Recent updates, March 2012

It's been a while since we've posted about recent updates to ProsePoint Express. We have been busy, but not always on things which are visible or noticeable to users. Here's a selective list which readers may find interesting.

User interface improvements

In response to user concerns, we have made major changes to the user interface, and will continue to make further improvements in the future months. The Control Menu has been completely rewritten to be more logical and intuitive. The Layout Manager has been completely rewritten to be drag-and-drop.

There are still several tasks that can be done here, and we will undertake them as time and resources permits.

New layout zones: Leaderboard

We added leaderboard zones to the Layout Manager a few months ago. These are zones which appear at the top of the web page, above the site logo and name, and are often used to show longer banner ads.

New channel widget display type: Tickers

We've added new 'ticker' displays for channel widgets. These display a scrolling list of story titles, either horizontally or vertically (in a similar manner to stock quote tickers you may have seen elsewhere).

To utilise the new ticker displays, just configure a channel widget to show more than one story and select the display to be Carousel of titles (vertical ticker) or Carousel of titles (horizontal ticker).

New image gallery type: Carousel

We've created a new image gallery type in response to a user suggestion. The Carousel image gallery arranges photos into a carousel embedded in the webpage and uses arrows for navigation. It's a compact yet intuitive style.

To check out the Carousel gallery type, please visit the sample image gallery page of the demo site.

To try out the Carousel gallery for your site, just go to Site settings » Post settings in the Control Menu, and then select Image gallery type to be Carousel.

New widget type: Featured stories

This new type of widget allows users to manually select which stories to display and in what order. Visually, it looks identical to a channel widget. The Featured stories widget is very useful when you want to make up your own story listings (for example, when a channel widget is not suitable).

Other items

• Teaser display fields

  Teasers can be configured to show or hide the publication date or the author. Visit Site settings » Post settings to configure.

• Google +1 button

  A Google +1 button has been added. Visit Site settings » Service Links to configure.

• Multiple upload of images and files

  When uploading images or file attachments, users can now upload multiple files.

More to come ...

As before (and probably for a long time to come), we are continually adding new features and improving upon ProsePoint Express. If there is a new feature you need, or you can't think of how to achieve something with your site, please drop us a line and see if we have any ideas.

Thanks for reading and have a good day.