Meaningful donation error messages

AFAIK, NB only has one flash error message on donation failure, and it doesn't provide any information as to why the donation failed. 

We see these a lot. We're not sure if it's user error, or if there's something wrong with our nation.

Just now we had a problem with an API key. ActiveMerchant (which I assume you're using) gives back some more helpful error messages. It would be really helpful to get those some place. 

events_upcoming_nearby

Reading the theme documents for the calendar page (really useful, thanks).  For events_upcoming_nearby, it says it uses a proximity search. How is that proximity set? Can I set it in the template, and have a certain page only display events within 20 miles of San Diego?

Official response from Lilia Villa completed

The proximity search pulls up events based on what location information the logged-in user has provided in their profile. The person searching can set the distance when running the search. Below is an example:

More options for grouping people

I'm doing some work organizing a public school community to support a ballot measure for school funding. The clear way to organize the community is via the schools -- each elementary school has its own defined group of people that all become friends. Classroom parents tend to be beceom friends and their kids stay in the same classrooms as they age. 

This was our first NB campaign, and the platform has been super helpful. But we're finding it very cumbersome to track these groupings together. Tags work, but it's really messy. If NB had some sort of team grouping feature (more robust than just a point person), that would be fantastic. Even better would be a team space where these groupsing could communicate with each other, have their on page, etc. 

Better geocode guessing

If you supply a street address, but no city, state, or zip, NB will guess the rest of the address. Mostly incorrectly, which makes sense given 1321 Maple exists in hundreds of towns. Better for it not to guess if not supplied with enough information than to guarantee inocrrect information in the database. 

JavaScript resources

How should I reference resources (like image files) in my JavaScript code? Currently I have a jQuery plugin loaded in the footer, and the required images uploaded in the themes page along with all my other site-wide resources. I'm using relative file paths, i.e., just the name. This works for everything else (like css or images used in html, but for some reason doesn't seem to work with JavaScript.

Official response from Jesse Haff

First, upload your image files to the Theme > Files page. Then you can define the images as variables in your <script> tag prior to JS file included, as such:

var my_image_1 = 'image1.jpg';

JavaScript onclick?

Sorry if this is a noob question -- I'm new to JavaScript. Tonight I was creating a NationBuilder page with a couple of embedded images that I wanted to enlarge when the user clicked on them. Seems like a perfect job for JavaScript.

I see on NB's page that you're supposed to put JavaScript in the template, not in the html editor. But, AFAIK, I need an onclick event in the <img> element in order to to trigger JavaScript, and that element isn't available in the template since the content is all pulled in as page.basic.content. Am I missing something? 

Official response from Jesse Haff

What you want to use is a jQuery light box plugin. There are tons of different varieties of those scripts, just search Google and choose the one you like the best. They are usually triggered by a class in the img tag, not an onClick event. 

The the jQuery needs to go in a template, and depending on how extensive the HTML is for the page, you may want to put all the content in the template of the page as well, instead of the content editor. For example if you are trying to create an image gallery, I'd build that all within the template of the page. If the page will be mainly text with a couple images, you should probably do that in the content editor. 

Mark supporters even w/o email

I just imported a big list that we're calling -- turning them from prospects to supporters. It appears I cannot mark a prospect as a supporter unless the person has an email address. This seems needlessly limiting -- we have a phone number and address and can certainly interact with this person in the future. It would be great to know they have opted-in. 

Official response from Adriel Hampton completed

Brad, email the documentation of which nation and import to help@nationbuilder.com and we'll take a look.