they are a one-time clickable update icon, and when a user clicks on them, he is guided toward the complete news. so far this can be done with a simple icon added next to the menu.
but the good thing about these icons is that it gets activated when some new features or discount or … is released in the program, and as one clicks on this, it disappears!
It’s a great idea, so instead of just telling everyone about new features from our social handles, this “New Stuff” can tell people directly on the website. Moreover, if it’s designed well for mobile as well then it’ll be a huge success (since most people are on mobile nowadays).
Note that the admins already get “time to upgrade!” emails for each beta release that link to the release-notes category, so this already kinda happens…
more important updates that should be announced to users. it can be technical updates, sales discount for support forums or even some good news about the forum members or … .
it’s more an “engaging element for the community” rather than anything functionally new.
no, I also guess this is a theme idea. I just didn’t know where to put the topic, please feel free to re-organize if it fits somewhere rather that feature.
Are you aware of banners? They have a similar function, but their messages are just displayed immediately rather than waiting for the user to click on them.
banner space is too large for some of the new updates of the forum. as a community manager, you don’t want to spam your user field of view.
imagine you want to tell your users that “hey our new top-user program, is going to start next month! you can be one, if you do … .”
or “hey, from now on, you are able to choose what to see as your homepage: the latest or the categories.”
of course this can be a simple topic as an update, meanwhile if this topic is opened when clicked on a gift-box, the experience is much different at the user-end: the forum is giving us a gift, and not just a simple update news.
This theme component could be considered an alternative way displaying the banner system. It could use the same API underneath, but instead of displaying the banner how it does now, it could show just a little icon in the header, and then link to the banner topic. Hooking into the banner system in this way would make it easier because you wouldn’t need a separate database structure, a separate way of posting these updates, etc.
