We are very happy to announce the release of SocialEngine Self-Hosted 5.0.0b1! This beta release adds a new theme, lots of improvements and fixes. This is a beta release for fresh installs only.
Here’s what’s new in 5.0.0b1:
- New “Serenity” theme.
- Improved login security – new password routine, two-step authentication added.
- New group features – blog, poll, and video added!
- Improved spam control – flood control, allow admin to resend email verification per user.
- More subscription options – manual payments, free subscriptions don’t need payment gateway, added PayPal test mode.
- Added “Other” to Gender profile question.
- Setting added for admin to delete “orphan” photos from database. These are photos that a user may have started uploading but then did not click to save them.
- Added restriction for editing main Super Admin user by other users with admin access. This is for the security of the main Super Admin account.
- Added ability to edit post privacy when editing a feed post.
- *Speed Improvement* – added database indexing where necessary. This will improve performance by fetching the data much faster!
- *Speed Improvement* – removed APCu as Redis or Memcached are better for multi-server setup for high availability or large sites. General file caching is fine for small sites to medium sites.
- Rename install/config/auth.php to “auth.sample.php” for third party developer needs.
- Added Report option for status posts and comments.
- Changed icon when viewing someone else’s profile from a pencil (edit) icon to . This is to avoid confusing users.
- Updated Font Awesome icons to the current version.
- Added setting for admin to choose whether to send a welcome email if email verification is enabled. This helps reduce the amount of mails going out for those who monitor email quantity.
- Updated Memcache to Memcached.
- Improved error messages when package manager fails.
- Improved User Info Widget. Added admin settings for what shows. Added privacy settings for user to control what shows.
- Add Unicode Emoticons for current emoticons in order to support mobile apps.
- Update Facebook API.
- Improved error message when a client uploads a file that’s too large for server settings.
- Added file & media upload files to storage system set by admin.
- Added FontAwesome icons for profile questions and member info.
- Updated Flowplayer.
Wow! That’s quite a lot of new features and improvements. We’ll have documentation coming for all of these new features. Mobile apps will be coming once we reach our stable release. We know you just can’t wait for those!!
Following is a list of fixes in this release:
Bugs Fixed:
- Fixed – issue with Last.fm profile question for some servers.
- Fixed – theme.css is not a file for SDK build package.
- Fixed – privacy for blogs and classifieds when set to “Just Me” was not working on initial save.
- Fixed – blog title has no max length limit for input. This is fixed for blogs and classifieds.
- Fixed – multiple “and’s in message recipients.
- Fixed – remove old affiliate input box in admin and added a link to new affiliate earnings details.
- Fixed – moving tabs on profile tab container breaks container if activity feed isn’t first in the list.
- Fixed – friend confirmation e-mail has recipient link rather than owner link.
- Fixed – illegal offset userid warning when profile mapping.
- Fixed – error when trying to sign in from forgot password auth page.
- Fixed – video type is not sent while storing videos in Amazon S3. This created an issue in Restful APIs.
- Fixed – mini menu icons don’t show on cloned themes.
- Fixed – hard coded phrases:
- “This account still requires either email verification or admin approval.”; “This account still requires either email verification or admin approval.”
- “Save Position”; “Save Position”
- “Upload Cover Photo”; “Upload Cover Photo”
- “Choose a cover photo.”; “Choose a cover photo.”
- “Delete Cover Photo?”; “Delete Cover Photo”
- “Are you sure you want to delete this cover photo?”; “Are you sure you want to delete this cover photo?”
- “Reposition”;”Reposition”
- “Remove cover photo”; “Remove cover photo”
- “Recent Messages”; “Recent Messages”
- “Choose from Albums”; “Choose from Albums”
- Fixed – welcome email not sent if email verification enabled.
- Fixed – mail errors seen with development mode enabled. These errors were only from development mode and caused issues when trying to test SMTP.
- Fixed – sites without photo albums enabled had large database when users uploaded profile photos and profile cover photos as the old ones were not being deleted.
- Fixed – delete files from the temporary directory when work gets completed.
- Fixed – icons only work in vertical menu.
- Fixed – e-mail preference text in footer of e-mails does not get translated.
- Fixed – removed Janrain as they stopped offering the feature.
As we have mobile apps coming, our minimum requirements will be updated to include requiring the following:
PHP extensions: IntlChar (required for Unicode characters support.)
If you want to use the mobile apps when available, please be sure to check with your host and send them our requirements list.
A complete changelog is available for more details about the changes and fixes implemented in this 5.0.0b1 release.
You can download your copy of version 5.0.0b1 from your client dashboard. New clients who purchased within the past 90 days will see the download available once you click the “SocialEngine” file. For clients not seeing the download, a fee is required in order to unlock this version.
As this is a beta release, it is for testing purposes only and not for use on live sites. Fresh installs should follow our installation tutorial or you can order an installation ticket and our team will get it installed in no time as long as your development site is installed on a server (per the license terms).
Note: As we have a new theme, Insignia is being retired and will no longer be supported. It will be available as a free download from our store for those that want to use it and get experts to update it.
If you find any issues with this release, please let us know by filing a bug report in our Buwhog Tracker. We’d also like to encourage you to stay connected with our community.
With Great Appreciation,
The SocialEngine Team
