What is XTDir for SobiPro?

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Created on Friday, 14 June 2013 15:28

XTDir is our new solution to empower SobiPro!

XTDir is built based on our 5-years experience working and extending SobiPro (formerly known as Sigsiu Online Business Index 2, or Sobi2 for short).

From our humble beginnings, with the SobiPro Search plugin, we 've been creating new extensions for SobiPro, supporting new features and extending Apps, Modules, and Plugins.

Each extension needs its own configuration, and a common configuration; so they became too complex, and redundant with every new feature. We needed to review the whole product model! A new XTDir was born to consolidate our vision and reach new highs. http://demo.xtdir.com

Main Component Features

• Dashboard:  Control Panel to manage the general configuration
• Joomla Search plugin: To integrate SobiPro with the general search.
• Smart Search plugin (Finder): To integrate SobiPro with the general Joomla smart search / simplified Sobipro App for finder.

Promoted Entries for SobiPro

• Entries Explorer: The explorer is our main management tool to promote/unpromote, enable/disable, and approve/unapprove actions.
• Promoted Entries: Entries can be promoted to top positions in the catalog navigation, in this way an advertisement organization can be implemented.
• Tiers for Sections / Categories: Tiers define how the list of promoted entries will be managed. Scope: section-wide or category specific.
• Ads algorithms: Default, Hits, Random, or Multi-Armed Bandit (Random+Hits, same used by Google Adwords)
• Entries management: Manual (activated by hand), Dynamic (field managed) , or Paid (activated by payments).
• Order management
• Promotion Expiration/Edition
• Promoted Entry Metadata Field: native SobiPro field to include entry metadata (styling)
• AlphaListing Entry Promotion
• Custom "Order By": Support for custom second order

Modules

The new list of reviewed modules are:

• Extended Joomla Search Form: the extended search form applied to Joomla search.
• Extended SobiPro Search Form: the extended search form applied to SobiPro search.
• Categories of SobiPro: module to show the list of categories, in 6 different layouts, with statistics.
• Joomla Search In Categories: module to show a seach box, and an associated list of categories for Joomla search.
• SobiPro Search In Categories: module to show a seach box, and an associated list of categories for SobiPro search.
• Sobipro Search in Selected Section: module to show a search box and a section selection, to submit the query to SobiPro search.

Advanced Features

• Performance: Battle tested for large catalogs. This site has more than sample 2.000 entries. More test sections are coming (10-100K entries)
  
• Cronjob tasks: heavy tasks are managed by cronjob tasks. For example, to build an index of 1.000 entries, 100 seconds are required.

XTDir for SobiPro 1.1 Beta 3 is available to all current Packs and Promoted Entries members. The final version is planned for end of June 2013 (after SobiPro v1.1 June 28th release)

AutoTweetNG PRO v6.5: JCalPro featured plugin of the month

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Created on Wednesday, 12 June 2013 12:05

In this edition, JCalPro, the events calendar for Joomla, is the new featured AutoTweetNG plugin of the month.

JCalPro offers simplicity, flexibility, a robust feature set and gorgeous templates to fit almost any color scheme.

Available in AutoTweetNG v6.5.1!

Changelog

• New JCalPro plugin v6.5.0, support for the events calendar for Joomla
• Fix in SobiPro plugin category support, v6.4.3.
• Fix in the cronjob scheduler (n. posts > 1)
• Improvements in context help
• New OpenGraph Tags v6.5 plugin, to generate Facebook Tags in Joomla Content
• New Goog.gl Google URL Shortener
• Yourls API v1.6 support, check out http://www.joocial.com and our brand new http://joo.nu domain
• New [introtext] tag for rules
• New text tag limit for rules Eg [introtext,30]
• New Facebook Testing App

AutoTweetNG v6.4.5 is available, also with ListBingo support

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Created on Monday, 13 May 2013 15:11

Today, we are releasing AutoTweetNG v6.4.5. This version is a regular update with a set of improvements and a new plugin.

This time we are adding support for ListBingo. Listbingo is an essential tool to build your own classified site in Joomla. When a user submits a new Ad, AutoTweet posts the ad to the social channels. Welcome to the family!

Improvements in AutoTweetNG v6.4.5

• ListBingo plugin
• Zoo plugin now supports ImagePro / Multiple Images
• Content Plugin now supports article Intro and Full images
• New System Check for server versions compliance
• K2 plugin, tags as hashtags
• Updated plugins: Iproperty, JomWall, K2, HWDMediaShare, Mosets Tree, SobiPro, VirtueMart, and Zoo
• Javascript / RequireJS optimization
• Logging optimization
• Image min-max parameter in configuration
• Ruletype filter and contextual help
• New Btn-Group for Joomla 3 visual style
• German translations, in the way to be deprecated

About German translations, in the team currently there's no german speaker. Our efforts to keep the translations up to date have been odd in the results. So, we have to remove the German translations, and focus our ongoing efforts improving the English and Spanish product and site documentation.

AutoTweetNG, a bigger social hub, and also SobiPro news!

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Created on Monday, 15 April 2013 13:07

Featured Plugin of the Month: JomWALL

In this opportunity, we have the pleasure to showcase the JomWALL plugin.

JomWALL is a Joomla-based platform for building intranets, meeting places, work groups, social networks and community websites with collaboration tools and Facebook-like features, installation is fast and easy!

New integrated extensions

The latest AutoTweetNG v6.4.4 is packaging more power than ever. Beyond the usual improvements, our Social Hub of products is growing. We have over 30 integrated extensions!

• JomWALL
• HWDMediaShare
• Iproperty
• Joom Donation
• JoomShopping
• Mosets Tree
• SermonSpeaker (third-party)

Sigsiu's SobiPro 1.1 Beta is here!

SobiPro 1.1 Beta has been released. It has support for Joomla! 2.5 and 3.0; and also integrates the visually stunning Bootstrap framework in the directory component.

Please, join the SobiPro 1.1 Beta testing to improve the best multi-section directory, now in Joomla! 3.0.

Extly's XTSobiPro is coming

Following the SobiPro Beta, we are working to update and re-organize our family of SobiPro extensions under a new concept.

From our humble beginnings, now we want to create a new solution, simplify the configuration, refactor the code, remove old Joomla! 1.5 code, and add new features based on your feedback!

Thank you for your continual support!

Kind Regards,
Support Team

About Security Practices: Warning! Don't download extensions from untrusted websites!

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Created on Wednesday, 13 March 2013 13:02

Today, we've been reading the news about how a user discovered the fact about free untrusted downloads.

In the article Warning! Don't download joomla extensions from untrusted websites!, Daniel describes how he downloaded, and installed an extension from an unknown author. Soon, he discovered that the source code has a hidden link.

Also, he tried to download again the module, to discover a different hidden link! So, the untrusted author's been not only surreptitiously adding links, also rotated the hidden links as a regular operation.

As Daniel notes, a hidden link is one way to get your site hacked. Also, the source code can have worst attack vectors. For example, accesing your site customers, user passwords, and social media accounts.

Now, the module's been reported and it is not anymore listed on the JED.

From Joomla's Security Checklist:

• Use the community: Don't forget the truism, "If a deal is too good to be true, it is." ...

As Daniel concludes "This goes to you too! Be careful where you download your next joomla extension!".