SocialEngine PHP 5.0.0b1 Released!

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 26, 2019 8:06 AM EST

    We are very happy to announce the release of SocialEngine PHP 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 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 FontAwesome icons to 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 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 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 gets 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 and at each SocialEngine official plugin.

    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 Bug Tracker. We’d also like to encourage you to stay connected with the community.


    With Great Appreciation,
    The SocialEngine Team


    This post was edited by socialenginestaff at December 26, 2019 8:08 AM EST
    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 26, 2019 8:10 AM EST

    As we get tutorials updated or added, we'll post them in this post. I'll just keep updating this one post with each tutorial so you might want to bookmark this post.

    Serenity Theme

    v5 Groups


    This post was edited by socialenginestaff at December 27, 2019 10:00 AM EST
    • 78 posts
    December 26, 2019 9:50 AM EST

    This is great news! Do you have a demo for this v5?

    • 303 posts
    December 26, 2019 9:55 AM EST

    I wish they would make the photos section more robust and the layout look better. The photos page has no spacing and there is no place to edit the layout or number of photos to display in the Admin section.


    This post was edited by whatonearth at December 26, 2019 11:00 AM EST
    • Moderator
    • 84 posts
    December 26, 2019 12:21 PM EST
    themrt said:

    This is great news! Do you have a demo for this v5?

    Since this is a beta release, we currently do not have a demo for it. But, You can download your copy of version 5.0.0b1 from your client dashboard in your SocialEngine site account as shown in screenshot above in initial post and do a fresh install on your local or staging.

    All other necessary information are given in initial post.

     

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 26, 2019 12:49 PM EST

    We'll try to get a demo for RC release once we get to that point.

    • 103 posts
    December 26, 2019 3:06 PM EST

    Hi! Why I'm being charge 149.00 when I have 2 licenses for the PHP.

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 26, 2019 4:06 PM EST
    iKori said:

    Hi! Why I'm being charge 149.00 when I have 2 licenses for the PHP.

    If you purchased within 90 days, you aren't charged. If your purchase was before that, you will need to pay the access fee. We've not charged a fee in many years but we do need to cover continued development of the SEPHP product line and must charge for upgrade access. It is not per license though so you only have the one charge.

    • 25 posts
    December 26, 2019 4:18 PM EST

    Congratulations for your devoted major upgrade !

    I have several SEPHP licences, I support your development of SEPHP, I will gladly pay for the upgrade access.

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 26, 2019 7:12 PM EST
    Bruno31 said:

    Congratulations for your devoted major upgrade !

    I have several SEPHP licences, I support your development of SEPHP, I will gladly pay for the upgrade access.

    Thank you so much for your support and understanding. Our teams worked well past midnight on Christmas Eve to get this release done. 

    • 25 posts
    December 27, 2019 3:31 AM EST

    Good Morning Donna,

    SocialEngine has provided to the Admin SEPHP users so many FREE updates for so many long years, it is time we (the Admin SEPHP users) help and participate to the new project and future of the great SEPHP v5.

    As promised, I just made the payment of the upgrade access fee, I just bring to your attention that there is no downloadable link (fresh install) for the SEPHP v5 (yet).

    Have a great weekend to you, your and also our teams!

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 27, 2019 5:23 AM EST
    Bruno31 said:

    Good Morning Donna,

    SocialEngine has provided to the Admin SEPHP users so many FREE updates for so many long years, it is time we (the Admin SEPHP users) help and participate to the new project and future of the great SEPHP v5.

    As promised, I just made the payment of the upgrade access fee, I just bring to your attention that there is no downloadable link (fresh install) for the SEPHP v5 (yet).

    Have a great weekend to you, your and also our teams!

    Thank you! You aren't seeing the drop down like the image above? If not, can you please send a ticket to me and I'll see what's up? It's possible that the payment hasn't cleared or something. Sorry for the delay.

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 27, 2019 5:27 AM EST

    I just found your order and checked your account and it is showing now. Would you please check the screenshot above and click to the right of the SocialEngine download and then you should see in the dropdown the current stable version as well as the beta

    For everyone else, I'll post some screenshots today as the admin got a cool makeover and looks great! So many nice things with this release. Groups have all of the official plugins in them now (for those that have those plugins). Nice security features. Great improvements and fixes. I will upgrade my own site once we have a stable as I do love this new theme.

    • 25 posts
    December 27, 2019 5:54 AM EST

    I got it now.

    Thank you for your fast assistance, I was looking for a dedicated line for version 5, but it was next to the SocialEngine 4.10.5.

    I am going to make a fresh install and let you know.

    Again thank you very much for your so nice changes and great improvements in SEPHP v5.

    Have a great weekend.

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 27, 2019 6:11 AM EST

    Glad you got it! I do love how nice the admin looks now. Very clean. Enjoy and have a great weekend too.

    • 103 posts
    December 27, 2019 6:42 AM EST

    Will buy on the 1st of Jan. Happy New Year to all!!!

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 27, 2019 7:20 AM EST
    iKori said:

    Will buy on the 1st of Jan. Happy New Year to all!!!

    Thank you! Happy New Year to you as well.

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 27, 2019 7:23 AM EST
    whatonearth said:

    I wish they would make the photos section more robust and the layout look better. The photos page has no spacing and there is no place to edit the layout or number of photos to display in the Admin section.

    I uploaded it at my demo (scripttechs demo) and it seems to look nice http://demo.scripttechs.com/se/albums . I'll provide login info later for those that want to look around. I have a few tweaks to do on my demo and am not feeling well yet so it's a bit rough as it was "upgraded" and beta is really not meant for upgrading but I wanted to have something people could look at for the beta.

    Since there is no upgrade routine in a beta, the new groups features won't show on my demo but you can at least get a look at some of the new features. You can log in with either of the users showing here:

    https://www.socialengine.com/store/product/random-polls-widget


    This post was edited by socialenginestaff at December 27, 2019 8:50 AM EST
    • 303 posts
    December 27, 2019 8:57 AM EST

    It's the photos page not the album page that does not look good and has not way to change the number of photos in the admin. Photos page is more important than album page to me. People don't stop and think wow, I have this great album I need to upload. They see a scene or something to photograph and they take a picture and upload that one picture or the best picture of a set of the same scene. On social engine the emphasis in on the albums looking good. It's the photos page I am talking about. 

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 27, 2019 9:04 AM EST
    whatonearth said:

    It's the photos page not the album page that does not look good and has not way to change the number of photos in the admin. Photos page is more important than album page to me. People don't stop and think wow, I have this great album I need to upload. They see a scene or something to photograph and they take a picture and upload that one picture or the best picture of a set of the same scene. On social engine the emphasis in on the albums looking good. It's the photos page I am talking about. 

    Ok if you added a feature request, please make sure you include screenshots of how it looks for you now and how you think it should look. That would be in the feature request area as that is taking this off topic. Thank you!

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 27, 2019 9:10 AM EST

    Here are a few screenshots of the admin panel in v5.0.0b1 as I said earlier I would post some. 

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 27, 2019 9:24 AM EST
    whatonearth said:

    It's the photos page not the album page that does not look good and has not way to change the number of photos in the admin. Photos page is more important than album page to me. People don't stop and think wow, I have this great album I need to upload. They see a scene or something to photograph and they take a picture and upload that one picture or the best picture of a set of the same scene. On social engine the emphasis in on the albums looking good. It's the photos page I am talking about. 

    Actually, I added it as a bug for us to improve as the photo view should match the album browse page. Anything other than that though would need a feature request.

    • 303 posts
    December 27, 2019 9:32 AM EST

    It should at least match the Album page. And the photos page and the idea of photos needs a little love. It's the most important thing people do on my social sites. They upload images. Images, images and images. Not the albums, albums albums albums.It also needs to have at least one control which seems to me to be simple and a no brainer because you already have the function set up for albums: It needs to be able to show more or less numbers of photos. At least that. As far as features: I don't know about requests but if you want to be dominant in your sector and increase sales in 2020 more aggressively with more than the name branded banner marketing I see that you put marketing budget on then you should add something that makes a difference which would be control of the Numbers of columns, number of rows and size of the images would be optimal and set a high standard for competition in the social network software sales. However, I understand you might be more focused on the "expert" services segment of your business. 


    This post was edited by whatonearth at December 27, 2019 9:36 AM EST
    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 27, 2019 10:03 AM EST

    I've added a thread for new tutorials for v5 so that as we get them done, it'll be easier for everyone to find them. Please either subscribe to or bookmark https://community.socialengine.com/forums/topic/2092/official-v5-tutorials if you want to keep up with the tutorial additions and updates.

    • 103 posts
    December 27, 2019 10:50 AM EST

    Donna! I just realized that I should wait until the stable or upgrade V5 comes out since the one available now is only for new sites. Is this correct for us the ones that have a built site?