User:Danlev/sandbox/deviantART features

Features
DeviantArt has a series of features for artists to share, critique, discuss and appreciate artwork. DeviantArt has multiple forums, used for discussion and community purposes. There is also an AdCast program, for advertising art and community-related products/pages at a discounted rate. As of November 2007, users have the option to create folders. These folders allow dA users to organise their gallery. DeviantArt has a slide-show application called SitBack. Launched as a public alpha on November 5, 2008, the new feature allows DeviantArt users to view pictures on a pop-up slide-show player in any section of the site with artwork, such as a gallery, collection, or search result.

Message Centre
The Message Centre is a hub where users can see all of their activity and the activity of artists that they are watching. Users can add any user to a watchlist called DeviantWatch. Doing so will cause the watcher to be notified every time anyone on their watch list submits a new piece of art, submits a new journal entry, submits a News article, or, submits critique on a deviation.

User pages
Every user has a personal page at the URL  http://username.deviantart.com , where username is replaced by her/his username. This page may list the user's interests, mood, hobbies and so forth. It also exhibits the deviant's four most recent works (although deviants who have paid for a subscription may change this number to as few as two to as many as ten) and his or her 'favourites'. DeviantArt users can modify their user pages by rearranging, adding, and removing modules. Users may also select and display their most prized work as a 'Featured Deviation'. Deviants with a premium membership may choose to have multiple 'Featured Deviations'.

Each deviant can edit their own public journal, which is similar to a blog in that a deviant may write an entry and it will be displayed on their user page. The user page also contains an open comments section where the user or other members may leave messages.

Favourites and Collections
Any user may add another user's deviation to their favourites. This will place the deviation on that user's favourites on their personal page where the user can view it at any time. Other users can view anyone's favourites also giving the original artist extra exposure. Folders can be made in the favourites section, where the user can name the folder and put deviations in it, organizing their favourites. Users can also create art "Collections," a group of favourites that they can title. For example, a user may create a collection for their favourite cat photographs.

Critique
"Critique" allows any Premium Member to create and/or give critiques, or reviews, about a deviation. It uses the 5-star rating, in increments of half-stars, along with a typed review on how the deviation was presented, based on "vision," "originality," "technique," "impact," and "deviousness" (the average sum of the previous four ratings). It also gives a separate message response area (also Premium Member-only) from the deviation page. It's designed for "considered, thoughtful and RESPECTFUL criticism".

Premium Membership
DeviantArt offers a Premium Membership service with extra features and privileges. Premium Memberships can be purchased in three month and one year lengths. Premium Members have extra features including the ability to browse the site without advertisements, greater customization of a user's personal page—including the ability to upload the user's own Cascading Style Sheets for use in their journal. deviantMOBILE is a feature that allows most deviations to be downloaded onto one's mobile phone, though this won't work on all phones or all carriers. There are private forums and a beta testing feature for those with Premium Memberships. The ability to search artwork on the site with up to 120 images per page is also enabled.

News
Users can write news articles to report about contests, events, interesting news, external links, or even just a collection of artwork they want to display. DeviantArt makes a strict point about what is or is not news, and what should be left in user's personal journal. When a deviant posts a news article, his or her "watchers" receive a notification in their Message Centre. Administrators post official news articles through this system as well, and they are sometimes delivered to the whole community's Message Centre.

DeviantArt Shop
Users who have bought a prints account for an annual fee of $24.95 USD (originally it was a one-time fee) may sell their work, printed onto a variety of media such as mugs, jigsaw puzzles, canvases, calendars, mouse pads, coasters, postcards, and magnets. Users earn 50% of the profits above a pre-set "base cost." For example, the base price for a 4x6 inch print is $0.32. If a user sells it for $2.00, he would get $0.84. A user who does not have a standard prints account would get $0.32, the pre-set price for 4x6s. New features of the Shop include a basic print account for all members (paying print account owners with added features), new products available such as T-Shirts.

DeviantArt Messaging Network (dAmn!)
The DeviantArt Messaging Network (or "dAmn!") is the real-time chat system implemented on DeviantArt version 4 on August 7, 2004. Through dAmn, users can join one of many existing channels and also create their own. It is based on a proprietary protocol and chat server application, much like Internet Relay Chat, and is not compatible with other chat systems. The client end is either a Flash or Java application, or Mozilla extension for server communication, coupled with a JavaScript backend to handle the messages.

Only hours after the release dAmn, the protocol had been reverse engineered and publicized. The same night, a first working Perl client was made available. The official client, while flash/java based, has limited cross-browser support. Chat rooms on dAmn are referred to with a number sign before their name. Some channels host events and have live interviews with artists.

Portfolio
A Premium Member "portfolio page" service is currently in development, with the competition for the creation of the portfolio page template already over. The portfolio page is intended to provide artists with a display page that appears more professional than the standard gallery. Users may use this to show potential employers their artwork.

deviantArt muro
On August 7, 2010, deviantArt launched its own HTML5-powered digital drawing program, deviantArt Muro.