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Questions about 1.6.1[Answered] | Forum

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Oxwall Accessories
Oxwall Accessories May 1 '14
For those of you that havn't read the blog Ill post it. 


Dev Diary, April 30, 2014Posted on April 30, 2014 by 

Here we are again with our Dev Diary series. This time we want to let you know about the upcoming changes in internal communication tools in Oxwall.

As you know, there are two plugins now, Mailbox and Chat. They are independent, so you can only communicate in real-time chat or using mailbox (that mimicks email). There are several important issues with that though, namely:

  • Messaging communication keeps getting transformed. There’s a reason why the border between email and instant messaging blurred so much, and we are not fully content with any one of these.
  • People don’t necessarily want to remember where the talk happened. It’s just convenient to have everything in one place with ability to search.
  • Sometimes it’s really much more convenient to keep your chat going in a focused, standard page interface, than to type and read in that small chat window; or to have back-and-forth email followup’s in bite-sized messages.

Fundamentally, while a social website is a complex system, sending a message is a trivial, casual, frequent operation. It means, there have to be different ways to send, receive, and respond to messages, all suitable for context and task at hand.

But then, communication is different. While casual messaging is sufficient for some websites, other may really benefit from a more formal, email-style approach. Since Oxwall websites are used for different purposes, we have to support both paradigms and make them work nicely together, if required.

With all this in mind, we decided to do the following:
- Make a unified Messages plugin that will incorporate functionality of both Mailbox and Chat plugins;
- Allow to enable either of those, or both at once;
- Have chats and “emails” in one interface with search (retaining chat and contact list windows, of course);
- Provide granular (if excessive) permission settings for every action in mailbox and chat.

Screenshot from 2014-04-30 17:30:54

The new Messages plugin will be available as the successor of the two current plugins with the platform 1.6.1 release. We hope communication in Oxwall will become much more efficient now. And of course, we are ready to iterate on your feedback.

Thank you for being such a fantastic community!

The Forum post is edited by ross May 2 '14
Oxwall Accessories
Oxwall Accessories May 1 '14
Now I do have some Questions retaining these new features.



1.- Make a unified Messages plugin that will incorporate functionality of both Mailbox and Chat plugins;

You mentioned chat plugins will work with this new system. Does this mean our OA Video Chat, Arrow chat, Etc.


2.- Have chats and “emails” in one interface with search (retaining chat and contact list windows, of course)  Do we have to be on this page to instant message or is the small box still available while browsing the site


3. Does this system run off of ajaxim? 


4. Does this system cause more or less strain on the server than the last system?


The Forum post is edited by Oxwall Accessories May 1 '14
ross Team
ross May 1 '14

1. mailbox and chat have been redesigned. let's say the functionality has been changed in someway, the developers who have plugins related to the chat will have to readjust their plugins. 


2. mailbox appearance have been slightly changed, chat box will be the same


3. IM will be still working on ajax, there will be additional features integrated in the mailbox, for instance, chat history. 


4. server load from chat will be the same. the accent was made on user interface only. 


Oxwall Accessories
Oxwall Accessories May 1 '14
OK ross seeing as we have so many users on our chat plugin I wanted to see if the team would allow us to work with you guys and get a copy asap. I would like for the video chat customers to not have to go without. 
Sean
Sean May 1 '14
Yeah that would be great, my website heavily relies on the video chat plugin, and since Oxwall have even featured this plugin as a 'must have', it would be nice to know the plugin won't 'break' after the upgrade.
Oxwall Accessories
Oxwall Accessories May 1 '14
Thanks Sean. As you can see we are attempting to get early access to avoid any possible conflicts. I wonder why they didn't decide to make a release date for developers first. I do believe that's the way wee have done it in the past. 
The Forum post is edited by Oxwall Accessories May 1 '14
ross Team
ross May 1 '14
As always, we'll do the Beta testing. It will last 2 weeks, however we can prolong it for more. 
Oxwall Accessories
Oxwall Accessories May 1 '14
any chance of an early beta copy seeing as this will require such exstensive work on my behalf with the video chat plugin. Or so we can at least see what we are going to have to do. 
Kieron H Leader
Kieron H May 2 '14
will Beta testers have to apply again or will Beta testers from 1.6.0 automatically be on the Beta role 
ross Team
ross May 2 '14
Yes, they will have to apply. Unfortunately, no you can't get an early copy, as I said we can only prolong the testing period.