LDS.org has just been upgraded. The release follows a successful 3-month testing period wherein tens of thousands of users accessed the site under the name of new.lds.org. The site has a new visual design, many new sections of content, an upgraded search engine, and translated content. The new site is designed to focus on helping Church members learn, live, and share the restored gospel.
To make the transition to the new site easier, the old LDS.org is still available at classic.lds.org if you want to refer to old content that is not yet part of the new LDS.org. The development of parts of the new LDS.org will continue for many months. Therefore, as you navigate through the site, you may find sections that refer you back to classic.lds.org to find content that has not yet been rebuilt in the new design.
Watch videos that introduce the new tools and sections of LDS.org.
Below are a few highlights of what is now available:
Prophets and Apostles Speak Today
The section Prophets and Apostles Speak Today chronicles the ministries of living apostles and prophets, providing access to the Brethren’s messages and insight into their ministry. It includes stories about and interviews with members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Prophets and Apostles Speak Today also provides links to general conference and First Presidency messages, The Family: A Proclamation to the World, The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles, and “classic” addresses by apostles and prophets that remain relevant today.
You can reach the site from the prominent link on the LDS.org home page or from the Study section in the menu.
Calendars
The calendars have been restructured to be easier to use and more useful for wards, stakes, branches, and districts throughout the world. You can now have as many separate calendars as you need. For example, you can have a calendar for Ward Activities, Scouts, Relief Society, Elders Quorum, and Bishopric. Members can control the type of events they see.
When you first log on, you’ll see instructions for transitioning to the new calendars, including an Import Wizard that lets you import events from your existing calendar at stakes.lds.org (or ward.lds.org). The new calendar has a few bugs and will continue to be enhanced during 2011, but it is already better in many ways than the old calendar. Further enhancements in January 2011 will make the interface much more intuitive, so you may want to wait until the January release before widely adopting it in your wards and stakes.
The calendar on LDS.org is available in 10 languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Directories
The directory has also been enhanced. In addition to members’ names and contact information, the new directory includes a place to upload pictures of individuals and families and allows members to edit their information.
The directory on LDS.org is available in 10 languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
You can reach the directory by clicking Tools. You can also go directly there at lds.org/directory.
Church News and Events
This is a source of official news of the Church online. It also brings together headlines from each of the Church’s official news sources, including the Public Affairs Newsroom (newsroom.lds.org), Church magazines (magazines.lds.org), Mormon Channel (MormonChannel.org), and Church News (ldschurchnews.com). The old Around the Church site on classic.lds.org and its associated e-mail and RSS feed will no longer be updated.
Church News and Events works closely with these outlets to cover news and events of interest to Church members and provide a global perspective. Articles can be filtered by topic to help you quickly find information that’s important to you.
Search
The search experience has also been improved. The search box at the top of each page now gives you a list of suggested search terms as you type, instead of giving a list of Recommended Results. This should help you form more precise searches. Upon selecting one of the suggested search terms, or continuing to type your own terms, the completed search will lead to a more user-friendly results page that includes both hand-picked recommended results and results returned by the search engine algorithm. You can narrow your search by collection (magazines, scriptures, general conference, etc.) or by language.
Secured Website for Church Leaders
This is a secure site at lds.org/leader for stake presidencies and bishoprics, including clerks and executive secretaries. It provides membership and organization information, leadership training resources, reports, announcements, the Official Communication Library, and other Church applications to help these leaders fulfill their callings. It was announced in a notice dated October 1, 2010.
Church Handbook and Worldwide Leadership Training
Text, audio, and video of the Worldwide Training meeting held November 13th is online in 40 languages. The new Handbook 2 is online in English, accessible by clicking the feature on the Serving in the Church page. Handbook 1 is also available online, accessible by bishops and stake presidents when they log into the leaders’ site at lds.org/leader.
Languages
In addition to English, much of the site is now available in Spanish and German. Portuguese is scheduled to launch in coming weeks. Over the next few months, the site will be available in seven more languages: Cantonese, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, and Russian. To view the website in a certain language, choose from the drop-down menu labeled “Languages” found in the upper-right corner of any page.
Redirects
Existing bookmarks and links to LDS.org should still work. The development team has been diligent in identifying the new pages and setting up redirects so that your links will go to the new pages. If the new LDS.org doesn’t have an equivalent page to an old LDS.org page, then the redirect will take you to a page on classic.lds.org or to the new home page.
Study Tools
The new online study tools allow you to read and annotate magazines, manuals, and conference talks. As you read, you can highlight, tag, and take notes on paragraphs, verses, or whole pages. All this is added to your secure My Study Notebook, where all your notes are stored. Soon, all these actions will be synchronized between LDS.org and the Gospel Library mobile application so notes taken on a mobile device will be accessible through the website and vice-versa. As you use these tools, the notebook becomes your personal collection of quotes and notes that are searchable through your tags.
In December, My Study Notebook will be enhanced further to allow for separate entries that can be controlled completely within the notebook itself. These journal entries—which might function as personal history entries, thoughts in a study notebook, or even lesson plans—are contained within your own personal, private notebook independent of content from LDS.org.
Sharing
You can share the information, videos, and articles you find with your friends and family. Throughout the new site, buttons allow you to share Church messages with others through Facebook, e-mail, Twitter, and other channels.
Future Releases
Developers are still working diligently on enhancements to LDS.org, such as the following:
Youth Site
Youth.lds.org is being redesigned to be more appealing to youth and bring new content to the forefront when it is published. When the site is completed within a few months, it will house videos, articles, quizzes, polls, and music downloads created especially for youth. It will also include pages highlighting basic doctrines of the gospel and standards from For the Strength of Youth. New content will be added to the site every few days. The site also has a mobile application for the iPhone so youth can access the videos and articles from their mobile device. Versions for the iPad, Android, and other devices will also be developed.
Family
A whole new section will be dedicated to the family. When it becomes available, this section will have pages dedicated to happiness in the family, family history, youth, and children. Family Home Evening resources will be housed in this section to assist parents as they teach gospel principles in the home. These resources will include lesson topic ideas, activities, and Church-produced videos, music, and art.
Media Library
A new media library is also scheduled to launch on the new site soon. When complete, this section will contain a comprehensive collection of Church rich media resources, including video, audio, and images.
For More Information
For more information about the new LDS.org, see the following:
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