Oxwall 1.6 goes live January 8, beta today

Oxwall community is a patient bunch; That’s a hard fact, which we really appreciate, and have something to show you in return. Oxwall 1.6 has finally taken shape for a beta release, and I’m glad to give you a sneak peek of what our team has built.

New Theme: München

Per our tradition, we highlight every major release with a brand new theme. This time it’s a shoutout to the fine town of München:

Munchen

Theme Auto-update

One important thing to note is that now themes can also be auto-updated, just like plugins. It will definitely make life easier for designers and all users.

Social Share Plugin

We decided to make our own integrated social sharing solution that third party plugins may also utilize. It doesn’t place sharing buttons on every page, instead locating them exactly where you need – right near the content in question.

IMG_29112013

Mobile Browser Version

That’s right, Oxwall is now mobile-friendly. Yay! First of all, this is neither a responsive theme, nor a hack to “mobilize” content. This is a completely reimagined product for phone screens (that’s one of the main reason why it took so long to develop it), and it’s optimized for performance in major mobile browsers available today:

In this roll-out we are starting with basic features and several native plugins that show the direction for what Oxwall mobile browsing experience is going to be. We can’t wait to hand it over to the community. You can also expect other native and third party plugins to have their mobile executions ready soon.

Beta and Release

We are entering public beta stage, making Oxwall 1.6 Beta 1 available today.

  • If you are an approved beta-tester, join us at the Beta forum. We start accepting feedback immediately.
  • If you are a plugin developer / theme designer / translator, then you have work to do right now. We urge you to apply for beta-tester status and start making your goods 1.6-compatible.

On January 8, upon the completion of public beta period, the upgrade will be available for all the Oxwall websites out there, as always, right from the admin area.

Oxwall 1.6 is a huge milestone in the product lifecycle, since it finally opens up the new platform for plugins, namely mobile. In a sense, this is more important than anything we’ve done in the last couple of years. Now that mobile context is enabled, other developers can pick it up, and continue their work along with us. Let’s see how this turns out.

This has been a long and arduous year for us, finally bringing the team to the final stages of hard work during this holiday season. January 8 can’t get here soon enough.

Big and exciting things come to Oxwall, so stay tuned and we’ll surprise you. I promise.

Thank you for creating with us!
Emil & the entire Oxwall team.

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53 thoughts on “Oxwall 1.6 goes live January 8, beta today

    • The main features are highlighted in this post. The complete list will be in the actual release notes.

      • Thank’s.

        I know for the mobile plugin.
        But I wish to know for API. Will be included oficial version?

  1. Hello
    Great work !
    Since mobile version designed very carefully and it’s sensitive,Is mobile version optimized for RTL languages?
    as you know many websites use Oxwall in RTL languages
    Thank you

  2. Amazing Im like a kid in a candy store – just so impressed with Oxwall – hats off to you guys, this is a major step in the right direction for oxwall software. Keep up the wonderful work.

  3. I would like to see a video plug in so members can upload their videos right to the website. and not using an embed code

  4. The mobile version looks great! Yes, it’s been a long wait, but I’m glad to be getting a glimpse of what you’ve been working on these past few months, and to know that it will go public soon. My community has a good number of members, but is struggling a bit with the day-to-day activity. I hope that this will increase considerably once people can comfortably use the site from their phones.

  5. One question. If this is a public beta, how do we get it? I can’t find a download link anywhere?

  6. hi,
    it looks great , can anyone tell is it available for public ? cant find any download links for 1.6 ?

    • You have to apply for beta testing. Most people are accepted if:

      -They made themes/plugins for Oxwall (that’s basically an instant acceptance)
      -They are currently working on themes/plugins for Oxwall.
      -They know how to use the platform really well, and are willing to give their full attention to test almost every little aspect.

      The reason for applying for beta testing is to get reports and have most third-party themes/plugins ready for when it is live. Also, many people would just download the beta and runoff and use it :p Structured reports have to be made too in order for perfect clarity.

      • hi guys,
        i just came to know of oxwall recently, i waited 2months for 1.6 as i didn’t want to use an outgoing version , i can wait 1 month more, but just for someone like me (new to oxwall) its important to have a look inside to see and expedite the extension development as i am looking to sync oxwall with joomla

  7. Thanks for the massive work you all do, it is appreciated!
    I am excited for 1.6 upgrade and pleased you have taken the time needed to ensure all is right before releasing.
    Oxwall is No1 in my books 🙂

  8. Спасибо огромное за Вашу проделанную работу! С нетерпением ожидаю данный релиз ! Надеюсь он выйдет в указанные сроки ! 8 января 2013

  9. So we are waiting for just mobile-friendly theme..about !6 months!!! And I am scared how many time it will take to develop Android app..About 6 years?

    • One step at a time…it’s kinda pointless to develop mobile apps THEN develop a mobile web version. Creating iOS, Android, and Windows phone apps will also be difficult for Oxwall to do as it will have to work seamlessly for everyone. Until that idea is sorted, I recommend requesting for someone to build an app for your site at http://oxwall.org/market

  10. Will existing custom themes from the store still work? Will the mobile be a separate interface that the user selects or is autodetected. We have groups and blogs and forums that have a lot of content that we can’t afford to lose as well.

    Thanks!
    Steve

    • Existing themes should work, but we do encourage all theme designers to test their themes on Oxwall 1.6 beta after applying for beta testing. Mobile interface loads upon autodetection. Please note, that some plugins are not mobile-ready yet (including groups, blogs and forums) but no content will be lost, of course.

  11. Very good job! Merry Christmas but when will the update be available on softaculous.?

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  13. With oxwall 1.6, can users upload video directly to oxwall instead of embedding code?
    I mean will you offer this feature by default? Thanks for informative answers.

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