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NOTE 1: JomSocial 4.5.1 Beta 2 is not a stable version and as such will not be officially supported by us. You are welcome to post eventual bugs and suggestions for improvements, but if you install this version on production site, you are bound to fix all issues yourself.

NOTE 2: After you upgrade to JomSocial 4.5.1 Beta 2, the Joomla update notification may pop up saying that there is a newer version of JomSocial (4.5) because the version numbers are not the same. Just ignore it.

Hi Guys,
JomSocial is very happy to announce release of JomSocial Version 4.5.1 Beta 2 - important release with performance improvement and 17+ bug fixes plus some other improvements.

We would like to thank you for the positive feedback and bug reports in the 4.5.1 beta 1. In this release, we have addressed the performance issue also and expect more improvements in the upcoming releases.

Performance Improvement - From real case study

We evaluated fresh installed Jomsocial and also on multiple user site's with 5K+ conversations to understand the issue and plan fixes :

Problems and Solutions:

Problem: JomSocial ajax init chat loads all conversations at a time. If a user has too many conversions ( like ~ 4k), it causes slow loading and freezing browser.

Learn about new releases, tips & tricks

Learn about new releases, tips & tricks

Know more about Joomla 4

If you’re a passionate Joomla! user reading every possible news about upcoming Joomla! 4, there are high chances you seen something called “Orthogonal Component Structure” but not many have ever tried to explain what that strange term really means for the users and developers. In this blog post, we will touch that topic and try to reveal some secrets behind it.

What Is Orthogonal Component Structure ?

Mathematics are often cluttered with expressive terms with no meaning outside it’s constraints, often causing a sudden loss of interest in the subject matter. You will easily find the definition of orthogonality on the web, but it still won’t give any clue how it relates to Joomla! development.

Orthogonal Component Structure in Joomla! sense means that there are two types of components, vertical and horizontal - hence the name orthogonal.

Vertical Components

Or in other words, core components such are Content, Users, Contacts, Weblinks… which all are developed separately forming what we know as Joomla! CMS.

Horizontal Components

Think of horizontal components like extended features for vertical component, adding on top of it. These are components like Tagging, Versioning or Custom Fields which can’t work per se, and must rely on other vertical component.

Joomla 4 is a big hit for Joomla community, the major release version will have many new features, high coding quality, cleanup codebase, using new technologies, minimum PHP 7 requirement and especially, it integrates Bootstrap 4 - the most popular framework to build responsive, mobile-first web projects.

What is Bootstrap

Bootstrap is an open source toolkit for developing with HTML, CSS, and JS. Quickly prototype your ideas or build your entire app with our Sass variables and mixins, responsive grid system, extensive prebuilt components, and powerful plugins built on jQuery.

History: Bootstrap 2 was integrated in Joomla 3.

Joomla 3.x released in 2015 with Bootstrap 2 integration in Joomla core and can be used all over, not only just on templates but also in back-end and front-end of extensions.

The integration got very good feedback from Joomla community, it also helped developer to build Joomla template and extensions easier and faster.

Up-to-date with Bootstrap: Joomla 4 integrates Bootstrap 4

Joomla 4 and Bootstrap 4 are latest version with huge major updates & improvements, up-to-date with new technologies, adding more new features in comparison with their previous versions.

NOTE 1: JomSocial 4.5.1 Beta 1 is not a stable version and as such will not be officially supported by us. You are welcome to post eventual bugs and suggestions for improvements, but if you install this version on production site, you are bound to fix all issues yourself.

NOTE 2: After you upgrade to JomSocial 4.5.1 Beta 1, the Joomla update notification may pop up saying that there is a newer version of JomSocial (4.5) because the version numbers are not the same. Just ignore it.

How To Set It Up?

Chat Bar plugin is disabled by default to prevent interference with your current website operation and flow.

After manually updating to JomSocial 4.5.1 Beta 1, you must enable System - Jomsocial Chat Bar plugin and set two simple options.

More Goodies

You asked for it, so here it goes. Starting with JomSocial 4.5.1 Beta 1 you will be able to add custom images as a display name tags when user is a member of certain Joomla User Group.

Ever since JomSocial 4.4 came out with modern chat-like inbox, we wanted to build on top of it and provide more functionality. That wishes aren’t always equal to reality, reflects with JomSocial 4.5 release which had to be made as database structure didn’t support everything we wanted from the chat bar. We get back to the drawing board and did it properly this time. JomSocial 4.5 was released, awaiting the Chat Bar.

It Is Here In 4.5.1

Version 4.5.1 has been in development for quite a long time. We knew this release will be big so our team took the time to do it right. And results are great. Not only Chat Bar have been implemented, but also, some other new tweaks and even new features await in this beta release, inevitably finding the way to stable release coming shortly after.

Some of the highlight features in 4.5.1 are:

How To Download And Upgrade?

NOTE 1: JomSocial 4.5.1 Beta 1 is not a stable version and as such will not be officially supported by us. You are welcome to post eventual bugs and suggestions for improvements, but if you install this version on production site, you are bound to fix all issues yourself.

NOTE 2: After you upgrade to JomSocial 4.5.1 Beta 1, the Joomla update notification may pop up saying that there is a newer version of JomSocial (4.5) because the version numbers are not the same. Just ignore it.

For Joomla fans, Joomla 4 release is great news, even it is alpha version only. Joomla 4 comes with lots of new features, huge updates at core. To test the new Joomla version, please do installation of Joomla 4 alpha 2 on localhost following the Joomla 4 installation tutorial.

You can install 4 on local host using the standalone server environment: JAMP, JOOMLAS2GO! (J2G) or XAMPP. Joomla 4 requires minimum PHP version - PHP 7.

Joomla 4 installation guide - step by step with screenshots

1. Download Joomla! 4 alpha 2

To download Joomla! 4 alpha 2, access this LINK. Download the Full Package then unpack the compressed file to a folder on your local disk.

If you have only one database and it is already in use, you can install Joomla! in it – just make sure to have a distinctive prefix for your tables to avoid over-writing any existing database table. Do not use this same database for more then two/three websites for security reasons.

2. Run the Joomla! installation wizard

Enter the URL for your site in your browser (example: http://localhost/joomla-cms-4.0.0-alpha2/). The installation screen will (should) come up. From that point on, follow the install wizard.

PHP 7 is the minimum system requirement for Joomla! 4 website every server will have to comply with sooner rather than later.

Is My Hosting Ready?

At the moment of writing, every hosting provider should have been ready for transition. PHP 7 isn’t a new thing. It has been around for over two years. If you’re not sure what is the PHP version your site is running at, fret not. Go to Joomla! Backend of your website and navigate to System -> System Information then click on PHP Information tab. There you can see what is the PHP version your site is running at:

If first number is anything other than 7, then your server is not ready for Joomla! 4.
In that case, contact your hosting provider immediately.

What About JomSocial?

In almost decade long history, we tried to keep up with latest Joomla! standards and web technologies as soon as they were becoming available. That said, JomSocial offered immediate support for PHP 7 back in February 2016 (PHP 7 was released in December 2015.) and ever since then all subsequent releases of JomSocial were supporting PHP 7.

What Are The Benefits?

I don’t claim to know every single advantage of PHP 7 but i can definitely vouch for page loading times, memory usage and overall speed improvements. We tested JomSocial 4.5 with Joomla 4.0 Alpha 2 on PHP 7 against the same setup on variants of Joomla 3.8 and PHP 5. The results were nothing short than impressive.

Joomla! 4 Alpha 2 is available for testing but it comes with the hidden catch. You need to have PHP 7 running on the web server in order to install it.

PHP 7 is the minimum system requirement for Joomla! 4 website every server will have to comply with sooner rather than later.

Is My Hosting Ready?

At the moment of writing, every hosting provider should have been ready for transition. PHP 7 isn’t a new thing. It has been around for over two years. If you’re not sure what is the PHP version your site is running at, fret not. Go to Joomla! Backend of your website and navigate to System -> System Information then click on PHP Information tab. There you can see what is the PHP version your site is running at:

If first number is anything other than 7, then your server is not ready for Joomla! 4.
In that case, contact your hosting provider immediately.

What About JomSocial?

In almost decade long history, we tried to keep up with latest Joomla! standards and web technologies as soon as they were becoming available. That said, JomSocial offered immediate support for PHP 7 back in February 2016 (PHP 7 was released in December 2015.) and ever since then all subsequent releases of JomSocial were supporting PHP 7.

After Project Icarus which quickly turned into organised chaos, and Joomla X, we finally got the Joomla 4 Alpha 1 version for testing.

We already wrote in Joomlart blog post what can you expect from the Joomla 4 and if you haven’t read it by now, we strongly encourage you to do so.

In this entry, we will focus on JomSocial’s goals and planned changes to make the transition to Joomla 4 as smooth as possible.

First Impression

Needless to say, it was expected. Current JomSocial version (4.5) is not installing on Joomla 4.

So we immediately dedicated developers to work exclusively on Joomla 4 compatibility.

Learn about new releases, tips & tricks

Request Invitation

JomSocial administrators had an option to set a website in “invite only” mode and today we introduce the option for visitors of the website to request invitation manually. This functionality is completely optional and it’s disabled by default so it won’t interfere with your site flow. If you want to enable this option you can find it in “JomSocial Dashboard -> Configuration -> Registration”

Once user request an invitation, it will show up in “Monitor -> Pending Invitations” section where you can easily review their application and accept or reject it.

If accepted, an email with invitation to the site will be generated through regular mail queue and sent out on next Cron run for user to register on the site.

More new features and improvements

Abandon the conversation in chat

Leaving the conversation you’re not interested in is now possible

Add Users to a JomSocial group when profile type is selected during registration

Adding users to a specific JomSocial group once they choose the profile type has never been easier

Learn about new releases, tips & tricks

Joomla! 3.8

Joomla! 3.8 has just been released and i’m sure your question would be is JomSocial 4.4.4 compatible with this version of Joomla?

Yes, of course it is. We always make JomSocial compatible with latest Joomla! version almost within a first day of new Joomla release.

For future reference, please bookmark this page so you always have updated information on compatible versions.

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Learn about new releases, tips & tricks