WebCards News and Updates

A Few New WebCards Features

I thought I would share a few of the new features that I have added to WebCards over the last few weeks. I haven’t posted a development update in a while and I am keen to let people know how development is progressing.

1. New mail sending class

I have implemented PHP Mailer into WebCards. This replaces the old SMTP class that was used. I don’t believe in re-inventing the wheel and so decided to include an excellent, well-maintained mail class for sending mail. Sending email is very much the heart of WebCards, it is important that it works. Using PHP Mailer expands the sending methods to include mail(), SMTP, sendmail, Qmail and potentially even Gmail if you wish.

2. Admin profiles

Each administrator has their own profile which includes standard information such as name and email address and the ability to change their email address. This opens up the possibility for user permissions and also enables the implementation of a password recovery feature.

3. Administrator logs

In addition to the email logs, WebCards now features administrator logs. This tracks all activity such as editing images and templates, logging in, deleting cards and also tracks the cron logs when delayed cards are sent.

Please post on the forums if you have any comments or feature requests. Some requests that have been posted on the forums are already being implemented in the next WebCards release.

Fix for Database Error

Many users are experiencing an SQL error when upgrading to WebCards version 1.2.

The error looks similar to this:
MySQL said: Unknown column 'click_img' in 'field list'
Error number: 1054

It is caused by some missing fields in the database.

To fix this please download the patch www.mywebcards.net/12_db_fix.zip.

The main download file has also been updated.

If you have any problems please post on the forums.

New service: WebCards Installation

We are now offering paid-for installations of WebCards for US$20.

This is a solution for people who are either not confident with installaing WebCards on their own server or who are having trouble.

We are able to modify the WebCards codebase to accommodate just about any server. We can do this because we are the authors of the project. If we cannot sucessfully install WebCards on your server you will, of course, not be charged. We may also offer free installation in the future in return for allowing us to debug the program on your server.

Please see the listing on the SourceForge.net service listing page for complete information.

If you have any questions please feel free to post them on the forums.

Fix for ‘edit image’ bug

I have posted a fix for the “edit image” bug that I posted about yesterday.

This problem affects WebCards 1.2 only. It was caused by some development code being left in the release code.

You can follow the instructions below to fix your installation. If you are uncertain with editing files please download the latest WebCards release and upload the file source/ad_images.php into the correct folder.

To fix your WebCards installation

• Open up source/ad_images.php
• Scroll down to line 400 to the editimg() function
• Locate this code just below:
  

  require_once(“ajax/GoogleSuggestCloneJax.class.php”);
  $ajax = new GoogleSuggestCloneJax();
  $ajax->handleRequest();

  $ret = array();

  $ajax->loadJsCore(true);

• Remove all this code and re-upload ad_images.php to the /source/ folder

Please post in the forums if you need any help implementing this.

Problem with ‘edit image’ not working

I am aware of a problem in the WebCards admin centre regarding the edit image page showing a blank screen.

If you are suffering from this problem, please take a look at this forum post for more information.

I will post more here when I have any updates.

Important Update for WebCards 1.2

It has come to my attention that some debug code was left in WebCards release version 1.2.

This problem applies only to version 1.2. All other versions are unaffected.

This is not a security bug but a major usability problem. The problem results in the contents of your language directory sometimes being printed at the top of each page.

I have updated the main WebCards release package for version 1.2 to address the problem. You can either download the new package and replace the file index.php or follow the instructions below to update your own installation of WebCards. The only file that needs to be replaced is index.php.

To update your WebCards installation

Open up the file index.php in your text editor.

Locate the block of code around line 1473:


while($file = readdir($dp))
{
echo $file;
if($file!="." && $file!=".." && $file!="index.html" && is_dir($conf['dir'] . "lang/" . $file))
{
$lang_style_changer .= "<option value=\"" . $file . "\">" . $file . "</option>";
}
}
$lang_style_changer .= "</select>";


Simply remove this section

echo $file;

Re-upload index.php and the problem will be fixed.

How to Give Something Back to WebCards

Has WebCards been particularly useful to you? Have you seen an increase in visitors since you installed WebCards? Why not give something back to WebCards?

Why not make a donation to help support the website running costs? I have recently revamped the donation page to make it easier to show your support for WebCards. Every penny you can donate counts.

Do you have a WebCards installation you are particularly proud of? Send the link and I will add it to the WebCards Gallery

New Feature: HTML email notifications

I have added a new feature to the next WebCards release: HTML email notifications.

Through the admin centre you can choose to send your notification, reminder and acknowledgment emails in HTML or plain text format.

Many users had been requesting the ability to send HTML emails and making it optional gives you the best of both worlds.

You can test out the new email format over at the WebCards demo version.

Let me know if you have any comments or encounter any errors using HTML emails.

Site on a new webhost

Just to let everybody know that the site has been moved to a new webhost. I apologise for any database errors you have been receiving over the last couple of days. These were related to moving over the data.

I was getting tired of the constant downtime and the final straw came when I received this email from the old webhost:

Monitored by two third party companies, ChargerTek’s Uptime has hit it’s 200th Day at 100%

Here’s to going the whole nine yards!

Stats can be seen on the ChargerTek Homepage.

An advantage of the new host is the availability of PHP5. I will be posting details of how PHP5 fits into the WebCards plan in the next week or so.

Release: WebCards Version 1.2

I am pleased to announce the availability of WebCards version 1.2 for immediate download.

As well as fixing many bugs this release includes a few new features, most notably the ability to click images themselves rather than the text underneath.

You can read full details in the change log.

Download WebCards 1.2 from the download page.

If you encounter problems please refer to the support pages or post on the forums.