JReviews 2.4 Beta development update #4

[Alejandro]

** THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT UPDATE, NOT A RELEASE ANNOUNCEMENT **

 

For lack of an actual release, we are posting another development update to let you know how we are doing. Rest assured we are spending a huge amount of time for Beta 4 because we don't want to keep making changes after that. Some of the things we've worked and continue to work on:

 

* Crazy amount of time spent making sure every little aspect of JReviews is responsive and works well with responsive templates.

* Converted css sprite for icons to an icon font using vector graphics. That means the icons are more easily customized (size, color, etc.) using CSS. They are also retina display ready.

* Fixed tons of reported bugs and bugs we found on our own as well. We've also worked on many little improvements all over the place to try improve the user and admin experience.

* Working on greatly simplified and easier to understand settings for photo and video layouts. Also added a new layout choice for a compact gallery in the detail page.

* New setting to optionally separate the listing owner submitted photos and reviews from those submitted by regular users. This required a major effort so we hope you like the results.

* Improved integration with Joomla 2.5+ page related settings for title, meta description and keywords in JReviews menus

* New listing preview feature for unpublished listings. This allows listing owners as well as admins to view the listing. Logged in listing owners won't see a 404 page as it happens now with Joomla articles that are not published or expired. For the rest of the world the listing remains unpublished and 404.

* New comparison menu where you can specify listing ids

* New theme debugging tool that will make it a lot easier to get started with theme customization and also to find errors in theme files.

* New Joomla module positions in JReviews theme files so you can assign modules that will appear inside JReviews pages.

* Currently working on updating front-end language files and enabling translation of the admin side as well.

* Further Joomla 3.x compatibility testing and bug fixes.

* New performance features for page loading. You can load all JReviews js files minimized (not combined) and also use a javascript loader that will enable loading of JReviews js files in parallel with the rest of the page instead of forcing the page to wait while the files finish loading.

* Lots of other small and not so small changes.

 

So there you have it. We've now ruined most of the surprises for the release announcement!! but we hope that at least this will whet your appetite while you wait for it. Thank you everyone for your patience and your help in making this the best JReviews ever!