NeatClubs.COM - List of Enhancements (Q1 2010)

The following new updates and enhancements have been added to NeatClubs.COM as of January 2010

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"CurvyCorners" retrofits existing side panel elements and the exterior of the web-site with curved corners. Rounded corners are incompatible with side panel shadows and non solid line styles around borders so if CurvyCorners are enabled line styles will be assumed to be solid and shadows will be disabled automatically.

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The new http://AddThis.COM social media integration allows an "AddThis.COM" icon to optionally appear on web-site content pages, This feature makes it easy to post content to social networking sites. The System Setup in NeatClubs.COM was extended to allow an AddThis.COM account name to be stored so that Analytics can be captured for those with a free AddThis.COM account. If setting this up you can ignore any complicated instructions on the AddThis.COM. Enabling the feature is a matter of logging in and turning it on. See our documentation for more info.

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Drag to re-size side panel widths: A new icon appears on the sub header when logged allowing the width of the side panels on the side to be changed by dragging highlighted areas to new dimensions. (this is still being refined - you can still change the site dimensions under System Setup / Preferences / Appearance)

•	Website Side panel items can similar be re-ordered through a new drag and drop interface (this too is functional, but is still being worked on)

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Rather than displaying a graphic or flash element in the web-site header area, the contents of a document can now occupy this space. This allows more flexibility in the appearance of the site since users can craft their own HTML. This feature allows headers to be designed that "flex" as the web-site flexes in width, making it more practical for sites to operate in variable width mode rather than fixed width mode.

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Session expiry has now been made configurable in the web-site for the administrator. This means that after an administrator logs in, the time period after which the session will expire can now be set to a longer time period which is handy for sites that stay logged in as the administrator for long periods of time.

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When viewing a list of events, it is now faster to configure whether registrations are active or in-active. This setting can now be changed by clicking on a flag that appears in the event listing. Events that are open for registration will appear in green and those that are closed for registration will appear in red. This setting has no effect on information event types that do not support registration.

•	Payment options for class registrations have been made more flexible with the ability to allow multiple payment options in combination with one another. Three payment options can now co-exist at the same time: pay the full amount up-front, make a deposit, or defer payment/pay by installment.

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Pay by installment (subscription style payments) is now more flexible. Recurring or deferred payments can be reliably used with class style registrations. This can be used to request information about a payment source (credit card or paypal account) at the time of registration while deferring payments until future dates. It can also be used to allow registrants to pay in variable installments. A number of new setup options address practical considerations around deferred payment including how payments are handled when prices by day are variable and whether supplementary fees and form level price impacts are loaded into the initial payment or are distributed evenly across a recurring payment stream.

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When a user is registering for an event that requires a subscription style payment, and the site is operating in shopping cart mode, shopping cart mode will be temporarily disabled for the remainder of the user session to prevent users attempting to mix individual payment transactions with recurring transactions. Mixing these types of registrations is a payment mode that PayPal is unable to accommodate.

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For sites using grace periods (to automatically remove unpaid registrations after configurable periods), the grace period calculation is now smart enough not to accidentally remove registrations that involved a deferred future payment or payment stream. (in this cases the amount paid is "0", but a future payment obligation exists so the registration should be assumed to be "paid")

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Previously when an administrator logged in, a convenience link to view registrations appeared only if there were new, unhandled registrations within the last five days. A link to incoming registrations (sorted with most recent registrations at the top) now exists for convenience even if there are no new registrations.

•	In the class times setup, Ajax techniques have been used to speed editing class times. When class-times are saved, the browser window no longer needs to refresh making for faster updates and allowing class times to be saved more frequently.

•	In the class times setup, a new "save" icon appears on class time / stream row making it more convenient to save by avoiding needing to scroll to the top of the browser window to click the Save Settings button as was the case previously

•	In the class times setup, the label for "notes" has been modified to make it clear that this field can also contain a class instructor name

•	In the class times setup, the system now advises of the number of registrations that exist in each class (if there are any) and provides a convenience link to see the list of registrants in a separate window

•	In the class times setup, if there are registrations against the class, the insert and delete row icons now do not appear at all to make it more obvious that the geometry of a class should never be changed once there are active registrations against the class

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In the class setup, if someone attempts to change the class times, or manually change the start date in a class stream that has active registrations, a new pop-up windows will advise the user that this is not recommended. (changing a class time affects all existing registrations against that class, so registrants need to be notified of any change)

•	Document properties can now be configured to display an alternate header graphic when a different page is displayed. In theory an organization might have a different header graphic for every page on the web-site.

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Document properties can now be configured to inject text from another document into a side panel field at the location where side panel document #1 would normally appear. This function works regardless of whether side panel documents are being used and provides more control over the web-site appearance by allowing side panel content to change on a "per page" basis.

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For some pages that will accommodate wide content, it is convenient to be able to suppress the right-hand column of the web-site when content is displayed to allow for the wider content width. A new setup option allows the right panel if active to be temporarily suppressed when an individual page is displayed.

•	Much as headers can now be replaced with document contents system wide, a document can now be injected into the header display area on a "per page" basis providing more flexibility around how header pages are displayed.

•	A problem with PayPal has been addressed that resulted in a PayPal error screen appearing when payment recurrences were enabled but the number of recurrences of a payment was set to one.