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v0.8.1

17 Apr 19:38
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v0.8.1
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v0.8.1 Latest
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Better Together Community Engine v0.8.1 Release Notes

This update brings exciting new features to support mapping, spatial planning, and calendar scheduling—along with a range of improvements under the hood. From geospatial data modeling to upgraded dependency security, v0.8.1 continues our mission to help communities connect, organize, and grow.

Overview

  • Calendar & Mapping Support: New models and views for calendars and interactive maps make it easier to plan events and visualize spaces.
  • Geospatial Modeling: Added support for places, buildings, floors, rooms, and spatial relationships.
  • Performance & UI Enhancements: Improved resource management, UI polish, and image galleries.
  • Maintenance & Security: Updated key dependencies and fixed issues for a more secure and maintainable codebase.

New Features & Enhancements

  • Calendar System:

    • Introduced a new Calendar model and interface with daily, weekly, and monthly views.
    • Calendar Events have been designed but have yet to be implemented.

  • Geospatial Mapping Support:

    • Map Models & Views: Initial support for Geography::Map objects, including Leaflet.js integration.
    • Custom Map Styling: Maps support center and zoom customization, helping tailor the map to each platform.
    • Spatial Data Models: Introduced Place, Geography::Space, Building, Floor, and Room models for structured venue mapping.

  • Image Gallery Updates:

    • Implemented Masonry.js to create a dynamic, responsive image gallery layout.
    • Improved gallery visuals for venue and resource media.

  • Contact Details Improvements:

    • Platforms and communities can now have multiple associated contact details, with support for scoped primary fields.

Improvements & Bug Fixes

  • UI & Experience:

    • Replaced the social icon for Twix with Bluesky.
    • Improved page slug generation to ensure consistency and readability.
    • Removed default "Home" title if none is specified, providing cleaner navigation and SEO.
    • Upgraded form behavior and image previews, and removed unused Stimulus controllers to streamline the frontend.

  • Routing & Resource Handling:

    • Improved how resource controller updates are processed, fixing a bug where attributes weren’t being saved correctly.

  • Data Modeling:

    • Ensured slugs are correctly parameterized when saved.
    • Improved default behavior for maps by removing hardcoded database center defaults.

Dependency & Infrastructure Updates

  • Dependency Upgrades:

    • Security and stability improvements across a number of key libraries:
      • rack, json, nokogiri, ruby-openai, sidekiq, aws-sdk-s3, and more.
      • Development tools such as byebug, selenium-webdriver, and brakeman were also updated.

  • Docker & Environment:

    • Added support for Docker build options during Dokku app creation.
    • Enhanced local credentials support for encrypted development environments.

Developer & Code Quality Improvements

  • Database & Modeling Tools:

    • Added a generated ERD-style database diagram from schema.rb to support better planning and onboarding.
    • Cleaned up unused Stimulus controllers and removed scaffolded specs that are not yet implemented.

  • Code Maintenance:

    • Additional Rubocop cleanup across the codebase for improved consistency.
    • More flexible calendar specs and test scaffolding to support future expansion.

Security & Accessibility

  • Security Fixes:

    • Upgraded dependencies like rack, json, and nokogiri to patch known vulnerabilities.
    • Continued attention to security best practices through regular audit tool updates (brakeman, rubocop, etc.).

  • Accessibility Enhancements:

    • Continued alignment of form and navigation elements with accessibility best practices.
    • Improved handling of iconography and image previews for clarity and responsiveness.

Upgrade Notes

  • Geospatial Dependencies:

    • This release introduces models that may rely on PostGIS. Ensure your database is configured to support geospatial types.

  • Docker Deployments:

    • If you're using Dokku or another Docker-based deployment, you may want to review the new build options added to app creation scripts.

  • Translation Support:

    • While not fully visible in the UI yet, translation and i18n tooling (i18n-tasks) have been updated in preparation for improved multilingual capabilities.

  • Custom Layouts:

    • Masonry layout for image galleries may affect platforms with overridden gallery templates. Test locally if you’ve customized gallery behavior.

What's Changed

Full Changelog: v0.7.0...v0.8.1

Contributors

rsmithlal and dependabot
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v0.7.0

09 Mar 13:50
@rsmithlal rsmithlal
v0.7.0
e5f6f13
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v0.7.0

Better Together Community Engine v0.7.0 Release Notes

Hello, Better Together community! We're excited to announce version 0.7.0, packed with new features, enhancements, and improvements to help you build richer, more engaging communities. Here's what's new:

Highlights 🎉

  • Tailor Your Community: New options for community sub-types, profile and cover images, and custom CSS/JavaScript allow you to personalize and brand your community more than ever.
  • Global Accessibility: Improved translations and internationalization mean your platform speaks everyone's language.
  • Faster, Smoother, Safer: Performance boosts, smarter caching, and security updates ensure a reliable and speedy experience.
  • Insightful Analytics: Track engagement effortlessly with built-in metrics for page views, link clicks, and downloads.

What's New ✨

Customize Your Community

  • Community Sub-Types: Organize communities with greater precision by assigning sub-types.
  • Profile & Cover Images: Give your community and platform profiles a fresh look with customizable images.
  • Custom CSS & JavaScript: Add your own styles and scripts, such as analytics trackers, directly from your host application.
  • Dynamic Forms: Dependent form fields make your community forms smarter and easier to use.

Internationalization & Accessibility

  • Enhanced Translations: New translations cover more parts of the interface, including login, registration, and password management.
  • Consistent Locales: Model attributes and locale names now reliably appear in the target language.

Metrics & Analytics

  • Built-in Reporting: Measure engagement with page views, link clicks, and downloads, complete with visual reports.
  • Efficient Background Jobs: Tracking and metrics now run smoothly in the background, keeping your platform responsive.

Improvements & Fixes 🛠️

User Experience Enhancements

  • Intuitive Navigation: Redesigned sidebar and top navigation improve ease of use.
  • Responsive Design: Better styling ensures your platform looks great on all devices.
  • Friendly Error Handling: Clearer routes and improved 404/500 handling create a smoother user experience.

Performance Upgrades

  • Smarter Caching: Reduced load times with optimized caching for navigation, permissions, and styling.
  • Query Optimizations: Faster page rendering through better query handling.

Squashed Bugs 🐞

  • Login & Permissions: Fixed permission checks to handle cases with no logged-in user.
  • Translations: Corrected broken translation strings, especially in authentication workflows.
  • General UI Fixes: Addressed form styling and asset loading issues.

Detailed Technical Updates 🧑‍💻

Dependency Updates

Significant gem upgrades, including:

  • aws-sdk-s3, turbo-rails, fog-aws, puma, rubocop, sentry, and more.
  • Updated JavaScript handling with importmap-rails and Stimulus controllers.

Infrastructure & Configuration

  • Support added for loading environment variables from .env files.
  • Improved route dispatching and host integration.
  • Enhanced production server documentation and new convenience setup scripts.

Code Quality & Refactoring

  • Extensive Rubocop-driven refactoring for clarity and maintainability.
  • Deprecated columns and models cleaned up for a streamlined codebase.

Logging & Error Tracking

  • Enhanced Sentry integration for improved JavaScript and Ruby error tracking.

Security Improvements

  • Addressed vulnerabilities identified by Brakeman.
  • Key security-related dependency updates, including Rack and aws-sdk-s3.
  • Updated security practices documented in SECURITY.md.

Accessibility Focus

  • Refined top navigation and form styling for better accessibility.
  • Improved responsiveness, tooltips, and iconography for an inclusive experience.

Upgrade Tips 🚀

  • Review your Gemfile for updated dependencies to ensure compatibility.
  • Check custom styles, JavaScript, or overridden routes in your host application.
  • Update any custom translation files to align with new locale handling.

Thank you for your continued support in making communities better, together! 🌟

Added

  • Community sub-types support
  • Support for host app style overrides
  • New Hero and HTML content blocks with extensive customization options
  • Profile, cover, and logo images for people, communities, and platforms
  • Contact details (Address, Email, Phone, Social Media, Website) with primary flag
  • AI-assisted translations using OpenAI
  • Metrics tracking (page views, link clicks, downloads)
  • Page sidebar navigation
  • Encryption for rich text messages
  • Improved person profile tabs and content sections
  • Image preview enhancements and clear button functionality
  • Password visibility toggle in login forms
  • Enhanced caching strategies for sidebar navigation and permissions
  • Automated translation rake tasks
  • Security and privacy enhancements (default private platform setting)
  • Performance profiling tools for platform managers

Changed

  • Refined styling for nav bar, sidebar, resource pages, and hero blocks
  • Navigation items centered in mobile views
  • Translated strings consistently used across all views
  • Improved error handling and pundit policy checks
  • Optimized database queries to significantly enhance performance
  • Improved consistency in image rendering and caching
  • Streamlined conversation and notification layouts
  • Default sorting of resources by creation date (descending)

Fixed

  • Locale-specific URL generation and routing issues
  • Broken stimulus controllers due to namespace changes
  • Missing and broken translation keys
  • Navigation item ID conflicts
  • Issues with block background images not loading or clearing
  • Security concerns identified by Brakeman
  • Corrected caching mechanisms to resolve data freshness issues

Dependencies

  • Updated gems including aws-sdk-s3, turbo-rails, sidekiq, actionpack, sentry-ruby, rubocop, and others to latest secure versions

What's Changed

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Contributors

rsmithlal and dependabot
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v0.6.0

09 Mar 13:22
@rsmithlal rsmithlal
v0.6.0
28d4080
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v0.6.0

🌟 Release v0.6.0 🌟

What's New (Easy Read)

We've made Community Engine even better! This update brings new features to help you send invitations, manage your platform more easily, and talk privately with friends. It also makes searching for information simpler and faster.

📨 Invitations

  • You can now send invitations to join your platform by email.
  • Invitations can be accepted, resent, or deleted.
  • Invitations remember the language choice of the recipient.

💬 Conversations

  • Chat privately with others using the new messaging feature.

🔔 Notifications

  • Get clear alerts about important updates or new messages.

🔍 Search

  • Quickly find content using the new and improved search feature.

🎨 Easier to Use

  • Easier forms for creating and editing pages.
  • Better organized page content with blocks.

Technical Release Notes

🚀 New Features

  • Platform Invitations:

    • Added PlatformInvitation model with full invitation lifecycle management.
    • Supports locale tracking for multilingual invitations.
    • Mailer and background jobs implemented for sending and resending invitations.

  • Messaging System:

    • Introduced Conversations and Messages models for direct messaging.
    • Initial UI for conversations, real-time updates via Turbo Streams.

  • Notifications:

    • Integrated noticed gem for notification handling and UI alerts.

  • Content Blocks & Page Builder:

    • Major upgrade to content management system with expanded page builder functionality.
    • Added support for independent CRUD management of content blocks.
    • Introduced an image block type and enhanced rich text block support.

  • Search Functionality:

    • Implemented Elasticsearch 7.17 for efficient and scalable search.
    • New search interface provides intuitive content discovery.

🔧 Improvements

  • Refactored permission handling (has_permission? → permitted_to?) for clarity.
  • Improved Devise compatibility with Turbo frames and redirects.
  • Added responsive styling improvements (Bootstrap tooltips, flash message positioning, and modal layering).
  • Streamlined platform setup, including mandatory timezone selection.
  • Added JSONB settings column for dynamic platform configurations.

🐞 Bug Fixes & Maintenance

  • Fixed routing conflicts and path handling for engine-mounted routes.
  • Removed unused attributes and legacy setup wizard views.
  • Corrected SMTP configuration for Mailhog integration.
  • Improved database schema definitions (removed redundant columns, fixed indices).
  • Added robust validation for Active Storage attachments.

📦 Dependency Updates

  • activerecord-import: 1.7.0 → 1.8.1
  • aws-sdk-s3: 1.159.0 → 1.161.0
  • fog-aws: 3.24.0 → 3.26.0
  • image_processing: 1.12.2 → 1.13.0
  • pg: 1.5.7 → 1.5.8
  • pundit: <2.4 → <2.5
  • rspec-rails: 6.1.4 → 7.0.1
  • rubocop: 1.65.1 → 1.66.1
  • rubocop-rspec: 3.0.4 → 3.0.5
  • selenium-webdriver: 4.23.0 → 4.24.0
  • sidekiq: 7.3.1 → 7.3.2

✅ Testing & Quality

  • Updated and expanded test coverage for invitations, mailers, and content blocks.
  • Various Rubocop fixes applied throughout the codebase.

🎉 Thank you for using Community Engine! 🎉

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v0.5.0

24 Aug 18:18
@rsmithlal rsmithlal
v0.5.0
b4f1010
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v0.5.0

This release adds initial support for I18n localization including translatable attributes and partial UI translation.

What's Changed

Full Changelog: v0.4.1...v0.5.0

Contributors

rsmithlal and dependabot
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v0.4.1

11 Jun 21:24
@rsmithlal rsmithlal
v0.4.1
02ee406
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v0.4.1

What's Changed

Full Changelog: v0.4.0...v0.4.1

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v0.4.0

10 Jun 23:19
@rsmithlal rsmithlal
v0.4.0
67e9c0b
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v0.4.0

v0.4.0 is the first release of the Community Engine that is functional in production. This represents a major project milestone!

What's Changed

Major Changes and Feature Enhancements

Documentation Updates

Dependency Updates

Full Changelog: v0.3.1...v0.4.0

Contributors

rsmithlal and dependabot
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v0.3.1

20 Jul 02:05
@rsmithlal rsmithlal
v0.3.1
51b392a
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v0.3.1 
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