Smashing Network Update: Add Widget To Your Site and New Members
In the last few months, you may have noticed some major changes happening on Smashing Magazine’s front page. Since November 2009, when we launched the Smashing Network, which features manually selected articles from the best design blogs, we’ve been working hard to improve the usability of our website and make the navigation easier to use and the content easier to read.
Indeed, we have been continually looking for a nice clean design that would allow Smashing Magazine’s brand to dominate the website, while boosting the visibility and exposure of our network members. We have considered various solutions, and one seemed to be just perfect. The result (we hope) is a cleaner separation of the magazine’s posts and network’s posts, by way of tabbed navigation at the top of the page.
Magazine And Network Tabs
So, what exactly does this mean? It’s very simple. At the top of the page, you’ll notice two tabs, one for Smashing Magazine’s posts and one for the Smashing Network’s posts. You can now easily switch between the magazine and network’s content without using the scroll bar. You can also visit the network’s content page, which wasn’t possible before, and use Smashing Magazine’s good old front page, which now features only Smashing Magazine’s posts. Also, the tabbed solution is the first step towards something huge that we have planned for 2010.
Smashing tabs in use. You can now easily switch between the magazine and network’s content on every single page of Smashing Magazine.
This change obviously means that our network members would get much less traffic from our website to theirs. So, to compensate, we have decided to add the tabbed navigation not only to our front page (as was done earlier) but to all pages on Smashing Magazine. This is why you see the tabbed navigation at the top of this page now. Aside from that, we have come up with a couple of new exciting features that will roll out this year, one of which is the Smashing Network widget.
The Smashing Network Widget
We are pleased to release a simple and customizable widget that displays the latest posts from the Smashing Network. It’s up to you to decide how to style our updates on your website. You can use your own CSS to customize the look of the widget as you wish. The widget is available right now!
To embed the widget on your website, simply include a JavaScript code. You will find the details, including implementation examples, on our page “How to Add the Smashing Network Widget to Your Site“.
We hope many designers and developers will integrate the widget on their websites. The main goal of the widget is to promote high-quality design-related content on the Web. We are confident that the design community will benefit significantly from the mutual support of the network websites, particularly in terms of traffic, so it would be great if you integrated it on your website, too.
Welcome New Members!
We are also very happy to announce that we have accepted new members into the Smashing Network. All applicants were carefully considered and tested for the relevance and quality of their content. In this second round, we have accepted the following websites.
CSS-Tricks
CSS-Tricks is a Web design community curated by CSS ninja Chris Coyier. The website offers a variety of articles, tips, tutorials and screencasts on front-end development, mostly CSS and jQuery. The website also features useful snippets and freebies and has a growing community forum.
Design Informer
Design Informer is a fresh new blog that brings the latest in Web and graphic design. It has Photoshop tutorials, freebies, resources, inspiration and much more. It is one of the fastest-growing design blogs, and it strives to always deliver high-quality content to readers.
Cats Who Code
Created by Jean-Baptiste Jung in June 2008, Cats Who Code provides practical Web development tutorials and resources for both beginners and advanced developers. With a focus on such topics as WordPress, jQuery and CSS, Cats Who Code helps you build better websites. Meow!
UsabilityPost
UsabilityPost is a blog about design. Design isn’t about what something looks like but about how it works. Making something usable means understanding what people expect from your product and thinking of ways to make their use of it simple and enjoyable. The aim of UsabilityPost is to provide relevant resources, tips and insights related to good design to help you make great products. UsabilityPost was founded by Dmitry Fadeyev in 2008.
Web Designer Notebook
This blog’s purpose is to shed light on CSS and front-end development for those who are starting out, while also going deeper into more complex areas such as CSS3. Created by CSS master Inayaili de León.
Line25
Line25 is the drawing board of creative Web design, a place where ideas and inspiration are drafted into articles, tutorials and round-ups of cutting-edge Web design. Created and updated by Chris Spooner.
UX Magazine
UX Magazine was created to provide a central place to discuss the critical disciplines that enhance user experience. An extraordinary user experience should be the goal of every interaction you deliver to users at any level. All too often, businesses (large and small) get it horribly wrong. It’s painful to watch and even worse when it happens to you.
Impressive Webs
Impressive Webs is an article and tutorial website dedicated to providing practical information on and solutions to common front-end Web development problems and issues. Created and updated by Louis Lazaris.
We are very pleased and excited to welcome these new members to the Smashing Network! We will do our best to continue promoting the best stories from the Smashing Network and to spread the word in social media.
Bonus: The Smashing WordPress Book
Aside from the network updates, we have even more exciting news for our friends and fans. In cooperation with Wiley & Sons, we have just released Smashing WordPress: Beyond the Blog, a new book in the Smashing Magazine book series.
The book shows you how to use the power of the WordPress platform, and it offers a creative spark to help you build WordPress–powered websites that go beyond the obvious. You will learn the core concepts needed to build just about anything in WordPress, resulting in faster deployment and greater design flexibility. The book was written by WordPress expert Thord Daniel Hedengren.
- Chapter 1: Anatomy of a WordPress Install (PDF)
- Full table of contents including sub-chapters (PDF)
- Index (PDF)
- Buy the book in the Smashing Shop!
What Do You Think?
Your opinion has always been very important to us. Please let us know what you think of the changes and the widget, and let us know how you see Smashing Magazine and the Smashing Network evolving. We look forward to your constructive criticism and are open to your ideas and suggestions!
Also, we will be adding more exciting features and revealing more exciting projects in the months to come, so please stay tuned for updates. Thank you.
(al)
Antonio
February 16th, 2010 2:58 amThis is a great.
SM Rocks!
Design Informer
February 16th, 2010 3:03 amFirst of all, I just wanted to say that I am absolutely thrilled to be part of the SM Network. It is such a great honor to be included with all these excellent blogs.
Also, the new Smashing Magazine widget is awesome. I’m already trying to install it to Design Informer now. I’ve been actually thinking about having a widget like this for some time now.
Oh, and congratulations on the new book. I’m definitely making this a part of my library. Great job as always Vitaly, Sven, and the rest of the SM team.
Alan
February 16th, 2010 3:13 amWell done to the guys now on the Smashing Network, this place is definately the top for design information.
V1
February 16th, 2010 3:23 amWhy on earth do you even build the widget with document.write I thought Smashing Magazine would known better.
That is really awful. The rest of the updates are great, but the widget… Please hire a seasoned web developer who is not living in the 80′s anymore.
Rene Schmidt
February 16th, 2010 5:41 amHello V1,
this is the Smashing Widget’s not so seasoned web developer from the 80s. :)
Thank you for your opinion. There is a new widget version in the making. It will take a little while though because of all the checking and cross browser testing and such. Please be patient, thank you.
Russ
February 16th, 2010 6:57 amHahaha love it!
Great one Rene!
Bariski | TutZone
February 16th, 2010 3:45 amI’m excited and happy for new members who got included. Keep up the good work.
Marie
February 16th, 2010 4:24 amI love the new tabbed navigation and the site overall. Plus, I like your new members. I’ve visited some of their sites before…and it’s nice to know I can find them from here too.
Akyno
February 16th, 2010 5:02 amGreat, but I want to have even the Smashing JavaScript 100 Professional Techniques (Smashing Magazine Book Series) I really need to read this book. Congratulations Smashing time
jens
February 16th, 2010 5:40 amyes, I’ve noticed this and I find it much better that way.
Grant
February 16th, 2010 5:50 amCongratulations to everyone who made it into the network! I will be adding the widget to my blog later today! It will feel good to support the community and help promote great content!
PGWD
February 16th, 2010 6:12 amLoving the new tabbed design! It makes it oodles easier to sort out the content and decide what I want to read. I shall find a nice little spot for the widget in the next few days.
Kelly
February 16th, 2010 10:25 amTHANK YOU. While I appreciate your network contributions, I appreciate the cleaner separation between Smashing content and its network content.
DavidB
February 16th, 2010 10:46 amGreat work, and THANKS!
Stefan
February 16th, 2010 11:47 amAt first, I disliked seeing network posts on the frontpage, but shortly after, I really liked it because lately, the network posts have overall been of higher quality than the SM posts. So I always go for the network posts first and normally skip the SM posts.
Now it feels like:
1) You spend less time to produce quality posts yourself
2) While at the same time showcase network posts less
3) Which as a result, means less quality on your frontpage, which makes absolutely no sense to me
You cant be the best portal for quality web related articles and at the same time promote your own posts too much.
Previously you had network posts show up at the bottom (which was bad enough), now you show network posts on a completely seperate page (tab). Why not just merge the two feeds? You could still highlight your own posts using graphics or a different background color.
PS. I am a reader, I do not write for any of the smasing network members.
Smashing Editorial
February 16th, 2010 1:46 pmI am sorry you feel this way, Stefan. Can you please point us to the recent articles you disliked most? And what is the problem with them? We are trying hard to present the most useful and relevant content, so it would be nice to get a more detailed feedback. Thank you.
Lucas Cobb
February 16th, 2010 12:17 pmI liked the setup before with your posts up top (2 posts at a time) and the network posts below and on subsequent pages. The widget is awesome and great to support the design community on our own blogs and congrats on the new book. Keep it up Smashing Mag.
Sallie Goetsch (rhymes with 'sketch')
February 16th, 2010 12:23 pmThe WordPress book looks impressive, but–no PDF version? While I like physical books, shipping costs and time are an issue, and then there’s the fact that it’s easier to search a PDF, and one could copy code examples from it.
James
February 16th, 2010 2:18 pmI love SM, but I think SM is getting too commercial. I understand the point of monetizing a website is good, but over killing it (personally) is too much. I used to wake up every morning and look forward for the next article to be added by SM, but now its just too much. Few articles do popup sometime but the real design tips are kind of dying. I strongly agree with Stefan, we need more quality stuff from you guys SM. i know you wanna be big…but believe me you guys already are. Cheers.
moabi
February 16th, 2010 3:28 pmmust agree with that…
Nina
February 16th, 2010 4:50 pmI actually love all the new updates you guys have been doing. But I have a question, what do you require from a blog in order to become a Smashing Network member?
Thank you :)
canciller
February 16th, 2010 9:13 pmThe new tabs are very nice :) … smashing smash !!!
Pieter
February 17th, 2010 2:45 amThank god you changed it. I actually visited the site less since the major changes, finding it less readable and unclear wether it was a Smashing post or network post. I was a bit more satisfied when the ‘Read more on smashing’ button appeared but still not as much as the old site. Now I’ll visit again more often and don’t have a hard time ignoring the network posts any longer. (I’ll go to one of the sites and read their content when I want to myself)
icoot
February 17th, 2010 2:47 ami think its great and added it to my site in about 30 secs. :) quality.
Bohem
February 17th, 2010 3:07 amWell,i think i have to say some words about Smashing Magazine.First of all congratulations to all the new network members.
To be honest,for the last 1 month i was thinking just like Stefan and James.
Many of my friends say that Day by day,SM is getting more commercial and professional for more ”professional” people
I think,if we look at your popular posts we can easily compare the past and today.
Comunicarte
February 17th, 2010 8:32 amNice Stuff!
alanc
February 18th, 2010 2:36 amMy reaction to the appearance of the Smashing Network was a bit like Stefan’s at #15; at first I disliked the extra clutter that the Network posts brought to the below-the-fold portion of your home page, but then I quickly came to appreciate the ease with which I could scroll to get a quick heads-up of all the new entries since my previous visit (which is generally only 24 hours before).
I know a lot of people hate scrolling, and I can see that you have a real estate problem, since you can’t exactly ditch the advertisers to whom you’ve promised space in order to put the Network in the right-hand column. But couldn’t you do something funky with CSS and jQuery, so that people can set their own personal preference for where the Network posts appear? Keep the teasers coming about this forthcoming “something huge” you’re planning.
You need to be careful about which sites you let into the network, too. Smashing originally proved it’s worth as an aggregator. The way the Network could really add value (from a reader’s point of view, of course) is to bring in other kinds of content, like breaking news and more specialized in-depth articles.
If you sign-up a long series of sites that act like inferior versions of yourselves then you’ll just end up sending people in circles, wasting their time and devaluing your brand. Already, I’ve experienced an annoying feeling of deja vu with some of the Network sites as they do posts remarkably like ones that I’ve seen on Smashing in the past (XX number of CSS tricks, YY number of great JQuery scripts, ZZ number of WordPress plugins, etc, etc, etc).
If I have to choose, I’d rather Smashing provide a trickle of originality rather than a flood of recycling.
BEBEN
February 18th, 2010 3:12 ammore and more members…its a good way
cool cool
Troy Schmidt
February 18th, 2010 10:16 amI love the seperated design. I found it hard to follow the actual Smashing Magazine content and found myself getting taken to third party sites often. It actually made me stop reading the website daily as I had in the past.
On another note is there a particular reason that the monthly wallpapers no longer show in the RSS feeds and I have to visit the site every month?
Betty Rudas
February 20th, 2010 11:34 pmI love this magazine eventhough I dislike how it’s organized. Trying to find an old article is a nightmare. Changes introduced do not improve so much. The problem is because this magazine was conceptualized like a blog, what is good for comments and very bad for the organization. It should be a way to have the best of both worlds. A weblog? I do not know if such thing exists…. Meanwhile, the search in SM requires to be improved urgently.
Floris
February 21st, 2010 4:50 amI love SM, seriously. But since the changes I have found myself to not join here once or twice a day. But about once a week and I glance over the articles and read the one I really like.
I can’t pinpoint it, but since the change my involvement has gone down.
And I do not know why, because the content of the SM articles are not anything less than great, as usual. Maybe I just liked the simplicity of the previous version of the site and not getting bombarded with advertisements (only a block on the right). And maybe it’s because I already read so many of those network posts. I am here for SM posts, not for networked content.
Veerle
July 12th, 2010 12:44 ami’ve bought the book Smashing WordPress: Beyond the Blog & think it’s amazing! really good stuff!
now i wanted to give a friend the link to buy it, but the link on the cover in this article redirects to your shop & i can’t find the book there, can we only buy it through amazon or other book shops?
Sylwia
October 12th, 2011 3:24 pmI’d love to add your network widget to my site, but the link above doesn’t work, taking me to 404 site instead. As interesting as your 404 is, would you care to update that link and let me know how to add your widget?