Author Archives: Zima

Oxwall 1.2.4: Improved Newsfeed, Photo and Video Attachments, oEmbed Compatibility

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Following up on the most recent post about the New Release Scheduling System, I’m bringing you the news about the new Oxwall Update.

According to the new schedule, we have completed the Quality Group Testing last week and are now ready for the public release. This time it is a combination of a major bug sweep operation, as well as the introduction of several key improvements and new features.

As always, don’t forget to follow three easy but crucial steps during the update:

  1. Back up your site
  2. Install the update
  3. Upgrade themes

Here is what’s in store:

New Features

  • Introduction of oEmbed compatibility for the Newsfeed (pasting a link into the Newsfeed will now generate a summary with title, picture or video, like in Facebook or Google+):

  • Introduction of Photo and Video Attachments for Status Updates and Comments:

Improved Features

  • Major improvement in Newsfeed response time and server load;
  • Elimination of WYSIWYG input in Status Updates and Comments (since it didn’t work with iPhones and iPads);
  • Birthday Lists are functioning properly now;
  • Addition of Military Time in Events;
  • Numerous minor improvements system-wide;
  • Numerous minor bug fixes;

Enjoy the Update and lets us know what you think in the comments or in the forum.

The New Release Schedule System

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As promised in the comments section, I bring you some wonderful news. To benefit both end-users and our development team, we are switching to a new Release Scheduling System. Allow me to demonstrate it with a few helpful pictures first.

Up until recently our releases were a combination of scheduled fresh features with all the bug fixes picked up along the way. This system looks nice on paper, but in reality it often led to unexpected delays.

Imagine that we have set out to introduce a New Cool Tool for network Admins. In the past our development team would start working on it, all the while fixing up all the reported issues. But then, instead of releasing quick patches in demand, we had to wait until said New Cool Tool is absolutely ready and can be bundled together with the fixes. Sometimes it would take weeks or even months to be sure the New Cool Tool is actually cool enough for prime-time. Needless to say, the extended waiting period can be grueling, thus we decided to change the situation dramatically.

As mentioned in one of the prior posts, the switch to Mercurial DVCS gives us more flexibility. Namely we now have two development branches in place – Dev and Stable. Dev is reserved for big features, like the aforementioned New Cool Tool, while Stable will cover all the bug fixes and minor improvements.

Let me explain how the new system will work. The end-users will no longer have to wait for the new release in the dark. They will know for sure that the new release will be here every month, bringing along all the Stable fixes that are ready by the deadline. In the meantime the Oxwall team will be busy with two weeks of active development work, and a week of testing and compiling documentation. If, during this time, the New Cool Tool will appear to be ready in Dev, it will also end up in the release, along with the fixes.

Here at Oxwall we believe the new system will further improve the software development dynamics, and reinforce our commitment to producing the best professional user-oriented social network builder out there.

Oxwall 1.2.3

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Well, it looks like three’s the charm, so get ready for another quick update.

This time we have fixed several critical errors:

  • WYSIWYG Java script glitches in Floatboxes
  • Bugs in RSS feed
  • Navigation problems (linked to hidden components)
  • Several general Mailbox issues

As always, be sure to follow instructions during the update!

More Languages in Oxwall Forum

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As all of us witness the growing popularity of our favorite social networking software, the Foundation team can’t help but notice the emergence of Oxwall-centric communities in languages other than old boring English.

To make our international friends feel more at home, and give them a place to communicate naturally, we have set up several neighborhoods in our forums.

Please welcome the soon to be busy Spanish, German, Russian and Farsi HQs!

We hope this will expand the possibilities for community interactions and greatly improve the experience for non-English speakers.

Oxwall 1.2.2

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Dear Oxwall users,

We are releasing the 1.2.2 version of our software to address several reported issues.

Here’s what have been fixed:

  • Event Invitation Button sometimes missing
  • Event Invitations not disappearing after an Event has begun
  • Big images messing up Mailbox Layout after upload
  • Forum Customization not being available
  • Several general layout problems
  • View Permission issues during the creation of custom pages
  • Incorrect Video Codes cut-offs
  • Improper spacing between avatars and ‘View More’ in Newsfeed
  • Missing Values disappearing in feeds
  • Unnecessary Line Wrappings in Blogs
  • Improper calculation of ready Values for Language Keys

Important Note:

Please don’t forget to update your themes for the fix to work properly.

Oxwall 1.2 Release

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(Dear users, remember to follow the UPDATE INSTRUCTIONS BELLOW precisely (even with autoupdate)!

Oxwall Foundation is proud to announce the long-awaited Update to 1.2.

We consider this a major step forward, as both admins and users will see the results of the Update across the entire platform.

You might already know that this release brings you an Advanced Photo Upload, More Privacy Options, an Enhanced Newsfeed, and Improved Text Input. (For more details on these features please refer to the wonderful post by Oxwall Founder Emil). Alternatively, you can read on for a point-by-point explanation of the changes we made to the software.

CORE CHANGES

  • Enhanced Text Input

Text Input

  • My Preferences now include subscription options for Mass Mailing
  • Mass Mailing now sent only to active (non-suspended) users
  • New option to create a customizable Welcome Letter
  • Javascript Code now available throughout the site for web statistics, special effects, and other purposes
  • Favicon change in page settings
  • New option to include Avatar Upload and ‘Terms of Use’ checkbox to Registration

NEW PRIVACY PLUGIN
Privacy

Download and install this new plugin from Oxwall Store (but only after you upgrade the platform to 1.2). After the Privacy Plugin is activated in the Admin Area, network members will have several options for setting up their profile and content privacy. All other plugins across the platform will be affected correspondingly.

TWO NEW THEMES

 

          

‘Spring’                                                                                 ‘Grunge’

IMPROVED FEATURES

Advanced Photo Uploader

  • Upload up to 100 photos at once
  • Rotate and auto re-size
  • Add tags and descriptions

Newsfeed

  • Now corresponds to privacy options
  • Improved news item relevancy system (promotes only member-related news items)
  • Improved news item dynamics (shows only recent actions related to news items grouped, as opposed to several news items for every similar action)
  • The long awaited Newsfeed content customization options for admins

Instant Chat

  • Sound notifications for messages
  • ‘Friends Only’ or ‘View All’ modes

Misc

  • Mailbox captchas for sending bulk messages
  • Options to turn off file attachments and set allowed file sizes
  • Newsfeed birthday notifications
  • Various minor bug fixes
—

INSTRUCTIONS

Download

The new shiny Oxwall 1.2 in downloads section: www.oxwall.org/download

Update: File Permissions

IMPORTANT: There’s an old permissions problem that can affect your update process. Before you attempt to update your site (either manually or automatically) you need to set full permissions recursively on your ow_static folder. For example in Linux you need to execute chmod -R 777 ow_static command. If you work with an ftp manager here’s an article to help you.

Autoupdate

IMPORTANT:  Upgrade to Oxwall 1.2 before upgrading any plugins! Seriously, you don’t need to end up with a broken website. Upgrading is easy, just hit that button in the admin area. After that feel free to update and install all other plugins. Even if after platform update your site seems to be broken, keep updating plugins. You should be fine in the end.

Manual update

If you want  to update manually, grab the scripts in downloads sections as well.

 

Themes

Keep in mind, themes need to be updated too. ‘Graphite’ and ‘Club’ will be auto-updated since they are in the package but other themes require your attention. Download your updated theme from the Store. If you made any changes in files, you will have to merge them with the new ones since they contain important fixes and additions. If you didn’t change anything in files directly but in admin area only, feel free to overwrite the theme folder ow_themes/your-theme

 

—

 

Oxwall Foundation is truly grateful to the entire community for its support and understanding during the prolonged waiting cycle, as well as assistance and feedback during the actual development. We are really proud of our work and hope that our efforts will improve your Oxwall experience even further.

 

—

*UPDATE*: To kill some minor bugs that aren’t showstoppers (but are annoying to know about) we’ve just pushed 1.2.1 update. Apply it with all above instructions. If you already have 1.2 working just wait for autoupdate to popup and press it with no hesitation!

In Focus: Presence Effect

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One of the benefits of developing open source software is that sometimes you have to resort to trial-and-error philosophy, which makes you constantly learn something new. For instance, last thing we learned here at the Foundation was that we should NEVER give promises to release updates ‘next week’.

The aforementioned philosophy, though, can be used to great effects while tweaking and customizing Oxwall software. Meet Presence Effect – a growing network from Russia.

Presence Effect

So, at first glance this is a site about aliens or video gaming. Either way it’s awesome. Seriously, what we have on display here is a great deal of design customization brought to the original Oxwall template. It truly shows the flexibility of the solution. The network’s presentation is appealing and right on target for the preferred community. Good job all around. If a website in those things Russians call letters made me stay for longer than at Gamestop, I’d say the mission was accomplished. If anything, Presence Effect shows that with a creative approach an Oxwall-powered site can be turned into a real professional community hub. Oxwall’s In Focus achievement well earned, comrades. Congratulations!

A Quick Update and a Few Answers

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Your blogger is back after a short summer illness (ahem) with a slew of answers to questions in the comments section.

First of all, the thing on everyone’s minds – the upcoming release. It is right around the corner at this point. The Photo Uploader is ready and so are the Privacy and Enhanced Newsfeed. The only thing that holds us back right now is the new System of Text Input. Actually, that one is practically ready to go too, and we are just testing how well it was integrated everywhere in the software. (Also, the latest hold up just happened to coincide with the wedding of one of our most talented developers. Oh, hey, congratulations to Sardar Madumarov and his lovely wife Meerim!)

Next up is the Privacy Setting for Groups. We recognize its importance and the examples in Mkeyes‘ comment are all good and valid. Unfortunately, the feature will NOT be included in the upcoming release. It is, however, on the planning board, as is reflected in our Roadmap under Group Enhancements. Initially we added the groups options in their current simplified shape with an intent of bringing them up to speed later on. It seems that the time has come just for that.

The issue with the Instant Chat Plug-in is also familiar to us. The present (simplest) solution was built on Ajax, leading up to this sort of problems, inherent for applications created with this web development method. Basically, once your network membership grows and more users begin using the plug-in at the same time, the resources drop. I can tell you that Skalfa LLC does plan to release an advanced plug-in to tackle this issue in the future. In the meantime the best way to avoid the current slowdown is to switch to a better hosting option.

Finally, the question of the Registration Approval System. Luckily, this one is easy, since we already have one in place. The feature is available under Settings. After turning it on, Admins will have to manually approve all new registered members on their websites.

Thank you once again for your patience and understanding.

Sneak Peek at Upcoming Oxwall Features

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The last day of spring brings us two polarizing news items. The bad news is that there is no new Oprah this Thursday. Or ever. She’s done. The good news is that we are not done. On the contrary, we are just starting. And to prove that, I’ll give you a sneak peek at the next week’s release of a batch of new features. Are you exited? I know I am!

First things first – you will finally see the much anticipated customization in the User Privacy area. Now website visitors will have more flexibility tweaking their multi-level access options for different content.

Another step towards the frequently requested Facebook familiarity is the retooled Rich Text Formatter. Users will surely appreciate the additional freedom they will have with the feature.

A sweet new instrument we are happy to present to you is the Advanced Photo Uploader. Once again, it simplifies the process of dealing with photographs on your site, and also adds several key extra formatting functions.

Finally, we know that spam is no longer a delicacy (can you believe it was considered as such once), so we forked out some defenses to deal with the matter. Our new feature – Mailbot Spam Control, helps along in eliminating the mass emailing by those pesky bots.

Seeing as how our users in the comments section ask for more steady updates, I hope this news will brighten their day even further. Sometime next week we’ll talk in more detail about each new feature, so stay tuned. But why we bundle these four together and not spread them evenly across the release schedule, you ask? Well, we are working hard on developing and introducing new functionality, so the upcoming modification is just a tip of the iceberg. Yes, I said it, more exciting stuff is on the way. Happy summer, everyone!

SVN to Mercurial Transition

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Time for some quick development news, guys!

While the release of the 1.2 version of our software (featuring useful stuff like user privacy and the retooled user input panel) nears ever closer, Oxwall team is happy to inform you that we are switching from SVN to Mercurial DVCS (Distributed Version Control System). We see this as a natural evolution step in maturing our software, so there is really no downside to this information.

The new system will give everyone more flexibility. For starters, we’ll be able to keep up two development branches (dev and stable) more effectively. On the other hand, the change will allow developers to merge their plug-ins with our updates more effortlessly, due to the simpler process of getting snapshots of nightly builds. Basically, you will not have to wait for the old version of the software to break down on all upgraded websites. Instead, you’ll be able to update your plug-ins almost simultaneously with each new release.

We are bringing you this news early to let plug-in developers know that with the new system their lives are about to become much more easier. Also, if you are still using some other instrumentation, may we suggest switching to a distributed revision control like Mercurial or Git. We chose the former for its simplicity and we hope you do the same.