This latest beta has a bunch of fixups, cleanups and improvements over beta 7:
The jrFoxyCartBundle module has been overhauled and changed - it now works similar to the Playlist module, in that you can add any item to a "bundle" from a small drop down located on the item. You can also easily create new bundles on the fly from the drop down as well. This should be more intuitive than the bundle module in beta 7.
The Gallery module has also been cleaned up a bit and now features a new "stacked image" approach for the main gallery page, showing you a small stack of images that are in the gallery.
The "add to cart" price and button area for an item has been cleaned up and simplified in the templates via new Smarty functions. It looks nicer too.
Lots of improvements in the Merchandise Store in regards to purchase flow, communications, etc.
Low level performance improvements for session caching should speed up page loads when caching is enabled. Remember that JR5 is designed to run with caching enabled at ALL times - unlike JR4 which could still perform adequately with caching disabled, JR5 will run pretty slow even on a good server if caching is disabled, so make sure you have your cache seconds set to something like 300 or so and you should see good performance.
Default volume now set on all players that should bring them closer to the default system volume when listening to audio/watching video.
Conversion server bug fixes for audio that now should properly create the sample media when a price is added to an existing audio file.
Core queue upgrades that should improve performance and make it so all queue items get created properly.
Lots of other tweaks, fixes and improvements.
Our hope is that beta 8 is going to be the last beta version, but like with beta 7 if we still see a number of outstanding issues, or generally want to improve some core features, we'll do a beta 9 if needed.
NOTE: If you are customizing or creating your own Jamroom 5 skin, we are planning some important changes for the next release. We are going to be focusing our attention on the "default" module templates, as well as the "action" section in templates (i.e. where you see the buttons for modify, update, create, etc.). The goal is to reduce the number of templates that a skin defines, and allow them to use the default module templates in more situations. This is going to require some key changes, namely:
- standardizing CSS class names
- standardizing template Icon names
The outcome of this is that new modules will be much easier to integrate into an existing skin without having to create new custom skin templates to support the new module, so it's worth the effort. If you are a module or skin developer, we'll make sure we post the info you will need to update your existing module templates to work with the new setup. If you are designing a skin, you'll likely be able to simplify your skin with the new setup, and we'll let you know about that too.
If anyone has any questions about or issues with the new release, please let us know in the JR5 forum:
We aren't going with a beta as we have WAY too many bands to edit.
Is there any ETA on J5 release??
We bought a sub almost a year ago ( There abouts ) and realised j4 was not gonna do what we want
But 5 will. So we need a stable version to bring all the bands ( Manually ) from joomla to J5.
So any idea? I know you keep saying if we find something else we will need to fix it. And I understand that.
But is the Beta 8 right to start a production site?
If so we are all good
Joined: 20 Aug 2003
Posts: 5341
Location: Nottingham, UK
Posted: 06/14/13 03:49
Actually, when re-importing, jrImport will update any existing items and create new ones, so it can be used that way, but ideally, its a one-off operation.
I'll see if I can get it ready for the next beta.
That will be great, then we can move forward with the development of our site and users can have there site ready when you guys release the production site
Thanks for all the hard work. I feel like i'm stalking the forums just waiting for the right release. I think we will give beta9 a test flight esp to see how the import process runs against our 1500 profiles, we are excited to move into JR5 this summer!
What is the upgrade price going to be for those of us that already have everything unlocked in JR4?
Joined: 20 Aug 2003
Posts: 5341
Location: Nottingham, UK
Posted: 06/20/13 02:07
jcable:
Thanks for all the hard work. I feel like i'm stalking the forums just waiting for the right release. I think we will give beta9 a test flight esp to see how the import process runs against our 1500 profiles, we are excited to move into JR5 this summer!
What is the upgrade price going to be for those of us that already have everything unlocked in JR4?
The Jamroom5 Core is free, but I'd recommend buying the Super Pack that contains many compatible modules whilst its at it special low beta price.
Beta testing of the jrImport module has thrown up a few issues so not sure that it'll make it to beta9. Could still do with a couple more beta testers though so if anyone has a JR4 site to run a test JR5 import on, PM me with the site and an email address.
