Skalfa eCommerce Press

WackWall networks: temporary difficulties with widgets

Posted in Projects, WackWall | Tags: widgets

After applying a minor feature update for WackWall we are experiencing difficulties with widgets on WackWall social networks. We got the index pages up shortly but widgets do not show up yet. We are working on the issue.

The ETA for getting widgets fully functional back again is 24 hours.

Update: All functionality brought back online but widgets. We will fix them during several days, including the week-end.

SkaDate Update: 6.863 + 3 new languages

Posted in News, Products, SkaDate | Tags: update

Here comes another SkaDate 6 Unity maintenance update!

3 new languages in stock!

- Spanish
- Portuguese
- German

Feel free to download those languages from customer area.

Improvements? Improvements!

Of course we couldn’t resist making SkaDate even better with all those micro-enhancements, optimizations, and fixes.

1) Profile preview (topic)
2) Admin notes to profile (topic)
3) direct link to profile from admin (topic)
4) Whois online update (topic)
5) New members list (topic)
6) Ability to delete language prefix (topic)
7) Admin panel, search profile by id (topic)
8 ) direct link to original photo (topic)
9) top photos update (topic)
10) mailbox: change “not read” (topic)
11) professional match template (topic)
12) top rated profiles: add score and rates (topic)
13) Add google analytics ability (topic)
14) Automatic happy birthdate email (topic)
15) A heap of other micro-enhancements, optimizations, and bugfixes.

The update has been packed today. Feel free to download your copy from the customer area.

Thanks to those customers who constantly contribute to quality of our software with testing and reports on Skalfa Boards. We have some candies for you guys, let it be surprise!

Free custom domains for WackWall-powered social networks!

Posted in Projects, WackWall | Tags: custom · domain

Go run to your social network administration area on WackWall.

Then go to basic settings.

Then choose your own domain.com web-address.
Make sure your domain name is configured correctly.

Have fun with http://www.mynetwork.com instead of http://mynetwork.wackwall.com.

Nobody’s charging you for using it - all for FREE.

How we develop WackWall

Posted in Projects, WackWall | Tags: maintenance · roadmap · updates

As you might have noticed in the last few days we are performing maintenance updates on a daily basis introducing heaps of fixes, optimizations and enhancements to the whole WackWall platform, primarily for better and more stable functionality of social network sites created upon it.

Thus WackWall and your network on it become better every day. We have a nice long list of tiny details to work on. Think you can contribute to it? Always welcome!

So far you can track our status updates or subscribe for RSS feed.

On the other hand we have a roadmap of features to finish this summer:

• Integration of widget gallery from Widgetbox;
• Several native widgets like RSS feeds and custom HTML;
• Google account login;
• Contacts import from Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo;
• Video sharing;
• New, more powerful site appearance builder with a nice selection of predefined templates (themes).

Stay tuned for all the wonderful things coming to your social network with WackWall! We are all about delivering value to your community users so let us know if we can do a better job of building a cool destination for them.

WackWall Weekly #3: Meet blogs

Posted in News, Projects, WackWall | Tags: weekly

Here comes another WackWall Weekly issue announcing important news and changes for the young and growing WackWall community.

What’s New?

• New template HTML and CSS markup.

  This is a very important change so you should check now if your custom CSS is compliant with the new changes. This change is required for more detailed customization of your network and prepares WackWall networks for the more powerful customization tools that are being developed right now.

  Also we introduce improved default network template which will do a better job for starting up. All networks that don’t have customized templates are changed accordingly.

• User blogs feature.

  To activate this feature go to “Features/Layout” page of your admin area (”Configuration” section) and add the corresponding box to your network index page. We will come up with blog RSS feeds and main blog for networks shortly.

• New index page

  as a better presentation of what WackWall is and how it can be used).

• New admin panel

  with one-click shortcuts to all available settings pages.

As a user you have probably noticed that these new things are already being tested live for several days. So far so good, don’t forget to submit your feedback, suggestions, and bug-reports on Wackmasters forum.

In Development

We continue serious backend elaborations including general usability and technical enhancements everywhere like adding appropriate links/tools/interfaces, code optimizations, additional features like smilies engine for all user input and such. Although usually not announced explicitly these things are gradually implemented and come to make life easier for all Wackmasters and their users.

Our goal is to make every WackWall-powered social network website a superb place to communicate. This also greatly depends on your activity in Wackmasters forum because real-life feedback from actual users is something that can’t be replaced with any level of several persons’ insight. We need you no less than you need us.

Now to some concrete things being developed right now:

• Powerful template customization tools and a collection of pre-created templates;
• Network main blogs built on top of user blogs feature;
• Google Accounts login;
• Contacts import from Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail;
• Invite friends by email.

Cool New Social Networks

Miley Cyrus Supporter Club	Harry Potter’s Fans
UGP Friendspace!	Life Philosophy

These social networks were created on WackWall platform with no additional programming, using administration tools available.

WackWall content democracy: RSS and custom HTML widgets coming soon

Posted in Projects, WackWall | Tags: feedback · suggest feature

We are planning to add 2 kinds of widgets that will greatly help with creating content for your social network on WackWall.

1) RSS widget - allowing you to obtain content from an arbitrary RSS feed of any source, like blogs, YouTube, Flickr, and so on. Not that your site should be stuffed with RSS-taken 3rdparty content only but it will help your network take off with constant and fresh content on the topic. Is there anything users love more?

2) Custom HTML widget - a widget that just lets you put any HTML content within it. It can be used for additional wording, promo, non-standard types of content, and… advertisement. Note that we don’t prohibit putting your own ads on your network even if you don’t plan to purchase ControlPack to eliminate/replace WackWall ad banner - you can run your own unlimited ads as well.

If you think you know what we should be aware of when developing these features, or have an idea of other widgets that help you build content for your network, feel free to let us know! WackWall is a project that is destined to be in heavy development during the whole its lifetime and our goal is to make your social network a really cool place to commuincate.

The new, lightweight chuPPo Chat with video in separate popups

Posted in Products, chuPPo | Tags: chat · update

Just a quick note of news:

1) chuPPo Chat has become lightweight due to its transition to Flex 3 framework. Now it will load faster than before thus improving users’ experience.

2) Due to numerous requests we have implemented “video in pop-up” feature. Now if you look at someone’s video in chuPPo Chat you can not only put it to video dock but also open it in a separate popup window - this makes it possible to resize the video without interfering with chat interface.

Feel free to check at chuPPo Chat demo.

WackWall Weekly #2: Meet forums!

Posted in News, Projects, WackWall | Tags: weekly

What’s New

• Forums feature! Open admin area of your network, Features/Layout section. You will find a new box, “Forum”. Drag’n'drop it to your index page and press the icon for settings. Now you can offer your members simple and attractive discussion boards. First, you will need to create sections and forums, after that your members will be able to start posting.
  

• WackMasters network (http://dev.wackwall.com/) - useful resource for all WackWall webmasters (wackmasters) with forum. Suggest features, report bugs, and exchange ideas about WackWall and its getting better for your needs.
• Numerous fixes and micro-enhancements of the whole system. Perfect software doesn’t exist, even excellent software is hard to find. We don’t really see us stopping improving existing features during the whole project lifetime.
• A new portion of ongoing SEO effort to optimize network pages - means more traffic for your network.
• iBATIS database layer support instead of Hibernate

Currently in development

• Blogs feature
  

• Predefined templates collection
• Easier and more powerful design customization
  

• Admin panel usability reorganization, introducing statistics and mass mailing
  

• Google accounts login integration (!)
  

• Friends functionality, invite friends, import contacts from popular email services
  

New cool social networks created on WackWall

Cat fancier? Come in…	Love
Design	likeapple

SkaDate update: 6.799

Posted in News, Products, SkaDate | Tags: update

I’m glad to announce the long-awaited SkaDate 6 Unity update: revision 6.799

It contains numerous fixes and enhancements mainly reported and suggested by our customers.

So, what’s new?

Admin Features:

- Giving new membership type when actually viewing a member detail
- “Send test email” button for mass mailing, activity scheduler
- Admin can set the priority of profile order in search results with these options: by last activity, by paid members, by photos, by join date
- Quick Search - configurable location. Zip or Country/state/city
- Send only new matches - admin can set to send only new matches for specified period
- “Select All” in admin photo approval area
- Admin gets notice if profile a member with recurring membership unregisters
- Changed the order of profiles for review in Admin Panel: latest profiles at the top
- Possibility to hide “Important Tips” on member home page via Admin Panel

User features:

- Ajax Chat/IM - overall stability, display improvement, speed, opponent connection status tracking - thanks to the new backend.
- “CHECK ALL” button to the bottom of the members emails into Mailbox
- Date of user subscription in the profiles
- Option for users to accept only matches who have profiles with pictures in them
- “My neighborhood” feature enhancement
- Tags - member can delete tags which other profiles posted on his profiles
- Possibility to upload image or insert URL for profile page background
- Readable messages change - members will be able to read and answer readable messages
- Fullsize photos
- Highlighting members on search results by membership type
- “Unsubscribe from emails” in email template
- Members can see who recently looked at their profile
- “Remember Me” option at sign-in
- “Subscription” page redesign
- Fixed basic components on “Build Profile” page
- If a free member can’t use IM, they still can answer IM initiated by a premium member
- Text box to add personal message on the “Invite a friend” feature
- Friends request redesign
- Captcha image on contact form

System changes

Fixes

- If someone is removed that a member has referred that they still have that number of referrals
- Ajax chat window jump
- Featured Profiles “Next” link on home page - Skips the first full page of featured members
- Not sending matches email if no matches
- Moderators review profile photos in Admin Panel
- Language Management: `Language Key Types` alphabetical sorting.
- Suspended photos appeared while browsing randomly (fixed).
- Photo Rating module APP many fixes and improvements

The new update is now ready for shipping. Check out SkaDate demo.

SkaDate update in beta-testing

Posted in Products, SkaDate | Tags: beta

The long awaited SkaDate 6 Unity update is now available for beta-testing. Some of the most active customers expressed wish to help us in that, so we gratefully accepted this help. Right now we are gathering reported issues and making quick fixes.

Thus we are awaiting the stable update release to be available for everyone by the end of this week. It includes some of the very important enhancements requested by customers in our public forum.

This is the latest update of SkaDate 6 Unity before the upcoming major release.