Affino 6.0.5 Release

This is a significant stability release for users who are running Affino 6.0.4. It is recommended that you update to this version at the earliest opportunity. There are fixes across the board and a couple of great new features that didn’t quite make it into the last release.

Owing to the timing of this release (i.e. just before the Christmas Break), we have excluded a number of the latest project related developments from it to ensure the smoothest Affino experience over the festive season and into 2011. These will be released in a further Affino release early in the New Year.

Upgrade Guidance

This is a minor release following on from the major Affino 6.0.4 release a couple of weeks ago. It is recommended that if you’re on 6.0.4 that you update at the earliest opportunity since there are key fixes across the board in this release.

If you are having issues with your catalogue items, in particular with catalogue item attributes and inventory variations then most likely your custom catalogue item templates will need updating which is outside the scope of this update. 

It is essential that you run through the complete update process starting with the Affino Updater, followed by the System Update, Re-Initialise Site, Design Element Update and Skin Update; all of which are available on the Settings > Update screen.

Key Enhancements

Predictive Site Search v2

Affino Site Search sees major improvements in its predictive search capabilities so that it now shows a great preview panel with the search results categorised, with thumbnails and teasers where relevant. Catalogue Items will also show prices, allowing users to instantly have the key information at their fingertips.

Online Forms v2

Online Forms were one of the first elements to be developed in Affino and they have hardly been touched in ten years. This release sees a major upgrade with the release of the new Online Form Design Element which means that Online Forms can now be included in any page either in the form of a Button Activated form or a full Inline form.

Online Forms are now all instant so that they are now submitted without the page refreshing. This means they can be used much more effectively when engaging with users for sales and support purposes. They also allow for greatly improved landing pages where simple data capture is required.

Other Enhancements

Design Menus – it is now possible to specify large as well as medium and small for the menu title

Forums – forums now have predictive search, simply start typing in the search box on any forum and see the drop-down of suggested results

Optimisation – further minor Affino optimisations

Registration – new contact preferences for users

SMS Alerts – Affino will soon be able to send out SMS alerts. The core SMS engine is now in place and Affino has been designed to work with TXT Local (UK). It is an extensible setup so it will be simply for Comrz to add new SMS providers to the list. More details will be available on this in future Affino releases.

Fixes

Article Highlights – no longer show when there are no highlights available

Broken Links –removed the top Affino errors which were causing showing up in the Broken Links stats

Catalogue Item Import – further fixes and improvements in data handling

Contacts – fixed issue which was causing contact editor to error out

Custom Products – fixed so that correct templates are now being displayed on live product pages

Documents – no longer take you to the login screen even when you’re logged in with the correct privileges

Dynamic Forms – fixed issue which was causing Dynamic Forms creation to error out

Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn – major refinements and essential fixes in how Affino connects to the key social networks making this an essential update if you are going to be connecting with any of these networks

Forums – fixed issue with page navigation returning empty pages

Google Base – updated Google Analytics tracking code to be: &utm_source=google&utm_medium=merchant%2Bcenter&utm_campaign=products

Google Sitemaps – Include Hidden Content option now available on the Sitemap Profile where Affino owners want to publish all their hidden content to Google

Guest Cache – fixed the automation on cache refreshing to ensure that popular pages are pre-cached automatically for instant delivery to users

Highlights Scroller DE – no longer overrides the Dynamic Menus

Internet Explorer 8 – numerous compatibility fixes with IE8

Live Editor – fixed issues which were preventing events from being added when Title Formatting is enabled on a site

Main Menu – Home link restored

Media Library – Slideshow Media Presentation Style fixed on IE8

Micro Blog DE – fixed help text which was misleading users

MP3 Player – fixed issue which was causing it to error out

My Account – fixed issue which was causing My Account screen to error out; fixed issue with copying My Account profiles

Pending Users – fixed issue which meant it was not possible to delete some pending users

Polls – now showing results consistently as per the poll settings

Public Profile – added the default settings for member’s media pages; fixed issue which was causing public profiles to error out

Registration – fixed it so that users who have just registered are not returned immediately back to the registration screen

User Management – changing user details no longer blanks out their passwords

Video Player – embedding can now be turned on and off reliably on videos (again)