News
Webiva Updates
What's new this week in Webiva development? Well, lot's of cool stuff is going on behind the scenes and we're trying to make it easier to get a sense of everything that's going on, so we'll be updating the news every 1-2 weeks with a quick synopsis of what going on.
New Rails3 Branch
We've been incorporating the latest version of Ruby on Rails into Webiva, and our developers have got a new Rails3 Branch up and ready for testing.
New Calendar of Events Module
There is now an Event Module, which is an easy way to incorporate an events calendar into your site. Here's how to use it:
Once activated, the Events Module will show up under "Content." In there, you will see the basic calendar interface for site admins to add events to the calendar. Choose between Day, Week, and Month views. Click the day to get a popup in which you enter event details. You can also configure different Event Types to add more information. The calendar works similarly to the blog feature, as you can create list and detail pages for the events.
Updated Documentation
We updated all our documentation for the latest version of Webiva, made sure screenshots match the latest version. Our next step is to bring the module documentation up to snuff.
As always don't hesitate to contact us or post on the forums with any questions!
Get the vote out
Masschallenge 2011 contestant GamesForLanguage is built on Webiva (and also has a nifty Facebook app). Vote for them at: http://masschallenge.org/profile/team/gamesforlanguage-llc.
1.0 Release candidate out the door
Webiva 1.0 Release candidate 1 is out the door - meaning that barring any critical technical or security issues, the 1.0 release should be following relatively soon. The Webiva GitHub page has been spruced up as well with some images showing off the new design. You can checkout the changelog for some more details on what's changed.
Vote for Webiva to present at Mass Innovation Nights (Nov 10th)!
Webiva has been selected to attend Mass Innovation Nights on November 10th - Vote for Us to get a presentation spot!
From the Mass Innovation Nights website:
Every month, Mass Innovation Nights helps to launch 10 new products from local companies. The social media mavens turn out to blog, tweet, post video and pictures online, and otherwise help to publicize the products. In a single night, the community can generate hundreds of links to the featured company websites. And, we have a lot of fun and great networking too. Plus, we welcome students, job seekers, networkers and other interested innovators and entrepreneurs. (As a special bonus, Clock Tower Place team that runs the ClockWorks Cafe will be running a cash bar, and keep their pizza ovens and grill open just for us!)
Community Page Launched on Webiva.net
Webiva.net - long the neglected stepchild of the Webiva website triumvirate (Webiva.com / Webiva.org / Webiva.net) is finally getting the attention it deserves. We'll be focusing on the Webiva.net site over the next few weeks to make it more functional and more of a interactive resource for the community. We launched a new homepage earlier in the week highlighting new content on the site and today we're launching the first version of the community tab giving visibility to members of the site.
We want to provide an opportunity for members to showcase work they've done with the system and provide a resource for people looking for contractors to help them build and integrate sites in the CMS. Public profile's are opt-in - so you'll need to log into your account, edit your profile and publish it for your profile to appear in the directory. You can also use the updates feature to post information links and media of your work in Webiva, giving members a chance to showcase their work.
Here's the first couple profiles in the system:
Some of the features we'll be adding include:
- Web portfolios
- Searchable directory of Webiva professionals
- Posting of updates to twitter and facebook
- RSS Feed of posted updates
Webiva Inbound Marketing Blog Launched
In the past couple weeks we launched the Webiva.com Inbound Marketing Blog. Any News related to the Webiva software will likely stay on here on Webiva.net, while the Webiva.com blog will include, short detailed posts on building well-performing sites both with Webiva and in General.
Here's the first few posts:
Webiva Tour Video - building a site in under 5 minutes using wizards
We just put together a new video that shows you how to use some of the new wizard and theme importing functionality in Webiva, take a look.
Webiva.com Hosting Platform Launched in Public Beta
This morning Cykod LLC launched the Webiva.com Hosting Platform in a public Beta.
Webiva.com gives users access to a paid platform on which to quickly build Webiva websites without worrying about any of the IT challenges involved in deploying, updating or scaling your websites. Webiva.com is built on Amazon's Web Service offering and all sites are load-balanced between multiple servers and serve files using Amazon's CloudFront Content Delivery Network.
Signing up at Webiva.com gets you a free 48hour trial of the system, but during the public beta we will be extending trials accounts for any users that request an extended trial. Paid plans start at $40/mo and allow you access to all your websites from a single dashboard.
Webiva.com sites are built using the exactly same software that runs the open-source Webiva CMS, so you aren't locked in to a proprietary CMS but can easily take your site with you if leave the service.
Check out Webiva.com for a free trial!
Webiva posted on DiscoveringStartups.com
Webiva was recently posted on DiscoveringStartups.com as Webiva.org – Don’t Just Manage Content, Build Websites
Take a look (and vote for us!) at the link above.
Important: Structural updates to Webiva
We recently pushed some fairly large structural updates into the development branch on GitHub.
If you are tracking the development branch, and see some issues in your Webiva install, run the following command:
$ rake cms:update_domain_databases
To push database information from the filesystem into the master Webiva database.
Next, make sure you follow the instructions on the upgrade page
That's not the preferred nomenclature, dude
After trying and failling too many times to explain Design Templates and Site Features to people, we've come to realize we had a naming problem, so the front end interface has been updated to reflect new names for these two crucial pieces of Webiva:
Design Templates are now called Themes
Site Features are now called Paragraph Themes
Sync to the latest development branch to see the new names.
We think the new names will make it easier for people to understand what these do. You may see the the old terms hang around in the documentation and in various places in the system while we work to eradicate the old names, but the primary interfaces have been changed to reflect the new name.