Coming in February: A new Design Studio

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.

Favorite

0 members favorited this

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Star-Dust on February 14, 2011 at 6:30am

Well, it is natural to let off a little steam. But l see nothing wrong with your comment. Now my comment was made because l thought l detect a insult towards another creator. l was told l misunderstood.

I am sorry if l upset you or anyone here.

Permalink Reply by Keltic Fae (Jersey Girl) on February 14, 2011 at 3:52pm

Star-Dust,

I think your comment was fine. In my opinion you did not misunderstand. I sensed a derogatory attitude in the calling of a Creator, "manic" as though mania is perceived to be a negative behavior trait.

I am done with this topic. Thank you for expressing your thoughts and feelings.

Permalink Reply by Marco on February 13, 2011 at 4:40pm