phpFox2 Beta 3 has arrived.

We will shortly cover what is new with Beta3, 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

Whats new in phpFox2 Beta3

Dashboard & Updated Blocks

Beta3 introduces several improvements to our dashboard (”My Account” for v1.6). The main improvements are under the hood and up until beta 3 the ability to move blocks were limited to our profile or group. There were limitations on when we were able to drag & drop blocks as well as where we could drop them. With the recent changes you are now able to drag/drop, add, remove, edit blocks within the dashboard, your profile and your own group. You do not need to leave the page to customize these blocks as it can be done on the spot. Due to the recent changes many of the already developed blocks have been updated or will be updated. These changes include the ability to control which blocks can be removed based on the user group and if the Admins really want users to be able to remove a specific block.

Lets go over some of the available blocks for Beta 3 that included some ways users can modify the blocks. To view our dashboard click on the “Dashboard” link on the main menu (previously “Home”). First, you will notice a new block “Dashboard”. This will be used to provide quick links and useful information about the user. Currently the information is split up into groups “Quick Links”, “Account Info” and “Activity”. The 2nd and 3rd groups are hidden until the user clicks on the tab to view them. We will create a feature to allow Admins to select if they want all this information available without the need to split them up into groups. We currently provide some quick links, account information and account activity stats; however not all the information about the user has been added due to the recent changes in the engine and the need to update all the modules to understand these recent changes. More information will be added about the user with later releases. The dashboard block is the only block within the Dashboard that cannot be removed.

Next, we have the “Updates” block which displays updates from the community (or just friend depending on Admins setup). The edit link for each block (if there is the possibility to edit it) is found on the far right hand site of the block header. The “Updates” block allows users the ability to edit how many feeds they want to display. Other settings we plan on adding is the ability to control what sort of information should or should not be passed (eg. blogs, photos, polls etc…) and the ability to block a user.

Another block we updated is the “My Friends” block and users can control how many friends they want to display within this block.

The “Whats New” block is not new as this is what we use on the sites index page for guests, however we added this to our dashboard with Beta 3 as well and users can control what sort of information they would like for it to display (eg. blogs, photos, videos etc…). We plan on adding a setting to control if the user wants to see data from all members or just their friends.

The remaining blocks found on this page have been available with past versions of phpFox2 and currently contain no special settings, however each block within this page can be removed and later added if the user chooses to (except for the dashboard block).

If you have removed a block you can add it back by visiting the “Customize Dashboard”. Once there click on “Blocks” and this section will list all the available blocks for the page which could be for the dashboard, group or users profile. More information about the block and an image will be added in the future to make it easier for users to understand what a block is and what sort of information it provides.

With the current development updates 3rd party developers can easily develop new blocks and installing them is easy as each block uses a plug-n-play method. To further explain the purpose of the “Customize Dashboard” area or the “Profile Designer”, we created this to allow users in the future to easily select themes, design their profile using an advanced style editor (eg. modifying colors, text, backgrounds etc…) or adding their own CSS code and during all of this each change is updated automatically on their profile allowing them to see the changes they have made on the spot. The ability to drag/drop blocks can be done from this “editor”, however it can also now be done by directly visiting the page (eg. dashboard, profile or group).

The goal behind these recent changes is to have something similar to iGoogle, which allows users the ability to add/edit/remove blocks (”Gadgets”) and 3rd party developers to create these blocks with ease.

Future plans…

• Ability to revert all changes made in relation to block placement.
• When adding new blocks we need a highlight “effect” to identify what block has been added.

Known issues…

• Moving blocks on an X-axis is still not perfected and can sometimes jump back to the original location.

Footer Bar

Beta 3 provides a Footer bar and is inspired by the footer bar provided by Facebook, MySpace and Bebo with a small twist. Similar to the sites mentioned the bar is located at the footer of each page of the site once you login. For Admins that do not like the idea of a Footer bar can disable this feature entirely from the AdminCP. If enabled the footer bar contains a “Start” button of sorts and by default it is called “phpFox” (can be changed via the AdminCP). Once clicked this menu provides the ability for the user to change their sites status, search and provide quick links to add/edit items or view items directly on their profile. A quick link is also provided to the dashboard next to the “phpFox” start button. To the far right of the footer bar we give the users the ability to hide the entire bar and if at a later time they would like to use the bar they can click on the same link used to close it. The main purpose of the footer bar is to provide quick links and useful notifications anywhere on the site without the need to be on the actual dashboard. It will also allow us to add future 3rd party apps and an on-the-spot instant messenger.

The Notification module has been updated to work with the footer bar and if enabled from the AdminCP, notifications can be seen anywhere on the site via the footer bar. Once a user has viewed the item they were notified about (eg. friend request, new mail etc…) it will automatically be removed from the notification area. A setting is provided to update the check for new notifications via AJAX every X minutes (AdminCP defines X).

Ads

Beta3 introduces our Ad module which allows you to place your ads in any of the blocks provided (currently 10 available positions). When creating your ad campaign you can select to either upload an image or directly add HTML code. You can define when the campaign will start and when it will end (option to not end a campaign is available by default). For each ad campaign you can control the total views or clicks. If these settings are surpassed the ad is removed from the line up until it is deactivated or removed.

Ad placements is controlled by block and module positioning. We currently provide 10 blocks for you to place your ads and a guide on what ad sizes we recommend (eg. 468×60, 120×600 etc…). You can also select a specific module for the ad campaign. For example if you were to select the Video module your ads for that specific campaign will only show up within the video module related pages (eg. viewing, adding, browsing videos).

Each ad campaign can have a selected audience from which you can select which user group (eg. guests, normal members, musicians etc…) can view the ads or based on the users location, gender or age group.

All ad campaigns are stored in the database and later cached to flat files (depending on cache settings) where it auto re-caches every X minutes (AdminCP defined - 60 minutes is the default). You may select the option to auto refresh ads via AJAX, due to many features now using AJAX; users may stay on a specific page longer thus your ads not updating. Using the AJAX auto refresh method you can select how long before the next set of ads shows up and by default we update ads every 2 minutes.

Future plans for this module…

• Ability to disable ads for a specific user group.
• Cron job to auto delete inactive ad campaigns.
• Ability for normal users to create ads.
• Ability to show more then one ad for a specific block. Currently several ads can be added to one specific block, however they can only show up one at a time and the order is randomized.
• Further improve ad placements based on modules:
  • Blocks: Ability to add 125×125 ads on a sidebar block.
  • Videos: Ability to add an ad before or after a video.
  • Forum: Ability to add an ad after X number of posts.
  • Login: Ability to add an ad after the user has logged in with an auto redirect.

Favorites

Beta 3 introduces our “Favorite” module. This module will be used to give users the ability to add any public item to their “Favorites” list. This list is displayed both on their profile and their site wide footer bar. There is a privacy setting to disable other users to view your own favorites on you profile. This setting does not affect the favorites found within the footer bar. We will be adding the ability to search/filter favorites within the footer bar area to give users an easier time to organize and find items. Currently there is only support to add photos, photo albums, blogs and users. More modules will be updated to include support for this new module.

General Updates

General updates worth mentioning…

• Feature request added: Report Abuse/ Spam/ Bad Member
• Feature request added: auto play youtube video
• Feature request added: TimeZone Control needed
• Feature request added: Turn user album photos 90°
• Ability to rate a user (default 1-5). We will give an option to change the rating system and to disable the feature entirely.
• Ability to report a user.

Change Logs

We have added a spec log here and a SVN change log here for Beta3.

Known Issues

Several known issues worth mentioning.

• Continued issues with Internet Explorer 6 & 7 (Menus, BBCode etc…)
• MySQL in strict mode causing issues in several areas. If you encounter this please report it.
• Windows servers have not been tested thoroughly.

To view more known issues check our bug tracker.

Live Demo

View this beta demo in action here.

Download

phpFox2 Beta3 can be downloaded direct from the clients area. When you have selected a license and reached the download page look for “phpFox2 Beta3″ to download the product.

Requirements

The current requirements are based on what phpFox2 has been tested on.

• PHP Version - 5+
• MySQL Version - 4.1+
• Web Server - Apache
• Operating System - Linux
• GD complied with your PHP Build - Yes
• PHP memory_limit - 32M

Notice: In order to run the music module:

• PHP file_uploads - “1″
• PHP post_max_size - “40M”
• PHP max_input_time - “-1″
• PHP upload_max_filesize - “38M”

Notice: In order to run the video module:

• FFmpeg
• FFmpeg-PHP (optional)
• Mplayer + Mencoder
• flv2tool
• Libogg + Libvorbis
• LAME MP3 Encoder
• PHP file_uploads - “1″
• PHP post_max_size - “75M”
• PHP max_input_time - “-1″
• PHP upload_max_filesize - “75M”

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.

Future Development

Final List of Features

All the features/plans for v2 will be released as public document to clients and 3rd party developers sometime next week. This will be the finalized document and should help 3rd party developers know what final features will be developed for v2.

Information on v2.1

Some of you may have already noticed we added v2.1 to our line up when creating a “Feature Request”. This will allow us to get a head start on v2.1 and what needs to be done once v2 is completed. There is no ETA for v2.1, however we can say that it will be released sometime next year as it needs to go thru a Beta/RC release stage. There will be incremental version releases after v2 is out (eg. 2.0.1, 2.0.2 etc…), however such versions will not include major feature updates.

Admin Control Panel

The AdminCP has been a hot topic within our forums over the last few days and we wanted to update the community on the future plans of the AdminCP and what it currently offers. At the moment the AdminCP has been designed for us to add/edit/modify items used for modules we are developing. It currently has not been built for the end user as all of our past versions have been designed for developers. Our goal with the final version of the AdminCP is to have a very powerful and user friendly interface for Admins/Staff to control the site. We are currently focusing our development efforts on the product for the public eye and the engine that powers the product. We will begin work during the 2nd release of the RC versions due to the need for the public area to be completed in order for us to work with managing these areas. No updates to the AdminCP will be released during the next Beta versions, we estimate by RC2 is when we can factor in changes to the AdminCP based on the modules completed by RC 1, which is the final version we will include new modules/features for end users and is the final product up until v2 is stabilized.

Sign Up Form

The current sign up form provides the basic requirements we have had in the past. We will be adding custom fields to this form, allow users to select the custom user group they want to be in (eg. musician, artist etc…) and the ability to remove fields that you may consider not to be a requirement. When it comes down to it we only need the persons full name (or display name), email and password to successfully join the site. So the sign up form if desired could simply contain just those fields and since there is support for a “step-by-step” registration process you can send them to fill out such information after.

Feature Requests

If you would like to see a feature or a module developed for phpFox we base all future features for v2 on our communities feedback. The more votes a request has the chance of it getting approved and developed is very high if not certain. The communities feedback has been very crucial over the last few months helping use improve the product since its very early Alpha stages and the continued communities involvement to shape the future of the product is appreciated as this will allow us to build a product to suite your needs.

Click here to add your feature request or vote on other requests.

Next Release

Stay tuned for our next Beta release (Jun 17, 2009).

Good luck and Enjoy phpFox2 Beta3!