The role can only be assigned by account owners. To apply it, account owners may simply visit a user's profile and check the box next to "Developers" under the roles section.

Account Owners see the option to assign users to the Developer Role on their profiles.

Admin users will be able to see which users have the developer role, but will not be able to assign or unassign the role, unless they are the account owner.

Administrators see if a user is assigned to the Developer Role, but they cannot change the setting.

Enabling the Developer Role allows a user to see and select the "Design" section on the top toolbar and access the Collection of designs applied to their website as well as our Design Gallery of available free designs. They may also edit designs using the Design Editor (if the designs are enabled for editing) or using the Source Editor. They can upload new designs and they get FTP access to the "Templates" directory, which contains the source files for all designs in the website's collection.

This new feature is scheduled to be released on Wednesday, April 18, 2012.

Manage Designs With Fewer Clicks

The new Design Section is an extension of the Radium3 top toolbar that allows you to access and modify design settings while still previewing your live site content below. It saves clicks when performing most every design-related task, and it makes previewing your site with new designs a breeze.

Categorized Templates for Easy Access

The Design Section will present all of our built-in templates organized neatly into categories. Choose a category and scroll through the visual options presented. Then use the simple menus on each design to download, apply, or edit through the new Design Editor.

My Designs = Collection

One important change you'll want to note is that what we have thus far referred to as "My Designs" will now be referred to as "Collection." So, look for your "Collection" in the new Design Section to locate all the designs you've previously applied to your website. Whenever you edit a design, even if that design is in the gallery, it will automatically be added to your Collection in the background.

All the other functionality of the current Design Section is still intact and very intuitive to access. In fact, you'll be able to perform most if not all functions with fewer clicks than before.

Scheduled for Launch

This release is estimated to launch on Thursday, April 12, 2012 at approximately 10am CDT (GMT -5). Just as a reminder, only account owners are able to see the Design Section. In a future phase, we'll be rolling out the new Developer Role, which will allow you to grant access to the Design Section to users of websites under your account, if you so choose.

We look forward to bringing you these exciting new updates, and many more to come!

With the Store Manager role, a user will be able to:

• Access the store menu items on the top toolbar
• Adjust all store settings
• Add, edit and delete products
• Edit the settings on any product listing

The Store Manager role will be assigned by visiting a user's profile page. You'll find a check box for the Store Manager role immediately below the Administrators role. This check box will be visible only to Administrators and Account Owners who will be able to assign the role to any additional users on their site if they so choose.

The Store Manager role is scheduled to be released on Thursday, March 15th at approximately 10am CDT (GMT-5). We look forward to bringing you this update.

One of Radium3's built-in designs loaded inside the new Design Editor. Click the image to view full size.

Accessing the Design Editor

If you'd like to try out the new design editor, you might want to create a new, free website under your account. This will allow you to work with the features of the Design Editor without affecting your live website. You can add a new website from the "Websites" screen under your account.

Once you're logged into your website, you can access the Design Editor by selecting "Design" on the top toolbar and then selecting the "My Designs" tab. This will show you a list of all the designs enabled on your current website. Select a design and then select the "edit" button. This will load up the new Design Editor.

Templates and Panels

Once the Design Editor is up and running, take a look at the very top left. You'll see the name of your design and just below it, you'll see the name of the currently-selected template. Selecting the template name will open a drop-down list of all the templates that can be edited within your current design.

Just below the template name, you'll see the name of the currently-selected panel. This will say something like "Base Styles," "Wrapper Styles," "Header Styles" ... etc. Selecting this will open a drop down of all the available panels for the currently-selected template (see image to the right). A panel is basically a set of controls that are assigned to a particular area of your template. For example, the "Nav Styles" panel presents a set of controls that adjust the design of the site's navigation. Each template may present a different list of available panels. This is because the designer of the template can determine what areas of the site are able to be controlled by the Design Editor.

Global vs. Template-Specific Panels

The Base Styles panel and the Nav Styles panel will make global changes to your design. Edits made on these two panels will be reflected across every template in your design. 

On the other hand, all other panels make template-specific changes. This means, for example, that you can adjust the sidebar or the header uniquely on each individual template in the design. Or, you can set them all the same. The choice is yours.

More to Come

We'll be continuing to roll out improvements to the Design Editor over the next few weeks. For now, we just wanted to give you this overview so that you can explore the Design Editor on your own. Enjoy the new features!

Radium3 has always offered world-class, built-in designs at no cost, but those designs have required changes to their code in order to modify things like background colors, font styles ... etc. throughout the design. Now, with the new Design Editor, anyone can customize the foundation of these designs without touching the code. This opens up a new world of possibilities for anyone using Radium3's built-in templates.

The image below gives you a look at one of the editing panes in the new design editor alongside the preview of the design being edited.

Click the image above to view actual size.

The new Design Editor allows you to customize font styles, colors, background images and much more. Every change that is made is previewed in the Design Editor in real time and, when finished, you can publish the changes live or save your work to return later. It's incredibly easy to use, even for web novices!

Rolling Out Over the Next Few Weeks

The new Design Editor will roll out in phases over the next few weeks. The first phase of the upgrade is tentatively scheduled for Thursday, March 1st. This initial phase will include the basic Design Editor and additional phases will add more features to the editor over the following weeks. Radium3 account owners will be able to access the design editor under the "Design" option on the top toolbar. We will keep you informed of more details regarding the roll out on our Twitter feed and Facebook page.

We look forward to bringing you these exciting new features! Thanks for your continued support of Radium3.

Beautiful, Compact Design That's Always Accessible

The new toolbar is designed to be sleek, compact and accessible. It takes up a lot less vertical space than our current toolbar -- 66% less to be exact. That means it gives you a better view of your website while you're in admin mode. Plus, the new toolbar remains fixed to the top of your browser so no matter how far you scroll down, you'll always have instant access to its controls.

Click the image above to see a larger view.

We've reorganized the toolbar options as well. A simple toggle control on the left edge allows you to switch between website options and store options without refreshing the page. This saves you time when moving between managing your store and managing your website. Your account controls have also been moved under the new user session menu (more on that menu below).

The New Page Bar

The previous toolbar had a third tier of controls that were related to page-level editing. Those controls have now been separated out to the all-new Page Bar. The Page Bar hovers over the top right of any page you're editing, but only when your mouse is over the page. The page bar displays the name of the current page's template and contains the fast template switcher, the "add a page" tool, the "preview page" button, and the "page settings" tool.

Left: the Page Bar overlaid in admin mode. Right: fast template switcher appears when its icon is clicked.

The New User Session Menu

On the right edge of the toolbar, you'll see the new User Session Menu. It shows the name and image of the currently logged-in user. If the user has a gravatar, it will automatically use that image. Users can also upload their own images on their user profiles as well. The User Session Menu shows custom options based on the user who is logged in. All users will see a link to edit their profile in the User Session Menu. This means that non-admin users now have the ability to update their own profile information, a brand new capability with this update.

The User Session Menu with all options active (account-owner view).

Account owners will also find the link to the account section and billing section under the User Session Menu. All billing-related screens have been moved under the "Billing" menu item.

Launching Next Week!

We're gearing up to launch these new features next Thursday, February 16th at approximately 9:30am CST (GMT-6). We're super excited about this incredible update, but it's actually just a first step toward even bigger things coming soon. There's so much good stuff on the way. As always, we appreciate all of your support and look forward to continuing serve as your partner.

There are several reasons why you may not be getting customers from your website. This blog post will cover five common reasons.

1. Your website doesn't look professional. Your website is your first impression on the web so it needs to look great. Outdated or broken websites will tell visitors that you are the wrong company to work with. Whether you work at an international business or a local coffee shop, visitors who reach your website should know that they are in the right place. An outdated site tells visitors that you just don’t care; a broken website will give visitors the idea that you’re no longer in business. Taking care of this issue will go a long way toward increasing conversions.
2. Your website has no goal. When planning a website it’s important to think about what you want visitors to do when they get to it. Make sure that your navigation is clear and your content is understandable. If your website has a clear goal your design should show it; visitors will notice and follow the cues.
3. Your website is confusing. Everyone loves a really interesting website, but it is possible to have too many points of interest. If your website shines and shimmers like Las Vegas, you may need to tone down some of the flash. You want to impress your visitors but not scare them away. If you have more than one call to action on a web page you may be trying to pull visitors' attention in too many directions. Web visitors are easily distracted. If they have to think for more than three seconds about what to do on your website they will likely just leave.
4. Your website has no contact form. Not every visitor will want to fill out a form on your website, but not every visitor will want to call you either.  It’s important to have a variety of ways for visitors to get in touch with you. Some people like to call, some like to email, and some like to fill out contact forms. If you don't provide all of these options you're making it harder for a certain group of people to get in touch and that can hinder the effectiveness of your website.
5. You're not listening to your visitors. Visitors to your website have a lot of information to share with you. Some information, such as how they found your site and what pages on your site were most interesting to them can be discovered using web analytics software such as the freely available Google Analytics. Other information such as what services they are looking for and how they like to be contacted can be acquired by getting your visitors to fill out a contact form. If you know who your customer is, you can make your business better by catering your site to them.  So, use the tools available to get information from your visitors and then use that information to improve your business.

We have covered five reasons why your website may not be converting your visitors into customers. I encourage you to consider how you can improve your site's performance in these five areas.  If you have questions or other tips to share, please leave them in the comments below.

Wide Open Canvas

The image editor is the most apparent improvement you'll see when you interact with the text editor.  You'll be welcomed with a larger, cleaner canvas to work on when you click the "Image Editor" icon.

There's something about the wider space, and the cleaner controls, that somehow makes the air around you breathe sweeter.

Cropping is easier than ever now, and you can even add some basic text to your image.  Cool!

Newfound Precision

And now for the thing that a lot of you have asked for: We finally have the ability to resize images to exact pixel dimensions.  No longer will you be forced to use a slider to merely approximate how small you want your image.

Browser Compatibility Updates

This release covers a spate of compatibility improvements and tweaks that have accumulated since the last update.  We're on track keeping this text editor, and the rest of our CMS, up to date with the Wild Wild West of fast-changing browsers.

If they click the "Check out with PayPal" button, users will be taken to PayPal's website where they will login and review their transaction before returning to your site. If they check out using Radium3's built-in process, they will stay on your Radium3 website throughout the entire experience. No matter what the user chooses, payments are still processed through your PayPal Website Payments Pro account and the same PayPal fees apply.

This feature is great for store owners who want to provide a seamless checkout experience on their own website while still providing customers with the option of a separate PayPal checkout experience. To enable it for your Radium3 website, login and visit Store -> Settings -> Payments -> Payment Gateways. Select "Website Payments Pro" as your credit card payment provider and check the box next to "Enable PayPal Express Checkout."

Today, we've added eight more designs to the mix and they are all ready to go inside your Radium3 account. You can see a screen shot of these designs below. Take a look at what's new.

Shark Architects

Life Fellowship

Big Lake

Second Street

RSA Accounting

Lone Cross

AES Architecture

Venture Church

To use the new skin, simply visit the settings for your blog element and choose the "Archive By Year" skin. For more information, see the blog skins section of our user guide.

Pro vs. Standard

We've always had support for PayPal's Website Payments Standard, so what's the difference with Pro? The biggest difference is that Pro allows your customers to complete their entire checkout experience on your Radium3 website, without being directed offsite to PayPal's own checkout pages.

Just like Standard, Pro offers you a one-stop shop for all payment processing. Rather than having to have a separate merchant account and gateway, Website Payments Pro wraps it all up in one system and since it's PayPal, it's likely a system you're already familiar with.

The pricing structure is different with Pro as compared to Standard. Pro assesses a monthly fee but offers discounted transaction fees based on volume of sales. So, stores that generate more sales may find Pro to be more attractive in overal cost, but that decision must be made by you based on your store's situation.

Get more information about Website Payments Pro, its benefits and its pricing structure here on the PayPal website.

Ready to Integrate

Once you have a Website Payments Pro account, all it takes is plugging a few pieces of information into the Radium3 system and you'll be up and running. Simply log into your Radium3 site and visit Store -> Settings -> Payments then check the box that says "Enable credit card payments" and select "Website Payments Pro" from the list of processors (which now includes Authorize.net, Payflow Pro, Stripe and Website Payments Pro.)  If you need help, you may contact our support team at any time at support@radium3.com.

Stripe: A New Kind of Payment System

Radium3 now offers seamless integration with the Stripe payment system. Stripe is a fairly new tool, but is gaining a lot of support because of its unique approach to solving the e-commerce payment dilemma.

Stripe offers an all-in-one approach to payment processing. With Stripe, you don't need a separate merchant account or gateway. All you need is a bank account into which Stripe will transfer funds from your sales.

This all-in-one approach means that getting up and running on Stripe is fast and easy. To make it even easier, we've put together a support article with all the details you need to get started.

Stripe utilizes flat-rate pricing. Currently, Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction. Stripe allows you to accept payments on Visa, Mastercard, Amercian Express, Discover, JCB and Diners Club. Their transaction fees are the same no matter which card is used.

Currently, Stripe is only available to customers in the United States. You can accept payments from customers anywhere in the world, but you, as the store owner, must be in the US. They are working on adding new countries to the mix and you can sign up to be notified when Stripe is available in your area. You can get detailed information about Stripe on their Frequently Asked Questions page.

Payflow: a Granddaddy of E-commerce

Something old, something new — while Stripe is one of the newest payment systems on the market, Payflow is one of the grandaddies of Internet commerce. Formerly a part of VeriSign, Payflow is now owned by Paypal. Though the Radium3 store has allowed you to accept payments by PayPal from day one, standard PayPal payments are very different from the functionality offered by PayPal's Payflow.

Payflow is a payment gateway which works with an existing merchant account. If you already have a merchant account for accepting credit card payments, the Payflow gateway can allow you to accept online payments using that account. If you don't have a merchant account, you can set one up through a number of vendors.

Radium3 now allows seamless integration with the Payflow Gateway. All you need are a few pieces of information from your Payflow account. For more information about setting up and using Payflow, visit PayPal's Payflow Website.

Carrier-Calculated Shipping for Your Store

You can now tie-in with Fedex, UPS and USPS to have your store calculate shipping rates in real time. When your customers checkout, they will be presented with shipping options and pricing calculated by the carrier you choose based on the weight of the items purchased. This can streamline the shipping set up process and also allow you to charge your customers more accurately for their shipping requirements.

Setting up carrier-calculated shipping requires some specialized account set-up with the carriers you would like to use (such as Fedex, UPS and USPS). We have provided some instructions on setting up your carrier accounts and getting the information you need from your carrier accounts on the Radium3 User Guide at the following links:

• General set-up instructions
• Instructions for Fedex
• Instructions for UPS
• Instructions for USPS

Carrier-calculated shipping is already live on your Radium3 website. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments below!

Facebook offers great opportunities for businesses and organizations to market themselves through Facebook Pages. If you haven't yet set up a Facebook Page for your organization, it's definitely worth checking into.

If you have a Facebook page, you may have realized that Facebook doesn't give you a lot of control over the look and feel of the content on your page. You can add a lot of information, but only within the structure that Facebook has set up for you. What if you want to have a unique page on Facebook -- something that can express your brand and identity to those who visit your Facebook page? You can do this through the use of custom Facebook page tabs.

What is a Custom Facebook Page Tab?

When you look at any Facebook Page, you'll see a list of tabs at the upper left. Facebook includes several tabs that are available by default, such as "Wall," "Info," "Photos" ... etc. But you can also create custom tabs that house content that is unique to your business or organization.

We've done this on the Radium3 Facebook page. We have a custom tab called "Welcome." This tab contains content we've put together to provide an overview of our product. We use this tab as the default tab for new visitors to the page, so they are introduced to our product and our brand on their first visit.

Custom tabs like this can be a powerful addition to your Facebook pages. While creating them requires a bit of technical know-how, we've tried to demystify the process as much as possible in the steps below.

Create Your Content

Facebook page tabs make use of iFrames. An iFrame is a website element that basically shows content located on another website to the visitors of the current website. So, you can set up the content for your Facebook page tab on your Radium3 website and then tell Facebook to show that content on your Facebook page.

The only trick is that the content on your Radium3 website needs to be formatted to fit into the space Facebook provides for it, which means it must be no wider than 520px. Since the templates used on your Radium3 website are likely wider than 520px, you'll need to set up a special template to create the content that Radium3 will show through to your Facebook page tab. This requires a little HTML and CSS know-how. You can create a new template or modify one of the existing templates on your Radium3 site.

Once you have an appropriate template set up, you can apply that template to a hidden page on your Radium3 website and configure the content on that page using Radium3's built-in tools.

Set Up Your Facebook App

Once you have the content set up on your Radium3 website, you're ready to configure Facebook to use that content on your Facebook page. To set up a simple page tab, Facebook requires you to create a custom Facebook App. Fortunately, this is actually much easier than it sounds. Here's a quick rundown of the process:

Go to the Facebook Developer Website
Visit https://developers.facebook.com/apps. You must be logged in to Facebook to continue. If this is your first time to create a Facebook app, Facebook will ask you to authorize the developer tools, which you will need to do.

Click "Create a New App"
You'll be asked to provide a name for your app. The name can be anything just to help you remember what the app is for. You don't need to put anything in the "App Namespace" box.

Fill in the Details
Facebook Apps have tons of settings, but there are only a few you need to worry about. When you edit the settings on your app, look for the section called "Page Tab." Click to enable that and you'll see four fields. You only need to fill in the following three fields:

• Page Tab Name - put the words you want to show up on the actual tab. For example, on the Radium3 Welcome Tab, we put "Welcome."
• Page Tab URL - put the publishpath address of the page you set up on your Radium3 website with your Facebook tab content. For example - http://[yoursite].publishpath.com/facebook-welcome-tab
• Secure Page Tab URL - this is the secure version of your content. Radium3 has SSL security built into the publishpath domain, so you can use the same address you used above, but simply add an "s" to the "http" as such -- https://[yoursite].publishpath.com/facebook-welcome-tab

That's it! Now you can save your changes. What you've essentially done here is create a simple Facebook Application that, when added to a Facebook Page, will create a custom tab on that page and will display the content located at the address you provided on that custom tab.

Add the Tab App to Your Page

Now that your app is set up you need to add it to your Facebook page. To do this, you need to visit the app's profile page. You can find the app's profile page by editing the settings of your app and looking to the lower left for the "View App Profile Page" link. Once on the profile page, look to the lower left for the "Add to My Page" link. This will bring up a box of all the pages you administrate and you can add the app to the page(s) you choose.

Final Tweaks

Visit your Facebook page and you should see the new tab added to the list of tabs on the left. Click the tab and you should see the content you created showing through to your Facebook page. Now that this is set up, any changes you make to the source page should be immediately reflected on the Facebook tab.  

You will notice that the icon used for the tab is quite generic by default. If you want to customize the icon, you can do so back on the settings screen for your app (look at the very top). You can also reorder the tabs on your Facebook page by clicking the "EDIT" button below the tab list. And, if you want to make your new tab the default tab for new visitors, click the "Edit Page" button at the upper right and look for the "Default Landing Tab" selector.

I hope you've found this tutorial helpful. If you have any additional thoughts, questions, or insights to share, please leave us a comment below.  

New Comment Control Menu

Every comment on your blog now has its own control menu. You will see a gear icon next to a comment when you hover over the comment while logged into your Radium3 website. If you're on a touch device, the gear icon will always be visible when logged in so that you can access it without hovering.

The options available in the menu will vary depending on the situation. Possible options include:

Delete - this option is available for every comment. This replaces the inline "Delete this comment" link that you used to use to delete comments. Clicking delete will immediately remove the comment from your site.

Spam - this option is available for every comment. Click "Spam" to mark the comment as spam and immediately delete it from your site. Marking comments as spam trains our system to better detect spam comments.

Not Spam - this option is available on comments that have been automatically marked as spam by our system (see more on this below). These comments will not be visible to the public, but will be visible to blog editors. Marking these comments "Not Spam" makes the comment live and trains our system to better detect spam comments.

Unapprove - this option is available for every live comment but only if you have checked the "Approve comments before they are made visible" box in your blog's settings. You can unapprove the comment to take it off the live site but still keep it available.

Approve - this option is available for all unapproved comments and only if you have checked the "Approve comments before they are made visible" box in your blog's settings. Unapproved comments are not visible to the public. Approving an unapproved comment will make it immediately live on the site.

Automatic Spam Detection

We've also integrated an automatic spam detection engine to help protect your blog posts from unwanted spam comments. This automatic detection is in addition to our built-in Captcha system. Together, these two features launch an all-out, double-barrel assault on spam comments across the Radium3 platform.

When the system automatically detects a comment as spam, the comment will not be visible to the public, but will be visible to you when you log into your site. The system will not send email notifications for comments that are automatically detected as spam. These comments will display a "Spam" tag, highlighted in red, to denote their status. Using the new comment control menu, you may delete the comment, or mark it as "Not Spam."

Comment Moderation

We've always had the ability to require approval before comments are posted live. That functionality is now integrated with the new control menu. When you check the "Approve comments before they are made visible" box in your blog's settings, all comments will be hidden from the public until they are approved by a blog editor. Comments will display an "Unapproved" tag to editors when they are logged in. You can use the control menu to approve the comments, delete them, or mark them as spam.

More to Come!

We're excited to bring you these great improvements to the Radium3 blog element. There are many more improvements on the way so stay tuned, and thanks for using Radium3!

Who wouldn't want to participate with an organization whose mission is to bring"Beauty and Healing through the arts" to the victims of human trafficking?

Our best projection is that Radium3 websites may experience periods of slower-than-normal response and possibly even brief segments of downtime over the course of this window. Past updates such as this one have generally resulted in very minimal periods of downtime, but we want you to be prepared for the possibility of longer periods of interupted service. Our team will be monitoring progress during this maintenance window and will post updates as needed to our status blog at status.elementfusion.com.

We apologize for this inconvenience and we appreciate your understanding as we work to keep the Radium3 system at the top of its game.

We agree with Chick-fil-A and GiANT Impact in believing that a new day of leadership is here and that it starts with you. From you it spills into your organization, your community and the nation. We’re right here with you.

Therefore, we’ve arranged with GiANT Impact for a special rate for all of our Radium3 clients and followers. Please follow this link to register to attend this event and you’ll be able to attend for the special rate of only $69 if your reference "Radium3" in the special rate code area.

The event includes an outstanding cast of speakers:

• Joe Castiglione
• Mike Holder
• Dr. Henry Cloud
• Dan Cathy
• General Hugh Shelton
• David Butler
• Graham Colton
• Jeremie Kubicek
• Laura Ling
• Local Leaders

Topics will be relevant to:

You…
Dan Cathy : “leadership lessons from the slinky” Jeremie Kubicek : “the limiter: what keeps you from a new day”

Your Organization…
Dr. Henry Cloud : “today may be the enemy of tomorrow” David Butler : “redesigning your business when faced with new types of challenges”

Our City…
Athletic Director Panel (Joe Castiglione [OU] & Mike Holder [OSU]): “leading amidst uncertainty” Foster Care Community Transformation Panel : “a new day for the city”

Our Country…
General Hugh Shelton : “United We Stand: a new day for leadership in America” Laura Ling : “a journey of hope”

We hope to see you there!  Be sure to register referencing "Radium3" to get the special price.

I hear thoughts and questions like these expressed often.  Have you ever thought like this?

• "I think I need a mobile website."  
• "I know mobile is where it’s at, but I don’t even know enough to ask good questions."
• "Is there a way to make my current website easier to read on mobile devices like an iPhone, iPad, Android or Blackberry?"
• "Should I have two websites (ie: a desktop site and a mobile site)?"
• "I feel like I need an iPhone app to be in the cool kids club."
• "Can Radium3 help my site become more mobile friendly?"

Yes, Radium3 can help!

Making your website display beautifully on mobile devices is easy with Radium3. If your website is already running on the easy-to-use Radium3 platform there is no need for you to have to manage two different home pages (ie: a “desktop version” and a “mobile” version). Instead, with Radium3 you’re able to manage just ONE website but have it display beautifully on any device.

How does this work? And what’s it going to cost me?

First, you need to understand that your website doesn’t actually exist in one place. Gone are the days of static html websites that resided on a single server. Instead, your Radium3 website is database driven. Each page is built on the fly and delivered to the web browser of each visitor. The content and the style of your Radium3 website are actually stored separately.  So, if a visitor wants to view your home page, the Radium3 platform knows to pull all the home page content and style it with the home page CSS design theme. This is why it is possible to change the design theme of your website without having to edit the website’s content. When you add text to your website you don’t have to style it. You type in black and white. If the text is supposed to display red, it will be red because the style sheet will make it red (it's CSS magic).

So, since design and content are separated, Radium3 can be set up to react differently when a mobile device is calling your site. In this case, the server would grab the same page content but instead of using the site’s default CSS design theme, it would use the Mobile CSS design theme instead. Viola, your site is mobile.

And we can generally do all this for your Radium3 site for only $495!

To illustrate the way this solution works, see the screen shots below from infantcrisis.org. One shows their Radium3 website on a desktop browser and the other shows the very same website as displayed on an iPhone.

Manage your content in one place

What’s even more beautiful with this solution is that you only have one website to manage.  You won’t have to worry about making the content of your desktop site match up with the content of your mobile site—it’s all the same site, just styled differently. There are some cases in which a website owner does want to have different content on the mobile version of the site than on the desktop version.  We address these situations differently, usually by creating a hidden mobile home page on the Radium3 site and sending visitors from mobile devices to this page instead (I'll address this variation in a separate blog post).

Just Keep It Simple

Rarely does a client truly need a native iPhone or Android app developed. In most cases it serves a website owner well to simply make something accessible on the main website so someone can access it from any device with an Internet connection without the need to download a special app. This approach keeps things simple for many Radium3 customers and it can likely work for your organization as well.

If you’d like to talk more about your options for making your website mobile, please request a consultation with a Radium3 consultant today.  We’ll steer you in the right direction.

To set up discount codes, log in to your site and click Store on the top toolbar, then select Settings -> Discount Codes. Here you'll see a list of your discount codes. To set up a new code, click the "Add New Code" button.

The new code screen will suggest a random code or let you set your own. You can choose to discount by an amount or a percentage, add a code description, and set limits on your code like a time period, a minimum order amount or a number of times the code can be used.

Once set up, simply share the code with the appropriate customers and they'll be able to enter it to receive their discount when checking out.

We hope you enjoy the new features. As always, there's more good stuff to come so stay tuned!

This year’s list tracks growth from 2007-2010. During that time frame, we saw a 39% increase in revenue, landing us at #3,773 out of all private companies in the U.S. and #260 in the software industry. Thank you again for your support, which has made this growth possible. We look forward to being your partner for years to come.

For more details, see Element Fusion's profile on the Inc 5000 website.

UPDATE (8/10/2011) - After working with our new infrastructure for several hours on our live system, we determined it was not meeting our high standards of performance and, therefore, we have reverted back to our original configuration. We are keeping the storage limit increases and the transaction fee changes discussed in this article, but the infrastructure improvements discussed here have been postponed.

We're rolling out some big improvements to our pricing plans as well as a major system infrastructure upgrade next week. There are several things related to these improvements that we want you to know. Please read through the following information to be sure you're aware of what's coming.

Huge Storage Limit Increases!

First, our paid website plans are being granted a large increase in storage space. The storage limits will be doubled on our Basic, Plus, Advanced, and Pro plans and quadrupled on our Premier plan. Here's a look at the changes.

• Basic - 1 GB (was 500 MB)
• Plus - 2 GB (was 1 GB)
• Advanced - 6 GB (was 3 GB)
• Plus - 12 GB (was 6 GB)
• Premier - 50 GB (was 12 GB)

No More Transaction Fees on Premier Plan!

We're further improving our top level plan by removing transaction fees for all store transactions.

Huge Technology Infrastructure Improvements

At the same time, we're also launching an immense upgrade to our infrastructure. This upgrade dramatically improves our system's file storage and handling capabilities, keeping us fast and agile as our business grows. This file system upgrade makes it possible for us to increase our storage limits as described above. It also provides additional data security and backups, beyond the already fanatical backup system we have in place.

One Change: Lowercase Filenames

There is one global change you may notice when we implement these upgrades. All file names stored on our system will be forced to lowercase. This will happen automatically and will have no effect on your website. URLs referencing your files will continue to work, even if they include capitalization. In other words, the file name will be stored on the server in lowercase, but you can request that file using any casing you want and it will work. 

For example:

• If your current file name is: myPhoto.jpg
• And you reference that photos like this: src="images/myPhoto.jpg"
• Your file name will be changed to: myphoto.jpg
• Your reference (src="images/myPhoto.jpg") will stay the same and will continue to reference the file correctly, even though the capitalization is different.
• You could also reference the file as: src="images/mYpHoTo.jPg" and it would still work.

Why this change? The new file name structure is required for the file system upgrades we're making, plus it makes our system faster and more efficient. And remember, you won't have to do anything with regards to this change. The only thing you will notice is that the names of your files have been changed to all lowercase. Everything else will continue to function as normal.

Launch Information

All of these improvements are scheduled to launch on Tuesday, August 9th, 2011 at 11:00pm CDT (GMT-5). We do not anticipate any downtime for this upgrade, but as with any major change, there is the potential for unexpected interruption in service so we want you to be aware.

Potential for Inaccessible Files During Transition

Migrating files to our new infrastructure will be a progressive process. To be completely sure that your files are accessible immediately following the switch, we recommend not editing any existing files or uploading any new files in the seven hours leading up to the switchover. While you won't lose any work, files you change or upload after 4pm CDT on Tuesday may not be accessible until we do our post-migration sync following the switch. To further clarify:

• If you upload or edit files before 4pm CDT on Tuesday, those files will be alive and well when we make the switchover.
• If you upload files after 4pm on Tuesday, those files will become inaccessible when we make the switch at 11pm, but they will become accessible again by 6am CDT the next morning at the very latest.
• If you modify an existing file, such as a template file, after 4pm on Tuesday, the file will revert to its previous version (the version that existed before 4pm) when we make the switch at 11pm, then your new, modified version will become accessible again by 6am CDT the next morning at the very latest.

There is nothing you need to do to ensure your files are migrated. It will all happen automatically. These are just guidelines to help ensure the smoothest transition possible.

Thank you for your help and understanding in this process. We look forward to bringing you the new improvements next week.

Here are some screenshots of the themes we just added:

Restore Church

Vineyard Church

Before we get started, locate an editable region (you might want to create a new page and set it to "hidden" while you play with this). In any editable region, click on "add element," scroll to "product listing" in the drop down menu, and hit the "add" button. Now you're ready to begin!

Add a Product

Hovering over the "product listing" element reveals the dropdown menu and its options. Now click on "add new product." Phew! That was the hard part.

Fill Out the Details

From this screen you can set all of the product's options. Products can intrinsically have a lot of factors involved, so our devs and UI designers went to great lengths to keep it simple. If your product is pretty straightforward, that's great. Just fill out the necessary information and you're ready to sell. Radium3 keeps it clean so there's no hassle. But what if your product needs custom settings or variants? We've made that easy too! Let's take a look at what our product settings can do for you.

• Price: You can set a starting price and a compare-at price (optional). The starting price is simply the price you are charging for the item. The compare-at price is a comparative price. Maybe your product is on sale and has been marked down. Putting the original price in this box will lets your customers know.
• Images: You can upload a primary image (marked with a star) or up to four other images to show variants of the same product.
• Description: Add a brief description of your product using our WYSIWYG editor.
• Properties: The product type lets you classify the product into a larger group, such as "shoes" or "fruit" or "ceramic unicorns." The vendor option lets you specify who makes it, such as Nike, McDonald's, or Ceramic Unicorns, ltd.
• Shipping Info: Specifies weight; to be used in calculating shipping.
• SKU: You can assign a custom SKU or leave it blank. Either way, each product or variant still counts as an SKU in the store. Checking the track option tells the system to monitor how many widgets (or unicorns) you still have in stock.
• Product Listings: With this field, you can specify whether a product appears in multiple listings at once or in just one. When you create a product, the product is then stored independently of the individual "product listing" that you created. This way you can create listings that overlap (i.e. - featured or on-sale items) without having to copy and paste data.
• Tags: Tag your product with any keywords you like. Currently, tags affect search results and some filtering on the backend. In the future, tags will likely play a bigger role in the storefront.
• Status: This lets you save your product information without publishing it. This can be useful when you want to take a product down temporarily or if your favorite episode of Dr. Phil comes on before you finish editing the variants

A Note About Options and Variants

After you've saved your product, you can edit the product to see the "options" and "variants" settings. Under options, you can designate whether the product has optional qualities to choose from, such as color, material, size, etc. Once you've decided what those options are, you can then create the available variants, such as XXL red T-shirt or small blue hoodie. There is no limit on the number of variants you can create, but because each variant gets a unique SKU, your pricing plan's SKU limit may restrict the number of variants you can have.

Save

And that's all there is to it!

Storage and Performance Enhancements

While an infrastructure upgrade might not sound as amazing as the implementation of the online store, which basically catapulted our system into a league of its own, this upgrade is indeed huge. It's something our team has been working on for nearly two years while still cranking out the new features you've been seeing. Now it's time to bring these long-awaited improvements online.

The best way we can describe this upgrade is to say it will greatly improve the system's performance and storage solutions. Even though Radium3 is one of the fastest-running platforms around, we are never satisfied and always working to improve our system's responsiveness. This upgrade will make great strides in that regard and, as a result, you may notice even faster performance for websites running on Radium3 following the upgrade.

Similarly, our hosting infrastructure is extremely secure and redundant, but we're never satisfied to stay where we are. This upgrade adds even more security and redundancy and keeps Radium3 ahead of the curve with regard to reliability.

Finally, this upgrade sets us up for continued improvements and expansion in the future. Our wheels are always turning with new ideas and this is a foundational step toward implementing more of our long-term goals.

The Roll Out Plan

We're breaking this upgrade into several phases and we want you to be aware of what's coming.

1. Phase One. On Tuesday, July 19, 2011, we're performing a zero-downtime upgrade to the system to prepare for the next phases. This phase should result in modest performance improvements once complete.
2. Phase Two. On Thursday, July 21, 2011, our data center will make changes requiring a four hour scheduled maintenance window from 12:01 AM to 4:01 AM (CDT GMT-5). Though the window is four hours, our system will not be affected the entire time. Our best estimate of the impact is that during the window Radium3 websites will experience approximately 3-4 periods of downtime lasting less than 10 minutes each. The last time similar procedures were performed, the system experienced much less downtime than anticipated.
3. Phase Three. The final phase has yet to be scheduled but will likely roll out sometime in the next couple of months. We'll provide more details about this phase as the time gets closer. This will be the final switch to our new hardware and, while we don't expect much if any downtime during this upgrade, we want to prepare for the possibility of having to revert in the middle of changes. Again, we'll provide more details on this soon.

We're excited to see what these upgrades allow us to do in the future, and we thank you for your continual understanding and support!

Regions / Taxes

The biggest change we made was to the regions area on the Regions / Taxes page. Now you can more easily set up regions and their sub-regions. Furthermore, for the U.S. and Canada, the sub-regions are automatically generated, meaning all of the states and provinces are set up in a single step. The system can also automatically populate the tax information for these sub-regions. This means you no longer will need to create each individual state and then look up individual taxes. This is a big time-saver.

Shipping

We've also revamped the Shipping page. Previously, it was difficult to view and manage all of your shipping options. Now the shipping rates are presented clearly, grouped by region and they can be edited inline. We also simplified and redesigned the modal pop-up window to be easier to manage.

We hope you enjoy the changes. We're always working to improve the way our software works. There's much more to come in the weeks ahead so stay tuned.

Last night, the Journal Record Publishing Company held its annual Beacon Awards banquest here in Oklahoma City. Our company, Element Fusion, was honored to be invited as a finalist for the Beacon Award for philanthropic impact by a small business in the State of Oklahoma. We were even more surprised and honored when we were named the recipient of this award last night. Thank you to the Journal Record and the Beacon Awards for this very gracious recognition.

The Beacon Awards were established to recognize the philanthropic efforts of businesses across the State of Oklahoma. Element Fusion was recognized for two philanthropic programs, including the Radium3 Website Giveaway program. Through the Radium3 Website Giveaway, we gave away four websites to four deserving non-profit organizations in 2010. We employed a process of public nominations and voting to discover and select our non-profit recipients. We're very excited about the results of the Website Giveaway program thus far, and we appreciate the Beacon Awards for their recognition.

Our best projection is that Radium3 will experience between three to five periods of down time lasting approximately ten minutes each as our data center makes upgrades to various pieces of hardware across our infrastructure. But that is just a projection, and we wanted you to be aware of the full maintenance window so you are prepared in case we encounter unexpected obstacles. Our team will be in contact with our data center during this time and will post updates as needed to our status blog at status.elementfusion.com.

We apologize for this inconvenience and we appreciate your understanding as we work to keep the Radium3 system at the top of its game.