Release notes are a critical communication tool that allows you to inform your users about the latest updates, features, and improvements in your product. Writing clear and engaging release notes is essential to keep your users informed, excited, and satisfied with your product. In this comprehensive guide, we'll provide you with the best practices for creating release notes that are easy to understand and capture your users' attention.

The key to practical release notes is to use clear and straightforward language. Avoid technical jargon and complex terms that might confuse your users. Instead, use simple language to ensure that even non-technical users can understand the changes and improvements.

Start your release notes with a summary or headline highlighting the most significant changes or new features introduced in the update. This will immediately capture your users' attention and encourage them to read further.

For each change or improvement, provide context on why it was implemented and how it benefits the users. Understanding the "why" behind the changes can make users feel more connected to the product and help them appreciate the effort put into the updates.

Use headings, subheadings, and bullet points to organize your release notes. This helps users quickly find the information they are interested in and makes the notes easier to scan.

Visuals can be a powerful addition to your release notes. Add screenshots, images, or GIFs to showcase the new features or changes. Visuals can help users visualize the updates and understand them better.

If the changes are complex or require additional explanation, provide links to relevant documentation, tutorials, or FAQs. This allows users to dive deeper into the updates if they want more information.

7. Be Transparent about Bug Fixes and Known Issues

Transparency is crucial when addressing bug fixes and known issues. Be honest about the problems that were resolved and any issues that still exist. Let users know their feedback is valuable and you're working to address any outstanding concerns.

If your release includes significant milestones or achievements, celebrate them in your release notes. This can be a new user milestone, reaching a certain number of users, or any other remarkable accomplishment. Acknowledging milestones shows your users that you value their support.

Use a friendly and conversational tone in your release notes. Address your users directly, thanking them for their continued support and encouraging them to provide feedback.

Update your release notes regularly as new updates are rolled out. This ensures that users are always aware of your product's latest changes and improvements.

Writing clear and engaging release notes is crucial to maintaining a strong relationship with your users. By following these best practices, you can effectively communicate the updates and improvements in your product, making your users feel valued and excited about what's to come. Remember to use clear language, highlight key changes, provide context and benefits, organize the notes effectively, include visuals, offer links to additional resources, be transparent about bug fixes and known issues, celebrate milestones, personalize the notes, and keep them updated. With these practices, your release notes will become a powerful tool for engaging your users and keeping them informed about the ongoing evolution of your product.

Discover the best practices for crafting clear and engaging release notes. Improve communication with your users and boost product understanding.

Release Notes Best Practices: How to Make Them Clear and Engaging

Building in public is becoming increasingly popular among startups, entrepreneurs, and developers. Instead of hiding away their development process until they have a polished product, they share it with the public, gaining feedback and building a community around their work. In this blog post, we'll explore the advantages of building software in public and why you should consider this approach for your projects.

One of the most significant advantages of building software in public is that you can get feedback from potential users and customers early and often. Instead of waiting until you have a finished product, you can share your work as you go, allowing people to see your progress and offer their thoughts and suggestions.

This approach can help you catch potential problems early and make necessary changes before you've invested a lot of time and money into a product. It also allows you to build a community around your work, which can generate buzz and excitement as you move toward launch.

Building software in public can also help you create a community of people interested in your work. By sharing your progress, you can attract people who are excited about what you're building and want to be a part of it. This can help you grow your user base before you even launch and give you a group of people to turn to for support, feedback, and ideas.

This community can be a valuable asset for your business, as it can help you with marketing, customer support, and even fundraising. When you have a group of people who are invested in your success, they are more likely to help spread the word and support you in other ways.

Building software in public can also help you establish trust and credibility with potential customers and investors. By sharing your development process, you're showing transparency and openness about what you're working on. This can help build trust with people who might hesitate to invest in a product they have not seen or used.

It also shows that you're committed to your work and willing to put in the time and effort to make something great. This can help establish credibility with potential customers and investors, which can be crucial when growing your business.

Finally, building software in public can help you learn and grow as a developer. By sharing your work with others, you're opening yourself up to feedback and suggestions that can help you improve your skills and product. You might learn new techniques, discover new tools, or find new ways to solve problems you hadn't considered before.

In addition, building in public can help you build a portfolio of work that you can use to showcase your skills to potential employers or clients. You show you have the skills and experience to build great software by sharing your development process.

Building software in public can be a powerful way to grow your business, build a community of supporters, and establish trust and credibility with potential customers and investors. By sharing your work as you go, you can get feedback early and often, build a community around your work, establish trust and credibility, and learn and grow as a developer. If you're considering building software in public, now is a great time to start!

Unlock the full potential of your startup by building in public. Learn how it can establish trust, build a community, and supercharge your growth. Join us now!

Why You Should Build in Public: The Power of Transparency in Growing Your Business

Application monitoring and error tracking are essential for developers to ensure their software applications run smoothly and efficiently. This blog post will explore three of the most popular application monitoring and error-tracking software; Sentry, Bugsnag, and Rollbar.

Sentry is application monitoring and error-tracking software that enables developers to analyze, fix, and optimize their code in real time. It provides accurate visibility to problems that have already been corrected and those that are introduced for the first time, regardless of whether developers use JavaScript, PHP, or any other language. Sentry also includes dashboards to integrate visual aspects into the application monitoring system.

Sentry offers a free version for up to 5,000 error events. The Team version costs $26 for unlimited users, including 50,000 error events and 100K transactions. The Business version costs $80 monthly and includes advanced analytics and much more. Additionally, Sentry offers complete platform monitoring for enterprises by request.

Sentry supports various programming languages such as PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, C#, Node.js, Python, Go, and Swift. It also integrates with popular tools like Jira, Trello, Heroku, Campfire, GitLab, HipChat, Slack, and PagerDuty.

Bugsnag is an application stability monitoring tool that analyzes the stability levels of specific apps and assists in making data-driven development decisions. It also has an application stability index and a command center to monitor program stability and errors. Bugsnag's end-to-end diagnostic feature enables developers to correct any problem as it occurs, and features such as stability score and customer segmentation are used to prioritize defects. Flexible error libraries with opinionated defaults provide a variety of customization possibilities.

Bugsnag offers a free version where one person can open 7,500 monthly events. If it is required for a team (of 30 members and 1.5 million events), the pricing ranges from $59 up to $499 per month. The plan with no limitations costs $999 per month.

Bugsnag supports programming languages such as iOS, Android, .NET, Go, PHP, Ruby, Unity, and Node.js. It also integrates with popular tools like Jira, Trello, Slack, Bitbucket, Webhooks, DataDog, HipChat, Twilio, Assembla, and PagerDuty.

Rollbar is a code improvement platform that helps developers improve their code and deliver the best applications to individual customers in real time. It enables users to proactively discover, predict, and resolve errors quickly and helps organizations maintain a good application experience by correcting issues before they have a negative impact. Users can also receive fast notifications about new issues, and the platform serves as a link between developers and customers.

Rollbar offers a free version for up to 25,000 error events per month. Its cost varies according to the required functionalities—from $21 up to $82 per month, with special pricing for organizations with enterprise requirements.

Rollbar supports programming languages such as Rails, PHP, Python, Angular, iOS, Haskell, Ruby, Node.js, Django, Drupal, Clojure, and others. It also integrates with popular tools like Slack, Trello, Datadog, Flowdock, Logstash, Webhooks, Github, and Logentries.

To sum up, developers prefer Bugsnag over its competitors due to its extensive range of 3rd party integrations. At the same time, Rollbar's main draw is its ability to consolidate similar errors based on their impact. On the other hand, Sentry stands out by allowing developers to collect user feedback and understand errors. Both Bugsnag and Rollbar fall under the "Exception Monitoring" tools category.

In addition to these three options, several other alternatives are available, such as OverOps, Raygun, Airbrake, or StackHunter. While they all aim to help developers detect problems, each has pros and cons that could be critical for your application. We recommend using the free trials and testing these products in your staging environment. While change can be challenging, it can help you build better applications.

Find the best error-tracking and monitoring platform for your software applications. Compare Sentry, Rollup, and Bugsnag with our expert insights and tips. Join us now!

Sentry vs. Rollup vs. Bugsnag: Comparison of error tracking and monitoring platforms

In today's digital age, font choice plays an important role in web design. Custom fonts can be used to give a unique look and feel to a website. However, despite the potential benefits of custom fonts, there are good reasons to choose system fonts instead.

System fonts refer to the pre-installed fonts on a user's device. These fonts are available on all devices and operating systems and are designed to be highly legible and easy to read. Here are some reasons why we choose to use system fonts:

One of the biggest advantages of using system fonts is that they provide a consistent experience across devices. Custom fonts may not render correctly on all devices, resulting in an inconsistent user experience. On the other hand, system fonts are guaranteed to be available on all devices, ensuring that the design remains consistent.

Custom fonts can be large in size and slow to load, which can impact a website's performance. System fonts, on the other hand, are already installed on the user's device, so they load quickly and don't add extra weight to the website.

System fonts are designed with accessibility in mind, ensuring that they are highly legible and easy to read. Custom fonts may not be as legible, especially for users with visual impairments or dyslexia. Using system fonts ensures that the website is accessible to all users.

Using custom fonts can also raise licensing issues. Some fonts require a license for commercial use, which can add an extra cost to the website design. System fonts are free to use and don't require any additional licensing.

While custom fonts have advantages, system fonts can provide a consistent, accessible, and performant user experience, eliminating licensing issues. Many well-known websites use system fonts, including Github, Medium, and Booking.com; if they work for them, it's likely to work for you.

Unlock the power of system fonts for your website design. Discover how they can improve user experience and website performance. Learn more today!

Why We Choose To Use System Fonts

If you want the Widget to open from a specific button, link, or element on your app or website, you can create a custom launcher. For instance, you could set up the Widget to run each time a user clicks the "Changelog" link on your website. This guide will show you how to create a custom launcher that perfectly matches your website.

It is advised to have some basic knowledge of HTML and JavaScript, though it is optional to complete this quickstart. HTML Introduction and JavaScript MDN both have more details.

The Widget can be added to your website in two different ways. The recommended approach is the first method, using the embed script tag. This method involves copying a code snippet from your Onset Dashboard and inserting it into the HTML code of your website. When the page loads, the Widget will be displayed within an iframe on your website.

The second method of embedding the Widget is by installing it via NPM. The process involves downloading the widget package from the NPM repository and integrating it into your website. This method is suitable for developers who want to customize the Widget and have more control over its implementation.

Both methods can achieve the same result of having the Widget displayed on your website, but the embed script tag method is the more straightforward option for most users. The NPM installation method is better suited for more advanced users and web development projects that require more customization and control over the Widget.

Before using a custom launcher, it is a good idea to disable the Widget's built-in launcher button. To accomplish this, set the customTrigger property to true. This instructs the Widget that you prefer to use a different launcher than the one already included.

Once the Widget is loaded and ready, the global `onsetWidget` instance exposes helpful methods that make using a custom launcher a breeze. In this tutorial, we will be focusing on the show, hide, and toggle functions.

 - shows/hides based on the Widget's current state.

You can learn about all the available methods here.

There are various ways of integrating and using the custom launcher. It all depends on your setup. Here are two examples:

Here is a simple example of how to use the widget methods in React:

The Widget doesn't rely on any frameworks or plugins from outside sources. Here is an example of how to build a custom launcher using HTML and simple JavaScript.

The Widget's JavaScript API makes integration seamless. It provides a range of options, events, and methods that you can use to customize the Widget's appearance and behavior to fit your specific needs. The 

 provides detailed explanations of all available functionality, so you can quickly get up to speed with how to use the API effectively.

Create a custom widget launcher for your website with our step-by-step guide. Enhance user experience and web design. Start building today!

Create a Custom Widget Launcher

Release notes are for everyone. They provide useful information on the new features and improvements in each release. We built Onset to streamline the process of product releases and improve communication between product owners and stakeholders.

In most cases, keeping an updated log of release notes can be very cumbersome and messy. Which eventually leads to the abandonment of the entire process. Onset strives to eliminate the clutter and, encourage strict version control consistent formatting, and act as a single source of truth for all your product updates.

Often, release notes are drafted by engineers or technical product leads who speak the same language. However, they’re not always consumed by a tech-savvy reader. Release notes should be understood and accessible by everyone, so be mindful of what you log. Avoid using complicated technical jargon, and never, ever dump GitHub commit logs into your release notes.

It’s assumed that your client success or sales team members have promised to follow up with their customers on product updates, feature requests, or bug fixes. For that reason, teams outside of product and engineering should be able to easily find and review your product changes without any hassle.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?

And choosing how you update your team is crucial. Status updates sent via email and slack give confidence to stakeholders on what has changed in your product in a way that is comfortable and convenient to them.

Automating your processes, communicating your updates, and strengthening your relationships is possible with Onset. Because how you share is just as important as what you share.

Discover the importance of release notes and how Onset streamlines the process. Keep everyone informed about product updates easily. Learn more today!

Release Notes Are for Everyone

Take control of what information is being shared about your platform. With Onset, you can publish your product releases publicly and in your own way.

Publishing public release notes for your products is a great way of keeping your customers in the loop and helping potential clients gain insight into how your tool is developing. Onset Public Pages allows users to subscribe to your projects and get updates directly in their email without you having to lift a finger.

Onset Public Pages are built to fit you and your company. That means you share as often as you want, to whom you want, and in the words that you chose.

Fully customizable, Onset Public Pages give you the ability to edit and adjust what your audience sees. Meaning you can customize your public page by uploading your logo, setting a brand color and custom domain, and more.

Release notes show the pulse of your product. Onset helps you share your way.

Maximize your product updates with Onset's public release notes. Gain visibility and control over your releases. Streamline your release notes with Onset today