Member Update - January 2018
Welcome back, everyone! Now that 2018 is here I hope you're all feeling well rested and motivated to build amazing websites in the year ahead. We've got several big projects and new ideas underway – we're striving to make this our best year yet!
Here's a look at the products and training we've added to your membership over the last few months, and some insight into our priorities for 2018.
Opening Thoughts
Bi-Weekly Release Calendar
At MuseThemes we always establish a release calendar for 3-6 months ahead, ensuring we have plenty of time for testing and user feedback. Based on the responses from our December member survey, we've decided to plan our release calendar around bi-weekly releases in 2018.
Previously we released new products every week; however, as our library gets bigger and products increase in scale we require more time for development and testing. Users also reported they had difficulty keeping up with each new release, and often fell behind due to our aggressive cycle.
In 2018 we're going to aim for bigger, better products instead of a high volume of smaller releases. On weeks where we don't offer a new widget or theme, we'll still provide something that adds value to your membership, such as a quick tip training video, blog post, or widget update.
New Search System on MuseThemes.com
In early December we implemented a brand new search system into the MuseThemes website. With several hundred products on our site, search is the easiest way to find what you need.
Our new system adds predictive search with suggestions, an improved results page with filtering, and advanced analytics. By reviewing and interpreting data about your searches, we can ensure we are offering the products you're searching for, as well as tweaking our search results to guide you to the appropriate place on our site.
The new search is live on the MuseThemes site so you can check it out anytime. Please note that we're still working on optimizing results, and if you encounter anything odd we would love to hear about it (support@musethemes.com).
December Survey Results
Thanks very much to all of our members (and former members) who completed the 2017 survey. We use your feedback and responses to plan our release calendar and priority list for the upcoming year. Stay tuned for a blog post summarizing the results in the next few weeks.
Oct / Nov/ Dec 2017 Recap
New Products and Benefits
- Year in Review Theme - A single page theme perfect for annual reports.
- Color Shoppe Theme - A hip and stylish theme is inspired by a tattoo studio, but perfect for almost any shop, store, or service.
- Animated Numbers - Creates a stylish animated scrolling effect between two numbers.
- Back to Top - A smart button that appears as you scroll, allowing users to return to the top of the page with the click of a button.
- Color Filters - Allows you to apply a variety of filters on standard or hover states: grayscale, sepia, hue, invert, blur, brightness, contrast, and saturation
- Add to Calendar - Generates an "Add To Calendar" button, allowing users to add a custom event to a variety of calendars, including Google Calendar, Outlook, Yahoo Calendar, and more.
- Slide Reel - A pre-styled responsive Muse slideshow widget, designed to present your images in fullscreen format with animated captions.
- Search Slide - A simple widget that uses a search icon to trigger a slide-out search field.
- Subnav Slider - Allows users to create gorgeous second-level menus, complete with a slider allowing smooth transitions between navigation options.
- Table Connect 2.0 - A new and improved version of our popular table widget, driven by online spreadsheets.
- WisePops - Integrates the WisePops pop up platform into Adobe Muse.
- SuperHero Slider - A unique slideshow that loads fullscreen on any device, yet allows for normal scrolling to content below.
- Big Box Menu - A fullscreen navigation menu, which is triggered by a hamburger icon.
- 25 new / updated training videos and nine blog posts.
Upcoming Projects & Priorities
(please note priorities and projects are subject to change)
New Projects
- SEO Widget Pack - Highly requested in our surveys, we're releasing a package of SEO focused widgets to integrate Google Rich Cards, Open Graph Meta Tags, Tag Manager and more into Adobe Muse. These widgets will be updated frequently to stay current with Google updates and SEO best practices.
- Wireframe Pack #5 - A pack of blank, fully responsive site layouts for quick site creation.
- Lead Generation Tools - Our upcoming lead gen package will integrate popular services, such as Mailchimp and Constant Contact, into Muse with advanced styling controls.
- Mumblr 2.0 - By utilizing the Tumblr API we can build an advanced, highly powerful version of Mumblr for users who need more functionality. Mumblr 1.0 will still be available for simple site needs.
- MAG Theme - Inspired by online magazines, our MAG theme is designed for users with lots of written content.
- Several existing product updates and bug fixes.
***
Thanks for being a member of MuseThemes.com!
Cheers,
Steve Harris
Comments
Hi,
Please do the same for Muse to avoid full duplication of the site for new language :
To use a language block you simply add the following to a Product or Category description:
description here[/lang]LOCALE_CODE is the code of the necessary language, for example en, es, fr, de.
A list of available codes can be found here: List of ISO 639-1 codes
Make sure to use the 2 letter “639-1” code.
Rules
You can use as many language blocks as you need.
You cannot put language blocks inside of each other.
Any content not inside a language block will be shown all visitors.
Language blocks can include html or any other type of description markup.
Examples
3 Language blocks:
]
[lang=“es”]Español[/lang]
[lang=“ru”]русский[/lang]
In this example, English visitors will only see “English”, Spanish will only see “Español” and Russian visitors will only see “русский”. A visitor who spoke something else, for example German would see nothing. To show those visitors content make sure to set a Default Language and have that Language Block available.
Should be greaaaaat !
Awesome! I have really enjoyed many of your widgets and themes. The add so much to the sites that I build and continue to inspire. So happy to hear that you are going to pursue the SEO widgets! I do hope that with such a data intense undertaking, you’ll continue to leverage Google Sheets by adding your “Connect” functionality to the widgets. I’ve used another brand and the going back and forth is annoyingly time-consuming. Using the sheets will help us to organize our data and allow for updates on the fly. I hope, hope, hope, you can make this happen!
Kudos on all the site improvements over the last year, product updates, and support you offer. Looking forward with optimism to what Muse Themes will bring to Adobe Muse in 2018!
Regarding the Open Graph integration in the proposed SEO widgets…
Can you confirm that this is also being integrated into the Article Connect widget (and other relevant widgets)?
If not, please do, as it would allow me to continue to use this widget, my client is wanting to move away from it for this specific reason.
Wonderful! I’m really looking forward to the MAG Theme as I have client’s discuss that very concept now. Hopefully that launches soon.
So looking forward to Mumblr 2.0!
Desperately require an update for Sidebar Connect as the current version causes glitches in selecting the correct page, been asking since I raised a ticket in November, haven’t had any real timeframe for this, the widget is unusable in its current state.