Is it just me? Did I miss something? I've been known to do that and anounce a new socialgo feature after it had already been discontinued! haha.

The New Profile Designer

Well it's here.. the new Socialgo Profile designer. Now we can just throw in the towel and become mini myspace? SG Forbid! this thing allows you to tell your members what they can touch and not touch... which on my site there will only be a few options - cause i'm that way.

instal and configure

You will find the little doodad in your SG widget box on the right hand side of your Layout Manager as usual. You need to drag it to your "I" zone at the very bottom then double click (this feature doesn't seenm to work in the ne safari) or click the edit widget up top and you get this..

look at all those Options!

Now if you check all of them your members can do a beautiful page, effecting many parts such as the content boxes, the header font, color, background, nav, nav color, background image, and the list goes on. Just look at what your site will look like.. isn't it exciting! 

How it works

Once you configure your new shiney widget your members will see a new button on thier profile page right there with the other configure buttons.



Now, the widget kinda messes up your site when it opens, and it has a few bugs at the moment that I won't go into because I'm sure SG is busy fixing them as I write. you'll the drop down at the top of your page, and there you can select eather color or advanced.





Color takes care of Color;) and advanced is your background images.It's pretty straight forward. The changes happen as you change them, close the widget and your done. Here is what I did in my profile.

Ya baby... all right there all the time.. check out this new toolbar we've been working on that tidys up all the waisted space and into a nice tight horizontal row. 

 


It covers your search bar, add list, managed account, My stuff (like my topics, my blogs etc..) and your mail inbox and all custom icons and graphics. sweeww all in about 33px height 0:



Does it work though? well.. i certainly hope so, i was hired to free up some side bar real-estate so we'll find out tomorrow when i start testing.

Please visit our new PSU forum and give us your wish list of topics for the soon to come ProSocialgo University Broadcast classroom. We have some great guest lined up on topics including SG CSS, General Business, SEO/Marketing and if there is a demand AJAX/PHP and flash design. These will be very small intimate classrooms to keep our heads from blowing up. You can email us at psu@prosocialgo.com or visit our forum to vote on the topics you want first. 

Workshop tomorrow, see what a real Texan looks like.. ME

The socialgo workshop focusing on designing your network will be tomorrow, that is April 7 at 6 p.m. GMT (1 p.m. EST, 10 a.m. PDT). Take a look at the details here on owners socialgo and, yes, I will be making a appearance to talk about custom CSS. Hope to meet you there and say howdy.

I just wanted to show off our latest Socialgo template designed for a private community that wanted to connect. Stonewood Ranch, a private gated community, came to me looking for a web page. When I heard what they wanted, such as a blog, private membership, news etc.. of course Socialgo came to mind. 

The Design

I didn't want anything getting in the way of this site which would have daily use by many members; clean is the word. They wanted pictures of the houses in the header and I was like why?? Don't you see those houses everyday as you go to work, and your not trying to sell your community, so we went with a very minimal header for fast run time and clarity.

Because there would be a learning curve for many of these users who do not use social media, I placed a little custom HTML in the header which will eventually be a button to a tutorial video hosted on the site, with instructions on the site. You'll see it on top, it's a badge with a leaf behind it.

 

Because it is so clean and plain I wanted one element to really stand out and define the site; be something that gave it a striking atmosphere. I placed a tree branch in the left corner also using custom html. This branch looks different depending on what browser you use. In some browsers like IE, it just stays at the top, in others like firefox and safari, it is fixed, so as you scroll down it stays with you. I also adjusted the z-index so it would fall behind the sidebar.

 

Nth-child #

One of my favorite elements is the blog posts which has one post always highlighted; the first post. I styled the first post different, and once again you get the full effect in firefox and safari like browsers, with the dat real big and floated to the left, while all subsequent posts are boxed in a outline and have a smaller header. I did this using Nth-Child classes. Yes, nth-child does not work in most browsers, but you can remedy this with a little java script from "a list apart" which appends the class of nth-child to every element on your page, and actually is pretty speedy at doing it.



There are quiet a few little tricks on this site, but what is great is, you can't tell. It just looks very simple. Take a look around, if you want to see inside you can use this URL and User:  http://testserver.socialgo.com/

Custom widgets

We also added a few Java Script widgets. One, a "to do List" I found somewhere and forgive me I don't know where, but it is great for our members to keep their shopping list. It stores in the cookies, so it is dependent on your browser and computer, but for this application I think it will work well until Widget Laboratory gives us something better. It is simply the best simple todo list for our sidebar though. If you need the code email me. We also put a weather widget. These are a dime a dozen, just look around.



 

Last on the list

If your using an older browser like IE6 you will notice it looks like a frogs behind this is because of the PNG's I used. BUT.. I have a fix for this also, a little java-script to force my PNGs to be transparent in older browsers. I have not implemented this yet but when I do, I'll do a blog on how to do it.

As we talked about yesterday. sometimes the CSS work you do on your network can look a little different on other browsers. Even compliant modern browsers. I use browsershots which allows me to check my site design in many different browsers and OS-es. But its a pain in the %$#@. Now there seems to be a easier way using Xenocode. You download web applications to run different browsers from the web. Read more about it on Webappers. 

But, it doesn't work for the mac. 

ALERT: seems some folks ran into a trojan on download of these files, so proceed at your own risk.  

Hello all! Haven’t heard from me in awhile? Well, there is a good reason. I came back from out of town on Friday and found that a pink crayon had vandalized my fully loaded Powerbook. I was able to remove most of the damage with a clean wipe. But it appears the damage went beyond the screen and body, and somehow the little vandal broke the whole thing… by the mildew smell and stickiness, I suspect lemonade or milk was the culprit. Anyway it’s fried. If my daughter was not my daughter, and was not only two, I would have her strung up by her ears in the hot sun until she confessed, but, instead I just hid the crayons and put all electronics out of reach like a good daddy. Saying that, I will be sparse while it is being repaired. 

Well, we're almost ready! Still nailing up the shack here and there, so if you see something off, please to shot me a email. Prosocialgo.com was created to service social go owners that want to expand and push the boundaries of socialgo networks. Though we will be providing much material this is also a group effort, and I hope you will jump in here with us and play in the sand box. We have big plans for our members and potentials alike (more so for members). First off is the BLOG.

The Blog
This is the place you will come for the latest news and any rumors we can squeeze out of the guys over at widget laboratory, the premiere widget developer for socialgo. We will accept articles from members that fit our standards, and would love to find some good guest or staff writers. We will also be posting detailed tips at least once a week that may or may not correspond to our podcast. Hey! That reminds me... the podcast. 

Podcast
Once a week you can look forward to the Pro socialgo Podcast, It's not up at the time that I'm writing this, but you can catch a sample edition on the welcome page (scroll down a bit). The podcast is made to compliment the information you receive here as a member and also to gain new recruits. It will cover the basics of creating a network on to CSS and graphics. We hope to wade in some deep waters on the podcast, but the real meat is for the members.  

Tutorial Series
Once a month we will release a in-depth tutorial to members only. This series will cover many aspects of design, and CSS. We want the Podcast to carry most of the CSS load and the Tutorials the graphics and design. We will go through very technical aspects of apps such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and Fireworks but also have more Imaginative design casts that will focus on the fundamentals of design. 

 
Marketing Insider
With the help of our, as now unannounced partners, we will provide our members with a monthly insider magazine. This will be a PDF that follows a linear Marketing plan for our Networks. There will be lots of help in link building, social marketing, and even some on profit and how to get it. If you miss a edition, no worries just pick it up at our store for free. 

Pro Store
Our store will hopefully launch a few months after Pro socialgo's launch. The members will receive  a 15% discount on all purchases. But what will there be to purchase? I will be selling all my son's toys and my wife's angel collection at bargain prices. :) JK. Actually we will have Template starter Kits, Notable books and reference guides, DVD training, HTML slicing and code snips all to directly impact your network. 


If that's not enough, there will also be give-aways and door prizes galore, Site reviews and my ugly avatar's mug will be hanging out around the forum trying to answer as many questions as I can and still get work done.

I hope you join us and help build a truly useful community.

-ezra