WebCards News and Updates

WebCards Version 2.8 Now Released For Download

We are pleased to announce that the next version of Webcards, version 2.8, is now ready for download in your Member Centre.

Here is a quick summary of the new features:

• Annual/monthly membership option
• Full support for timezones. Cards are now sent according to the sender’s timezone rather than the server
• Separate CSS file to customise the text editor default styles
• Ability to resend email notifications
• Improvements to event reminder system to make it more reliable and robust
• Improvements to csv import to stop contacts being duplicated
• Audio preview when composing card

As well as the usual bug fixes and security improvements.

Download WebCards version 2.8 from your Member Centre now. If you are not a current WebCards member please subscribe today for instant access. Please post in our support forum if you have any questions.

WebCards Version 2.7 Now Available

The latest version of WebCards is now available. It contains a lot of exciting new features and many bug fixes.

The latest release allows you to access our network spam system, add meta keyword tags to pages, allow users to rate cards, choose and edit URL slugs, allow users to have their own personal calendar including event reminders and use Amazon’s Simple Email Service (SES).

Here is a summary of the main new features:

• New spam network feature. Check an IP address for known spam activity in order to ban abusive users
• Label a card as “featured” so it can be promoted on the front page
• User’s personal calendar. Add and delete your own events
• Added support for Amazon’s Simple Email Service (SES) for improved reliability of sending email. Also includes advanced statistics of emails sent
• Full database-based email and IP banning systems which are much more robust than before
• Social media links on send card page
• Card rating system
• Choose and edit custom slug for category URL
• Choose and edit custom slug for card URL
• New collapsible menu in admin centre, including ability to rearrange sections which will be remembered each time you log in
• Option to make cards available to active subscribers only
• More image fields can be added via the bulk upload interface such as card cost, keywords and freetext
• Admin can choose to validate user email address before they can send cards
• Card status is listed in the admin centre so you can see which cards have been sent, queued or are awaiting payment
• Support for using video formats in cards
• Addition of meta keyword tag to card send page
• Support for persistent user sessions, ie. “keep me logged in for 30 days.”

Download WebCards version 2.7 from your Member Centre now. If you are not a current WebCards member please subscribe today for instant access.

Now Testing WebCards Version 2.7

We have upgraded our WebCards demonstration to our upcoming release, version 2.7.

You will be able to preview some of the new features and we will be able to fix any of the final bugs we missed during development.

The feature highlights of the new version include:

• Personal calendar for each user. Add your own events and receive reminders of upcoming events.
• Social media links to enable easy sharing of cards
• Card rating system
• Ability to pay for cards at a later date rather than requiring immediate payment
• Full native support for multiple media files such as video

There are also many admin centre enhancements that we will talk about in the near future.

Check out our demonstration version to check out the new features. Please leave any feedback or bug reports in our forum.

Any Feature Requests for the Next Version of WebCards?

There are plenty of new features already lined up for the next version of WebCards as well as lots of bug fixes.

But we want to know what YOU want from the next version of WebCards. Are there any little flaws that drive you mad? Or any missing features that make you say “how did they not think of putting that in?”

Please let us know your WebCards feature requests in the comments below.

Now Available: WebCards Version 2.6

Today marks the release of the next version of WebCards, version 2.6. Here is a quick summary of the new features available:

• New function to search iTune’s massive library of audio and add an excerpt of any song to your cards
• Assign poems to specific categories
• Assign audio to specific categories
• Social media links on the “card sent” page
• Random images on main page
• Ability to pay for cards at a later date through your member centre
• Caching of search cloud to save resources
• Function to reset admin password
• Edit admin account – change password and email address
• Ability to link audio rather than having to upload
• upport for all audio files, rather than just mp3s

Please take a look at the whatsnew.txt file inside the WebCards zip file for a full description of all the new features and bug fixes.

Download WebCards version 2.6 from your Member Centre now. If you are not a current WebCards member please subscribe today for instant access.

Quick WebCards website updates

In line with the latest WebCards release, we have updated the documentation to include the newest features.

We have also built a new WebCards feature tour so you can see some of the fantastic elements WebCards has to offer. Take a look at the feature tour here.

What New in WebCards 2.5?

Following the release of the latest version of WebCards I thought I should outline some of the key features.

Flickr Image Finder

You can now add images to your WebCards installation directly from Flickr.

Search for the images you want to add. You can choose to only show images that allow commercial use if that is more appropriate to your needs.

The choose the image you want to use and the size of the thumbnail. All the details are inserted automatically and the image is ready to use right away.

Card Subscriptions

Your users can now setup a subscription to your WebCards installation. They pay their monthly fee automatically by PayPal. You get to set the subscription fee and the currency. The system will also automatically detect if a user cancels their subscription to stop them from sending any more cards.

Note that subscriptions in WebCards replace the credits system that was in use for WebCards 2.4. Credits was an interim arrangement before we perfected the subscription system. If users have paid for credits the data will still be saved but the users will not be able to send cards that are only available to subscribers.

Pay Per Card

A long requested feature, WebCards now allows you to charge users for individual cards. You can set the price for each card individually so you can have a mixture of free and paid-for cards. Once a card has been paid for, it will be sent instantly without any interaction required.

Send Full Card Content

This feature has been requested for a long time and has finally made it into this release. As well as sending notifications for new cards, you can now send the full card within the notification email.

These are the highlights of the new features in the latest version of WebCards as well as many bug fixes. You can download it from your Member Centre, or if you are not currently a customer, order WebCards now.

New Release: WebCards 2.5

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of WebCards 2.5. It is available to download in the Member Centre.

The main new features are the addition of monthly subscriptions and pay-per-card. This gives you huge flexibility in terms of charging for cards. We have phased out the use of credits but the data will still be saved so you will know which members have purchased credits in the past.

Further enhancements include a Flickr image finder and the ability to send the full card content directly in the notification email.

If you are not currently a WebCards member please subscribe today for an instant download.

WebCards Bug Fix Release

I have taken this opportunity to address an annoying bug in the current version of WebCards. The bug means that the date for future scheduled cards is sometimes wrongly generated.

This has now been fixed. You can download the updated zip file from your Member Centre. You only need to upload the file index.php to correct the problem. Please note that the problem will only be resolved for cards sent after the update has been applied.

If you encounter any issues please submit a support ticket in your Member Centre or post on the forum.

Making A Decision About Charging In WebCards

One of the most demanded features for WebCards is flexible charging options.

At the minute you can only get your users to pay for credits. You can then set how many credits each card costs to send. I am not totally happy with this set up but this will change very soon.

As you can see from the demo version, you will soon be able to charge for individual cards. This is only available in our testing version, not general release just yet.

Additionally, we are about to introduce monthly subscriptions. You would then be able to set how many cards a user can send per month for their subscription fee.

The question I want to ask people is whether the credits option should stay too? We will have the pay-per-card option and monthly subscription. But will keeping the use of credits be a bit too much? I like flexibility, but sometimes having too many options can be too overwhelming.

Please leave your feedback in the comments below.