Forum Activity for @strumelia

Home Page - Replacing Top Discussions with Forum > Newest Posts

Ning To Jamroom

That would work for me on one condition- that the latest Group Discussion Posts appear on the main Page general Timeline/Activity Feed (as they currently do in Ning). If they don't, then Groups activities will become too invisible if we set our "Latest Discussions" module to be latest FORUM discussions.

My Developer Tools skin cloner is not working right

Ning To Jamroom

I'm off to a gathering as well, so all this can take up tomorrow, no problem. Just please don't lose my gazillion customizations in my LisaNew skin...they took me two months to do! =8-0
Will send you the login info now, but then I'm off for the rest of the day. Thanks much, Brian.

My Developer Tools skin cloner is not working right

Ning To Jamroom

Thanks Brian. I am certain I was not having this compare glitch before- it's only in the past few days I'm experiencing it. If you can't replicate it on your site then maybe you could sign into my site and observe it. It's going to prevent me from being able to update ANY of my skins whenever a new Ningja skin version is released...and as you know I'm having enough trouble already, without this new odd behavior tying my hands completely now.
Thanks for your help. This whole skin update/cloning dilemma is now really preventing me from moving forward on JR.
updated by @strumelia: 01/01/15 08:28:01AM

Home Page - Replacing Top Discussions with Forum > Newest Posts

Ning To Jamroom

There is still confusion between latest forum discussions and latest group discussions here.

Hear me out- on Ning we have a main page module simply showing our Groups- and we can sort them in various ways (groups with most members, groups that have the latest activity...). (Plus, any activities that happen in a group shows up in the Timeline/activity feed on the main page.) But we don't have a "Latest Groups Discussions" module, like we now have on JR.
Instead we have a main page module showing Latest Forum Discussions.

Now in Ningja JR, we have NO main page module for Forum Discussions at all, but we have TWO main page modules for Groups- one showing a list of "Top" groups, and one showing latest Group Discussions...only it's called simply "Discussions" which is confusing because people will assume it is forum discussions.

1) I believe we ALL need a main page module for Latest Forum Discussion posts. similar to as shown in my screenshot.

2) The Groups modules showing on the main page should be tweaked in some way as well- Soaring was suggesting a SINGLE module showing various group activity. --> I feel that if a member wants to see a simple list of groups, they can simply click on the Groups Link in the top nav bar. (and that list we admins should be able to sort ..at least by Most Members and most recent active rather than groups being listed alphabetically) .

In my opinion, Modules on the main page seem to be better suited to showing 'latest' activity in their respective feature. (i.e. latest members, latest posted photos, latest added videos, latest discussion posts...) Then the overall Timeline as well, which brings it all together for members checking in, at a glance in one place. For myself, I would be in favor of a single main page module showing "Latest Activity in Groups", and a single module for "Latest Forum Discussions posts". Then if members want to see simple complete lists of forums, groups, videos,, members, etc...they can either click on the "All" links or the top navigation header links for that particular feature. To me that makes the most sense and is the most organized and consistent arrangement.

updated by @strumelia: 01/01/15 08:32:16AM

My Developer Tools skin cloner is not working right

Ning To Jamroom

I am having trouble with the new "Compare" function for my templates.
I start by trying to compare any particular template in my (newly cloned) active LisaNew skin to my Ningja (customized) .11 skin- and at first it loads by comparing LisaNew to Lisanew (despite the drop down menu saying Ningja 11). Nothing happens if I refresh the page, so I go to compare LisaNew with Ningja.10 in the dropdown, which it goes to ok. So then I change the dropdown to Ningja.11, and it presents me with a compare of Ningja.11 with Ningja.11. LisaNew disappears in the compare altogether.

2nd scenario:
I start with LisaNew and go to compare another tmeplate- It starts me on a page comparing Lisa to Lisa. I set the dropdown to Ningja .08, and I get a good compare page. Then I set the dropdown to Ningja .09....and I get a compare of Ningja .11 to Ningja .09 (lisaNew has disappeared again.)

Does anyone else experience this since the recent updates? I didn't have this problem a few days ago- the compare function with its dropdown menu for versions was working as expected then.

P.S. Ken thank you for your suggestions- I will get back to you about them once I get through this other stuff. (!!!)

Home Page - Replacing Top Discussions with Forum > Newest Posts

Ning To Jamroom

This is one of the things I believe is important to change for all us 'Ning Bundle' users. It's something I planned to request help on myself once I solved my current skin/cloning issue.

As it is out-of-the-box, the Main page of our site contains a module showing "Top Groups" AND a module labeled "Top Discussions". But the Top Discussions actually features latest discussions from our Groups, not from our Forums. There is no main page module at all for Forum Discussions. This is something every single Ning creator will be asking for and NEED to change, if it's not changed by default for all of us.

This is still a holdover from a couple months ago when JR team was thinking that all our discussions were within our Groups, and before they added the jrProfileForum module to properly receive our forum discussions from our Ning Archives while importing to Jamroom modules.

I feel it's very important that by DEFAULT, our main page also have a Forums module, showing latest Forum Discussions (not latest group discussions...which currently needs to be re-named just that, to avoid confusion with the Forum discussions).

Chocolate- Because the current "Top Discussions" does not feature forum discussions at all, but rather Group discussions, we can't merely exchange it with one for forums- we need to create one for forums on its own, and then we can decide if we want to keep the one for groups (and rename it Group Discussions perhaps) or remove it.

Chocolate- you can change the titles on the tops of each module in your Skin>Language tab.
For example, I changed the "About" title in the top description to "Welcome to Friends of the Mountain Dulcimer" and I changed "older posts" to "older blog posts". If you look in that language tab of your current skin, you can change "Discussions" to "Group Discussions" which will at least clarify that the current module is for group discussions rather than forum discussions.

Now we just need a real 'Latest Forum Discussions' module for our main site pages.

Multiple profiles per user account (?)

Ning To Jamroom

I just purchased the jr newsletter module. Thanks!

Multiple profiles per user account (?)

Ning To Jamroom

This has various subjects of explanations:
https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/documentation/getting-started

and within it you will find one about the profiles/users/quotas concept:
https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/documentation/getting-started/2167/concepts-the-admin-user-needs-to-know

My take is this:
Yes i too get confused, but I must every day remind myself that- I am not building a new Ning site.
There is a learning curve for us that takes some time, but each day you learn a little here, a little there. We can now build our new sites the way we want them to be, so by the time you finish creating your site, you can make it less confusing to your members in many ways. Some of those ways will involve you deciding which of the almost limitless abilities and features you want to give your members to do or play with. If you wish, you can make a relatively simple site that will not be confusing to your members...I guess that's what i'm trying to say.
Yes I find it confusing as a non coder myself. I keep learning little by little on my own...been at it almost 3 months now. I keep reminding myslef how clueless I was when I built my ning site 6 yrs ago...and thought I'd never figure it all out...but I did somehow.
Now I'm having to learn a whole new system...oh well, times change and I'm not ready for the nursing home just yet.

My Developer Tools skin cloner is not working right

Ning To Jamroom

OK, I get what you two have been saying. I haven't noticed where it's been mentioned what templates have been altered in each update. I look harder next time.
But I remain now with this dilemma that I'm in now:
---My basic Ningja .11 skin is now the only skin that has all my hundred or so personal modifications that took me almost 3 months to make. It's working nicely as my active skin.
---The clones I have seem to be missing various customizations...or they seem to have them in their code but do not exhibit them when activated (haven't figured THAT out yet).

SO....
1)should I now make a NEW mdLisa clone of my current active working Ningja skin that has all my mods?
2) assuming yes, then how do I get back a ningja skin that is pristine and current with NONE of my gazillion customizations, to use going forward as a non-customized version that I update periodically with JR updates? (um, no way could I go in and FIND all the modifications I have stumbled around in the css and style settings for two months now)

I guess I'm asking if I can now make a new clone of my current customized Ningja, test to make sure it keeps all my mods, and then get rid of the parent one and install a fresh virgin Ningja skin that now the latest version, (but without any of my million customizations) ??

I need to be able to get back on the right path here so I can move forward. Without losing all my work. My wagon is stuck in the mud.

My Developer Tools skin cloner is not working right

Ning To Jamroom

" The updated skin becomes the new original, so now do we use comparison to see the mods generated by the update itself, plus our own mods?
In other words, are we supposed to manually look for and install all the new updates to our clone?
What if they involve javascript, or CSS, that doesn't show in the templates? I don't understand how that can work.
The only thing that makes sense to me, is to add my modifications to the new version. Then I don't have to worry about what Jamroom changed. What am I missing? "

OMG thank you Ken, these are the confusions I'm having as well and thank goodness there is someone besides me who has been having to customize my original (Ningja) skin. I feel better just knowing I'm not alone in not knowing how to proceed next and/or fix my situation.