SiteKreator Development Blog

Behind the Scenes of the Upcoming New Galleries

Luba Futekova — 2009-10-08T03:10:50-07:00

Are you already pushing the envelope of the current SiteKreator galleries? You need different layouts, rich effects and a variety of navigation options? Then fasten your seat-belts! The new SiteKreator galleries are on their way with a plethora of new visualizations, navigation styles, effects, transitions and more.

Slideshow

A new version of our classic slideshow gallery with many new features. Select any of the new image effects, navigation styles and transitions. The play, pause, previous and next buttons are now inside the image by default, optimizing visual real-estate making the galleries much more flexible for integration inside your content.

Thumbnails

A classic gallery with image thumbnails displayed in a grid. Featuring a rich set of updates and options like flexible grid, thumbnail effects, page transition, selectable navigation styles.

Filmstrip

A large slideshow with small icon previews of all the images inside your gallery, arranged in an easy to use filmstrip. The strip can go at top, left, right or bottom of the slideshow.

Mosaic

Again a slideshow with small icon previews, this time the icons arranged in a mosaic. A great way to display huge collections of photos or products.

Carousel

Impressive interactive presentation of your images in a carousel. Smooth sliding and scaling provide a great way to browse through the gallery.

Slider

The gallery images arranged in a ribbon. The ribbon can automatically or manually slide revealing more images. Ideal for a photographic site header or a product display window.

New image effects are available in all visualizations. You can select from Reflection, Drop-shadow and Polaroid effects, automatically prepared and applied on page for you.

The visualizations share new navigation styles, creating a huge variety of possible configurations. Choose from Buttons, Buttons with Numbers, Numbers or Dots.

All new gallery visualizations come with a brand new large image viewer which opens inside the current page overlaying your content, as opposed to opening an irritating pop-up. The large view automatically fills the browser window revealing the biggest possible version of the large image.

You don't have patience to try all these awesome gallery visualization? Hold your horses - we are still working very hard to get them out of the door as soon as possible. We hope they will be available on SiteKreator.com within the next two months. But if you don't want to wait you can start creating your own gallery visualizations even today. Learn more how to do that here.

Many new features in Manage Pages

Nancy Jefferson — 2009-09-18T10:26:59-07:00

SiteKreator is committed to not only help you build a stunning web site, but also effectively market it and get traffic to it. Search engine optimization (SEO) plays a major role in your online marketing. Today we are very pleased to announce several changes to Manage Pages that could greatly improve your ranking in the search engines. All these changes are result of a direct collaboration with many active users who gave us ideas and provided invaluable feedback during the development.

The first feature introduced with this release is the ability to create folders and move pages to folders. This not only allows you to better arrange the pages on your site, but also significantly improves your search engine ranking, as explained in this article. We encourage you to try it.

In addition, now SiteKreator allows the creation of 301 redirects, which enables you to forward any URL within your domain to a specific page from your site or to an external site. This is especially useful if you have inbound links to a page that no longer exists and you don't want to lose the search engine juice from that link.

Watch our short video for adding folders and 301 redirects here.

Another SEO-related feature will help avoid your site being penalized for duplicate content - SiteKreator will no longer display your home page content under both its original name (usually main_page.html) and the standard index.html. Instead, all visits to index.html will be forwarded (with a 301 redirect) to the home page you have selected. If the home page is index.html, no redirect will occur.

We have also added several "convenience" features like:

Page size is now displayed in the list of pages
Delete multiple pages
Duplicate pages
Published date is in your local time zone

Also considerable effort has been put into optimizing the speed of Manage Pages, which should be noticeable any time you load it.

We want to thank our large user community for the great feedback we got while creating those important features. Without you, SiteKreator wouldn't be one of the most powerful tools for creating an attractive and effective web presence.

New Designs collection Summer 2009

Sergey Todorov — 2009-08-10T06:40:28-07:00

We are very excited to announce the availability of three new designs to compliment our already rich selection of professional designs. They are available to all SiteKreator Business subscribers.

Chara

Chara comes in 6 distinct color themes (Navy, Gray, Blue, Green and Red) and like all SiteKreator business designs it's completely customizable with your brand colors and graphics.

In addition to being one of our visually most-enticing and sleek designs, Chara comes with a few new features.

New collapsible panel at the top (see expanded panel in preview below). The content there is accessible for visitors after a click on the Expand button and visitors can reclaim the space by collapsing the panel back again. Ideal for contact information, site maps and other always-available information. Not sure you need the panel? That's taken care of - if you don't have any content inside, the panel will not appear in the end-user view of your site.

Flexible layout for wide content. Even large images and very wide tables, will not break your site, when you are using the Chara design. The content panel automatically re-sizes to accommodate wide content.

This design uses the shaped page header images, first shown with the Polaris design. This makes the design unique with a light and streamlined look for both home page - where you can use a large image and inside pages as well, where you can select from the same library of images, but smaller in size. Combine the page image with a slogan text beside it, for a complete customized appearance.

Inverted text. When you add or move text content, to an area with dark background (like the new collapsible panel or the footer) Chara will automatically detect that and display the texts inverted - white instead of dark gray, thus guaranteeing that your content is always readable and you don't end up with black-on-black text.

Pasta Oval
Another addition to the design selection is a replacement for the existing Pasta Oval design. The aesthetics and concept are pretty much the same, but the new design is better in every bit that matters.
1. You can now select the image inside the oval from a library, just like you select a page image in any other SiteKreator design.
2. The design is also completely customizable with SiteKreator Pro, so it can tie in perfectly with any established brand and colors.
3. We have an inside page layout, allowing you to create pages with the content starting right at the top - not all pages need the large image in the oval.

The design comes in 6 distinct colors - Gray shown above and 4 more previewed below

Pasta Arc
The other Pasta variation, with the arched page image, also gets a new replacement, again allowing much better flexibility - selectable header image, multiple page layouts and complete customization with SiteKreator Pro. Pasta Arc is available in 6 colors as well, Blue shown below.

Redesign of SiteKreator.com and new packages

Nancy Jefferson — 2009-06-22T12:35:50-07:00

As many of you already noticed, recently we completely redesigned our main SiteKreator.com site. With the new design, we also introduced a few new packages. The most notable is our Business Deluxe package loaded with the full set of business features, 2Gb storage and a complete custom design. As more plans are being added we needed to rename few of the existing packages. For example, the Power package is now Business Premium, the Business package is now Business Standard and the Personal package is now Personal Complete.

In addition to this, all our packages got a significant increase in the storage. For example, the Business Standard now comes with a full Gigabyte, while the Personal Complete comes with 400Mb. This will give you more space for your photos and videos.

For more information about our new packages, visit SiteKreator.com.

Make your videos visible to everyone

Laura Stern — 2009-03-26T12:30:59-07:00

With the Text and Images editor you may add video files and turn on/off a number of options like autoplay, controls and so on. However, depending on the format of the video file you uploaded, your visitor would need a browser plugin which may not be installed on his computer. This limits the visibility of your video files.

A solution we recommended until now was to add your video files to YouTube or Google Video and have the videos embedded in your site using an HTML snippet. Not anymore...

The new option to add Flash Video (FLV) files inside the Text and Images editor allows to display video using the Adobe Flash Player - available on more than 99% from all internet connected computers. You may convert any video file (MOV, AVI, etc) to FLV format by using a simple convert tool, like On2 Flix Standard for example. Then just upload the FLV file from the usual Add Media option in the Text and Images editor and your video will be visible to everyone. Learn more �

And, now you can upload files (including FLV) up to 100 MB in size. Enjoy!

New Sign-up and Change Design interface

Laura Stern — 2009-02-26T03:58:27-08:00

We are pleased to announce that we just released the official version of the new sign-up and change-design interface. Check out the new sign-up here.

The main advantages of this new interface are:

Support of a much larger number of designs. Only the designs currently visible on the screen are loaded. Expect many new designs soon.
Filter by Design, Color, Industry, Year of release or just browse all designs.
Option to see all colors for a specific design.
Convenient zoom in/out with an option to select and browse previous/next design (you can even use the arrows on your keyboard).
More control over the initial content of the site, like specifying the list of initial pages and their names, filling in the slogan, contact and about us information and more.

We hope you'll enjoy the new interface and as always, would love to get your feedback on it!

Improved Performance under Internet Explorer 6

Elliott Cox — 2008-12-26T09:35:55-08:00

We just released a new version of SiteKreator that significantly improves the performance of the new editing interface on slow machines and Internet Explorer 6 (IE6). This was achieved by disabling some of the animation effects visible when adding/moving content elements or opening edit windows.�

We automatically disable the animations on IE6 and slow machines�only, but you can also manually disable them from Control Panel > My Account > Editing Interface Options.

SiteKreator at Web Design World, Boston, 8-9 Dec 2008

Emma Weisz — 2008-12-08T03:33:33-08:00

Today and tomorrow, SiteKreator will be presenting at the Web Design World Conference in Westin Copley Place, Boston. On Tue, 9 Dec, 9 AM EST, SiteKreator's CEO Ivaylo Lenkov will open the second conference day with a keynote on "Web Design in the Cloud".

The keynote will touch upon the history of cloud-based business apps, productivity tools and CMS and will pose an important question: why has the web design creation process been left behind? Lenkov will present the latest advancements, benefits and limitations in taking this process to the cloud and will attempt to draw the road-map ahead, introducing SiteKreator Pro as one of the possible answers to the growing demand for cloud-based web design.

We can still arrange for some free or discounted conference passes, so please contact us if you are in the vicinity of Boston these two days and would like to visit. We'll be glad to meet you and walk you through SiteKreator Pro, or just chat with you over the latest web trends.

The new SiteKreator editing user interface is live!

Emma Weisz — 2008-12-04T11:52:53-08:00

We are very excited to share the news that SiteKreator's brand-new editing user interface is already live on SiteKreator.com and hosted private labels.

The benefits it brings are many:

no more confusing edit icons
visual indication for all places where content may be added
admin view is now fully identical to end-user view
you now have an option to edit the page title, site title, logo, page image directly from the page
you see what exactly you are going to edit before you start editing it
you see what content you are going to delete before deleting it
content may be moved everywhere, not just up and down

For a brief introduction on editing content with the new interface, please check this quick video. Try out for yourself how easy it is to edit content now and let us know how you find the new UI. Any reports on issues you encounter after the upgrade would be also most appreciated and quickly addressed. Please use the Help button in Admin view of your site to report them to our Support team.

Thanks to all of you for the continued support on making SiteKreator even better!

The official beta of SiteKreator new user interface has been released

Laura Stern — 2008-11-28T09:10:42-08:00

We are pleased to announce that we have just released the official beta version of SiteKreator's new editing user interface.

While we are preparing for the official launch (expected within a week or two), you can play with the interface over a copy of your website content.

Login at http://stage.sitekreator.com with your existing sitekreator.com username and password, and see for yourself the advantages the new UI offers. A quick introduction movie for the new interface is available here:
http://stage.sitekreator.com/skhelp/new_ui.html

We hope you will take the chance to experiment with the new interface as much as you want - any changes applied to your stage.sitekreator.com website will not affect your sitekreator.com website in any way.

We'll be awaiting your comments, recommendations and bugs sneaked in at:

http://sitekreator.com/sitekreator/uibeta.html

And - to wrap up the good news, we want to let you know that all Freemona-based designs on stage.sitekreator.com (Sirius, Atria, Meissa, Kuma, Polaris, Vega) now have a brand-new page image selection interface!

The improved stock photo selection, together with an option to upload a flash page header will make it much easier to build unique, visually attractive websites.

Coming soon on sitekreator.com!

New season - new designs: presenting Polaris, Kuma and Meissa

Emma Weisz — 2008-11-13T10:00:26-08:00

With winter and the holidays just around the corner, SiteKreator kicks off the new season with three exciting new business design lines - Polaris, Kuma and Meissa. The new concepts take their design cues from the typical business web model framework used as a basis for all SiteKreator high-end designs, but push style beyond convention to impress the visitor and grab attention.

Polaris, for the first time in SiteKreator, introduces the usage of a shaped (non-rectangular) header image. The image lies directly over the background and is processed in a way so it can seamlessly work on any background color, making the design very customizable. The image library selection that comes with the design is extraordinary and ready to match any purpose - from sleek corporate illustrations, through everyday objects, to freestyle metaphors.

Polaris comes in 4 vibrant color themes and features the standard business elements - top horizontal main menu panel with sub-navigation, per-page menu in the left area, top and bottom micro navigations, normal and splash page templates, advanced horizontal and vertical sections (tabs, collapsible, accordion).

Kuma combines business function and modern style in a blend of web 2.0 aesthetics. Each element of the design - from the logo to the navigation panels - is placed within its own rectangular-shaped container, making the design background fully independent and easy to change to any color or pattern.

Kuma features a left-side main navigation panel with sub-menus, horizontal per-page menu, top and bottom micro menus, advanced sections. The design is currently available in 3 color themes with many options for customization.

Meissa redefines corporate web appearance by bringing together hi-tech simplicity and a lavish visual impact. The design features pure and elegant style of the layout combined with a wide panoramic image which gradually sinks behind the content area below and reinforces brand awareness.

Like Polaris and Kuma, Meissa has all the business-class design extras built in, including multiple navigation panels, sub-navigation, flexible layout through different types of sections, full re-branding capabilities and more. This last addition to SiteKreator's winter 2009 design collection is still in production with estimated time of arrival around November 18th.

Polaris, Kuma and Meissa are part of SiteKreator's Business and Power packages and may be enabled on demand for customers using the old design interface or resellers willing to utilize them for specific accounts. If you are unsure how to switch to the new designs, you can contact us from the button in Admin view of your site.

We'd love to hear from you on how you like the new designs! We'd never have gotten here without the active feedback from our community.

Important changes in business designs

Emma Weisz — 2008-10-16T06:22:01-07:00

On 10 October we introduced a number of changes related to content areas behavior in SiteKreator business designs. The updates affect Cocoa, FutureTech and Aurora designs.

With the new system you now have to specifically enable the page areas that expand only when there is content inside - e.g. typically, the right and left side areas. This simplifies the set of edit icons on the page and ensures a smooth transition to the new SiteKreator user interface expected in the next few weeks. Here are details on how to use the new content structuring options for each design:

If you are using Cocoa design: You can now enable the right-side page column from Control Panel icon > Page Properties > Special Features >Display Right Side Column

If you are using FutureTech design: You can now enable the left-side and right-side page columns from Control Panel icon > Page Properties > Special Features > DisplayLeft Navigation Column and Display Right Side Column

If you are using Aurora design: You can enable the left-side column from Control Panel icon > Page Properties > Special Features > DisplayLeft Column. The right-side column is controlled from the Text Columns drop-down. You can use allocation 80% | 20% or 66% | 33%.

Another important improvement introduced recently - all business designs now support advanced section layouts:Collapsible, Animated and Accordion layouts for Vertical sections, Tabbedlayout for Horizontal sections. You can define Minimum height for all sections in a group as well, so that content no longer jumps when you switch between tabs.To access these new options click on the Section Group icon.

Click here to view the sections

Finally, we've also allowed adding any type of content in any area, which makes the Add menu slightly longer, but this will be amended with the new user interface. If you have any questions or comments regarding the recently introduced updates, don't hesitate to drop us a line.

SiteKreator unveils SiteKreator Pro at Create Chaos conference in Orlando

Emma Weisz — 2008-10-15T05:06:27-07:00

SiteKreator will present the first public beta version of SiteKreator Pro (also known as Freemona Web Design Platform ) at the Create Chaos 2008 conference taking place Oct 13-17, 2008 at the Orlando World Center Resort Marriott in Orlando, FL.

SiteKreator Pro will empower web designers to create completely custom web designs without any coding and in front of the eyes (and browsers) of customers. Some of the new design platform benefits include:

- capability to implement completely custom designs
- powerful layout, style and image library editors
- no coding or technical skills required
- freedom to delegate content management to customers once the design is created
- a fully web-based design platform, no software downloads required
- ability to collaborate with clients during design implementation
- readiness to deliver standards-compliant, search-engine friendly websites
- ability to complete a design in 2 days or less

You can learn more about SiteKreator Pro and get a live demonstration, or chat with SiteKreator's CEO Ivaylo Lenkov at conference booth 32. Following the conference announcement of the new design platform, starting Oct 20, we will drop the price for the framework usage from $200 to $120 per design and will offer revenue sharing program to all designers who post their designs as public.

We have at our disposal 50 free passes for the expo and 2 free passes for the whole conference to give away to partners. So, if you happen to be in the vicinity of Orlando and are interested in attending, please contact us to arrange for a free pass.

Create Chaos a five-day all-inclusive industry destination event produced to inform, inspire, educate, and connect creative professionals. Featuring several unique industry conferences under one roof, Create Chaos brings together creative professionals across industry boundaries including: web and graphic design, advertising, film and video production, animation, photography, printing, and publishing.

See more about Create Chaos conference at: http://www.createchaos.com/08

Read more about SiteKreator Pro / Freemona platform at: http://pro.sitekreator.com

SiteKreator Summer News Roundup

Emma Weisz — 2008-07-16T02:27:47-07:00

It's an exciting summer here at SiteKreator and we can't wait to tell you about all new features we've been silently rolling out over the past weeks. New Admin interface looks, trendy designs, more advanced options and compatibility updates - most of them you may have already noticed, others you are probably still discovering in the course of work. So, here goes a complete roll call:

New Admin edit panels

The first major improvement from the much anticipated new SiteKreator user interface is already live. We've replaced the annoying edit pop-up windows with sleek iFrame styled panels.

Apart from a sexy new look, there has been a solid usability and technical reasoning behind this change.

First, we will no longer ask you to turn off pop-up blockers inside browsers, toolbar plug-ins or security programs in order to be able to properly work with the site.

Second, from a usability perspective, having all editing tools open in one browser window is much better than getting lost among main window and several pop-ups.

And last, but not least, thanks to a performance optimization, work with the new panels is now significantly faster in most browsers compared with the speed to open or submit the old-school pop-ups.

Many thanks to those of you who reported issues in the early hours of releasing the new panels! This helped us clear all left-over glitches promptly and the new edit panels are now compatible with all major browsers - Internet explorer 6, 7; Mozilla Firefox 2, 3; Safari and Opera.

Trendy new business designs

We've got three new lines of trendy high-end designs. Atria, Sirius and soon to join them Vega, available in multiple color variations, will expand the choice of business-oriented designs for Business and Power subscribers.

	Atria features a subtle, clean look with the main content area spread on a stunning background image, an elegant main menu on top.
	Sirius goes for a richer, luscious look and feel with more textures, shadows, page visuals and a gradient background.
	Vega combines the best of the classic, corporate design style. It will be available for usage by end of week. All new designs offer the advanced branding, layout and navigation structuring capabilities typical of all SiteKreator business-class designs.

Live Chat

We've started a new live chat service so we can work with you even closer throughout the site building process. The live chat is available for Business and Power subscribers right from the Help icon in top left corner in Admin view of your website:

Save time and get help fast, by contacting our friendly support staff with any technical, design or customer care question that might pop up while working on your site.

Text and Image editor - Safari compatibility Beta

OK, it's not official yet, but SiteKreator's Text and Image editor is now already working under Safari as well.

There are still some minor issues remaining to clear up this week, so you can look at the current status as a Beta version.

During this last stage of work, we'd be grateful for any bug-reports on using the Text and Image editor on SiteKreator.com under Safari.

You can expect an official release of the Safari compatibility updates later next week.

Search in Manage pages

Following several requests from our customers, we've introduced a Search option inside the Manage Pages interface. In a content-rich site with multiple pages, the search by page name would be a real time-saver.

Spell checker in Forum / Blog

A spell-check is now available within the interface for Forum or Blog postings and comments. Per requests from some of you, we've also added an option for less postings per page (1 or 5).

Linking to a specific tabbed section

It is already possible to create a link to a specific tabbed section inside the business designs which support tabs (Aurora, Pasta, Chromia, Atria, Sirius). The link will directly open the tab. Up to now, the first tab was the one set to open by default when the page is loaded. To create a link to a specific tab - just add an anchor inside the content in this tab and then link to it from the desired place.

Your feedback on the new features and designs would be much appreciated!

New features released in Q1 2008

Laura Stern — 2008-04-09T07:34:32-07:00

Over the past quarter, several very important steps have been taken towards introducing the new SiteKreator UI. For those who did not take part in the demo - SiteKreator will soon feature a thoroughly improved, more intuitive and easy to use interface (sneak preview). We are working on gradually integrating the first phases of this, and at the same time have released several useful new features.

New image effects

Following the recommendations of the artist and photographer communities within SiteKreator to enable more image presentation options, we have now integrated two image display effects - reflex and instant photo - inside the Text and Images editor.

Each of the two effects has a left and right variation, and will be displayed only after the Text and Images editor has been submitted.

The image effects may also be applied to the Image Galleries using this Tip and Trick.

New footer layout options

Business subscribers may now accommodate any combination of long copyright text, menu items and footer icons by switching between the 5 new footer layout options.

The new footer layouts allow you to create multi-line footers and make it easy to prevent stretching of designs when long copyright or bottom menu items are used.

Click on the image to preview sample footers.

New page header images

In line with the new set of business design options available in the business and power sign-up, all business designs now offer a wider selection of page header images.

If you are a Business or Power subscriber, you have 2 (Business) or 8 (Power) custom stock photo credits as part of your package. Don't hesitate to contact us and we will help you select, crop and apply the custom images to your site.

Page keywords and description

Search engine optimization is undoubtedly a very important phase in the website creation process. Although page and site keywords and description do not play as important of a role during the search engine indexation as they did before, they still contribute to the proper appearance of your site in search engines results.

With the new per-page keyword and description option available in the Special features section in Page properties, you may specify keywords and description for each page, in addition to having a global keyword and description option.

After your keywords and description are in place, you may ensure the proper indexation of your site pages by adding a sitemap file to your site and submitting it to search engines.

Business designs now load faster and can be viewed on smart phones

After the overhaul of the business design menus, SiteKreator business sites may now be properly viewed on most smart phones. You will also notice a considerable improvement in the load speed. With the new menus, you no longer have to wait to load the entire page in order to see the menu.

Real content width in the Text and Images editor

In the new Text and Images editor the width of the editor content area is set to be the same as the allocated real estate for your content. This allows you to position your elements much better, without constantly saving the editor and checking the actual layout of your content. Using the resize button you can toggle between this mode and the full-screen mode.

Online help - one click away

We hope the new UI will make your work with SiteKreator much easier, and online help will be needed much less. Still, if you need to refresh your knowledge about a specific feature or get quick access to the FAQ, Tutorials, or Tips and Tricks - just click on the button at the top left corner of your Admin view.

All four SiteKreator datacenters are now fully operational

Last but not least - we are pleased to announce that all four SiteKreator datacenters are now fully functional. This will be most noticeable to our European-based customers, who now enjoy much faster site loading.

We'll keep you posted as we make further progress with the new UI changes. That will surely be our focus for the quarter we just entered, but rest assured that any interesting feature requested frequently by our customers will also enter our development pipeline. So keep sending your ideas and recommendations, we review each and every one of them!

HTML Snippet inside Text and Image Editor, spacing around Images, new Color Picker and more...

Steve Bloom — 2007-11-30T08:55:07-08:00

Hello everyone. First, let me introduced myself - my name is Steve, and I am one of the senior developers here at SiteKreator. I would like to share with you a bunch of small but extremely useful features we silently released over the past month.

HTML Snippet in the Text and Image Editor

You can now add HTML snippets anywhere within your Text and Images and position them anyway you like using tables and alignment options. Integration of PayPal buttons and shopping cart is now much easier and you have better control over the layout.

Redesigned Image Toolbar with image spacings controls

We have updated the appearance of the Image toolbar, placing the options in a more sensible manner, making the interface easier to understand and use. There is a new Color Picker which will help you set the image border color more precisely (more on the Color Picker below). Also - we have a new image spacings option that allows customization of the padding around the images in the Text and Images editor. This option automatically applies default image spacing settings based on your image alignment (with text wrapped on the left or right).

Redesigned Media toolbar

New Media upload interface is available, with option to directly upload mp3 files. The option to set spacing around the element is available here too. To avoid confusion, we listed the accepted file types, making easier to select the appropriate file to upload.

A Brand New Color Picker

The color picker is now completely redesigned to let you choose not only from the design-recommended colors but any possible color from a visual color picker or by its RGB hexadecimal value.

All the above are also integrated in the Forums and Blogs posting editor. The option to upload media will now let you publish podcasts (as mp3 files) inside forums or blogs postings.

Edit blog and forum posting dates

Now you can also edit the date of your forum/blog postings, which comes handy when migrating your blog from another blogging tool to SiteKreator.

Also I should mention that we significantly increased the anti-spam protection of our web forms. This should put an end to the spam received through your contact forms or guestbooks.

I hope many of you find these small features useful. We are currently planning the next set of changes to the Text and Images editor, among which we will surely schedule Safari 3 compatibility. We would be glad to hear what new features you would like to see there - so feel free to list them using the Add Comment link below this post.

New account billing introduced, Pasta business design released

Laura Stern — 2007-08-20T09:39:21-07:00

Upgrading your SiteKreator account is now easier than ever! Following the release of SiteKreator new billing system last week, new and old accounts may now upgrade with just a few clicks! No upgrade codes, no instructions! Just follow the link Change Plan in My Account panel to upgrade your account to the desired plan.

Unfortunately for some, the new billing also put an end to the extended trial period we allowed. All accounts with expired trial period, expired subscription or using more features than included in their plan will now see a notice to either convert their site to a lower plan, or upgrade their accounts. All sites downgraded to a lower plan will still have all features available in Admin view of their site, but not visible in end-user view.

To encourage you to upgrade your accounts we will be constantly adding more features to our paid packages. We have just released one more business design - Pasta � featuring the full set of business options, advanced section layout with flexible page columns control, 8 site themes and an excellent selection of page header images. Pasta is now part of SiteKreator Business and Power packages.

We are also eager to notify that the long-awaited option for permanent file URLs is now available with our Personal, Business and Power packages! You can now refer to your files outside of SiteKreator without running the risk of having your file URLs changed.

We will be happy to have your feedback on the new features and the latest Pasta design. Meanwhile, we�ll keep working on the most-flexible SiteKreator design - Freemona - a true design platform that will give designers, developers and more advanced SiteKreator users the opportunity to integrate and customize their own designs in SiteKreator.

SiteKreator releases new video tutorials

Emma Weisz — 2007-04-20T06:52:31-07:00

Up to now, for over a year, we'd been relying on the little dragon Kelp to teach you the basics of SiteKreating step by step. And he did a good job. Some of you loved him, others got tired of his jokes and endless flying around, but still learned a lot from his tips and tricks.

With SiteKreator's 2.2 release however, many new features, designs, and interface updates had to find their way into the tutorials and, to be honest, poor old Kelp simply wasn't up to it. Besides, he didn't quite look like the right tutorial guide for a primarily business-oriented tool anymore. So, it was time to say thank you, Kelp, and bye-bye!

Following the success of the Aurora presentation movies, we decided to use the same technique for the tutorials too and implement them as video captures with voiceover. Apart from contributing for a smoother look and feel of the movies, this approach will also allow for easier maintenance whenever new updates or features have to be reflected in the tutorials.

There is still more work going on, but the basic set of movies is already available at http://sitekreator.com/sitetutorials. Let us know if you find them useful and easy to follow. And, for those of you who may be missing Kelp, he was last seen here.

Popular SiteKreator-powered travel site releases "Images of India" Screensaver

Emma Weisz — 2007-04-19T09:51:52-07:00

One of the most popular SiteKreator-powered websites - Lee Gimpel's PassingThroughIndia.com - has recently attracted attention again with the release of an astonishing "Images of India" screensaver, distributed across more than 400 download sites now.

The screensaver includes award-winning visuals "from the magnificent Taj Mahal to the snow-capped Himalayas of northern Sikkim to Kerala's serene backwater lagoons" and is available for download free of charge.

To ease the distribution of the screensaver and create the most exposure, Lee has utilized the new SiteKreator feature for upload of files in the root folder and added a Portable Application Descriptions (PAD) xml file there which contains all the information for the downloadable application in one spot. Download sites then refer to the PAD file importing all file descriptions, sizes, and product information directly from the web site.

The screensaver is now all over SiteKreator Team screens and we already feel like packing for India! You can get your Images of India screensaver too from here and read the stories behind the images on www.PassingThroughIndia.com.

New business design on its way - Chromia!

Laura Stern — 2007-04-18T07:28:31-07:00

After the successful take off of the fourth and most advanced business design - Aurora - we are now moving on with the next business design - Chromia. As you can tell by the name, Chromia will be based on one of our most appealing designs - MildChrome. It will feature the advanced sections first integrated in Aurora, and an excellent pack of business functionalities:

3 navigation panels, sub-navigation

4 site color themes
2 options for section layout
Company logo and slogan
4 text style options
Option to upload your own CSS file
Text resize option
Custom copyright
Google search
Control over footer icons
Static files upload

The new business design is expected to become available to our business users within a week.