Category Archives: News

There won’t be Oxwall 1.5.4

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… 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.

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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 1.5.1: Bug Fixes and New Theme

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We hope everyone had enough time to play around with Oxwall 1.5, since we are ready to give you the next regular update. This release will remedy a few pesky bugs left from 1.5, and will further improve the software performance.

  • Profile questions are no longer removed alog with deleted account types;
  • Site activity notifications are now sent to users who haven’t logged in for more than two days;
  • Slideshow preloader improved;
  • Blogs routing bug fixed;
  • Resolved Cron error for theme processing;

Of course, it’s not a proper Oxwall release without a new theme, and this time we are joining the dark (but fun) side, with an all-original Darklets social networking template. Expect more quality themes in the future. Enjoy!

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

  1. Back up your site;
  2. Update the platform (Instructions);
  3. Update all of the installed plugins;
  4. Update your themes.

Oxwall 1.5 available on December 19

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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

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

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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

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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 Store Revamped

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General Thoughts

The essential changes to the Oxwall Store that we’ve talked about for some time now are finally here. As the Store experienced the increased activity, we couldn’t help but notice the system becoming cluttered. Something had to be done, and thus we undertook the task of introducing some order and organization within the project. It is our belief that Oxwall Store should be a simple and comprehensible place. Here’s what we did to achieve that.

Oxwall Store Revamped

Different Listings

Prior to the change, Oxwall Store featured one single listing of all plugins created for the platform. Needless to say, that wasn’t really convenient or efficient. Instead, we’ve come up with a division into four different listing types.

Oxwall Store Revamped

  • Featured

Items found here will be carefully selected by members of the Oxwall Foundation, as most beneficial for the entire community.

  • Most Popular

The section will show the end-user what the community thinks are the best themes and plugins. The popularity of items here will be measured by the combined score of top ratings, most downloads, etc.

  • Top FREE

Most popular free items will end up in this category.

  • Latest

This is self-explanatory – all the latest items will be automatically placed here.

Reviews

Oxwall Store RevampedReviews are now comprised of three sections – title, short user opinion of the item, and the score (with the maximum of five stars). Also, all reviews can now be rated as helpful by other users. Paid items will be open for reviews only upon purchase. In addition, all submitted reviews will be pre-moderated by the Oxwall Team. Ain’t the democracy a great thing? 😉

Oxwall Store Revamped

Note that all support questions will be separated from the item score, and could be addressed or reported only on the forum.

Oxwall Store Revamped

While converting to the new system we have moved all comments about the item to a separate section of the item’s forum called Support Questions. It is no longer possible to leave simple comments on the item’s page. The scores (without feedback) have been saved as well. So if you browse the Store and see a score without any actual reviews around, that can mean only one thing – this score was converted from submissions prior to the introduced change.

More Items Widget

Oxwall Store RevampedWe’ve added a new widget to item pages, called ‘More plugins/themes from this author.’ It will show other items the user has added to the Store, which is a very convenient tool for promoting specific store items through the ones already achieved popularity. The item list for the widget is compiled by the user through the item edit page.

Minor Stuff

We have also revamped item pages themselves, to allow visitors immediaely see all the necessary information and scores left by other users.

The presentation of each item in the overall listing was made more detailed and informative.

Traditionally, we’ve fixed some minor system bugs.

Conclusion

We hope you will like this latest improvement of Oxwall Store. In our opinion the changes will benefit everyone, including visitors looking for new plugins, and developers displaying their creative output. Check out our progress and tell us what you think. Enjoy!

 

 

Oxwall Market Partners oDesk

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Dear friends,

For quite a while now we’ve been looking into introducing improvements for Oxwall Market to streamline its entire operation. To do that we’ve partnered with oDesk – the world largest and fastest-growing online community of freelance developers.

For your convenience we’ve placed oDesk widget on the Oxwall Market page, listing all available developers pre-screened as qualified for Oxwall Jobs. The database of contractors can be searched right from within Oxwall Market, with the option to filter results by hourly rates, location, feedback score, etc., to find the best developer for the job.

We believe the partnership will boost Oxwall Market efficiency, and bring the community directly in contact with professional developers offering quality help.

Oxwall Market Partners oDesk

Summer Break

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Dear Oxwall Community,

Oxwall team will be taking a short summer break July 26 – July 30. Drop us a line in the Forum if you encounter any problems. All reports submitted during our absence will be addressed immediately upon our return to operation on Monday.

Have a great weekend,

Oxwall Team.

Oxwall 1.4.0: New Photo Viewer, Google Contacts Importer, Improvements and Fixes

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Hey guys, remember when we promised you a hot summer ahead? Well, the time has come, and we are ready to roll out the next eagerly anticipated update! By now you’ve seen bits and snippets of it everywhere, but here’s the real deal: Oxwall 1.4.0 is finally here. Before you get to it, though, don’t forget to

BACK UP YOUR SITE BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO UPDATE THE SOFTWARE!

Seriously, this will save you a lot of headache if something goes wrong, although, nothing really should. Anyway, just follow these simple steps and you’ll be fine:

  1. Back up your site;
  2. Update the platform (Instructions);
  3. Update all of the installed plugins;
  4. Update your themes;

Also, don’t forget that you don’t have to do a thing manually. Just wait for the AUTO UPDATE BUTTON, pressing which will do the trick. The button will appear in the Admin Area within 24 hours after the launch of the update.

So, let’s get down to business and see what’s inside Oxwall 1.4.0:

PHOTO

  • Completely redesigned photo browsing;
  • Private photos: fixed display in top rated list;
  • New design element, Context Action: currently on photo view only;

INVITE FRIENDS

  • Google Contact Import is back and improved;

QUICK LINKS

  • New dashboard widget Quick Links, instead of separate plugin widgets;

NEWSFEED

  • Profile Newsfeed: new ability for others to post;
  • Main  Newsfeed enhanced;

FORUM

  • Added search results order by date and relevance;
  • Form buttons location redesign;

COMMENTS

  • Ability to choose preview images for posted URLs;

VIDEO

  • Long titles and descriptions are now truncated;

GIFTS

  • Fixed a bug with “&” symbol in personal messages;

GROUP LISTS

  • Fixed double paging;

VARIOUS IMPROVEMENTS AND FIXES

  • Birthday fields (date/month/day) can be translated via Language section;
  • Fixed online user display in case of “me only” mode;
  • Flagging now works without page reload;
  • Moderators now can see private content for moderation;
  • Various language strings fixed;

So now you can see where our excitement came from. We hope you like the update, and if you do, tell us about it in the comments. The forum is the place if you encounter any problems. Enjoy the update and don’t forget to check our blog for more exiting news about future released.

Oxwall: 100,000 Downloads and Counting

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Oxwall: 100,000 Downloads and Counting

Dear friends,

As many of you have noticed, we have climbed over another impressive milestone. Ladies and gentlemen, as of last week Oxwall Software has been downloaded over 100,000 times since first becoming publicly available! These are the numbers straight from our site, so the final figure is even bigger once auto-installer downloads are counted in.

We take this as great encouragement and a sign that we took the right development trajectory. In a few days we will give you Oxwall 1.4, and with the next programming cycle around the corner, we are already working on even more impressive features.

Indeed, we have a pretty hot summer ahead, with plenty of tasty delights coming your way pretty soon. Here is a sneak peek at what to expect in the nearest future:

  • New default theme
  • New real-time notification system
  • New member console
  • More professional themes
  • Store improvements
  • Mobile version
  • New CMS functions

As you can see, we are keeping quite busy to make sure all people downloading our software are not disappointed. Expect some of the listed features this coming season.

We would like to thank the entire Oxwall community for making this breakthrough a reality.

Oxwall Team.