New Releases: ProjectForum 5.0 and CourseForum 5.0 We've released version 5.0 of both ProjectForum and CourseForum; they are now available for download, and are running on our hosting servers. Thanks to everyone who provided feedback during the beta.

These new updates offer Universal Binary support for OS X, integrated S5 slideshow support, a major update to our internal runtime engine bringing increased performance and reliability, and many other improvements. Please note the updated system requirements for Mac and Windows.

More info and downloads at http://www.courseforum.com

  ¶ 11:12 AM

5.0 Beta 1. We've made available a beta release of CourseForum and ProjectForum version 5.0. As mentioned previously, there are a lot of lower-level changes in this release, so we'd like to encourage you to try it out on your system to make sure things work as smoothly as before. While you'll find a few new features here, there are a large number of bug fixes and internal enhancements that will make this a worthwhile upgrade, and of course we'll be leveraging these changes more in future versions. Note the new system requirements for Mac OS X (10.3.9 or higher, and now shipping as a Universal Binary), and for Windows (2000, XP or newer).  ¶ 8:11 AM

Development Update. You may be wondering why we haven't put out a new CourseForum or ProjectForum release for a little while now. Never fear, nothing terrible happened, and we are in fact working hard on it, it's just going somewhat slower than we'd hoped it would.

Normally, new releases modify only the "application" code - features and functions that are very visible in the running software, while the underlying infrastructure (database stuff, language runtime, all the cross-platform layer) stays the same. Because we only need to worry about the high-level application side, development is generally pretty quick.

We've actually been using the same low-level pieces for years; they've worked well, and provided the facilities we needed. But one of the things we're doing this release is upgrading those low-level pieces to current releases. For the technical folks, that's primarily the open source Tclkit runtimes (Tcl, Metakit, etc.) on all the various platforms.

We needed to make some changes in any case, as there's now a new platform to deal with: Mac OS X on Intel. Obviously we want to ship a Universal binary there, though its worth noting that the PowerPC version works fantastically well on Intel machines right now, with no changes. But upgrading to the new versions of the low-level infrastructure code also allows us to take advantage of a number of bug fixes and other enhancements made in those over the past few years. Unfortunately, the new versions aren't quite drop in replacements yet, so we're working (along with others in the open source community) on getting all that up to snuff.

The other thing we're doing is addressing some extremely rare bugs that a handful of customers have reported. By the nature of these bugs, it can take some time to track them down. We've already knocked off a few of them, but there's still one or two more we'd like to take care of.

The expectation is that once we get this release done with all the low-level infrastructure upgrades, we'll be back on track with faster application-level changes (new features etc.) in subsequent releases.

We hope this helps explain what's been happening on the development side here recently.

  ¶ 4:09 PM

Office Closure. Our business office will be closed February 27th to March 3rd. You can continue to reach us during that time via email, but please expect some delays in our responses. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.  ¶ 1:05 PM

Holiday Slowdown. We'll be scaling back for the holiday season over the next few weeks. Therefore, at various times between Dec 23rd and Jan 10th, there may be a bit longer of a delay in our responding to your emails.

All the best to everyone for the holidays!

  ¶ 9:03 AM

Price Increase in New Year. Reflecting trends in currency exchanges, as well as the many improvements in the products over the years, there will be modest price increases in CourseForum and ProjectForum license fees at the start of 2006 (details pending). We wanted to give people a heads up so that if you're considering a license purchase (or an upgrade to your existing license) you have the opportunity to do so at the existing prices.  ¶ 10:12 AM

Version 4.7. The official releases of ProjectForum 4.7 and CourseForum 4.7 are now available for download. Again, no new features in this one, but a number of behind-the-scenes improvements in performance and scalability.  ¶ 9:05 AM

4.7 Beta 1. We've just posted a beta of 4.7 to our website. There are no new features here - this release is entirely focused on some underlying performance and scalability improvements, which should have an impact for all. This is not to suggest that the current versions are slow or have lots of problems. We did identify a few particular extreme cases that could present some slowdowns, and were motivated by those to have a closer look at a few other areas, where we found some improvements to make.  ¶ 12:16 PM

Version 4.6 Now Available. We've released CourseForum and ProjectForum version 4.6. This release contains a fair number of incremental improvements, tweaks and bug fixes across the program. For details, see the change log. Downloads and more info at the main ProjectForum page or the main CourseForum page. Our hosting servers have also been updated.  ¶ 12:08 PM

ProjectForum / CourseForum 4.6 Beta 1. We've posted a beta release of version 4.6 of ProjectForum and CourseForum. This release has a fair number of smaller features, enhancements and bug fixes. We expect a short beta period before this is released, so please help us out by trying this release!  ¶ 3:30 PM

Version 4.5.0: RSS, Email Support, and more. Version 4.5 of both ProjectForum and CourseForum have been released. Both can be downloaded from our website now, and our hosting servers have been upgraded.

Differences in this version:

• Notification Changes - RSS and Email:
  • new 'Track Changes' page linked from the forum page
  • new per-page RSS feed, complimenting the existing per-forum RSS feeds
  • email notification option, per-forum or per-page
  • removed RSS link from default key pages used for new forums
  • new 'Notification' panel in Site Admin for configuring RSS/email:
    • site-wide admin option to include content of changes in per-page feeds
    • customize number of items in RSS feeds
    • customize url of site (used in RSS/emails); this way RSS feeds are always served with same URL, not dependent on how the feed itself is served
• Other changes:
  • Tables can now have borders; place "[tablestyle:borders]" before the table, or turn it off with "[tablestyle:default]". Note that this depends on a new stylesheet style ".bordertable"
  • Table rows are now vertically aligned at the top.
  • Site administration screens now report information on when the current license is valid until, for software updates.
  • When the URL prefix is changed in the administration screens of a forum, the browser is immediately redirected so that it is using the new URL prefix
  • for Enterprise licensing, added some explanatory messages to the directory page in cases where no groups are listed

  ¶ 7:05 AM

Second Beta. We've updated the 4.5 beta release; this cut has a few fixes related to the new email features.  ¶ 7:10 PM

Beta of 4.5 - Email, more RSS, ... Our first public beta of CourseForum and ProjectForum 4.5 is now available. The highlight of this version is a revamp of how notification of changes is done. In addition to the forum-specific RSS feeds, there is now a per-page RSS feed, which can optionally show exactly what has changed, right in the feed. As well, you now have the option of being notified via email on changes to a forum or page. There's a new 'Track Changes' link on each page which lets you access these new features.

There's some other smaller changes as well, including a new option to allow changing the formatting of tables.

Please read more and give it a try, and let us know how it goes, if you run into problems, or what else you'd like to see.

  ¶ 7:56 AM

Version 4.4.1. We've made a small change to the version posted last week, and so have posted a version 4.4.1 on our website. This minor update fixes a problem where the 'Replace' command in the menu of file attachments would generate a Javascript error on several versions of IE on Windows.  ¶ 6:45 AM

About New Templates. Because page templates are just regular, modifiable forum pages, they're added to the forum when it is first created. When we add new templates to the software (such as the new slideshow template in 4.4), they won't automatically appear in existing forums when you update the software, though they will appear in new groups/courses you create. But, because they're just regular pages, you can always easily add them yourself to an existing forum. Simply create the template page, and copy/paste its contents from a new group that does contain the template. Then add the page to the list of available templates via the Group/Course Admin screens.  ¶ 9:40 AM