Oxwall 1.2.6 & Oxwall Store Update

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Zima

Your eyes don’t deceive you. The second Oxwall release in less than a week is indeed here. We thought that it’s worth pushing it out ahead of schedule. Here’s why.

With this release we open the doors of the Oxwall Store to all paid plugin developers out there. As you might know only free plugins were available for download until recently. Now any developer with a worthy product can set a price on their plugins and sell them at our store. Of course, said plugins (or any other goods in Oxwall Store for that matter) must comply with OSCL – Oxwall Store Commercial Licence.

Note that plugins not developed by Oxwall are sold as is – we are not responsible for any trouble they might cause to your sites, so check all the accompanying documentation very carefully.

To make sure everything is working as it should, please back up your site and then upgrade the software to 1.2.6. Alternatively, just wait for the Auto-update Button, which should appear in the Admin area of your network within 24 hours after the launch of the update.

Oxwall 1.2.5: Feature and Quality Improvements

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Zima

As promised last week, we have completed Quality Group testing and are ready to bring you Oxwall 1.2.5. A slew of bug fixes and feature improvements are in store.

Now, remember to follow these simple steps to avoid any potential troubles, if you are really impatient and want to update your software manually:

Back up your site
Install the update

Or you can just wait a couple more hours for the Auto Update button (advisable) to appear in the Admin area (it will show up in the span of 24 hours after the launch of the update).

Here is a list of changes:

Newsfeed and Events Improvements

Status Update is now integrated into the Newsfeed;
Changing Event icon in Newsfeed is now functioning properly;
Birthdays can now be configured to show up as Newsfeed items;
Changes to Group descriptions and icons are now reflected in the Newsfeed;
Notification system for Event commenting added;

User Features Improvements

Users without permission to create Groups will no longer see a link allowing them to do so;
A bug appearing when reaching photo upload limit is fixed;
Search field in Forum now recognizes “/”;
‘Featured’ tab (with user photos and videos) is no longer visible unless there is actual featured content present;
Attachment Button functions properly in Internet Explorer now;
Right-to-Left text input is now available for WYSIWYG;
Option to open a link in a new window is added for WYSIWYG;
Option to disable favicon is added;
Userlist recognition of ‘&’ symbol is fixed;
Language issues fixed in Mailbox and Events;
Guest visitors are now asked to Sign-in before viewing Friends Lists;
Blog and Links widgets will not be visible on the frontpage until an appropriate item is added;
‘More’ button is functioning properly now on the Blog and Links pages;

Admin Features Improvements

Software installation is now possible with an empty password field, if applicable;
‘Page’ GET parameter is fixed in the Forum;
Flagged pictures are now reachable even without included description;
Mass Mails can now be sent only to active users with confirmed emails;
Maximum photo file size in Mailbox can now include decimals;

Enjoy!

Oxwall Policy Changes and Oxwall Club

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Zima

Oxwall Policy Changes and Oxwall Club Dear community members, we would like to draw your attention to several changes and additions to our policies. For your convenience all of them can now be found in the ‘Oxwall Policies and Licenses‘ section of the main Oxwall website.

Oxwall Domain Policy

This new policy is introduced due to trademark issues and to avoid possible confusion among regional and vertical Oxwall websites dedicated to the software itself (translation, distribution, etc.). In short, we ask webmasters not to use ‘Oxwall’ in top-level domain names. Click here for more details.

Oxwall Attribution Policy

The attribution topic frequently comes up in the comments, when webmasters of Oxwall-powered networks ask us whether they can remove the ‘Powered by Oxwall’ logo at the bottom of the page. The thing is – Oxwall is Open Source, and in return we only ask the community to keep the attribution. Click here for more details.

Other important documents in the ‘Oxwall Policies and Licenses‘ section include Oxwall License, Oxwall Store Terms of Use, Oxwall Store Commercial License, and Oxwall Software Terms of Use.

Oxwall Club

Now we are getting to the fun part. Oxwall Foundation is proud to launch an exclusive Oxwall Club. It will unite officially recognized international communities devoted to local promotion of our software, as well as helping Oxwall-powered networks in their native languages. So now you know that anyone with a CLUB badge in the forum is actually a representative of a regional or vertical community. Click here to learn about the benefits of Oxwall Club membership and other details.

Upcoming Oxwall Release

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Zima

Dear Oxwall users,

As some of you have noted in the comments section, it is indeed time for another software update. The entire next week is scheduled for the quality testing of feature improvements and bug fixes we have found since the last release.

As usual, have some patience and keep an eye on our blog, for a special notice about the launch of the update. Everything should be ready in about a week and a half.

This time the new release will not bring any major changes, but rather will feature a load of requested and necessary fixes for Newsfeed, Events, Groups, Forums, Mailing Lists, etc. We want to polish up the software in its current form before taking another major step by introducing new features and functions. The full list of Oxwall 1.2.5 improvements will be released along with the update.

Oxwall Available through Simple Scripts

Posted on October 7, 2011 by Zima

Wonderful news everyone! Oxwall Software is now available through Simple Scripts.

Simple Scripts is a hosted service, which allows instant one-click installation of over 70 top web applications. We are now in the great company of WordPress, Joomla, Roundcube, Drupal, and many others.

In a nutshell, Simple Scripts works though a choice number of popular control panels (including cPanel), and takes care of any issues with support, maintenance, updates, etc. The current version available is our latest release Oxwal 1.2.4.

In addition to Simple Scripts, Oxwall is also available through Softaculous, a similar web service that allows instant software installation. We believe this brings our free and open source platform even closer to the community.

Thank you Steve

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Emil

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

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Zima

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:

Back up your site
Install the update
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

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Zima

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.

A Word to Community

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Emil

Dear Oxwall users,

I want to thank everyone for choosing our software. We all believe in open source values and one of these is transparency. With this in mind, there’s one topic I’d like to discuss with you; namely, our latest release.

Oxwall 1.2.3 release was unplanned and was triggered by us finding some showstopper bugs affecting some users.

By releasing the update we received feedback that the rushed release caused more problems to more users than the original 1.2.2. Some people were very vocal about their problems and blamed us for “breaking” their sites. Of course, the sites are not broken. Every individual problem can be solved by us looking at it. And we want to do that. Let us know if anything is still wrong with your setup.

It would be too easy for us to take “love it or leave it” approach. Instead we believe all software should be excellent – no matter free or commercial.

I wanted to assure everyone who is using Oxwall that we are determined not only to make it the best social software product but to also make administrator experience perfect. We’ve spoiled our users by easy, 1-click updates. So when you click the button you trust us.

We rely on your trust and generally update experience is good for most users. Currently we are introducing the new release scheduling system and automating release routines. More about that in a separate blog post soon.

Thank you,

Emil & Oxwall Foundation team.

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