Welcome to the new Site Builder!

After more than a month of development I'm excited to announce that we have released the first beta of the new Site Builder module!

The new Site Builder module has been built from the ground up to provide a flexible, fast and easy to use framework for creating "widgets" in Site Builder pages.  Going forward this will allow us to easily create new widgets for specific use cases, as well as make it much easier to integrate existing modules into the Site Builder widget system.

Some highlights of the new Site Builder:

• Single Module - the New Site Builder is now just a single module.  Where previously there were four, the new version has all the required functionality bundled into a single module.  This should remove any issues that would be caused by not having all the old Site Builder modules activated or configured.

• Works with Any Skin - skins no longer need to be customized to work with Site Builder - any skin will work "out of the box".  The only change that is needed is to add the new {jrSiteBuilder_menu} template function in the location you would like the Menu Editor to place it's content.

• New Widget Browser - the new Site Builder module presents you with a familiar layout and interface for the Widget Browser - one that has been modeled after Jamroom's ACP (Admin Control Panel).  It's very easy to see at a glance what widgets are available to be used in a page.  New Widget Settings allow you to show different widgets to different user groups - all on the same page.

• New Menu Editor - the new Menu Editor makes it easy to create fully customized menus with support for offsite URLs as well as custom OnClick Javascript code.

• New Page Layout and Config - there is an all new Page Layout tool for adjusting the rows and columns on Site Builder pages, as well as new Page Settings that allow you to create pages that are only viewable to specific users or groups.

Our hope is the new Site Builder is easy to use for both users that are new to Jamroom and Site Builder, as well as experienced users who are looking for a powerful way to customize their site.

Some notes on upgrading and running the new Site Builder:

• The new Site Builder is a BETA release - we feel it is solid enough for daily use, but also know that once we release it we will get user feedback to help drive the direction the module will evolve in - and we want to get everyone involved as early as we can.  To install from the Jamroom Marketplace, make sure you have enabled the BETA channel in your Marketplace -> Tools -> Release Channels section.

• If you are currently using the existing Site Builder modules and you install the NEW Site Builder module, your existing Site Builder pages, menu items and widgets will be migrated to the new SB, and the existing Site Builder modules will be disabled .  Nothing is deleted in the "old" Site Builder setup.  If you encounter issues in the upgrade, you can disable the new Site Builder module and re-enable the old Site Builder modules.  Please let us know you encounter any issues.

• At this time only the Elastic, Lucid and NingJa skins have been updated with the new {jrSiteBuilder_menu} template function.

• NingJa Users - when updating to the new Site Builder, if you have NOT previously used the old Site Builder, you will need to customize the header menu to suit your needs by clicking on "Menu Editor" from the Site Builder menu.  The NingJa skin comes with quite a few choices in the header menu "out of the box" - however these menu items are part of the header_menu_desktop.tpl template, so are not preloaded into Site Builder.  If you have customized your header_menu_desktop.tpl file and would rather use that, you can modify the template and remove the {jrSiteBuilder_menu} template function call.

Make sure and join us in the Support Forum if you have any questions, feedback, suggestions or issues with the new Site Builder:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum

We're here to help and hope you enjoy using the new Site Builder!