How can we make the Developer Network better?

[Ernie H.]

Hey Ning Developers --

As you guys have probably figured out, the Ning Developer Network could use a little bit of restructuring, and we're looking for your help.

We're actively looking for suggestions on how to improve the Ning Developer Network so it's the most useful for you, the developer. (This applies to developers working on their own sites as well as developers building 3rd party plug-ins or widgets.) In particular, we're also looking for "must-have" topics in the Documentation section, API Reference suggestions and other needed features that will make this site as useful for you guys as possible. If you have any pain points, don't hesitate to let us know as well.

We'll be taking all of your feedback and if all goes well, you'll see some changes in a couple of weeks!

Thanks,
- Ernie

[Jason Hanson]

I second this motion. Please add better documentation with specific examples of each REST call. Please also include samples in a language other then PHP. Java, C++, ActionScript, or javaScript is more universal and easier to read IMO.

[Jason Hanson]

Better documentation with examples. Every available API call should be documented and include code samples in multiple languages. At least one scripting language and one OO language please. The XML Operations document is the only REST API reference that I have found with any clues as to how to construct a call. It is very obtuse and includes no sample code. It is more of tech spec rather then API Documentation. I should be able to use API Documentation to easily construct calls that can consume your APIs. The existing documentation is more appropriate if I was already familiar with Ning, and wanted to contribute to your backend code base.

I expect docs similar to JavaDoc style, with code examples in the docs, and many code samples I can download and run in my native language.

Please always assume for every page of documentation that that page may be the first and only exposure a dev has to Ning. You know what Ning is and how it works, but for many of us, we just heard of Ning the day before we ended up in your docs.

Case in point. It took me three days in your developer docs to figure out what the "Content Store" was. And I still am clueless on how to use it. For the first few days I thought it was service that I has to pay cash money to buy content like MP3s. And it turns out that it was just a cute attempt at a non-standard name for a set of APIs that allow for accessing content.

The same thing about roles and rollups, I still do not know what they are. I can't get past the fruit-rollup picture.

[Ashley]

Thirded. Took me too long to work out the REST API, and i still dont know what my.{attributes} are available...unless someone has replied to my post.

[Walter]

I'd like to see a wysiwyg code insertion button!

[Ashley]

Could I suggest you make all documents "live", in that they have a comments section. I quite often find something unclear in a document, but its not worth posting on the forum, or emailing you guys.

For instance just then I was reading about the Search Query.

In the following text it seems the automatically added "fulltext" attribute is mentioned before it is explained in enough detail (both areas bolded). This had me a little thrown, and I would have liked to leave my suggestion on the document.

"phrase - Same as "term" with the addition that the value will be added to the automatic full text attribute (Unsure what, and where the attribute is).
text - The attribute can be searched as normal text (e.g. search for words contained in the text will find the attribute).
fulltext - The attribute represents the full text for the content object, and it is what the "fulltext" filter in a Search query matches against. Note that there can be at most one 'fulltext' attribute per shape. If no attribute is marked as 'fulltext', then a synthetic 'fulltext' field is added to the index which contains of the contents of all 'text' and 'phrase' attributes.(ohhh I see)"

[beachlocal]

Post a list of Ning-approved developers...or partners. It is so hard to find good Ning development!

[Rob]

Sorry this is not really about making the developer network itself better just ning. Are there any plans to release a Ning SDK similar to google's appengine SDK where a developer would have local access to a Ning sandbox? I realize I can setup a separate network and work from there but I would love to have local access even if the API just mimicked a correct response.

As far as the developer network more documentation on the APIs would be nice. Source documentation is good but sometimes a good old fashioned article goes a long way to clearing up lingering questions.

Also the ability to copy users between networks would be great. For example in your "sandbox" network you could copy a 100 users and their content (forums, events, blogs etc) so you would have data that represented actual users interaction with the site.

[Freshly-Baked]

how bout a more up-to-date javascript library?

ditch dojo 0.3.1 (highly unsupported even by dojo), for jQuery or mootools.