phpFox2 Beta 4 Released
phpFox2 Beta 4 has arrived.
Beta 4 was initially scheduled to be the final Beta version for phpFox2, however due to recent unforeseen findings another Beta will have to be added to the line up. Beta 5 (ETA: July 15, 2009) will be the next release and is now scheduled to be the final Beta version for phpFox2 before moving onto RC. The new ETA for stable is November 4, 2009.
Hiting and finding an ETA for phpFox2 has been very difficult due to the product being redeveloped from the ground up and having never encountering any of the problems that arise, so allocating this extra time is crucial to the future stability of the product especially when in relation to the upgrade routine as it is still very risky to upgrade sites from v1.6 until more tests are done.
This extra time will allow use to fix issues with the core engine that need to be fixed before the script is used on live sites as well as complete the Admin Control Panel and Upgrader, which were both scheduled to be worked on during RC versions. RC1 will include the final version of the frontend product, AdminCP and Install/Upgrade script.
The time we added for Beta 5 we also included time to develop some new features requested by the community. We will continue to accept new features and complete them for RC1 instead of waiting until v2.1. The selection of these new features will be based on the communities feedback and the votes of each feature request. phpFox2 was concepted over a year ago and Social Networking has changed a lot since then so it is vital certain features have to be implemented before v2 is locked.
For anyone that will have their “Support & Upgrade Renewal” run out before stable release of phpFox2 will not have to worry about upgrading to phpFox2 and having to extend their “Support & Upgrade Renewal” package. Due to the recent delay every valid license holder can download phpFox2 free of charge on its final stable release date and any updates from that day and 30 days after.
Revised Release Dates
- July 15, 2009 - Beta 5
- September 9 - RC 1
- September 23, 2009 - RC2
- October 7, 2009 - RC3
- October 21, 2009 RC4
- November 4, 2009 - Stable
We will shortly cover what is new with Beta4, if you would like to catch up with what our past Alpha/Beta versions introduced you can find more information here…
Whats new in phpFox2 Beta4
Photo Tagging
Beta4 introduces support to tag photos with text or with your friends names. You can control how many tags a photo can have as well as if a user can tag just their own photo and/or other photos. You may also control how many times they can tag their own photo and/or photos uploaded by other users.
Short video of this feature in action:
“No Image” image updated
Our default “No Image Available” photo has been used ever since phpFox was first created and we felt v2 would be a perfect time to change this image. Our new image that will be displayed when a users profile photo is not available will be:

We also included support for gender recognition and included by default the following female image:

Username Suggestion
The registration process now comes with a username suggestion feature, which on failure of a valid username or if the username is already in use it will attempt to return X amounts of available names (X is controlled by a global setting via the AdminCP).
Screenshot of feature:

Editing a User via AdminCP
All past versions of phpFox have never provided a method to edit a users account direct from the AdminCP. Due to how the script was designed, editing an account would require an Admin to login as the user via the AdminCP and then alter any information that belongs to that user. With phpFox2 we designed the engine so a user group, which in this case by default is the Admin and Staff user group, has the ability to edit a users account direct from the AdminCP. In order to find the users we worked on a browse section within the AdminCP, which includes a small filter to help find users we want to edit. More filters will be added to this page as well as links on a users profile that will link to the page where Admins can edit a users account.
Edit Username
Beta4 introduces the ability to edit our own username, which by default is disabled. The username is used to create a unique ID for the user, which will give them an easier time to share and access their profile. You can control which user group can change their username and how many times they can change their username before the feature is locked.
Note: We have enabled this feature on our live demo for public testing.
Under Age Profiles
Admins can not control if users account should be private based on their age group. The setting we created for this is “Force Profile Privacy” and the value defined for this setting will control which profiles will be forced to be private. On our live demo we set this value to “14″ and the design is to automatically set profiles that are in the 14 and under age group to private, where we provide a link to add the user as a friend. If the user accepts the friendship then the profile will be opened for you to view. We also provide a setting to control which user groups can view profiles regardless of their privacy settings and in this case all Admins by default can view any profile.
Blocking Users
The ability to block users isn’t a new feature, however we have added some improvements to the logic of mutual blocking of users and an override feature to view a profile even if you have been blocked. Mutual blocking in v1.6 has some problems and it starts when User A blocks User B, then User B cannot view User A’s profile thus not allowing them to block User A. With v2 if you have been blocked by another user you will be able to block them as well as unblock them by either viewing their profile and clicking “Unblock” or by visiting the privacy section where it lists all the users you have blocked.
By default Admins cannot be blocked and can view any profile regardless if they have been blocked. This sort of power can be granted to any other user group, however its only enabled by default for Admins.
Custom State/Provinces
v1.1 introduced U.S. states and ZIP code support. v1.6 allowed Admins to edit the U.S. states list to either change or include their own states/provinces. With v2 we worked on allowing countries to have their own set of states or provinces. For testing purposes with Beta 4 we provided a list of U.S. states and Swedish provinces, which will only be displayed when selecting the respective countries. With this change in the engine it will allow us and Admins the ability to add custom states/provinces in the future. They will be able to manage it directly from the AdminCP, however this area was put on hold until RC1.
Here is a short video of this feature in action:
Announcement Module
We initially wanted to create a block similar to v1.6 that would display an announcement on the sites dashboard for all the members to see, however we felt we can do so much more with this feature in the future so we decided to create a module and add some more features to it for us to test with Beta 4.
Announcements with Beta 4 can be added and managed directly from the AdminCP and members can view these announcements on their dashboard or via the announcements section. Each announcement can have a subject, intro and content. The “intro” of the announcement is optionally used for the dashboard and if your announcement holds too much data it will link to the full announcement where the “content” data is used to display it. When adding an announcement we pick up all the available language packages thus allowing Admins to create an announcement for each language package.
Future support will include:
- Start/End time stamp.
- Control if announcement should be displayed within the dashboard.
- Control if an announcement is active.
- User filtering based on User group, age group, location or gender.
Subscription Module & API Gateways
Beta 4 introduces the Subscription module and introduces a new method on how to handle memberships for pay. Unlike past versions of phpFox, which would allow you to create a subscription package based on the custom user group it now works where Admins can create as many custom subscription packages and connect them to any default or custom user group.
For each package you can provide:
- Title
- Description
- Image (Optional)
- The user group to “upgrade” the user after payment
- The user group to “downgrade” the user once payment has failed or has been canceled.
- Ability to add to registration form
- Ability to control if users must purchase a package during registration. User cannot access the sites features until payment is made.
- Initial Cost (Based on default currencies provided, Admins will soon have control to add more currencies)
- Recurring Cost, which is optional and Admins can control the recurring price and period (eg. Monthly, Quarterly, Biannually or Annually).)
The payment API gateways we have included with Beta 4 is PayPal and 2checkout. Gateways can be enable/disabled from the AdminCP and Admins can control if the gateways are in “test mode” or not. Each gateway has custom settings and can also be controlled direct from the AdminCP. The subscription packages are currently positioned within the users dashboard and can be found by clicking on the link “Upgrades”. A block will be provided to advertise packages on random within the dashboard.
Short video of the form when creating a subscription package:
Recent Logins Block
A recent logins block has been developed and is part of Beta 4. Past versions of phpFox have this block, however since the introduction of the ability to drag/drop blocks each block can have a set of custom settings to control how to display information. In this case users can control if they want to view recent logins from everyone or just their friends.
Site Online/Offline Support
Admins can now turn their sites Online/Offline direct from the AdminCP and leave an offline message for users to see. Admins can also control if a “blank” page should be displayed with the offline message instead of the entire site with all the links. By default Admins and Staff can login and browse the site even when its offline. Any user group can attain these rights based on how you setup other user groups.
Fullscreen Text Editor
When writing a blog or a message to a friend you may end up writing a lot of data and the form to input this data can get a little cramped. Instead of resizing the form we went with the method to fit the entire screen with a textarea form. To best explain this feature here is a short video:
Site Stats Block
Beta 4 introduces a Site Stats block that gives Admins and developers control over what statistics should be displayed direct from the AdminCP. Developers can include “stats” for their products and have Admins install them direct from the AdminCP. Currently we provide 4 stat blocks for testing purposes and they are Members, Polls, Blogs and Photos. The site stats block found in the users dashboard will list how many items each of the provided stat blocks have. These stat blocks can be managed from the AdminCP which include the ability to change the phrase, link, icon, activity, php code and the ordering.
Admins have control over if stats should be displayed at all and if stats should be cached and for how long. By default stats are cached and are keep static for 60 minutes and thereafter re-cached. The reason the stats are not live by default is due to several extra queries to the database which can cause a strain on the server if too many stat blocks are installed.
Here is a short video clip of this block in action:
Birthdays Block
Beta 4 introduces the Birthday Block to the users dashboard. It displays 5 friends with upcoming birthdays within a span of X days (X is controlled by an AdminCP setting and by default is 7). It also allows members the ability to send the users with birthdays a “Birthday E-card”, which currently only supports an optional text message. Once the recipient logs into the site they will receive an instant notification about the birthday e-card with a full link to view the message. More tasty features will be added to fully transform this feature into full blown e-card.
Screenshot of the birthday block:

Change Log
Our SVN change log can be found here.
Live Demo
View this beta demo in action here.
Download
phpFox2 Beta4 can be downloaded direct from the clients area. When you have selected a license and reached the download page look for “phpFox2 Beta4″ 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 Beta4!

