phpFox2 Beta 5 has arrived.

Beta 5 is currently scheduled as the final Beta release for phpFox2. September 9, 2009 is when our next version will be released and it will be our first "Release Candidate". At that point the product will be closed and no more features will be added until the next incremental version release. During the RC stage we will focus on moving all hard coded phrases into the default language package and debug all the areas of the script that have been developed thus far. During this time we will be bringing in 3rd party companies to test certain areas where it is important to gain perspective from a 3rd party.

These areas include:

• Finding Exploits/Vulnerabilities
• Search Engine Optimization
• Stress Testing / Benchmarking

We will shortly cover what is new with Beta5, if you would like to catch up with what our past Alpha/Beta versions introduced you can find more information here

• Alpha 1
• Alpha 2
• Alpha 3
• Alpha 4
• Beta 1
• Beta 2
• Beta 3
• Beta 4

Whats new in phpFox2 Beta5

Footerbar Instant Messenger

We had initially planned on releasing a Chat module and wait with the Instant Messenger till v2.1, however we felt it was crucial to focus our efforts on the IM now as it can in the long run be transformed into a general chat gateway as well. The new IM unlike past versions is not a popup a user will have to click in order to get logged in, it is now located on our footer bar and the user is automatically logged into the IM as soon as they have logged into the site or reactivate their online status. Users can disable the IM entirely or set their site status to "online", "away" or "appear offline". The IM is disabled by default as we require Admins to enable this feature as it is recommended to be used on dedicated servers as this sort of feature requires a lot of interaction with the database and at a very high frequency in order to sustain an "instant messenger" environment. No requirements at the moment, however depending on benchmark tests from public sites they may/will be added at a later time. You are still unable to "pop out" the IM, which could be used to break the IM away from the footer bar; however we left that out for now as we need to test the functionality of the IM when connected to the footer bar.

To chat with another user they have to be on your friends list and logged into the site. Users can block other members and at a later time remove them from their "Block List".

Here are some screenshots of the IM in action:

Instant Messenger - Chatting	Instant Messenger - Friend List
Instant Messenger - Friend List

Future plans for this module include:

• Link to chat with the user on their profile if they are online.
• Pager to limit how many friends can be seen on the chat list.
• Friend search.
• Emoticon Support.
• Ability to include non-friends to my chat list. (Will be developed for v2.1).
• Ability to "pop out" the chat from the footer bar. (Will be developed for v2.1).

Advanced Profile Designer

Past phpFox2 versions included the "Profile Designer", which can be found once you login and go to "Profile >> Customize Profile".

Thus far the profile designer has had support to select themes and custom blocks for your profile. With Beta5 it has been extended to allow you to custom design your profile using the "Advanced" or "CSS" editors we provide. The "Advanced" editor allows you to change many aspects of the profile page and the elements it contains.

Each "setting" is based on CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and we provide the following support:

• Background:
  
  • Color (Color Picker Provided)
  • Image (Full URL to the Image)
  • Scroll (For Image):
    
    • Yes
    • No
    
    
  • Position (For Image):
    
    • top left
    • top center
    • top right
    • center left
    • center center
    • center right
    • bottom left
    • bottom center
    • bottom right
    
    
  • Repeat (For Image):
    
    • Do Not Repeat
    • Across
    • Down
    • Tile
    
    
  
  
• Font:
  
  • Color (Color Picker Provided)
  • Family:
    
    • Microsoft Sans Serif
    • Verdana
    • Arial Black
    • Arial
    • Courier New
    • Palatino Linotype
    • Tahoma
    • Franklin Gothic Medium
    • Lucida Console
    
    
  • Size:
    
    • 8px
    • 9px
    • 10px
    • 11px
    • 12px
    • 14px
    • 16px
    
    
  • Style:
    
    • normal
    • italic
    • oblique
    
    
  • Weight:
    
    • normal
    • bold
    • bolder
    • lighter
    
    
  
  
• Text:
  
  • Align:
    
    • left
    • right
    • center
    • justify
    
    
  • Transform:
    
    • none
    • capitalize
    • uppercase
    • lowercase
    
    
  • Decoration:
    
    • none
    • underline
    • overline
    • line-through
    
    
  
  
• Borders:
  
  • Style:
    
    • none
    • dotted
    • dashed
    • solid
    • double
    • groove
    • ridge
    • inset
    • outset
    • inherit
    
    
  • Width:
    
    • 0px
    • 1px
    • 2px
    • 3px
    • 4px
    • 5px
    • 6px
    • 7px
    • 8px
    
    
  • Color (Color Picker Provided)
  
  
• Padding:
  
  • Size:
    
    • 0px
    • 1px
    • 2px
    • 3px
    • 4px
    • 5px
    • 6px
    • 7px
    • 8px
    
    
  
  

Depending on the sub-section you are editing and the elements it contains it will include part or all of the support settings mentioned above. For the "Page Width" sub-section, this controls the width of your profile and we provide the following sizes: Default, 790px, 90% or 100%.

All changes made via the "Advanced" editor is live and will show up on your profile as soon as the changes are made. For the "CSS" editor this will allow you to add CSS code and fully control your profiles design. We provide a "Preview" link to allow users the ability to preview the CSS code on the spot.

Check out the set of screenshots to get a better idea of these new changes:

Profile Designer - Menus	Profile Designer - Design with BG Image
Profile Designer - Design with 790px Page Width	Profile Designer - CSS Editor
Profile Designer - Advanced Editor

RSS Module

The RSS module has been a part of phpFox since 1.6 and has been extended with Beta5 to allow other modules to interact with this module as well as giving users the ability to track their own subscribers.

The updated module includes the following set of features:

• Admins can manage RSS feeds direct from AdminCP.
• Admins can add new RSS feeds direct from AdminCP.
• RSS Feeds can be set to an active or inactive state.
• RSS Feeds can be set to be "site wide" and if they are they will included in the template headers, which browsers will identify and notify end-users if they would like to subscribe to the specific feeds.
• Modules that currently support RSS Feeds are:
  
  • User Updates (Located on users profile and lists all the recent activity on that user if they permit it based on their privacy settings.).
  • List of new Events.
  • List of new Blogs.
  • List of new Blogs based on the blog categories.
  • List of new Forum Topics.
  • List of new posts to a specific forum topic.
  • Comments for each item/profile includes RSS Feed.
  
  
• RSS subscriber count on a users profile. (Privacy setting to disable).
• RSS subscriber count within dashboard.
• User can view a log to find how many subscribers they have and detailed information within a graph (Provided kindly by Google).
• AdminCP includes a log to provide information on all the subscribers on a specific feed.

Here is a set of screenshots:

RSS Module - AdminCP Manager	RSS Subscribers Count - Users Dashboard
RSS Subscribers Count - Users Profile	RSS Feed Index
RSS Feed Log - AdminCP	RSS Feed Log - End User

Announcement Module Updated

Our Annoucement module has been updated since our last release and include the following changes:

• Start time stamp added, which allows Admins the ability to schedule an announcement that can be sent at a later time.
• Control if an announcement should be displayed within the dashboard or not.
• Control if a user can close an announcement or not.
• User filtering based on User group, age group, location and gender.

Mail Module Updated

Our Mail module has been updated with the following changes:

• Admins can limit how many messages a user group can have.
• There is a user group setting (Admins have this enabled by default) to bypass the setting that controls how many messages a user can have. With this enabled and if the recipient is not allowed to receive any further messages due to their inbox being full the user with the bypass setting can still send the recipient a message.
• Next/Previous buttons provided to browse messages.
• Admins can control if PM's should only be used to send messages between friends.
• Admins can control if users can save a message to their own inbox.
• Admins can control if users can delete all their messages. The "Delete All" functionality includes all messages and not just the messages found on the current page.
• Admins can control when messages should automatically be removed from the trash can. Users will be warned how long messages can stay within the trash can before they are deleted.
• Attachments can now be added to PM replies.

Featured Members

Admins can now feature members direct from the AdminCP. Members that are featured will show up on the sites index page as well as on the main browse section. Admins can control how many featured members should show up at one time on the "Featured Members" block and if they should be randomized. If the setting to not randomize featured members is set then Admins can order users from the AdminCP.

Daylight Savings Support

phpFox2 includes support for users to modify their time zone thus allowing them to view all time stamps on the site based on their time zone. Beta5 introduces daylight savings support and is automatically enabled by default. There will be a global and user specific setting to enable/disable this feature.

Email Verification & Email Updating

Beta5 introduces "Email Verification", which if enabled by the Admins will force users to first verify their email before their account is enabled. Once a user has registered they will recieve an email with a verification code. Once they click on the link their account will be verified and they will be able to login. Admins can control how long an email verification is valid. If the user waits too long and passes the email verification deadline setting then they will be sent a new email verification and asked to try again. Both these settings are optional and disabled by default.

Admins can browse unverified members direct from the AdminCP (Users >> Browse Users >> Show Members >> Pending Verification Members) and either resend them another email verification or automatically verify them on the spot.

Members can now change their email address from their account settings. If the feature to verify emails is enabled the user will have to go thru the entire process in order to verify their new email, however if an Admin enables the setting to allow users to browse the site and only update the new email once they have verified it, this will allow users to continue browsing the site and still use their old email until they verify their new email. Each time they login they will be notified that they have a pending email verification.

Account Deletion

Admins can now control if a user group can delete their own account (Account Settings >> Cancel Account). If a user decides to delete their account they will land on the account cancellation page and will be asked to give a reason why they are leaving the site or select one or more of the multiple reasons provided (Admins can add/edit/delete these reasons). Users will also notice 3 of their friends to let me know they will be missed and will be asked to provide their password in order to delete their account. Certain information the user is saved so Admins can view the reasons why the user left the site for constructive feedback.

This feature allows Admins to also delete members direct from the AdminCP (Users >> Browse Users).

Here is a set of screenshots:

Managing Custom Delete Options from AdminCP	Delete User from AdminCP
Cancel Account

Forum Icons

Beta5 introduces a little eye candy to the Forum module. We have included icons identifying the forum or topics state as well as a legend to guide users.

Here is a set of screenshots:

Forum Thread and Legend

Forum Legend

Control of Display Name Change

Since the first release of phpFox2 users were able to change their display name (or full name). With Beta5 we introduce the ability for Admins to control if a specific user group can change their display name and if they can add an optional limit on how many times they can change it.

Avatar Picture Cropping Tool

Automatically cropping images is something we have done for awhile now and with v2 there are certain areas where we must display a sqaure image to give a clean/oganized look. Past methods of cropping an image will not work in all cases and for such cases we provide a tool for users to crop their own images to create their site wide avatar. Currently its optional, however we can see the need to create an option to make this process a requirement before their profile image is updated. Some problems and things we still need to work on is to recheck smaller images and allowing the resize box to be larger then the 50 pixel limit.

Here is a screenshot of this new feaature:

Avatar Cropping Tool

Group Module Update - Includes Forum Module

The Group module has been updated and now includes the Forum module fully integrated. The Forum module within the Group module includes all the same functionality the it has as a standalone module. Currently the Group module does not have any privacy settings so anyone can post a thread in a group.

Change Log

Our SVN change log can be found here.

Live Demo

View this beta demo in action here.

Download

phpFox2 Beta5 can be downloaded direct from the clients area. When you have selected a license and reached the download page look for œphpFox2 Beta5? to download the product.

Requirements

Requirements for phpFox2 can be found here.

Developers Documentation

Our developers documentation can be found here.

Feedback & Bugs

Your feedback is appreciated, please feel free to leave them here. We also provide a bug tracker here so we can get ahead and start squashing bugs.

Good luck and Enjoy phpFox2 Beta5!