JomSocial 3.1 RC1 With a Brand New Admin is Here!

JomSocial 3.1 RC1 comes with a brand new, user-friendly and really beautiful admin interface!

I was never a big fan of the old JomSocial admin. I always found it a bit confusing and plain and dull. So once we got JomSocial 3.0 out the door, we got to work giving the old interface a complete facelift.

Hey, Good-Looking!

The first thing we wanted to do was make the admin pretty. We wanted it to be a place where you feel comfortable, like what you see and enjoy working. The new design will do just that. It’s powered by BootStrap framework and you should find it eye-catching, colorful and clean.

User-Friendly, Too.

You probably know that I’m a big fan of usability. I believe that all web applications should be simple, intuitive and easy to use. So I personally went over every single page on the admin and wrote the requirements to make sure that every task and function is as clear as possible.

That applies to all of the new features we’ve added too. On many of the admin pages, you can now expect to find:

• Dropdown filters.
• Extra columns.
• Clear explanations.
• Links to appropriate documentations.

We’ve also reorganized pages and added tabs to keep everything clean and smooth.

More Information, Easier Usage

Take a look at the screen captures below and you’ll see that pages that used to be plain and hard to use now contain useful information, like thumbnails and new columns.

They contain a lot more feedback to make your admin interface much more useful.

Brand New Dashboard

Sure, the new dashboard looks great but it’s more than a pretty face. It’s also packing a lot more detail.

User Engagement

At the top of the page, you can see graphs that show your community’s level of engagement.

That’s super important!

You want to know how many likes and shares your community generated over the last week or month. Now you can… easily!

Just keep in mind that because we haven’t collected this data before, you will only be able see stats from the moment you installed JomSocial 3.1.

Most Recent...

Next to the user engagement graphs, you can see a some of the latest posts, comments and users. You can even approve or decline new users on the fly.

Demographics

In the middle of the page is a demographics box. You’ll be able to see a gender chart and average age for both genders. That’s good information to know, right?

Location

Next to the demographics box is a map that indicates the location of all your members, including the most popular countries and cities. This is what it looks like on our JomSocial.com community.

It’s very cool.

Events

At the bottom of the dashboard is an event calendar linked to events on the front-end. Different events are marked in different colors so you can easily see what’s coming up.

News Feeds

At the bottom right of the dashboard are RSS feeds from the JomSocial blog, the latest JomSocial addons added to our directory and the most recent articles on Joomla's blog.

Keep an eye on the feed to stay up to date with the latest news.

New Navigation

I believe that every good admin interface should allow users to access every page from every page. They shouldn’t have to click, click and click again to reach their destination.

I also believe that related menu items should be grouped together.

Both of those are true of our new navigation. It’s on the left of the dashboard, easy to use and will let you reach your destination immediately.

Collapsible Menus

If you feel that the left navigation is taking up too much space on the screen, you can minimize it. Just click the double arrow on the left and instead of text with icons, the menu will show just icons.

Top Alerts

To make managing your community easier, faster and more effective, we’ve added a bunch of alerts that will tell you what you need to do next. They include:

• Reports.
• Unsent emails.
• Pending members.
• Pending groups.
• Pending events.
• JomSocial upgrade availability.

View This Introduction Video:

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Go Grab JomSocial 3.1 Now

If you have an active license for JomSocial, you can download this version free right now. Or if you use the iJoomla Installer, simply click the Update button.

Visit Our Demo

Our new demo is updated with this new version, so you can see how it looks like on the backend right now! (username:demo, password:demo).

…But It’s an RC, Not the Finished Product!

An RC, or Release Candidate, is a beta version that has the potential to be a final product. All the features have been designed, coded and tested and we know that there are no major bugs.

But yes, it’s still a beta… just one that’s more stable than a regular beta. I have seen a few of our beta testers using this version on their live sites, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

What’s Next For JomSocial?

Now that JomSocial’s admin is ready, user-friendly and pretty, it’s time to give the same attention and care to the front end.

First, we're going to add some much requested features to the stream, such as tags, emoticons, like on comments and more, on version 3.2, take a look at our road map for more details.

Then, our plan is to completely re-do the front end, modernize it, polish it and make it super user-friendly, that will be version 3.3.

This will be a very big job. It might two or three, or even four months to accomplish. But it will be worth it.

Until then, we’ll keep releasing minor releases with bug fixes and small enhancements every two or three weeks. I will keep you posted from time to time with our progress.

Don't have JomSocial?

If you don't have JomSocial yet, what are you waiting for? Get your hands on it today for as little as $99!

Expired license? Get 30-50% OFF!

If you have a license that has expired, you can now renew for 30-50% off! (depending on your package). Click here to renew your license.

Comments? Suggestions?

Any comments? Please post them below, I read them all and I do love your feedback!