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Category: News

Published: 06 October 2014

Last Updated: 06 October 2014

Hits: 11685

Joomla 3.3.6 and Joomla 2.5.27 have been released.

Both packages are high priority security releases. So, all Joomla 3.X websites should upgrade to Joomla 3.3.6 and all Joomla 2.5 series to Joomla 2.5.27.

According to the Joomla technical requirements, the Joomla 3.3.6 release will only work on PHP versions 5.3.10 or better. Here is a quick summary that will help you decide:

If your website is using

• a Joomla 2.5.X version, you should update to Joomla 2.5.27 and plan to update to Joomla 3.X as soon as possible since support for Joomla 2.5 stops end of this year.
• a Joomla 3.3.X version, you should update to Joomla 3.3.6.
• a Joomla 3.2.X version (because 3.2.X still supports PHP 5.3.1 through 5.3.9), you should update to Joomla 3.2.7.

As usual backup before upgrading your Joomla websites and verify that all third party extensions (including your template) are compatible.

And yes, CB 1.9.1 and CB 2.0 RC3 (needs at least PHP 5.3.3 and MYSQL 5.1) both work great on these new Joomla releases !

In case you upgraded to 2.5.26/3.2.6/3.3.5

If you had previously upgraded to one of the "short-lived" 2.5.26/3.2.6/3.3.5 releases in which an upgrader bug slipped in, you will notice that the one-click upgrade method will not work to upgrade to 2.5.27/3.2.7/3.3.6. Instead, you would need to use one of the alternative upgrade methods B or C.

Shellshock is a real threat

Disclosed on September 24th, 2014, Shellshock, also known as Bashdoor, is a family of security bugs affecting the widely used Unix Bash shell. Simply put, this bug allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on hosting environments using unpatched Bash shells.

Security wise, this ia as bad as it gets and the potential harm that can be inflicted is enormous. Everyone needs to take action now to either patch their hosts as needed or make sure that their hosting environments are secure.

So, if you are in charge of maintaining a host that has a Unix Bash shell, you need to patch it now. Also make sure that you upgrade all your computers and network and any other embedded equipment that might contain bash. Also old ones, since that security bug is present and got unnoticed since 22 years.

Even though you might not be aware that you are using a Bash shell, your webserver environment might be using it to execute your Joomla PHP.

If you have a website that is being hosted somewhere, you need to contact the host helpdesk and confirm that your environment is secure against this bug.

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Category: News

Published: 30 September 2014

Last Updated: 01 October 2014

Hits: 5757

We have big news!

Next Generation Community Builder 2.0 will be released on October 9th, 2014.

And not only that, but all our add-on packages will also have new, CB 2.0-compatible, major releases same day !

Since the Community Builder 2.0 RC3 release we have been working full speed to prepare everything needed for this great stable release.

As the community is focusing on test case scenarions providing valuable test coverage feedback, the CB Team is concentrating on a number of important parallel tasks that will have a huge impact on the way we do things in the future.

So, ongoing call to action for all our paid-up members:

1. Grab latest Community Builder 2.0 RC3 nightly release
2. Test according to provided test case scenarios
3. Post back feedback on our Community Builder 2.0 RC3 thread

The tasks we have been working on along with their progress status are:

• Help pages for CB 2.0.
  
  Just like Joomla, each CB 2.0 page now has a Help button that will open a help page window for quick online assistance. As of today we have 11 (out of 22) help pages ready and should have the remaining ready very soon. This is our first step to migrating our documentation from pdf format to online HTML deployment.
  
  
• New CB 2.0 compatible add-on releases.
  
  As planned, we are working on getting our major plugins CB 2.0 ready. Beat is focusing on CBSubs and Kyle is pusing forward with everything else. We have already prepared 12 CB 2.0 compatible releases and are pushing forward as quickly as possible.
  The following releases are ready for CB 2.0:
  
  
  1. CB Query Field 4.0
  2. CB Core Fields Ajax 2.0
  3. CB Google Translate 3.0
  4. CB Gravatar Field 2.0
  5. CB Invites 4.0
  6. CB Progress Field 3.0
  7. CB Reconfirm Email 4.0
  8. CB Template Changer 3.0
  9. CB Content bot 3.0
  10. CB Author bot 2.0
  11. CB Search bot 2.0
  12. CB Content module 2.0
      
      
• Localization improvements.
  
  In CB 2.0 we have dropped the legacy DEFINE structure language concept in favor of two PHP array files. A language.php for frontend translations and an admin_language.php for backend strings. We have already updated our CB Transifex project with these new resource files and our translation teams have been working to get their translations ready.
  As our advanced and professional add-ons are becoming CB 2.0 compatible, we have been creating individual Transifex projects for each one of them and are calling upon our international community to move forward with translations.
  
  >>> You can visit our language pages and join a translation team. <<<
  
  
• Automation improvements.
  
  A strategic decision and goal is to provide continuous integration releases for all our projects. Intention is to quicly push bug fixes and minor improvements using a nightly build process. No more waiting for next release or having to apply patches. The same is true for our transifex translation projects and we intend to automatically push nightly CB language plugins generated from our transifex projects. 

As you can see there are many exciting concepts currently in progress targeting an overall user experience improvement for the entire CB community.

Discuss this on our forums.

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Category: News

Published: 24 September 2014

Last Updated: 24 September 2014

Hits: 7107

Joomla 3.3.4 and Joomla 2.5.25 have been released.

Both packages are security releases. So, all Joomla 3.X websites should upgrade to Joomla 3.3.4 and all Joomla 2.5 series to Joomla 2.5.25.

A quick reminder in case you missed it: According to the Joomla technical requirements, the Joomla 3.3.4 release will only work on PHP versions 5.3.10 or better. Here is a quick summary that will help you decide:

If your website is using

• a Joomla 2.5.X version, you should update to Joomla 2.5.25 and plan to update to Joomla 3.X as soon as possible since support for Joomla 2.5 stops end of this year.
• a Joomla 3.3.X version, you should update to Joomla 3.3.4.
• a Joomla 3.2.X version (because 3.2.X still supports PHP 5.3.1 through 5.3.9), you should update to Joomla 3.2.5.

As usual backup before upgrading your Joomla websites and verify that all third party extensions (including your template) are compatible.

And yes, CB 1.9.1 and CB 2.0 RC3 (needs at least PHP 5.3.3 and MYSQL 5.1) both work great on these new Joomla releases !

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Category: News

Published: 01 August 2014

Last Updated: 01 August 2014

Hits: 5120

Yesterday we resolved the last showstopper (reimplementing the advanced users search using the new AhaWow engine) that was blocking us from reaching Community Builder 2.0 RC status.

We have a small number of minor tracker items that we are working on at the moment and we are now announcing that CB 2.0 RC will be released on Thursday August 7th.

In order to get as much quality feedback and testing as possible we are extending this round of RC testing to all paid members (Advanced, Professional and Developer) and CB 2.0 RC will be available for download from the Advanced Download area.

Community Builder 2.0 is a major features release that addresses over 135 new features and over 80 bug fixes. Seven (7) currently paid add-ons have been included in the core CB 2.0 product that will be a free download once it becomes stable. And as always, it will be a GPL release that gives you the freedom to use on all your websites without any limitations.

CB 2.0 RC is of course not yet a stable release But as our development cycles include continous code reviews and testing, it should be ok for early adaptors (new websites). Please note that CB 2.0 RC is compatible with Joomla 2.5 and 3.x series. Support for Joomla 1.5 has been discontinued as pre-announced.

Without the ongoing support of our paid members, our translation teams and our forum posters we would not be able to make this happen. So a huge THANK YOU is in order for all our supporters!

Discuss this article on our forums.

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Category: News

Published: 22 July 2014

Last Updated: 23 July 2014

Hits: 7739

One of the many new features of Community Builder 2.0 is the batch processing functionality present in the CB Tab, Field, Plugin and User List management pages.

This functionality lets CB admins easily perform mass changes to multiple selected CB elements.

Some sample usages follow to help you understand the functionality and the power. With this new functionality you can set the:

• Field type, Required property, Tab placement, Profile property, Registration presence, Edit property (also new in CB 2.0) or Searchable property of multiple selected fields
• Display type, Access viewing level or Position placement of multiple selected tabs
• Default status or Access View level of multiple selected user lists
• Access View level of multiple selected CB Plugins

In the screenshot above we are showing how to use the enhanced Search Tools feature to filter all text type fields and the Batch Tools feature to move 2 text fields to a different tab. But we could have also selected a new field type in the -Select type- drop down parameter to convert these 2 fields from text type to text area. Yup, CB 2.0 now supports field type conversions.

Another great administrative feature included in CB 2.0 is the copy feature that lets administrators copy CB fields, tabs and user lists from the relevant CB management pages.

Discuss this article on our forums.