Nefertari :: Blog

The FAQ has now been moved the wiki.

If you have a custom template, please update the FAQ menu item.

It has been just less than a month since Anton wrote an article on how to customise your profile in the KIA network, but already we have some some examples of what can be done.  None of these examples really push the boundaries of what is possible, but all are innovative as far as what has been tried on the KIA network so far.

The first custom profile was Anton's: http://network.kiamagic.com/anton/

It doesn't change the default template by much, mainly it just added a background image, the dragon from the book cover of his Kaos Hieroglyphica: Alchemy for the New Aeon.  The only other thing of note is the addition of a last.fm widget in the side bar.  Zeitl0ch has also added such a widget.  A simple but effective customisation. 

Feather has done rather more: http://network.kiamagic.com/feather/ 

The main panel and side panel are both transparent, the better to show off her fox head tile graphic.  The text size is increased and the top right KIA graphic has been replaced with her own.  She has also changed some of the text colours.

She Demon Wolf has opted for a colour change also. http://network.kiamagic.com/shedemonwolf/

In addition to a new purple theme, she has  added partial transparency.  So far the only user to make use of this css property.  This allows the side and main panels to have their own colour, whilst also showing off the background image behind them.

And finally, we have the first community theme. http://network.kiamagic.com/graal/

Not surprisingly this is the theme for GRAAL, since this is currently the only community on KIA, other than KIA itself.  This is perhaps the simplist of the alterations made, since it is mostly just a simple colour change,  But worthy of note it has replaced the website title in the top left with a title of its own, and also the html title which causes 'GRAAL Regenerative Autonomous Alchemical Laboratory' to appear in the title bar.

I am sure this is just the start.  According to the database at least two other users have started to experiment with themes, although they haven't yet applied them.  Innovate!  Every so often I will highlight the most innovative and effective profiles.

 

The new KIA Forum has been activated, although its organised quite differently from the previous one, as I think there is not so much need for the complexity that existed before now that we are primarilly a social networking site.  Also, we are running different forum software and it has a slightly different approach to navigating forum posts which I think you will find superior over all.  I have just enabled BBCode support and emoticons to the forum.  Initially I've used the same set that is available on these blogs.

The big plus to all the changes I have made is that you now only need a single sign on to access the Network, the Wiki and the Forum.  All future features will also be included in this single sign on approach.  If I can't integrate it to the sign on, I won't use it.  This should be the last time you need to create an account with KIA on account of software upgrade... (if not, someone needs to give me a good spanking!)

Both the networking software and the forum software I am using (Elgg and Vanilla) have plenty more plugins, so I will be expanding their functionality and improving the site a lot over the coming weeks, a process which will continue indefinately although I will be selective and promise not to drown you in features.  Try them out.  Why not post a blog here or post something in the forum?   

Welcome to the KIA Network!  Finally the KIA membership website gets to be more than just a forum...