Out-of-the-Box Setups
Suggestions
There are two things that I too had to figure out for quite a while at first, coming from Ning.
1)creating/editing top nav bar links
2)setting up a forums PROFILE to house my site's forum discussions (not group discussions).
(is there a section explaining for non-coders how/why to set up the forums profile?)
These two tasks/concepts I feel could be made more find-able or clearer for newcomers who are non-coders.
Ok the old HOME link issue again.... most of my network members are over 50...many are over 70. They look for a HOME link right where all the other main links are. Perhaps hard to believe, but as I've said before, half of them wouldn't even think to click on a logo. All these thousands of members are coming from ning sites which HAVE a default HOME/MAINpage link along the top bar. Remember too- ning 2.0 is not mobile responsive, so a ning2.0 'logo' is often a full width desktop banner background that doesn't shrink like modern logos, thus often folks don't even think of it as a 'logo' you can click on. I feel the JR ningja default should be that there is a HOME link spelled out there alongside the other main default links (and in addition to the clickable logo image)...and then the site owner can remove that "home" link if they choose, leaving only the logo to click on to get to the home page. But having it there out of the box would neatly remove one initial sticky obstacle to confused newly arrived ning-ers. The Ning bundle needs to be as familiar and non-challenging as possible when first set up. The main navigation links are the 'lifelines' to all the main areas of a site. To older people, anyway...goes along with looking for our eyeglasses when they are on top of our heads.
That said, it goes without saying that the goal is that we will all need to learn how to do most things for ourselves as we go along. Dave-- one of the FIRST things I set out to learn on my new JR site was how to make a new link in the top nav bar, and how to EDIT the links that are there, or delete one. You will need to be able to do this, as it's a basic but essential part of building and maintaining your own site.
So, my first few tasks I took upon to learn in JR were: creating/editing top bar links, tweaking colors/fonts/appearance on my main page, and creating a 'forum profile' which would 'own' the forum discussions on the site (and creating a link to it in my top bar links).
Once that forum profile is set up and working with your forum discussions, next you can search for threads here concerning HIDING the 'forum profile''s personal info and member picture when members are using the forums..so it doesn't seem like a 'member/profile'. (which I think is what you are asking about too?). And of course you'll have learned how to add a link at top to your "Forums". Then you can investigate how to add a block section on your home page showing latest forum discussions. Each of these are separate little projects in themselves- make a list and work through them one at a time. You will learn a lot from each task, and you can ask questions when you get stumped.
..There is a second option for forums for your site- a separate true forum platform (php?) that runs linked into your jamroom But I don't know much about that.
This forum we are posting in is the former type- as a 'forum profile' that owns the forum categories and discussions. That's what I did for my own site too.
Hope there is something in all this babble of mine that helps in some way. =8-*
(update):my domain name transfer is still pending, so I will have to wait a couple more days to be able to make any settings changes to my JR domain name)
