WebCards News and Updates

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.

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.

WebCards Version 2.4 Available NOW

We are pleased to announce the availability of WebCards version 2.4.

This version introduces support for Facebook login and a calendar and events manager.

Here is a full list of new features.

• Customisable cost of each card
• Calendar and events manager
• Ability to link event to multiple categories
• Images are now presented in the url in a much better way, the pipe character is no longer used
• Full integration of Facebook Connect and ability to post sent card on Facebook
• Option to disable all registration functions
• Ability to reorder poems, audio file and stamps
• Option to delete multiple cards from admin centre

There are also a few bug fixes, including:

• Images are now hidden when their categories are disabled
• SMTP will only authenticate if a username and password are set
• Separated admin language components from language file to aid translators

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

If you have any problems feel free to post in our forum or submit a support request.

Coming Up In WebCards: Events Calendar

Looking forward to the next release of WebCards, let’s take a look at some of te upcoming features. You can take a look at the upcoming WebCards release on our demonstration version.

Firstly, let’s take a look at the events calendar.

This feature lets you list upcoming events for your users. Clicking a date that has an event will load that event via AJAX so your visitors can read all about the event. You can then choose to link some categories to any event. The great feature of this is that you can seamlessly add as many categories as you like and they will all be listed like they are part of the same category.

Let’s see how this works in the admin centre.

Here you can see that we choose a date for the event but can then set the event to repeat every year. This is handy for events such as Christmas and Velentines Day. You then choose a title for this event and add a description. Most importantly is the category selection box. You can have an event that doesn’t link to any images, but alternatively you can add as many categories as you like to an event.

When the user clicks on this event, images from each of these categories will be included for sending for this event.

New Release: WebCards 2.1

We are proud to announce the immediate availability of WebCards version 2.1.

There have been many improvements in this release. Here are some of the highlights:

• Display images from child categories. This prevents parent categories showing as empty when the child categories are full of images. It is a setting that can be turned on or off.
• Added free text upload – good for YouTube videos and other embedded media. One of the problems with Webcards 2.0 was that it used file extensions to determine how to display a file. If you added a file without an extension such as a YouTube video, Webcards didn’t know what to do with it. Now you have a the option of a free text upload. Simply paste the embedded html into the box and away you go!
• Added reCAPTCHA system. This has been requested for a long time and is now available in Webcards. You can choose to show a CAPTCHA to everybody, just guests or you can turn it off all together.
• WebCards is now fully brandable. You can now choose to remove all traces of the word “WebCard” from your system and fully rebrand it to whatever you want. Instead of receiving a “WebCard”, your users can now receive a “Chuck’s bodacious e-card” or whatever you wish to call them.

There are also quite a few bug fixes and feature enhancements. Most notably:

• Fixed many SQL errors and general bugs
• More generous login attempts for your users before they are frozen out for 10 minutes
• Safer renaming of uploaded images to prevent file upload attacks
• Manually typing pickup code now works properly with friendly URLs
• Added more robust filtering of user input to prevent XSS problems
• email is checked for being banned when a user registers

WebCards is the best value e-card software available today. It is robust, powerful and great value. $50 will get your 6 months unlimited updates and support. Customers with valid subscriptions can download WebCards today from our Secure Members Area.

If you are not a member please proceed to our order area to purchase WebCards today. It will be available for immediate download when your payment has cleared.

Hundreds of Images Added to Our Demonstration

If you are looking to really test out the power of WebCards look no further than our demonstration. We have just added 217 new images so there are plenty to choose from.

Using the great bulk upload feature, it took just a few minutes to add all these images.

So try out our demo version of WebCards today.

Security Update For WebCards 1.3

In response to some known security vulnerabilities in WebCards 1.3, we have updated the release to add some extra protection.

You can download the package from the Sourceforge download page.

If you already have WebCards 1.3 installed, you only need to upload the file source/ad_login.php. If you are unsure, feel free to upload all the files. But please ensure you do not overwrite config.php.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to post a reply to this post until we get our forum software sorted out.

Looking For WebCards Beta Testers

WebCards is nearing its next generation 2.0 release and we are looking for people to beta test the latest version.

The beta will be valid for 30 days and all you need to do is install it, test it as much as you can and then let us know how you got on with it. If you are interested in being a beta testers, please email beta@mywebcards.net to express your interest.

Every beta tester will get a very special treat, but I am going to keep what it is secret for a while. In return for this treat, all you have to do is promise to give some feedback.
Remember, just email beta@mywebcards.net to express your interest.

Did you know that members of our mailing list got this announcement last week? If you want to get updates before anybody else, just sign up for our list at the left hand side of any page. If you replied to the announcement from the mailing list and haven’t heard back from me, please contact me again. My spam filter deleted a lot of the replies.