Introducing Design Studio Updates

[Phil McCluskey]

Hi All,

Today's release is a big one, so we've broken the announcements up into two parts. Here we're going to give you a rundown on what’s new in the Design Studio. In another post, we'll detail some of the new feature options that are now available.

What's new? We've added 11 new themes and we've updated the organization of the Design Studio panels. The new themes use a brand new flexible html grid and provide a large set of new controls. Some highlights:

We've updated the selection of background patterns that are available; we've included many new tile patterns, including some that are transparent so that they can be used in combination with a background color.

A new Header section for v2 themes where the header style, height or width and padding for the header can be set; extensive options for controlling the look and feel of site navigation; and the ability to control the color of the account bar.

A new Page section which provides full control over the page width (including an option for 100% width), padding, modules, font size and color; plus extensive control over site buttons.

We've split custom CSS into Global and Theme CSS; this means that customizations can be made to a specific theme via css rather than being made to all themes.

We've added a Manage section that allows v2 themes to be imported and exported. Themes can be exported in their current state to a text file that can be edited and then imported. This will allow designers to easily save and share their work.

We've also given profile and group pages a little design facelift in v2 themes. Groups under v2 themes now also have additional controls per Group to decide whether the Group image and name should appear in the header.

What about older themes? If you're using one of our original themes, then you'll still have access to all of the Design Studio capabilities you had prior to release, like the drag-and-drop header options. v1 themes aren't compatible with the new controls we've introduced though, so you'll see that some controls are different or disabled. We implemented the Design Studio changes via new themes so that we could introduce updated html and new controls without needing to make changes that would break or disturb anyone's current theme and customizations. Note that if you are using custom css or javascript on your site, it may not work on v2 themes without modification because the underlying html structure has changed. It will continue to work on v1 themes though.

There's a lot that's new, so please dive in, explore and let us know what you think!

[Jorge Nava]

I think it's really good the changes, but is there a way that you could add a real time small preview at the side of the design studio? cause some changes i have to move in the page to see them, or another option is that the design studio could stay in place..

[Ajua Martey]

So far, I am loving some new features, others I can't see within my environment.
I have ning tech support to the rescue and hopefully, my issues will be resolved.
Other than that, I applaud the upgrades!  Good Job!

[Gwynnyth]

Oh btw, is there a code so I can share content with members through e mail?

[Gwynnyth]

My site is sooo cool, I love CSS customizing but this is nice, thank you

[Dunamis]

Hullo Phil, Please I need your help. I use "Insert Google Adsense in Post" after the first paragraph in all my forum on the site. However in v2 the ads do not show at all. Can anybody help me with codes I can use to insert google adsense in forum posts in the new themes? Thanks

Here is the code that works with old theme but shows nothing in the new themes

<!-- Insert Ads INSIDE Blog Posts by SweetPotato --> <div id="ad_after_jump" style="display:none;"> <!-- Advert Script START --> <script type="text/javascript"><!-- google_ad_client = "ca-pub-xxxxxxxx"; /* Header Banner */ google_ad_slot = "xxxxxxx"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90; //--> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> <!-- Advert Code END --> <script type="text/javascript"> if (typeof(x$) != 'undefined') {x$('.discussionDetailPage .card').find('p').eq(0).after('<div id="ContentAdverts"></div>'); var inject_SPadverts = document.getElementById('ad_after_jump'); var SPadverts = document.getElementById('ContentAdverts'); SPadverts.innerHTML = inject_SPadverts.innerHTML; } </script>

[Kos]

Dunamis I would message SweetPotato since that was his code originally.

[Isah Kambali]

How I get ChatRoom like in NIng 2 , or any can provide it (application). I need it,

Help me

Thank you

My web

www.IbuHamildanBalita.com

[Kos]

Isah until Ning builds out Chat down the road, I'm using ComeChat 4 Ning. which integrates with your member data and avatars.  Another option would be adding a Skysa bar to your site for Chat although they're not integrated I believe.

[Strumelia]

I second Kos' two chat recommendations as options until 3.0 gets its own chat feature.   :)

[Susan Daniels]

Since the upgrade ver2, nothing is working as before. I am very frustrated. Not only can I not get the desired effects either using custom css or the design tool, it is burning my computer up. It was great before - why complicate it? I need to market this site, not tweak it constantly!