On March 28th we partnered with Widgetbox in order to make it easy for our users to select and add widgets to their website. In the 10 days since we have implemented this feature, we have had over 3000 widgets added by our users at over 300 new widget installs every day and growing. This is thanks to Widgetboxe's ability to provide you with a selection of 1000's of widgets that are contributed by users and companies through www.widgetbox.com. Our add element gallery allows you to add other components/elements that directly part of our website platform, like the recent forum post, news headlines, recent members, and so on.
Widgets are small components (Clocks, RSS Feeds, Music Players, Etc) that can be easily install onto your website from the Add Widget option that is between Add Element and new page on the content editor system in your website administration.
We are continually working on features, improvements and additions to bring our users more value. We are focused on providing a solution that allows anyone regardless of website experience to build a site of their own that deliveries a selection of features, capabilities and functionality. One new item on our board is the ability for you to create widgets from your website content. Please tell us what you would think about that?
Most of our features, and advancement is based on user demand (the number of people requesting the same type of feature). Please share with us some features you would like to see added or existing features that you would like to see improved and why. Please be detailed and constructive with your comments.
Hundreds of people are creating websites each day on Spruz Platform compatible and connected communities. Though the specific networks have different feature sets and demographics, one of the things in particular that is consistent throughout is design management and theme format. So we have hundreds of people creating sites and each and every one of them has to pick a theme when they do.
This is where YOU come in. We have recently opened up a special theme sharing feature that allows any site owner to create their own themes to share with the community. As more people get involved with building great themes for the community, we will be adding more great ways to be recognized with featured areas of the Theme Library for top contributors, highest rated themes, etc. You can provide themes for free, which is an excellent way to get known quickly. Then you can start charging for your themes as well. Let's do some quick math here. If you make some great themes that people like it would be easy to start racking up 20 or more purchases a day. If you charged $10 for each theme, that's $200 a day! The more quality themes you make the more installs you get and it just goes up from there.
How do you make a theme?
It's probably easier than you think. We've recorded some live webinars that we had talking about theme creation and showing how it's done. We have also launched a great developer site for fellow theme designers to get together and swap ideas and for us to provide you with valuable resources. Find the videos, resources and forums at http://dev.spruz.com
To get your theme approved you need to follow a couple simple guidelines.
Be original. It is fine to start with an existing theme from the theme library, but make the changes needed to make it your own. If it looks almost exactly like a theme we already have, chances are it will not be accepted into the theme sharing program.
Check for Usability. Make sure all the colors and backgrounds work together to make everything on the site work and text visible. There's no point in creating a theme that breaks a site's functionality. Check places like forums, blogs and sub navigation menus, to be sure it all works well and looks good doing it.
We have finished with a series of updates revolving around theme packaging and sharing. Including changes to our theme library. You will notice the choose theme option has been renamed to theme library on your design tab of your website administration area.
The theme library allows you to apply free and pay themes to your site after it is created, the theme library also showcases themes created by our users.
Our latest theme addition by Gmath creator of http://gmath.spruz.com submitted a theme design called Sky Blue, it is a fully customizable theme with a nice balance of color and graphics.
Some Features of our Theme Library include;
Fully tag supported searching and a new view all themes option that will return all themes in the library.
Ability for our users to create themes and share themes over the theme library for free or charge a fee on high quality themes.
New preview theme option. This allows you to see how a theme will look on your website before you apply it. Click on a theme picture to display the options for that selected theme.
Newest Themes column to display themes just added by our users.
Options for our users that design themes to create them fully custom or easy to customize with our basic editor. Thus allowing our user base to have a more robust theme selection.
You can click on the name of the designer of a theme to see all themes from the same user.
Installed themes counter, that started counting on March 22nd of 2009 that shows the number of websites that have installed that theme.
Coming Soon;
Updating the views is still under construction but will be fully enabled once we have more users adding themes and have a selection of advanced themes and pay themes.
Installed theme tab will show all themes you have installed and give you an option to see more information on them.
Anyone can create and submit themes to our theme library by clicking on the theme sharing tab on your design editor. More information on how to submit themes can be found by clicking on Click here for more information under your shared themes. From the theme sharing tab you can also package your themes for download or import packages from other users.
Spruz has partnered with Widgetbox to provide you with easy access to a library of 1000's of 3rd party widgets. Widgetbox is the leading self-service web widget platform. Web widgets are mini, portable-applications that can be added to any web page and serve two important goals: Add Dynamic Content to Your Site, Reach New Users Across the Web
You will find a new option on the content builder of your websites administration area for adding widgets, widgets are a little different then elements, our elements are building components for site structure and widget allow you to add new 3rd party content to your website.
After clicking add widget a widget gallery will load where you can select from a library of 1000's of widgets that are addible to your website with just one click. Once your widget is added to your page you can hover over the widget box and move it to the desired position on the page, or manage it.
Like anything new, there maybe problems, issues or bugs. Please give us your feedback, and suggestions. Report bugs and problems in a support ticket.
We hope you all enjoy this feature as it really opens up further variety for your website powered by the Spruz Platform.
This is a video of our last webinar from Yesterdays webinar on theme design.
This is the second video of a 2 part webinar on Theme Design, where we developed and deployed the new design for our new developer community http://dev.spruz.com over the webinar.
This webinar video is follow-up to our Theme Design webinars. You can check the first video by clicking here.
If you are interested in developing sites, themes or widgets for other sites powered by the Spruz Platform then get involved on our developer community http://dev.spruz.com
