoreSession error" sound familiar to you? We think we've finally quashed this major super-bug. Three cheers to the development team for tracking it down – this will mean an improved experience for everyone!

If you continue to run into errors when loading pages on the site, please get in touch with us at hello@firstvoices.com – we want to get it fixed!

Fixes for FirstVoices Keyboards on iOS 16

If you use the FirstVoices Keyboards app and recently updated your iPhone to iOS 16, you may have run into a bug that prevents the keyboard from showing up properly. We recently fixed this.

In order to make the keyboards work again, go to your phone settings:

Settings > General > Keyboards > FirstVoices

There, make sure you have checked “Allow Full Access”.

Remember, the FirstVoices keyboard app does not track, record, or transmit anything you type and is safe to use.

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Updated beta features on the new FirstVoices

Our blog has been pretty quiet because a lot of the FirstVoices development team’s work has been on new features for the new FirstVoices! Here are some recent additions and fixes that beta testers on the new site might notice. For everyone else, here is a sneak peek of the site.

FirstVoices homepage links

From your language site homepage, the “FirstVoices” logo in the top right now links to the FirstVoices.com homepage.

We are also working on a new and updated FirstVoices.com homepage that matches the style of the new language sites. For now, the new FirstVoices homepage is hidden while we continue building it.

Audio bar playback speed button

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When you click to play on an audio file in the Dictionary, the audio bar appears at the bottom. This audio bar now has a button to change the playback speed, so you can listen to a faster recording (up to 1.5x speed) or a slower recording (down to 0.5x speed - half speed).

Kids Area filters in progress

Until now, the Kids Area has been showing all of the same content from your normal dictionary, instead of only showing words and other content that is approved for kids. While we work on getting these filters working, the content may be temporarily hidden from the Kids Area.

Updates and improvements for Widget editing

• Widgets can now be previewed from the Edit < Widgets list page.

• Buttons on your Widgets can now have links to any site, not just a FirstVoices page.

• The Logo Widget can now include line breaks, if you would like the text to have multiple paragraphs.

• You can no longer create Widgets that have no customizable settings – for example, no creating a second Alphabet Widget, because your site already has one.

• Added indicators for maximum lengths in some text fields

Bug fixes and misc

• Fixed broken Word of the Day Widgets and Statistics/New this Week Widgets – the statistics should show properly on your homepage now.

• Various accessibility improvements on desktop and mobile, for example, hover text on some buttons.

• Continued building new pages in your Dashboard to edit words, phrases, and stories (in progress).