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Commons 1.7.11

I’ve just released version 1.7.11 of the CUNY Academic Commons. Highlights of this maintenance release:

Fixed formatting of some plain-text emails
Fixed layout for the main Commons login page
Added better error message on login failure

The following plugins were updated:

Custom Sidebars (2.1.0.2)
Enable Media Replace (3.0.3)
List Category Posts (0.55)
Redirection (2.3.13)
SyntaxHighlighter Evolved (3.1.11)
WPTouch (3.6.6)

The following themes were updated:

Customizr (3.2.17)
Dante (2.75)
Make (1.4.9)
Platform (1.4.4)
Sensitive (1.2.6)

For complete details on the release, visit the 1.7.11 milestone.

I’ve just released version 1.5.22.1 of the CUNY Academic Commons. This emergency release includes some fixes that help to thwart denial of service attacks prompted by login attempts by unauthorized users.

Commons 1.2.7

I’ve just released version 1.2.7 of the CUNY Academic Commons. Commons 1.2.7 is a bugfix release that resolves a few issues related to logging into the site. Login screen styling has been improved, and a somewhat obscure bug that was causing some Firefox users to get a non-logged-in view after logging in has been fixed.

For complete details, see the 1.2.7 milestone.

Commons 1.2.3

I’ve just released version 1.2.3 of the CUNY Academic Commons. 1.2.3 is nominally a bugfix release, but it also happens to add a few neat features that are worth a short explanation.

BuddyPress Docs History Since BuddyPress Docs was introduced on the Commons with version 1.2, I’ve done some retooling to the way that the interface works. Of note, individual Docs now have three tabs (for those with proper permissions): Read, Edit, and History. The History tab gives you a nice, at-a-glance view of the revision history of a document, with options for side-by-side comparison and reverting to previous versions. See my earlier post on the subject for more information.
A prettier way to log in When you click Log In in the Commons navigation bar, you’ll notice that you’re no longer taken to a new page (assuming you have JavaScript enabled). Instead, you get a pretty little pop-up login dialog.
Better redirection for non-logged-in users If you subscribe to email notifications for any of your Commons groups, you know that it can be a bit annoying to click on the link provided, only to be bounced back to the Commons home page, because you were attempting to view private content but were not logged into the site. A new feature (written by the latest member of our dev team – more on that in an upcoming post!) makes this a thing of the past. If you attempt to visit a private page while not logged in, you’ll be taken to the login page, and after logging in, you’ll be sent to the page you were originally trying to visit.

As usual, there are also a number of bugfixes in this release. Of note:

Some styling issues for Internet Explorer are improved
WordPress updated to latest version
Really Simple Captcha plugin installed, to make blog contact forms more secure
Some errant error messages in BuddyPress Docs cleared up

For full details on the release, visit the 1.2.3 milestone.

The CUNY Academic Commons Announces WPMu-MediaWiki Single Sign-on

The CUNY Academic Commons, in partnership with Cast Iron Coding, is proud to announce a collection of MediaWiki extensions that will create a single sign-on system between WordPress Multi-User and MediaWiki.

With this extension, administrators of WordPress Multi-User will be able to add robust wiki functionality to their websites without forcing users to create separate accounts. Now, users will be able to sign in once to the home page of the system and have that sign-in carried over to the wiki.

We’re running this setup currently on the CUNY Academic Commons, a site that was conceived of as an open-source academic social network in which the members of the 23-campus City University of New York system would be able to connect with one another, share resources, and create new communities of interest. The site is built on the following platforms, which can now all be accessed via a single log-in: WordPress Multi-User + BuddyPress + BbPress + MediaWiki.

This integration builds on the fine work of Ciaran Gultnieks, the author of AuthWP, Daniel Kinzler, the author of LockDown, and Marcel Minke, the author RedirectAfterLogout.

We are delighted to release this extension under a GNU General Public License. Full documentation and files can be found here.