There won’t be Oxwall 1.5.4

… because there will be Oxwall 1.6.

Per our stated schedule, at this moment we should be preparing Oxwall 1.5.4 – a minor maintenance build with a few bugfixes. We decided to not release it and continue working on more important things. By skipping what can wait, we will not be distracted from what cannot wait at all – Oxwall 1.6.

Why is Oxwall 1.6 so important? It will have the long-awaited mobile browser version.

fb

Like our facebook page or follow us on Twitter to be among the first to know.

At first, in Oxwall 1.6 only the platform and critical native plugins (newsfeed, photo, blogs, and such) will support mobile browsing. Other plugins come later. Third party developers and designers will be able to implement mobile support in their plugins and themes, too.

So, Oxwall 1.6 is expected to land in June. The exact release date will be announced later.

Show me preview!

Hold horses, buddy! Are you a fan of movie spoilers? Really? We suggest everyone to be as patient as we are, so it gets handsomely rewarded in the end.

We are really excited how mobile Oxwall is turning out, and we can’t wait to share it with you. As you know, mobile browsing already overtook desktop in some parts of the world, and is quickly moving to be the primary way to surf the web worldwide. We are very aware about the importance of superior Oxwall experience on mobile devices, so we are doing our best with it. This is why it’s taking so long. For good.

We hope to impress you with our work again. It’s a real pleasure to observe the growth of the project, the number of users, store items, and finally, high quality websites powered by Oxwall. This is what keeps us going day in, day out.

Thank you,

Emil, Oxwall team

Oxwall 1.5.2 Released

Oxwall 1.5.2 Released

Right when you didn’t expect it, (oh wait, you did) Oxwall 1.5.2 hits the Earth. This is a scheduled maintenance release that you are recommended to use over all previous versions.

Available for immediate download: oxwall.org/download

The new theme

Meet Showcase theme!

Showcase

Cloudflare

This new plugin is for connecting your website to your Cloudflare account. It allows you to decrease your page load time by 20-30%, decrease hosting server load time, and maintain your website up for static content when it’s actually down.

We recommend Cloudflare because we use it at Oxwall.org. They also have a free plan.

View setup manual.

IE8 support drop

With this release we decided to pull the plug on IE8 support. It’s an old, insecure, standards-be-damned, dead-on-arrival browser by Microsoft that clearly shouldn’t be used at this point.

Starting with 1.5.2, Oxwall no longer supports IE8, and this is good news for everybody: 1) if you are still using IE8, here’s a nice little reason #598453739842035609 to drop it and download a better, newer, more secure browser, such as Google Chrome or Firefox. 2) if you don’t use it, you will enjoy faster development cycles from our team.

– Changelog –

Platform

  • run the cron job on page refresh
  • redesigned tag input
  • direct permissions management for index/dashboard/my profile widgets.
  • fixed minor issues with the default Origin theme
  • fixed glitch with single choice/drop down profile questions
  • installation script now overwrites config.php if permissions are allowed
  • fixed markup issue on Privacy&Permissions page in admin area
  • fixed markup issue on Pages&Menus page when too many menu items are added to the main menu area
  • rss widget: links now open in new window
  • added default delimiters in toolbar for IPC decorator
  • redesigned “Choose theme” page in admin area
  • fixed an ability to remove account type if any profile questions are assigned to it
  • fixed a glitch with too long titiles for widgets on site index/dashboard/profile view pages

Activity Notifications

  • added an option for users to receive notifications immediately
  • added notification when someone posts a status on user’s profile page

Import contacts

  • added invitation by email
  • fixed facebook invitation page
  • added HTTPS support for facebook import configuration (Secure Canvas URL)

Photos

  • added “Upload photos” button on “view photo album” page
  • redesigned comment box – redesigned “Add photo” page

Other plugins

  • Mailbox: fixed markup issues
  • Blogs: added My Drafts button
  • Events: redesigned attendance buttons
  • Newsfeed: fixed a link to profile in birthdate entry
  • Forum: changed the way attachments are named

– Upgrade –

As always, do not forget to back up your sites before launching the update, just in case, as an extra precaution.

  • Back up your site
  • Update the platform (Instructions)
  • Update all of the installed plugins
  • Update your themes.

Donate to Oxwall development

You can call us idealists. In 2011, when Oxwall project received independence and Oxwall Foundation was formed, we were thrilled by the idea of giving away a highest grade software to anyone in need for free. These two years showed steady growth, real demand, and increasing community activity.

Since we have to make sure that Oxwall long term development is warranted, it would be fantastic if you (yes, you) could help us pay for coffee and hosting bills. In the end of the day, it’s in the interest of every Oxwall community member: store sellers, plugin and theme buyers, and free users.

Donate here: oxwall.org/donation

Oxwall Attribution link

As you remember, Oxwall is CPAL-licensed, which requires to have Oxwall attribution link in place. We are receiving dozens of requests for removal every day. To create a legal way for removal (but to still keep the license policy meaningful and working), we decided to allow it as an optional perk for donating funds to the project.

Please note, that we do not intend to “productize”, encourage, and mass-scale selling link removals, because we still think it’s bad for the community and useless for the site owner. Read our reasoning.

By somewhat backpedalling on our original policy, we only try to meet public demand. We came to Open Source to serve people’s needs. If allowing to remove the attribution is a part of it, so be it.

Donate here: oxwall.org/donation

Thanks,
Emil

Holiday schedule

After successfully releasing Oxwall 1.5, we will spend some well-deserved time with our families.

You will probably not hear from us on December 31 and January 1. You can see us posting on forums and answering questions again on January 2.

Happy holidays!

Oxwall 1.5 available immediately

So, this day has come.

Instead of anticipating the end of the world, we offer you to start the new world with Oxwall. Now your community project can really start living with the new release from our team.

Oxwall 1.5 is available for immediate download. What’s in it?

Important: If you are already running Oxwall of any previous versions, you are encouraged to wait until it’s there in your admin area for autoupdate. Before you attempt it, make sure to:

  • Back up your website. Seriously, folks, better safe than sorry.
  • Install all available plugin updates right after the platform update.
  • If you use a third party theme, update it manually via FTP.

We hope you enjoy Oxwall 1.5 as much as we did while making it. We hope the Internet will now have more quality websites, thanks to your and our work!

Yours infinitely,

Oxwall team

Oxwall 1.5 available on December 19

I’m very excited to share with you what’s about to land on the Earth’s beautiful face with sheer joy, grace, and sanctity, to finally give the “Answer to Life, the Universe and everything”.

I mean, we have just completed development and internal testing for our upcoming release, Oxwall 1.5. This is going to be our most important release this year. What’s so great about it, you ask?

Origin: the new default theme

Oxwall gets the new look’n’feel so it really becomes a whole lot of a different software, especially when Origin works with the new…

Features

  • We redesigned user console, so now it’s less obtrusive, more efficient, and more functional. It can be used by various plugins to enhance user experience and interaction. Now those plugins can get important functions at your disposal within a click or two on every page.

  • As a result, we are introducing real-time on-site notifications, so you’ll be able to find out instantly that someone commented on your photo, or invited you to an event – all while you are chatting or playing games.

  • Instant chat redesigned from ground up to make it more comfortable to chat with friends online.

  • Watchdog, the new native anti-SPAM plugin. It’s functionality is a little limited at the moment, but we commit to make it a valuable part of Oxwall, available out of the box.

  • Very important improvements, including:
    • the ability for admin to edit users’ profile info and view hidden entries;
    • smoothly removing old unused newsfeed items thus improving performance;
    • default rating system improvement;
    • and a million others.

More themes coming soon

We plan to make many new free modern themes based on Origin. You can count on those appearing in the Oxwall Store pretty soon.

Developer beta

… is available immediately. All developers and beta testers will be notified to receive access and start testing the platform and their plugins and themes for compatibility.

Release

For the rest of us, Oxwall 1.5 hits the ground on December 19. That’s what I call stealing thunder from Christmas. Keep tight!

Emil,
Oxwall Foundation team

Paid items in the Oxwall Store: price vs quality

We have a forum user who touched the topic that we are very sensitive about, so in the process of writing the reply I understood we should make our position clear to everyone.

Here’s the original topic: http://www.oxwall.org/forum/topic/6787

Here’s my reply:


Ebony,

You are right. Oxwall needs more free plugins and themes. The long-term project success is based on building enough of a product of superior quality that will enable users run their projects on Oxwall.

The project needs exactly this type of developers and designers — those working for the idea of giving away people excellent software and seeing what happens. That’s how an open source project works before gaining critical mass. Only then people will use software for viable community projects and more people will learn about Oxwall and the demand in software will increase.

But.

All of this is only possible if the resulting product quality is good. Meanwhile, the best developers and designers know the price of their time and only spend it accordingly.

We think the best scenario for Oxwall is to have A LOT of free items and some excellent paid items. So, solving the problem here is not to make bad plugins cheaper but to develop very good plugins and charge what’s reasonable. As for bad plugins, we are on a mission to not let them in and to push them out. If you buy an unsatisftory plugin on the Oxwall Store, give it low rating. Enough low rates will remove the item from the listings.

Too bad, not many of current developers understand that there’s no point in creating a heap of cheap items. Impulse purchases do not create trust and long-term value. Developers and designers should create less items and focus on their quality. It’s just a better business model.

In the end of the day, if there’s excellent free software with necessary third party items of high quality, the end user will not care that much about their price. If price is their only factor of choice, they are not really Oxwall’s target audience. I’ve never seen viable online community projects from people who value the price of software plugins more than their time and their users’ experience. Open source is not about the $0 price tag. It’s about accessibility, options, and trust.

Our position regarding the third party items in the Oxwall Store:

  • We will encourage more free items;
  • No matter free or paid, they will have to be of good quality;
  • We choose “less but better” strategy for the Oxwall Store;
  • We do not plan to drive the item prices down. Open market will decide.

Increasingly, it will be possible to find more plugins outside the Oxwall Store. This is fine, it’s open source after all. It’s just that we plan to maintain the high standard on the official resource for the mainstream users.

Thanks,
Emil

Oxwall wins People’s Choice Award for Best Social Networking Solution in 2012

Hey-ho! We love to inform you that CMS Critic named Oxwall People’s Choice for Best Social Networking Solution of 2012. This is the recognition of our hard work during this year and all of the improvements we’ve brought so far to the product and the emerging Oxwall ecosystem.

We are really honored by this acknowledgement, and it drives us to work even harder to reinforce this public opinion of Oxwall.

Right now we are getting down to internal testing phase for Oxwall 1.5 — the most anticipated release in our 2 year history. We are so excited about the upcoming event, we can’t see straight! Watch news, we want to share this excitement with you in several “From Dusk Till Dawn” cycles.

By using Oxwall you are also a winner, let’s celebrate it together!

Thank you,
Oxwall Foundation team

Vote for Oxwall at 2012 Critic’s Choice CMS Awards

We are pleased to announce that Oxwall is nominated at Critic’s Choice CMS Awards for the “Best Social Networking Solution” category.

It’s time for the world to reflect on the fact that Oxwall is a rising star of community software, so winning would be a nice start for that journey. We didn’t have particularly high expectations to get nominated, so this came as a little surprise. As if those guys from CMS Critic know what we are cooking up here for Oxwall 1.5 🙂

Do vote for your favorite software here: http://www.cmscritic.com/critics-choice-cms-awards/

Thank you,
Emil

Oxwall 1.4.1 security release

Our users informed us about a possible security threat present in all Oxwall versions, including 1.4. We eliminated it and rolled out this unplanned security release. It contains:

  • User Role management security fix;
  • Prevention of possible XSS attacks in profile questions.

Please update to Oxwall 1.4.1, as soon as it’s available for automatic update in your admin area.