* JReviews 2.1 beta released - exciting new features and functionality improvements
    * Important information on upgrading to JReviews 2.1 beta - a must read!
    * ReviewsAhoy.com - a great tool to help promote your site
    * Take advantage of our 25% off sale to celebrate this release

JReviews 2.1 beta released

We are very pleased to announce the release of JReviews 2.1 beta. This release is the result of several months of work and includes many brand new features and improvements to existing features. We hope to have a stable version in a few weeks.

Customers with valid upgrade packages can download this version for free. To renew your upgrades you need to login to the client area and go to your license order page where you'll find a link to upgrade

A few of the highlights:

    * Improved moderation: There are new moderation menus that allow you to approve, hold or reject pending items and send predefined or custom emails to the submitter. You can also write an admin note for the moderated item.
    * Criteria ratings can now be optional: The criteria manager interface has been improved and there is a new option for each criterion so you can make it optional.
    * Listing owners can reply to reviews: Now listing owners can reply to user reviews to defend themselves from a negative review, to thank the user or to simply post a comment to the review. Replies can be moderated.
    * Review discussions: Users can now start discussions around user reviews with this new mini forum-like functionality.
    * Multiple editor reviews per listing: It is now possible to allow all of your designated JReviews editors to review the listings.
    * Claim listings: Let users claim a listing as their own so they keep the information updated. New claimss are put in the moderation queue so you can verify the information and ownership is automatically changed when the claim is approved.
    * Listing inquiries: We have simplified the process to allow users to contact listing owners. The feature comes with several email options and requires a single line of code to be added in the detail theme file.
    * Four new menu types: Latest user reviews, latest editor reviews, latest reviews (all) and latest discussion posts.
    * New slider effect for pagination in modules: The ajax pagination has been taken to a whole new level with this change that adds smooth transitions between pages.

For a complete list of additions, changes and bug fixes, please read the changelog.

I would like to extend a special thank you to the users who sponsored the optional criteria ratings and to Gigi at phpmycoder.com for his help with the implementation of this feature and the multiple editor reviews.

Upgrading to JReviews 2.1 beta

The are some important considerations before you upgrade to this version. Your server must meet the following requirements or JReviews 2.1 will not work:

    * PHP version should be PHP 5.2.x
    * PHP extensions json and mbstring must be enabled

To check if your server meets the new system requirements you can go in the Joomla administration to Help>>System Info>>PHP information. Check the php version and search for mbstring and json to see if they are enabled. Mbstring is required for better handling of string functions on multi-byte languages and JSON is required for the new ajax functionality powered by jQuery.
This is a beta version with important database and theme changes. Don't upgrade your production site unless you know what you are doing and have a full backup in place.

    * Important database changes in JReviews means you won't be able to roll back to the previous version after the upgrade. You should do a full site backup before the upgrade and preferably test it in a development site first.
    * Due to the important number of functionality changes the old themes are not compatible so you must upgrade the ones you've modified. This is another reason to set up a dev site so you can work on upgrading the themes at your own pace.
    * The JReviews license allows you to install and use JReviews in subdirectories of your licensed domain. You can use this flexibility to setup your development site; or alternatively you can also set it up in localhost.

For more detailed instuctions on upgrading read the upgrade instructions in the knowledge base.

ReviewsAhoy.com - a great tool to help promote your site

ReviewsAhoy.com was originally launched as a showcase for JReviews sites and has grown into a valuable site promotion tool. Traffic is increasing steadily which should help bring more users to your site. The sites are not only shown at ReviewsAhoy.com, but they are also rotated in the showcase modules at reviewsforjoomla.com

 

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