I foresee a bit of panic in the future once Ning Creators have migrated their members and content over, when they realize that they should have put some indicators in place, telling members how to navigate the changes to their site.
I also anticipate a lot of confusion when NCs begin to relinquish control of groups to members and must describe to each and every one of them how to add pages and how groups work.
You could go the scribbled screenshot route but this just won't cut it for many. So I suggest trying out a tool that I've been using to create animated gif walkthroughs. Enter LICECAP by Cockos Incorporated. This is a tool that I have never heard of, until I ran across it 2 weeks ago and now I use it practically every day.
LICEcap can capture an area of your desktop and save it directly to .GIF (for viewing in web browsers, etc) or .LCF (see below).
LICEcap is an intuitive but flexible application (for Windows and now OSX), that is designed to be lightweight and function with high performance.
LICEcap is easy to use: view a demo (output is here).
Take this Gif for example. It Works!
Some Practical tips on Animated Gifs in Ning Networks
There has alway been a bit of confusion about how animated gif images can effectively work on Ning networks, for example. The truth is they will work (move on page) If they have been originally created with sizes below 750px wide. It is when they are resized that they no longer work.
For example, here is a GIF I made from a codepen I created and it will upload and move on page because it is not wider than 750px. In this screencast gif I will show you how width really matters:
But here is one I made from an experiment importing full facebook pages and Picasa Albums, which doesn't animate in the screen after upload.
But if you open the GIF in full screen (removed the ?width=750) it works perfectly, try it!
So My advise to you all is to anticipate the confusion before it happens and be ahead of the changes, so that your members feel comfortable with the migration.
As always, if you ever need help or would like to discuss your migration goals or design, simply connect with me on my profile. Happy to help!
Replies
Thanks, it works very nicely for me.
terrific Doone.. glad it helps
Sweet! I love new toys! Thanks for sharing this JF
Thank you JFarrow, I've been creating screen captured animated gif files for years. This saves me at least three minutes of work thank you again :-)
Great George..glad it helps..
You can also make art...
Or neogeographic experiments
Wow, maybe you should hold your members to a higher value. Our sites are NOTHING without them...
Hi Ms. Diane,
make NO mistake, it is your site and your rules. I understand that and fully agree.
I am fully aware that in general (with regard to IT issues) we have to dumb down functions to the lowest common denominator.
In all honesty, my IT skills are akin to that of a monkey trying to @#$% a football. Hence why I brought in an IT guru as my Chief Technical Officer of the FOATA Network.
My comment was more indicative of your using descriptions such as:
Whining / cannot do the simplest things / create groups on the dumbest topics to describe your member base
If some of your members knew how you felt about them in that regard, they may not be too thrilled
Believe me Ms. Diane, I get it, I understand and experience the same thing as the rule and not the exception.
I am beyond blessed that my network has grown to a base of over 7,000 members. I never expected anything more than a few hundred.
If they ever felt like I was talking down to them or similar actions, I may lose a handful of members. Yet it is each individual that makes my network successful. What makes my network special has nothing to do with me, it has everything to do with the people who comprise my member base
Diane, I expect I too will vent, complain, or 'whine' every once in a while...unless maybe one day if I ever attain a blessed state of inspired and noble perfection.
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