Coming in February: A new Design Studio

[Nick Barr]

Hi all,

On Friday, Jonathan posted our product roadmap for the exciting stuff we've got lined up for the next 6 months. I want to dive a littler deeper into one of those projects Jonathan mentioned, our brand new Theming System.

Over the last few months, we've been updating the HTML framework for Ning Networks in preparation for this project. To date, almost all of that work has been under the hood, but it's been necessary to set the stage for the new Design Studio. The Design Studio is a powerful, intuitive, stylish new experience for customizing the look and feel of your site. Here are the new things that this feature brings to the table:

• See a live preview of changes as you make them
• Choose from 70+ hot new themes at launch
• Set a 2- or 3-column layout and choose navigation and sidebar locations
• Drop ads into your header and footer
• Tweak 80 dials and knobs for your site appearance
• Access Developer Mode, where theme gurus can access the Ning CSS and create their own themes

All that is scheduled for February, and we'll have more details in the coming weeks, but I wanted to give all of you on Creators a heads-up about this huge new feature. To make sure it’s fantastic, we’ve already invited several Ning Creators to experiment with an alpha version of the Design Studio. We’ve gotten some great feedback and we plan to expand the number of Creators into the beta later this month.

One thing I want to call out is that if your site looks absolutely perfect already, no worries: The Design Studio won't affect customizations you've already made. We’ll be providing more details as we hit specific milestones with this project, both here on Creators and in email communications to all Ning Creators.

Over the next few days, we're going to be inviting more Ning Creators into the beta. We received a ton of beta requests, thank you! We will try to fit as many folks in as we can.

[Stygo Alphamatt]

The whole story doesn`t sound much swell to me.

All i have been waitng for a very long time is the possiblity to add a leaderbord Ad that shows on every members page.

If i have to change to a new layout to be able to add the Ad on top, then i think this is "bullcrap" ( sorry for the language,)  but i have featured Artists on my Network, whose profiles i took my time to design including their myspace pages so that everything looks almost the same.

So if adding the ad box on top means switching to new layout which will change the profiles of my menbers then i think this it is of no use.

 

@ Nick you keep saying that people who are satisfied with their layouts/design doesn't need to make a change.  What If NCs just want to add the Leaderboard ad box on their Networks, won't they have to switch to the new layout, why is it not possible to keeps ones old design and just add a few features like the above mentioned add box without having to mess the profiles of their members and take away the possiblity of individual designs.

 

The most important thing to any NC is the possibilty to get as much members as possible and to generate enough revenue to keep the site runnin',  Am runnin' a Hip Hop Network and no Hip Hoper wants to have the same design as the other

So let me know if i one can be able to add this leaderboard Ad box without having to mess the already memebers designs and take away their right to individuality!

 

HHIA ROARS

Big Up

ALPHAMATT

 

 

[Nick Barr]

Gonna quote myself from this post:

 

http://creators.ning.com/forum/topics/ning-design-studio-coming

 

In addition to the Ning Design Studio, we're introducing the Instant Ad Box feature.  Instant Ad Boxes are similar to Text Boxes but are designed to seamlessly integrate advertisements with your Ning Network. You can place Instant Ad Boxes above the header, above the canvas, or below the footer. This has been a long-requested feature, and we're pumped to release it with the Ning Design Studio. Whether you enable a new theme or not, you'll be able to use this feature.

[Stygo Alphamatt]

Great, thats just want i wanted, am gonna watch the Ning Design Studio and unless am sure it's worth the effort an not making any attempt to use it.

I just wanna say thanks to  @Nick for the fast answer, though i read that i was not 100% sure, so i wanted it clearly confirmed. Now am cool.

 

HHIA ROARS

Big Up

[Brian Floe]

What I am wondering is, you say it is similar to the text box, does this mean we can also use it as a regular text box? (fingers crossed)

Cause I would LOVE to replace the Ning menu with a pure CSS menu, as an example.

[Julie Caterini]

what would the spec dimensions be for the ads so i know to inform my advertisers?

[Jacek]

how about the vertical ads on the sides? any plans for that?

 

is there any FAQ how to use these spaces (i.e. for a rotating banners)

[Emma Mory]

Hello everryone from France, its only me Emma Mory.

We recently recieved an email from Ning expressing a certain amount of concern reference the use of hyperlinking followers to "Facebook" of all places. Yes, we are guilty. 

But can i explain and hopefully someone can guide / help this "silly little French" girl in someway. 

Our site Not Just French Music was set up as a "by invitation or by acceptance only" site for the very best independant musicians on the web to promote without the fuss of music chart and also to provide a place for musicians to network and work together through the "hubble workshop" in an atmosphere of calm and maturity.

However, All of our musicians have fans, lots of them and we started to get a lot of requests to join our network from the fans of the musicians. We thought of letting them join on our main Not Just French Music promotional site, but we decided against this as it would end up with the musicians promotional pages (coments,etc) being swamped with the usual "facebook  ~ MySpace" small talk and often rude phrases.

As we share the profiles of the artist's with agents,and venues, We did not think that the possible booking agent would be particularly keen to be distrurbed by the odd Fan comment of, "listen to my friends music or you are doomed". So we set up the Facebook page to seperate them from the artist profile.

We would ideally like to have a double entry/sign up for our site

1. For the artists to work in peace.

2. For the fans to discuss and interact with each other, based on the Musician membership on Not Just French Music.

In short, Musicians profiles clean of external comments ~ so that we may promote them. And a fan profile independant for interaction between fans and musicians.

That is the reason we started the Facebook page ~ we could not see a solution for our standard of computer literacy.

Perhaps someone knows a nice simple way of doing this, oh we do hope so. it would be perfect for our advancement and the advancement of our members.

 

I send everyone traditional kiss and Big French Hugs

 

Emma Mory

Not Just French Music

France.

 

[Jacek]

I was trying to read the whole thing but stopped somewhere around page 5 so sorry if I'm repeating:

1) Am I loosing the customization done on  the front page (header?) if switched to Design Studio?

2) Why isn't it available in the Test Network so I could try the changes before applying them?

3) Is there a way to go back to previous theme with all the customizations if I didn't liked the DS?

 

 

[Eric Suesz]

1. Yes!

2. It will be when it is released tomorrow. 

3. Yes. 

[Donna Mac]

I think I might wait and see how all of you fair with the new Design Studio.  Plus, my members like their own pages so I don't want to take them away.   I'll just hang in the background for awhile and see what issues may come up.  I hope none.  Good luck with the release!

[Arthur West IV]

I cannot see the design studio anywhere in my network, please help -- my address is naturalgaspa.com

[Alexander]

It is not implemented yet. Probably later today, I imagine. It will probably be a Beta application, added to the Beta section of the Dashboard.