Oxwall 1.7 on July 8, beta today

Finally, we have definite release date for the next version. Oxwall 1.7 will be out on July 8, with developer beta available today.

As you know, we first planned to have 1.6.1 release with a lot of improvements and fixes. However, a few distinct platform changes creeped in, so this release is shaping up more important than just a new build, and we call it minor version advance, namely Oxwall 1.7.

Important changes

Attention, developers, designers, and admins! Apart from some updated plugins, there are platform changes that require your attention:

  • New option to assign specific user roles for each account type;
  • New option to assign separate list of profile questions for each account type;
  • Modified user permission check (developers, you need to adapt your plugins!);
  • Attachments for all media (messages, forums, comments, etc) are redesigned (designers, you may need to adapt your themes!);
  • Comment box redesigned (designers, you may need to adapt your themes!);

For all changes see complete changelog.

Apart from that there are two major advancements to highlight:

Complete photo redesign

We’ve been working on the new photo plugin for the last 6 months. Hopefully, it works better than the current one, so your community enjoys easier and more effective photo sharing facilities:

Photo list

Single photo view

Newsfeed photos

Among the most notable features are:

  • New advanced bulk photo upload;
  • New photo list view;
  • New photo album view;
  • Optimized photo preview (info and comments in sidebar);
  • Search by keywords, users, hashtags;
  • Full-screen slideshow;
  • Photos posted to newsfeed are now collected in a photo album.

There are a lot of hidden gems in this one, so we’ll leave them for you to discover when Oxwall 1.7 gets released to the public.

Mailbox + Chat = Messages: complete redesign + mobile version support

The new Messages plugin comes to replace the two old plugins: Instant Messenger and Mailbox. When you install the new plugin, it will migrate the data from the Mailbox and deactivate it automatically.

Oxwall messages

 

Messages  Messages

What’s in it?

  • Chat only mode, mail only mode, or both;
  • Additional on-page interface for chat with saved history;
  • Now possible to send a message from mailbox to any recipient;
  • Revamped attachments for both chat and mail;
  • Inline images and video in chat;
  • Chat and mail is now also in Oxwall mobile browser version.

We hope you will appreciate the interconnectedness and easiness of the new way of sending messages in Oxwall.

This plugin is deeper than a few screenshots could show, so we invite you to explore its capabilities.

Developer beta

It’s available for download now. If you signed up for beta testing, you will be able to obtain it from the private beta release forum. Check it out.

If you are a developer or a designer but haven’t signed up for it yet, you are recommended to do that right away. There’s a high chance that you need to update your work to make it compatible with Oxwall 1.7. Developer’s guide to the platform changes is packed with the beta.

We are eager to send the new bulk of awesomeness your way. July 8 is the day it hits the ground, together with the updated versions of plugins by 3rd party developers.

All hail Oxwall!

Emil & the Oxwall team

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34 thoughts on “Oxwall 1.7 on July 8, beta today

  1. this is such good news i’m glad to hear about the messages and chat being combined. cant wait to install the beta on my test site tonight 🙂

  2. Great…I am the first to post here…I just came to know about Oxwall when I was searching for a social network platform a day back. I was struggling with PHPFox and SE for the last two weeks. Honestly it is very surprising the level of perfection Oxwall have when compared to PHPFox and SE…I thought of building my site on 1.6…I think I can wait for another couple of weeks…for 1.7. Oxwall is awesome…I will definitely provide my contribution on its development. I am happy I land here for my requirement.

  3. Alot of changes i think its a huge overhaul for the mobile interface and looks great .I have recently checking the the follow function i guess that logic is now fixed hands down .

  4. this is just great….oxwall team bigup!!! i cant wait to upgrade to oxwall 1.7.0

  5. You guys finally listened about the photos in newsfeed you really surprised me with this one oxwall great job I honestly have not a single complaint about this release!

  6. In process of setting up site is it best to wait till July and get the 1.7 or will it upgrade OK? Is the upgrade process easy?

    • The update process is fairly easy if you have no code customizations – just push buttons in the admin area.

  7. I am using oxwall software from beta days and the last 2updates is 3rd big updates which has happen in oxwall history 😀

  8. wooow keep going guys .. in live with oxwall

    1 more thing i was beta tester at time of 1.6 ,i already got a mail to take part in beta testing this time as well but links are not accessible do I need to apply again ?

  9. Oxwall is the best. Thanks for the update. Looking forward for a awesome and better newsfeed.

  10. Why in mobile for oxwall last versoin no have signup have only signin why? Please resolve this problem this is big problem that i close view mobile thanks

  11. Great, I’m looking forward to it!

    The Photos plug-in was in desperate need of a general overhaul, glad that you agreed on this, and I’m curious to test out the new version. Also, great to see that more functionality will be available from the mobile site.

    I’m a bit unsure about the combination of personal messages and instant messaging. I have disabled IM on my site, as I’m on a relatively weak shared hosting account, and the AJAX generates too much server load. Will I be able to prevent this by switching to the “mail only” mode?

  12. “Comment box redesigned (designers, you may need to adapt your themes!)”

    You mean how Darklets has still not been updated to support 1.6/mobile?! Come on Oxwall!

    • We are working to adapt native themes, too. It wasn’t the reason to delay beta, since we give it to developers and testers.

  13. I am testing and using oxwall since 2013. I have sent email to oxwall support to send me the link where I can download and test the oxwall 1.7.0 and after testing of users to inform the positives and negatives of new update.

    But, almost 3rd day and did not get any feedback..

    Oxwall appreciated team, Can anyone help me pls? Many thanks.

    Sincerely,

    Umar

  14. Thanks for update. Will upgrade after original release. However going to test beta now.

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