Category: Uncategorized

Major Commons plugins updates scheduled for 2013-10-21

The following plugins will receive major updates during the maintenance release on October 21, 2013. The numbers in parentheses represent the major version series for each plugin; on the 21st, the plugin will be updated to the latest available version in that series, but no later.

  1. Custom sidebars (1.3)
  2. Jetpack (2.5)
  3. List Pages Shortcode (1.6)
  4. PhotoDropper (2.2)
  5. Rotating Tweets (1.6.1)
  6. Subscribe2 (9.0)
  7. TablePress (1.1.1)
  8. The Events Calendar (3.1)
  9. ThreeWP Broadcast (1.32)
  10. Twitter Widget Pro (2.6.0)
  11. WP Security Scan (4.0.1)
  12. WP-PostRatings (1.76)

No themes will receive major updates during the maintenance release on October 21, 2013.

Question or concerns about these releases? Leave a comment below, or contact our team at [email protected].

(This post is the second in the series of “major update release warning posts”, announced in https://dev.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2013/09/05/new-release-schedule-and-procedures-document-available/ and described in detail at https://dev.commons.gc.cuny.edu/release-schedule-and-procedures/#major-update-releases.)

Commons 1.4.12.1

On Monday morning, I released version 1.4.12.1 of the CUNY Academic Commons. 1.4.12.1 was an emergency security release. On Saturday, Dec 11, our automated security scans showed that there had been unauthorized access to our system. Over the course of Saturday and Sunday, the Commons development team investigated the problem and cleaned up the vandalism left by the hack. We determined that the source of the vulnerability was a WordPress plugin that contained an incorrectly implemented feature. We modified the plugin to remove the problematic feature, closing this particular security hole, and we are working on implementing improved procedures for vetting software before installing it on the Commons to avoid further issues.

Our team has determined that damage was limited to a minor piece of vandalism on one page of the site and that no changes were made to user files or data as a result of this incident.

If you have questions or comments about this issue, please don’t hesitate to contact the Commons team.

Commons 1.4

I’ve just released version 1.4 of the CUNY Academic Commons. 1.4 is a major feature release for the Commons. Some feature highlights:

  • Reply to BuddyPress content (forums, private messages, public activity mentions) by responding to email notifications. This plugin, BP Reply By Email, was developed specifically for use here on the Commons, by our own Raymond Hoh.
  • Users can now specify that specific profile field should be visible to Friends, Logged-In Users, or Anyone
  • Upgraded to the latest version of BuddyPress, version 1.6
  • New WordPress plugin for embedding Google Docs, developed (again!) by our own Raymond Hoh
  • Users can now select affiliation with more than one college
  • The WP plugin Anthologize is now available for Commons blogs
  • Users can now clear recent status updates from their profile headers

Special thanks to all members of the Commons Development and Community teams who helped to make this release possible.

For complete details on the release, visit the 1.4 milestone.

Commons 1.3.3

I’ve just released version 1.3.3 of the CUNY Academic Commons. Commons 1.3.3 is a bugfix release, on the heels of Commons 1.3.2’s WP upgrade. Highlights:

  • In group Files areas, file descriptions are now visible.
  • A fatal error when attempting to edit a BuddyPress Doc has been fixed.
  • Support for Pages added to the Featured Content widget.
  • Login redirects for private pages are fixed.

For full details on the release, see the 1.3.3 milestone.

Commons 1.3

I’ve just released version 1.3 of the CUNY Academic Commons. 1.3 is a major feature release for the Commons. Various technical and extra-technical hurdles have held up v1.3 for a bit longer than the team may have liked, so it feels particularly good to announce its release.

You can read a nice round-up of highlights at our News blog. Here is a quick list, from the development point of view:

  • Upgraded to latest BuddyPress, including all BP-dependent plugins (among others, a large rewrite of much of BuddyPress Groupblog)
  • New directory filters for Members
  • Autosuggest for wiki tags
  • Icon display of social media fields on user profiles
  • Sorting/posts-per-page dropdowns for individual forum topics
  • Auto-invitations to the Group for Group Admins for group admins/mods
  • Infrastructure for the invitation of non-CUNY site members, via admin-supplied signup code
  • Save rich text editor preferences in MediaWiki
  • Non-network-activate Viper’s Video Tags WP plugin
  • Better handling of LaTeX in group email notifications
  • Prompt for forcing the filling in of “Role” on user profiles
  • IE styling fixes for BP theme
  • Improvements to groupblog activation during group creation
  • Better custom image support for Featured Content Widget plugin
  • Dashboard Widget cruft removed
  • Autocomplete for adding users to blogs
  • New WP plugin: FD Footnotes

Keep an eye on the Codex in the upcoming days for posts highlighting some of these features.

For complete details on the 1.3 release, see the milestone.