New design: nonFeed


nonFeed is an iteration on the xFeed design, with added functionality that enables individual entries to scroll vertically, allowing for a more content-heavy approach.

Like xFeed (and all other Feed iterations), nonFeed paginates automatically.

Previous Feed iterations:
Turing
ozFeed
ozFeed-alt
xFeed
xFeed-alt

The Cargo Webdesign Directory

Need professional help customizing your Cargo website? This is a growing list of web designers from the Cargo community who you can hire to help design and develop your site. We’re looking forward to seeing the results.

Info on how to get listed

Personal Network update

We've made some adjustments and optimizations to the way you interact with the people you follow on Cargo. Your personal network is now divided into Websites, Projects & Comments, and Image Gallery. It also remembers your most recently active tab so that your viewing preference stays consistent while visiting other member's personal networks.

New design: Tesla


Tesla uses horizontally laid out thumbnails with a variable height, and prints a text excerpt from the project content below them.

Pagination happens in-line, new thumbnails are automatically loaded to the page when scrolling to the right, similar to the xFeed design. Projects are opened on top.

New: multi-file drag & drop image uploader

We've phased out the old Flash-based multi-file image uploader and replaced it with a decked-out HTML5 uploader that lets you drag & drop image files anywhere in your project editor panel.

We've also made a variety of visual and typographic updates across the Admin section.

CSS & HTML Editors update

We've added a function to the CSS and HTML Editors that inverts the colors of the workspace; users can now choose between dark text on a white background and light text on a dark background.

We've also optimized the Save function, which now submits in-line and retains the line position.

Personal image galleries

New feature: typing “/images” behind the URL of any website that runs on Cargo produces an image gallery view of that website. Click on an image to toggle between levels of enlargement.

Example: alwayswithhonor.com/images

New design: Turing


Turing is an iteration of the Feed design. It's geared toward blog-like content publishing, uses a centered layout, a fixed top navigation menu, and features large images and text.

Previous Feed iterations:
ozFeed
ozFeed-alt
xFeed
xFeed-alt

New designs: Montessori, Montessori alt



The Montessori design supports thumbnails of any size that can be positioned anywhere on the page using drag & drop (available when logged in), opening the Admin panel is not necessary. Actions are saved automatically; the new layout is published instantly. When logged in, a menu with additional settings appears on the top-right of the screen.

Available for all membership types.

Introducing the Personal Network

Our joint aspirations to make Cargo the most desirable creative publishing platform around have just reached another milestone: enhanced Personal Networks (formerly known as the Following page) now include newly designed Image Galleries, offering new ways to browse the work of the people you follow, and a new feature called Cargo Comments.




We all know that the Cargo Culture is above all else visual. But lately we've been wondering, what about that other language, made up of words? Would the written word add meaningful context, deepen our relationships and energize our personal networks? Or would a picture once again prove to be worth a thousand words?

To answer these questions, we are introducing Cargo Comments, the first of several features we are currently designing to expand the platform and explore new layers of creative interaction and exchange.

Read more on the homepage

Homepage updates

We’ve moved the Project Browser to the redesigned Following page (now known as the Personal Network), eliminated the Featured Projects section, and added a new Image Gallery.

Visit the homepage

Cargo Showcase

This new homepage section Showcases the most interesting Cargo Websites we come across on a regular basis.

Link to the Showcase

New designs: Voyager 1, Voyager 2




Our first iteration on the SpaceCollective design, Voyager updates layout, typography and interface elements and prints text excerpts from the Project content below the thumbnails on the Index page (can be disabled in Display Options).

Slideshow captions

We've released a small feature that makes it possible to add text captions below each image that is part of a slideshow; it can be added into the {image} tag like so:


—
Link to Knowledge Base article

Knowledge Base: How to add Facebook Comments

Facebook commenting can now be integrated into your website by pasting this script into your Custom HTML:


There are three customization options: ("color", "width", "comment count"). Color can be set to light
or dark, depending on the background of your site. Comment count defines how many comments are displayed before pagination.

—
Link to an example
Link to Knowledge Base article

New designs: Hegel, Kant




The Hegel and Kant designs arrange Projects of varying heights into a vertically stacked layout (as pioneered on SpaceCollective). This is made possible with an update to the thumbnail cropping functionality which now allows for flexible thumbnail height.

These designs also print text excerpts from the Project content below the thumbnails on the Index page (can be disabled in Display Options).

​CDN URL and Following page improvements

We've changed the URL of images uploaded to Cargo’s CDN from its formerly rather lengthy version to a shorter, more manageable one, resembling this format:
http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/0/128/1398078/2rock.jpg

We've also fine-tuned the design of the Following pages.

New designs: ozFeed, ozFeed-alt




ozFeed is our first iteration on the Feed design (i.e. butdoesitfloat.com).
Special thanks to Omar Zuberi, a.k.a. withinandwithout for sharing his photographs.

Knowledge Base: Using Webfonts on Cargo

The latest addition to our ever-growing Knowledge Base on Site Customization: a rundown of some of the most popular webfont providers and how they integrate with your Cargo website.

Link to article

​Login and Signup enhancements

We've made a few enhancements to the Login flow that will likely take care of most of the bugs that have been reported on this. We've also redesigned the signup flow to make it more intuitive, and easier to choose a base design.

​Keyboard navigation for the Feed design

Consistent with all other designs we've now enabled keyboard navigation for the Feed design:
J: next / K: prev / H: top / I: index

See it in action at butdoesitfloat.com

​Autopagination update for the Feed design

We've implemented a small enhancement to the Feed design (including the two ozFeed designs) which prints a "Load more" link if for whatever reason the auto-pagination command does not fire, something that Safari has trouble with on occasion.

Support redesign

We reworked Support and made it faster, easier to use and more efficient: support.cargocollective.com

One enhancement is that it now uses Single sign-on, which means that it will log you in automatically when you're logged into your Cargo account. Data from the old support forum has been archived and is accessible via Search.

New design: Amsterdam


The Amsterdam design uses a layout that is both centered and liquid. In other words: it adjusts its contents according to the available width inside the browser window while keeping the design centered.

Additionally, the top navigation bar is fixed in place on the index page until a project is opened, at which point it scrolls with the rest of the contents.

Project Editor update

We rolled in an enhancement to the Project Editor, allowing it to be displayed on the bottom of the screen featuring a maximized contents & layout interface for content-heavy editing. It can also be set to display on the left side.

Find it in your Display Options and on the bottom of each of your Projects.

New designs: Apollo 11, Apollo 12



Also in use at superfamous.com

Site ON/OFF switch

We've added a feature that lets you turn your site off so you can work on it behind the scenes. Your site is visible only when logged into it while visitors see a “coming soon” message, which can be customized by clicking the “Website Offline message” that appears at the top of your Project List.

Find this feature in your Account Settings.

Search — We've built functionality that lets you add a Search feature to your Website. To use, follow these instructions. (Requires Upgraded Membership).

​Shortcut menu

We've added a contextual menu for easier access to frequently used functions. Use it by right-clicking your Admin icon, which shows up on the top-right of your site whenever you're logged in.

New designs: Limelight, Limelight Alt.

Available to all accounts with Upgraded Membership.

​Memcache

In our continuing efforts to optimize speed and scalability as Cargo continues to grow, we've implemented a system of caching called Memcache (also used by mega sites like Wikipedia, Youtube and Facebook) where content is now mostly served directly from memory instead of from the database. This means that Cargo websites load faster, and the servers have a higher throughput.

New designs: Kennedy, Kennedy Alt.

New designs: Passport, Biblio

New designs: xFeed

The horizontal equivalent of the Feed design, xFeed paginates automatically and uses a liquid project width for visual consistency and flexibility when laying out posts of varying sizes. xFeed was based on a design by Nicholas McQueen, who uses it for Elastic Novice.

Keyboard shortcuts

Video player

We've released a built-in video player that embeds externally hosted Quicktime H.264 and FLV video files on your website. See example.

To use, click on the video icon in your formatting toolbar, enter a URL to a video file and specify the width and height. You can also use a custom preview image ("poster frame").

​Audio player

Embed and play MP3 audio on your website using Cargo's new built-in player. To use, click on the audio icon in your formatting toolbar and enter a URL to an MP3 file (must be externally hosted).

The player is rendered by universal CSS that works on both light and dark backgrounds and uses fully customizable fonts, colors, borders, widths, heights, etc. The classes are located in your CSS, grouped under audio_component. We look forward to seeing your iterations.

See it in action

​Next Project link

We've added a Display Option (set to Off by default) for placing a “next” link next to your “index” link. This lets visitors quickly flick through the contents of a website by loading the next project, and looping back to the beginning when reaching the end.

See example

​“Feed” design index pagination

The Feed design's index page now paginates after 100 posts; a major alleviation for content-heavy websites like But does it float or Unurth.

​Fix: auto removal of image tags

When deleting an image from a project, the corresponding {image} tag would remain in the Contents & Layout area, causing the page to display empty {image} tags. This fix automatically removes these tags when an image is deleted.

​New signup page

We've redesigned the signup page and optimized the flow around creating a new account and choosing a base design.

​Support: Popular questions

We've created a new Support section with help docs on a variety of topics, based on the most frequently asked questions on the forum. Find it in your Admin → Support area.

Thumbnail cropping

We've added a feature that allows for in-browser fine-tuning of the crop of your thumbnails. Uploading a file larger than the dimensions of your thumbs will activate this tool.

We've also included a short article on How to make a great thumbnail

Membership Invites

New: 5 pre-approved Cargo membership invites for all. As you know, the Cargo platform is by invite only with the express purpose to maintain a high level of creative content. In case you deem individuals of your acquaintance to be valuable Cargo members, we offer you the opportunity to invite 5 additional members of your choice.

Find them in your Settings.

Since we launched Cargo a few months ago, we’ve been working behind the scenes on stability, speed, and security of the system architecture and infrastructure. Specifically, we've delegated different back-end processes to dedicated servers to form a new system that leverages cloud computing for horizontal scalability and optimal responsiveness.

Meanwhile, we’re proud to announce that we have added the following features:


New Slideshow

We've added lots of options and features to the slideshow component, including Thumbnails; Auto-play; Transitions; Custom nav text; and it now adjust its height automatically. Access these options via Settings: Display options.

Slideshow examples

Custom thumbnail sizes

We've created a Display Option that lets you specify the size of your thumbnails. Needless to say this opens the doors to limitless customization of layout.

Example 1 / Example 2 / Example 3

Does not apply to the SpaceCollective templates.

New CSS & HTML editor

We've made a bunch of updates and improvements to Cargo's in-browser code editor, including enhanced legibility; code hinting; line numbers, better colors; tab indentation, and more. We've also updated and cleaned up all default CSS files.

Back button and page linking fixes

We've remedied the two most frustrating site navigation shortcomings: the back button now takes you back to the index page as it should, and direct page linking (with AJAX) now works in Safari. Good times.

Search

It's back. It helps you find things, and it's fast. Check it out on the homepage.

Navigation now printed to Filtered views and Permalinks

Enhancements many of you requested that facilitate improved contextual continuity when filtering a site's contents or visiting a project's permanent link.

​Started the Dev log page

It is our goal at Cargo to enhance the platform on a regular basis, and we will post relevant updates to this page. We're looking forward to see how you incorporate new features in the design of your websites, which will continue to be our main source of inspiration.

Thanks,
The Cargo team