magix.info - Community Blog

Dear community members,

Many of you have probably already noticed, that several new functions have been available on magix.info for around two weeks now that enhance the overall usability.

At this point, we would like to officially introduce these changes and explain them.

magix.info goes international!

Until recently, you were only able to view community content according to the site language you selected. This feature has been altered slightly to make more content available for your enjoyment.

In the areas “Questions & Answers“, “Show & Discuss“, “Knowledge & Workshops“, and “Groups“, you can now use a simple menu to select which content should be displayed according to the different languages.

This functions independently, so you can ask English-speaking users questions but view media from any available language.

Simply activate the country for which you would like to browse media and then click “Display selection“.

The best part:
The community has certainly realised by now which languages they prefer in which areas, and users only need to select a language once – this selection will remain active the next time they log in.

I'm an expert!

Magix.info has allowed you to distinguish yourself as an “Expert“ for some time already. This makes it possible for other users to recognise that you are available as a pro for valuable advice in certain areas.

Until now, experts could only select from the existing categories in the “Questions & Answers“ area.

In order to enable more specific selection, you can now add more detailed information to the individual categories!

Simply click on “My overview“ in the upper area of the page and press the “Edit profile“ button in the upper right (below the blue navigation bar).

In the “Special skills“ area, describe your specialties in more detail with the text box.

This extra information will be displayed on your profile page.

“Visit me at my website!“

Many of the community's users don't only use the community page, but also have an online album, a website, or a blog with MAGIX.

So why not indicate this on your profile page?

Open “Edit profile“ to find “About me“ directly next to the “Special skills“ tab.

You can mention this other information here for it to be displayed on magix.info.

Of course, we've also improved numerous other functions, and there shouldn't be any more problems with the media players on magix.info.

Kind regards

The magix.info team

Dear members,

The winner of the workshop contest has finally been selected!

The winner is “Funatyc“ and his workshop “Mixing and mastering basics for beginners“.

Congratulations!

But that's not all:

Since the decision was very difficult, we've decided to reward the second and third place winners for their high-quality contributions, too.

Second place goes to our member “Legoander“ and his great video “How to fly – Using the bluescreen technique“.

And finally, the workshop “Creating and using box effects“ by “Robert-graunke“ also made it onto the winners' podium in third place.

We congratulate all participants for getting involved and thank you for your great entries.

What happens now?

In the next few days, the three entries mentioned above will receive an email from the magix.info editors informing them about the next steps required to collect their prizes.

The first place winner, “Funatyc“ also receives a bonus of 150 user points and is now a “Tutor“ on magix.info.

The magix.info team

Dear members,

The workshop contest is now over. Thank you to all participants for the many interesting submissions.

What happens now?

Within the next days, the editors will select the best workshop that has been submitted.

The winner will receive a message from the editors, and then they will have a choice of prizes.The prize that the winner selects will be sent to them by mail.

Furthermore, the winner will be elevated to “Tutor“ status on magix.info. This rank not only entitles the member to publish multimedia workshops without initial vetting, but it also distinguishes him or her from other members!

The winner will also receive a bonus of 150 user points!

Thank you for participating and for all of the wonderful, interesting workshops you submitted to us!

The magix.info team

Dear magix.info fans,

We have something in common – our passion for multimedia and our dedication to photography, movies, and music.

Everyone is a specialist in something. Some of us turn snapshots into elegant images, some of us write fantastic songs. Maybe others still aren't quite exactly experts and are just having fun with their hobby, but would like to develop their skills further.

We would like to offer magix.info as a platform for the passion we have in common and for the collective knowledge of our members. For this reason, we are holding a workshop contest.

From 15.09.2008 to 01.11.2008, everyone is challenged to develop a workshop for his or her own special topic or hobby.

Every workshop that is published during this time will be entered automatically into the contest. *

It doesn't matter whether you write about photos, movies, or music or whether you create a video or write it out in a PDF.

The winners can expect prizes valued at 1,000 euros and the distinguished title of "Tutor" on magix.info.

Among others, you may choose from:

- Samplitude 10

After the contest, the magix.info team will select the top ten of the published workshops.

The three winners out of these ten will be elected by the magix.info communitie and be announced in the next newsletter with a short introduction.

It's worth taking part. Have fun and good luck!

* Terms and conditions of participation

• 1.
  Participants must be 18 or older
• 2.
  Workshops which violate our general terms and conditions or the community rules will be deleted and disqualified from participation
• 3.
  Entries without any contents or that are irrelevant will also be deleted and disqualified from participation
• 4.
  Legal recourse is excluded

…that's a good way to describe the update we published on October 1st!

Besides remedying a number of errors, it also contains several new functions and adjustments, including several user requests!

Media and workshops on the profile page!

Finally, members are able to view a clearly laid-out overview of all of the media that a magix.info member has published directly on their profile page. Just open a member's profile page. Besides the already familiar profile information and the guestbook, there are now two more tabs:

The "Media" tab (pictured) let's view all of the member's media, and if you are interested in a particular form of medium, i.e. photos, videos, or songs, then that's no problem: Just select the formats that you are interested in from the menu.

The "Workshops" area also displays the workshops that a member has published on magix.info.

Where are my groups?

By the third or fourth group you join, maybe it won't be so easy to remember exactly what those groups are actually called. Now we have a solution to that problem, too: The "My community" area in your overview (just click "My overview“ via the quick access buttons) provides all of the groups that you are a member of listed neatly for you.

New sorting!

Besides the detailed member search that has been available for quite some time, you can now list members according to some new criteria.

Sort members according to "Most points" to find the most active members, show members with the most workshops, or use the new function for viewing the media on a member's page and sort according to "Most media".

Groups can also be sorted according to "Activity" now, so if you want to find the groups that are the most active in terms of discussion and presentations, then this option makes it easy!

More media!

Many members have been annoyed by the fact that only nine media items could be displayed per page.

Starting immediately, the option is available for you to specify how many pieces are shown at a time.

Just scroll to the bottom of the page of any media list, and below the page selector (just like for questions) you will see the “View“ option. Use this option to specify how many items you would like to display at once on a single page.

Browsing made easy!

A small but powerful new addition to top things off: If you enjoy browsing in the media area and have always wanted to be able to preview media by opening a new window or browser tab, well, that's now a reality. From the overview page, just open as many items in new browser tabs/windows as you like. This way you won't need to click the 'back' button in your browser a million times to get back to the original page anymore.

Of course, that's not all. There are still numerous smaller changes, especially in the “Profile“, “Groups“, and “Show & Discuss“ areas, but we just don't have enough space here to list each and every one of them...

Have fun at magix.info!

The magix.info editors

Dear magix.info friends & members,

Hello dear friends of magix.info!

The Editor has been steadily running for several days now and we've received no further error reports. We can now assume that the Editor functions dependably.

Some members have asked us what is the best way to embed videos from external websites like YouTube. Baba Sikander mentioned it already in a group, but we would like to publish the information here again for all to see:

Publish videos from Youtube, etc. in a post or comment

It is not possible to embed an object or an embed tag of an external video using the "Embed video" Editor function. This can currently be done only using the  HTML mode detour, found in the Editor (can be opened by pressing CTRL + TAB).

Instructions:

1. Copy the object/embed tag of the video you would like to integrate to the clipboard

Select the text on the source page and copy using Ctrl+C.

2. Create a post or a comment on magix.info

To do so, open the Editor at the appropriate location and create a text as usual.

3. Switch the Editor into HTML mode and paste in the object/embed tag from the clipboard

The HTML mode can be opened using the CTRL+TAB shortkey. Place the cursor on the desired location in the text and press CTRL+V. The tag and with it, the video, are now inserted.

Paste the copied text into the editor (while editor is in HTML mode)

4. Adjust the proportions of the video (to the text frame)

The default proportions are too big for the size of the text frame in which the post appears. It doesn't look good, but can be easily changed:

In the object and embed tag of the videos there are parameters called "width" and "height". After them you will find the values for the width and height in pixels. These must be changed. "Width" should be 380 pixels and "height" should be 290 pixels. Then the proportions will be approximately correct. It is important that the values are adjusted in both the object and embed tags. Otherwise, it'll look different in Internet Explorer and Mozilla browsers.

Important! Adjust the dimensions to prevent it from looking ugly!

5. Click on "Send", and you're done!

It should more or less like this...

Simply try it out, and have fun!

Cheers!
Kate (magix.info Editor's Desk)

Dear members,

We have taken some time lately to make many aspects of the usability of magix.info more comfortable for you:

Notepad

Have you ever experienced waiting for answers to a special question or not being able to find a song that you really liked on magix.info?

Never again! Besides the familiar 'favorites' function for your most-liked media, you can get alerts about nearly everything you find on magix.info! Groups, workshops, questions, media....if you want to, you will be informed everytime something new happens!

New homepage & groups

The homepage now appears in a simpler, easier design, but contains new, important information for you:
What's going on in the groups? Which are the top groups, and which groups have been created lately?

You don't know about the groups yet? Discuss your own topics there and present your media to a targeted audience. That's why we made it much more visible in the main navigation!

Ask questions!
If you have a question, then you can search magix.info for similar knowledge now and maybe find an answer without waiting by asking a question by yourself.

You can also tell the members if your question refers to a MAGIX product, and this will be indicated below your question so that it is visible to everyone.

It's done!

From now on, magix.info will also be available in a Dutch version!

And now?

Be a part of it!

All members of the magix.info Knowledge Community can share their media and knowledge with members from the Netherlands now, too!
Just change the language to "Nederland", and all of your media, questions, answers, and workshops will be presented in the Dutch community!

Of course, you should add some meaningful descriptions and tags to them in Dutch! :)

Be found!

Do you want to keep on using the German or English Knowledge Community, but remain listed in the Dutch member's area?
Or you've already registered for the German or English version and want to make sure that you are visible in the Dutch magix.info, too?

No problem at all!
Just change your visibility for the countries in your profile.

Just click "profile" and activate the check box next to "Nederland" on the right, and then - especially important - click "Save".

Have fun with magix.info - The Multimedia Knowledge Community!

Show 'em what you've got... By achieving the bronze level (50 points), you can call yourself an expert. Your expert status will be entered in your profile in the "special skills" area, and there you can select categories of skills which you are proficient in. The categories which you consider to be your best can also be marked with an expert medallion, and the medallion becomes visible in your profile and next to your username.

Experts have rights and duties: As soon as someone hits the start page, they see a profile which has been filtered from the others to provide a more direct method of asking questions. Experts are also members who frequently answer questions, produce excellent photos, videos, music, know the software especially well, or can cook up a great website in a flash. We hope that a lot of experts show up to help and that the whole community becomes more skilled with the programs and techniques discussed.

A couple of cosmetic changes have been made, too. For example, the "Show & Discuss" area: stylish covers have been designed for every single genre which one chooses for the music they upload. This makes the site a little more colorful and diverse. Some day it will also be possible to load your own covers for your songs and albums.

The plan for next week? We're working on group functionality to strengthen the community aspect of the site, and also on finally completing the member profile.

Cheers,
Kate