JomSocial 1.6 codename Brillo is finally here! The JomSocial developers have been working hard, adding new features and refining the product to make a faster, streamlined... just plain better JomSocial. We at hwdMediaShare think JomSocial is brillient and we hope you will agree, this version rocks!

So what's new about JomSocial 1.6, erm, Brillo? Well, for starters, over 170 minor issues have been resolved that were logged in our internal issue tracking system. You can view the complete change log here, but let me briefly highlight some of JomSocial Brillo's exciting new features.

Our hwdMediaShare users have previously request a comment system integration with the popular !JoomaComment component. Now Daniel Dimitrov from CompoJoom.com, the !JoomlaComment developers, has provided a plugin for hwdVideoShare to work with their system. We have worked together to integrate this new plugin as a standard option in our software. This new option again expands users' choice of comment system which now includes JomComment, JComment, JoomlaComment and Kunena.

Open Source Excellence is a popular Joomla developer that provide membership control extensions for the Joomla CMS. They have previously offered their users a hwdVideoShare plugin for this system however, we are now working with their developers to bring both our communities an effective and powerful membership manager that will be accessible from the Joomla administrator.

After a number of years the hwdVideoShare software finally moves into an official Beta stage of development. So what does this mean? It means the frequency and type of bugs and problems reported by our users has changed recently, prompting us to re-classify the stability of the software. We no longer consider the software to be in the initial stage of development. The hwdMediaShare project is now well established and has a popular following. Huge community input and bug reporting has resulted in 3 major re-writes of the software. The software strucutre is now stable and mainly bug free.

Now that we are in a Beta stage of development we are now looking to resolve mainly cosmetic bugs, especially with the templates. We can also dedicated more time to new template plugins, and significant new features. The software might still contain major bugs, which will obviosuly be fixed upon report from the community.

Those users who are upgrading from hwdVideoShare 2.1.3 to hwdVideoShare_2.1.4 should read these notes that I have prepared on the upgrade. They include important points to check after the upgrade and will save you time if you experience problems.

A new official release has been published today. This release is called hwdMediaShare 2009-10-29 SVN-r131, and will probably be the last Alpha release. It includes a lot of bug fixes but mainly includes the new new structure which will remain in all future releases.

We have also updated the freely avaialble download of hwdVideoShare to the same hwdVideoShare component that is included in the hwdMediaShare Pro package.

The hwdMediaShare repositry has existed for a number of months. However, we are now using the repositry to track all software changes and label our releases. All official builds (and Nightly Builds) are built using the SVN automatically using an integrated system.

The last few months has really been quite difficult. There has been a huge expansion of the project and the hwdMediaShare website, and a significant software code re-structure has kept us very busy. There have been some difficult choices to make however, I personally believe we are now in a much stronger position because of these decisions.

We are now preparing to move out of the Alpha stage of development. Many users probably think we are wrong to label the software as Alpha, but this label is not based soley on the immeidate functionality of each release. We have needed to think about the expanability of the code structure. It is only now, after almost 2 years to development, are we happy with the structure. It is very expandable and we are confident we can now move to s production release very quickly. This also includes the development of hwdPhotoShare which has been am important factor in keeping us in an Alpha stage.

So, what does moving out of Alpha mean? It means:

• Greater stability
• Documented changes to template system
• Documented instructions for our plugin systems
  

We are now using Twitter to inform the community about news, bug-fixes and releases. Please follow us to keep up to date.

Joomla has announced the end for Joomla 1.0. After the 22nd July 2009, Joomla will no longer support this older version of the CMS. Other policy regarding Joomla 1.0 has also been published.

Highwood Design has also now shut down the development of hwdMediaShare for Joomla 1.0. It is possible we will help users with functional problems regarding hwdVideoShare, and apply patches and fixes to help resolve display issues. However, there will not be any new official releases for Joomla 1.0 and no new features will be added. We no longer advertise our products for Joomla 1.0 and discourage new users (who are still using Joomla 1.0) from Subscribing if they do not intend to upgrade to Joomla 1.5. After 22nd July, no support will be given for Joomla 1.0.

hwdMediaShare is a long way from stability and it seems senseless to maintain development on the version of hwdVideoShare for Joomla 1.0 when it will be obsolete long before it reaches stability.

Very few users contact us about Joomla 1.0 and we have hundreds of requests to switch to Joomla 1.5. The hwdMediaShare project must listen to the community and now concentrate on development for Joomla 1.5.