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Maneuvering the New Facebook Homepage

February 8, 2010 at 3:10 pm (Techyness) (Facebook, Navigating Facebook, New Facebook)

Despite very vocal protests, the latest incarnation of the Facebook homepage isn’t nearly as awful as it first appears. Motivated by the status updates of some confused friends, I’ve conquered at least a couple of initial issues. This post is a work-in-progress.

One important note:  unlike the “old new” homepage, your “live feed” is not quite as live anymore; it must be manually refreshed to get new updates.  And unless you use the Friend filter and Hide Application features, you will be bombarded with an endless stream of gift/quiz/egg hatching nonsense.

How Do I Log Out?

If you share your computer (or use public terminals) and/or routinely log out of Facebook, you will now find the Log Out link under Account in the upper right corner.

Where Are Notifications?

Links to your Friend Requests, Messages and Notifications are now neatly hidden beneath 3 new (and difficult to see) menu icons at the top of your Facebook home page (just after the Facebook logo.

Hover over those 3 monotone icons to find
Friend Requests, Messages and Notifications respectively.

I Miss the Bookmarks on the Bottom

Gone is the handy quick launch menu bar; bookmarks on Facebook have moved to the left-hand vertical navigation. Where you once selected feeds, you’ll now see an Applications menu ; clicking on Applications and/or Games will show you all of your installed applications (and all of your friends’ apps as well). Just below that you should find all the bookmarks that were once on the bottom left of your Facebook page — 1-click back to your Farm, Cafe or Mafia hideout!

You may also see a number (2) after an application link; this alerts you to action you may need to take in a game or a notification waiting from an app.

The bad news is that you now have to return to the homepage to access other apps. Wasted clickage IMHO

What About Application Feeds?

Active game fans are most disturbed by the loss of Application Feeds; the (formerly) left-hand menu links that would isolate the News Feed to show updates for specific games (ie: Mary just found something in her farm, click here to get one).  Don’t fret; it’s not entirely gone — it’s just going to take a little effort to set it up again with new bookmarks in your browser!

UPDATE! Several applications have provided the links to get these feeds back. I’ll update when possible.

Petville: http://www.facebook.com/index.php?filter=app_163576248142
Farmville: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?filter=app_102452128776
Yoville: http://www.facebook.com/?filter=app_21526880407
Mafia Wars:
Zoo World: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?filter=app_167746316127
Farm Town:

(Please submit links if you’ve got ‘em)

I Can’t See My Friends List??

In the upper right of your new Facebook home page, click on Account, then Edit Friends.

Under Lists in the left-hand menu, click on Friends – then Create New List. A window will pop-up to enable you to create a new list for whatever purpose you wish — Just Family, College Buddies, or Farmville Neighbors.

Give your new list a name and then click to add each friend that belongs in that group (yes, friends can be in multiple lists). Save it.

To see all the most recent activity in any specific group, head back to your Facebook home page and click on Friends in the left-hand menu.  On the next page you’ll see a new sub-menu below Friends — displaying each of your Lists. Click a list name to view the latest activity stream from that group.

Chat?

You’ll find Facebook chat in two locations now — the bottom right Chat button remains the same — but if you opt to be online, you will now see which of your friends are on from the new left-hand Chat menu. Seems a bit redundant (perhaps an oversight?)