Last week, we snuck in another nifty new feature, but we've been making some adjustments and tweaks prior to publicly announcing it today. It's the ability to style comments uniquely on blog posts if those comments are left by the post's author or, alternately, by any logged-in user on your site. 

Two separate classes will be added to the markup of the comments. One class is added to comments created by any logged-in user. The other class is added to comments created by the post's actual author. Since "authors" are a subset of "users," both classes will actually be added to the author comments, giving you ultimate flexibility.

Our system defines the actual author as the user who first created and saved the post. If a different user updates the post later, that won't change the actual author.

Why the two options?

We wanted to make sure you had flexibility. We can envision cases where you would want to style only the author's comments uniquely and also cases when you might want to style any logged-in user's comments. For example, here on our LightCMS blog, there are several members of our team who contribute to the blog, and we'd like to identify all of their comments uniquely. So we are styling all users' comments and then adding a special bit of styling to the actual author to set him or her apart. However, if you have a website with lots of users, you may not want all of those users' comments styled, so in such a case, you can just use the author comment hooks.

How it works

The author or user must be logged into the system when leaving the comment for it to be recognized correctly. Comments left by any logged-in user will have a class of "userComment" added to the <dt> and <dd> tags surrounding the title and body portions of the comment. Comments left by the actual author will have both the "userComment" class and an additional “authorComment” added to the same tags. A sample of the markup generated by an author comment is included below.

<dt class="comment userComment authorComment" id="comment90451">
  <a href="#comment90451" title="Link to this comment" class="commentNumber">1.</a> 
  <a title="" href="" rel="nofollow">Name of commenter</a> wrote:
</dt>

<dd class="comment userComment authorComment">This is the content of the comment.
  <p class="commentDate">August 26, 2010 @ 10:23 AM</p>
</dd>

Please note: this new functionality will only apply to comments left after the point of release of the update, which was approximately 10:30am CDT (GMT -5) on Thursday, August 26th, 2010. Prior to this release, we were not tracking the user information associated with comments, and so the classes will not be applied to comments left before that point.

See an example

We're going to leave some sample comments on this post below so that you can see how it works with the styles we've created for the LightCMS blog. Of course, you can style your comments however you wish. Ours is just an example. So, check it out, and leave us a comment while you're at it!

Today our team rolled out another major upgrade to the LightCMS system. As usual, many of the changes are behind-the-scenes enhancements, but there are a couple of exciting new features that are now live as well.

The first is another step forward in making the system more accessible on mobile and touch devices. We recently enabled touch devices to access element menus and settings screens. Now we’ve taken the next step in making the content areas themselves editable. Previously it was impossible to edit the content in text elements, blog posts, and calendar events because WYSIWYG editing is not compatible with mobile browsers. So we’ve improved this by presenting an alternate editing interface when you access the system through a mobile browser.

The new editing interface is very simple, allowing you to view and edit the raw HTML found in a content area. Login and pull up any content editing screen on a mobile device, and the new interface will appear, allowing you to make changes to the code in your content regions.

Again, this is just another small step designed to enable users to make tweaks and changes to the content on their sites from mobile or touch devices that don’t support WYSIWYG editing. There’s more to come in the area of mobile content management, so stay tuned.

Did you know? We’re now publishing information about smaller changes to the software as they happen. You can follow it to stay up to date on all the tweaks and changes to LightCMS and even have some fun along the way. Follow @aLightCMSserver.

Element Fusion, the parent company of LightCMS, has again been named to the Inc. 5000. Inc. Magazine has released its annual listing of the 5,000 fastest growing private companies in America and we’re excited to announce that we’ve made the list for our third consecutive year.

This year’s list tracks growth from 2006-2009. During that time frame, we saw an increase in revenue of 81%, landing us at #2,774 out of all private companies in the US. We’re so grateful to all of you for the support you have shown us. We say it all the time but it’s so true – without you, there would be no company and no growth. So, thank you! We are humbled by your support and we look forward to working with you for years to come.

For more details, check out the official announcement on our company blog.

As a reseller using LightCMS, you’re free to implement the latest web trends in your designs with things like HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. We even encourage our web design resellers to do so. And to help you in your studies of these standards, we’ve put together this selection of external CSS3 tutorials and resources covering a wide range of topics. When creating this article, several of our own designers submitted their favorite online resources and those are included here. So, if you’re not thoroughly fluent in CSS3, take a moment to browse these links, work through the examples, and bookmark the ones you find helpful. 

The basics

These links were selected to help you become familiar with what CSS3 has to offer your web designs. As a reseller, you will definitely want to be familiar with the basics.

• CSS3.com 
• W3's CSS3 resource 
• SixRevisions basic CSS3 techniques
• WebDesignerWall's CSS3 basics
• Smashing Magazine's CSS3 printable cheat sheet

More advanced techniques

These resources highlight ways to creatively utilize CSS3 in your web designs. Get the most out of these websites by working through the examples and deepening your understanding of how the code works.

• Smashing Magazine: Take Your Design to the Next Level
• W3Avenue: Pure CSS UI Components
• Smashing Magazine: 50 Brilliant Coding Techniques
• WebDesignerLedger: Pure CSS Techniques for Creating Javascript-like Interactions

Navigation bars

These links help you create the navigation or menu bars that are perfect for your web designs. They utilize many different techniques, which is great as a reseller, giving your portfolio a more diverse and unique look.

• Speckyboy: Tutorials and Techniques
• HTML Drive
• Splashnology
• Only CSS Menu

Dealing with IE

The articles below offer help and assistance with graceful degradation so that your sites render in all browsers. As a reseller, you can strengthen your portfolio by following the popular design motto, “Build for the worst, design for the best.”

• Smashing Magazine: CSS3 Solutions for IE
• Stories in Flight: HTML5 / CSS3 
• Jon Raasch: Graceful Degradation with CSS3

Online Tools

These sites provide awesome tools that you will definitely want to bookmark for reference later. They let you graphically customize the element you want and then spit out the code necessary to be used in your web design.

• The Gradient Generator
• The CSS3 Generator
• CSS3 Rule Generator
• CSS3 Maker
• CSS3 Watch
• The HTML5 Readiness Wheel
• Modernizr

Whenever we make major upgrades and changes to the system, we post about it here on our blog. But what you may not know is that we enhance the system and its infrastructure all the time with a host of smaller changes happening in between our major feature releases. These changes generally go unnoticed because our development team is dedicated to creating such smooth transitions. But as we thought about all the tweaks and changes we make on a regular basis, we decided we needed a way to keep our resellers informed about these more granular changes.

But how would we go about doing this? One idea was to enlist one of the new guys to type the notes into a new Twitter account manually. But that would be too simple, and intuitive simplicity is something we already specialize in. We needed something new, something that would set us apart, something complicated. Meetings came and went, and our coffee supply dwindled. That's when someone stood up and said, "Why not upload an artificial intelligence algorithm to one of our servers, hook it up to Twitter, and let it tweet to the free world our latest system tweaks?" It would be complicated. It would be wholly unnecessary. And so we did it.

And now we're pleased to introduce our brand new, intelligence-enabled server. You can find and follow it on Twitter as @aLightCMSserver. Its tweets may be a little dry and its humor somewhat machine-like, but try to cut it some slack. Remember, it's just a simple server, tweeting completely autonomously with absolutely no help from any of us humans.

Anyway, please follow @aLightCMSserver to stay up to date on everything happening with the LightCMS software. Enjoy!

We're continually looking for ways to improve our users' experiences with our software. And one of those ways is by improving administrative access to LightCMS websites through touch devices. Today, we rolled out a small improvement that enables your touch device to access the element drop-down menus in admin view. On a laptop or desktop computer, these menus are accessed by hovering over the menu bar, which isn't possible on a touch device. So, we've changed the behavior on touch devices so that touching the element name will open the drop down menu.

This new feature will allow touch devices to:

• Access the "manage posts" page on blog elements
• Access the "manage entries" page on form elements
• Access the "settings" pages for all elements
• Use the "move up" and "move down" buttons to move elements within a region
• Use the "delete" button to delete an element

This update is just a small step in our continued work toward improving the LightCMS experience on mobile devices. We hope you enjoy it!

Bradley Benson Design has been around since 2004 with the singular vision of creating beautiful, functional websites and high-impact designs for organizations.

About Bradley Benson Design

Location: Southlake, TX
Website: http://www.bradleybenson.com
Primary contact: Brad Parnell email

We specialize in custom web design, but also offer branding, print design, and design consultation. Our backgrounds are in traditional studio art, and we have experience that comes from several years at different prestigious design agencies in the DFW area.

One thing that sets us apart is the way we approach projects and the relationships we establish with our clients. We don't have a cut-and-dry ABC process or cookie-cutter approach to anything we do; everything is relational and unique to that project and client. We have our backbone systems and project management, but to us, it's all about the experience for the client and keeping ourselves fresh and creative.

LightCMS Examples

Q & A with Bradley Benson Design

What did you use before LightCMS and why did you switch?

Before LightCMS we used Wordpress and Adobe's recently acquired Business Catalyst. For both those systems, we felt like the technology drove the design and that they were limited in creativity.

We were ready to commit to something new that had excellent support and intuitive tools for our clients to update their own content. That's when we found LightCMS.

How does LightCMS help you better meet your clients' needs?

It gives our clients an easy way to edit their websites, manage their billing information for their hosting packages, and view analytics. These are just a few of the features that ordinarily would be three separate services our clients would have to log into to view and manage. When we use LightCMS, our clients can tell their hosting is top tier, and they love how easy it is to log in and update their content any time they need to.

What would you say to another designer or agency that was considering using LightCMS?

LightCMS is hands down the best solution for building out custom website designs that need a robust and easy CMS. It also has a great dashboard to manage all of your websites on the system.

Any tips or tricks to give other LightCMS users?

Think, design, and build outside of the box. Be aware of the functionality and modules you can use, but don't let that drive your design. If you don't need a photo gallery and calendar on the homepage, don't put it there!

Anything else?

LightCMS has an all-star support team, and we'd like to thank Chad, Tim, Ben, Richard, and everyone else working on or with that team. You've been an invaluable help along the way. We've gotten to be the company we are with the help of this great product!

Are you a LightCMS designer and interested in being featured in a LightCMS case study? Contact vince@elementfusion.com for more information.

Earlier today, Alan Feekery posted this tweet about one of the great features that we've built into our CMS:

It's a pleasure to use the 301 redirect manager for @LightCMS.

We're glad you like it, Alan! For those of you that haven't checked out our 301 redirect manager before, look at how easy it is to use and set up here. If you have any questions on setting it up, be sure to let us know in the comments or by email.

Recently we've been encountering questions about how to set up a Facebook page similar to the one we created for LightCMS. The secret is knowing how to get an applicaton called Static FBML to show up on your page. It's basically Facebook's version of HTML, and it lets you create customized tabs and landing pages that demonstrate your brand's uniqueness. With so many people now utilizing Facebook, Static FBML welcome pages are a great way to tell visitors what your business is all about.

First, there are some things you'll want to be aware of before you begin.

• Static FBML can only be added to business / fan pages. It cannot be used on your personal profile.
• You don't have to use any <header> or <body> type tags. Just start typing in your HTML (well, FBML).
• Make sure you call external stylesheets rather than including styles between <style> tags. For example, use <link href="http://" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> This is to accommodate IE, which, as you might imagine, doesn't work like all the other browsers.

Now, let's get started.

1. To add the Static FBML app to your page, you will first have to have your Facebook fan page set up.
2. Once there, click on the "Edit Page" link right below the main avatar graphic. You'll be presented with the editing screen, where you'll see a section called "Applications." At the bottom, you should see a "More Applications" section that should have Static FBML listed.
   
3. If it isn't listed there, just search for it in the search box up top.
   
4. Click on the Static FBML link to go to its site.
5. On the Static FBML page, click the button that says "Add this to my page," and then select the page that you want to add it to. 
   
6. Return to the editing screen of your page, and look back under the applications section. You should now see something that says FBML. All you have to do now is click on "edit" and enter your information. You'll see a section to enter the name of your tab, and you'll also see a larger input box labeled FBML. Insert your code, and you've got a custom tab!
   
7. If you're interested in adding additional tabs to your page, you won't see that option with the rest of your application boxes. Instead, you'll have to click "edit" on an existing FBML box under your applications. In the bottom left corner of the editing window, you'll see a link that says "Add another FBML box."
   
   Clicking on that will create a new FBML box in your applications.

Remember that not all valid HTML is valid Static FBML. As far as I know, there isn't a definitive source for what is specifically valid and invalid. However, there are many great resources that help you to integrate some of FBML's cool features. Be sure to check out these other sites for more information.

Mashable's FBML HOW TO

Techipedia's FBML tutorial

HyperArts's FBML tutorial

So did you create a custom FBML tab? Drop us a link in the comments and let us see!

Just this week we have opened up a new opportunity to win one of our limited-edition Web Designers Are Sexy shirts in celebration of the recent launch of our Facebook page. We have even migrated our pictures of designers wearing their sexy shirts over to a photo album on Facebook, which you can see here. To enter the contest, simply become a fan of our Facebook page (by "liking" it) and tell us on our wall why you deserve to win a shirt. We will choose the best wall posts and send their authors a free shirt. The contest ends on August 6. Check out the official contest post so you don't miss out.

And don't forget, if you win, feel free to send us a picture of you wearing the shirt so we can post it to our gallery of sexy designers!