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What's new at GoodBarber? November 2017

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This year's big update was the release of our new product: Progressive Web Apps, and as you know, here at GoodBarber we strongly believe that PWA's are about to revolutionize the way we use both mobile and web.

We are committed to giving you the opportunity to enjoy today what everyone will be snatching up tomorrow, which is focused strongly on developments specific to PWA's over the past few months. 

PWA offers

Progressive Web Apps can be quite self-sufficient, depending on your project. This is why even though the PWA version is included in our native offers, we've created a new line of offers exclusively dedicated to Progressive Web Apps. 

If you're interested in creating Progressive Web Apps, you have the choice between 3 offers , the PWA Standard, the PWA Full, and the PWA Reseller which gives you the option to create unlimited apps. 

Notifications

Our developer teams have worked hard to bring you a feature that will literally change the way we see web applications: push notifications for the web. 
 
It is now possible to send push notifications directly in your users' web browsers. This feature is supported by the majority of recent browsers and the list is growing every day. Additionally, you have the option to schedule your notifications and target your users. 

In other news, it is also now possible to send notifications via SMS with GoodBarber. SMS notifications is a new add-on available in the add-ons catalogue. Once installed, you are able to notify your Progressive Web App users via SMS.

Below you'll find a summary of developments and updates made, including the ones mentioned above: 

General

  • General
    • ​New PWA subscriptions available 
    • New add-on released : SMS push notifications, which allows you to notify your users via SMS
    • You can now use gradients in the place of background colors
    • You can now put gradients in header & navigation mode titles
    • Most content sections have been redesigned and optimized
    • Web push notifications are now available and allow you to send notifications to users using Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera
  • Home section
    • You can now display an ad in a specific widget
    • A new widget is available for your application's Home : the HTML widget
  • Calendar section
    • You can now choose to display the starting time instead of a date in an event's bullet list
  • Community add-on
    • The search feature in this section is back! You can now search for users in this section and narrow results by applying filters. 

Back office

  • General
    • ​The iOS review process has been changed
    • Tools to target web push notifications have been introduced
  • App preview
    • Fixed an issue that caused the preview to freeze
  • Builder menu
    • You can now use gradients in the wizard to create icons and splash screens for your app
    • Fixed an issue that occurred when setting a logo in the header
    • The Unsplash library has been updated to the latest version 
    • Fixed several issues that occurred when choosing a gradient instead of background color
  • Community add-on
    • User list page optimized
  • Loyalty card add-on
    • The Rupee and Omani Royal OMR currencies have been added
  • Other improvements and fixes
    • The back office engine has been updated to Phalcon 3
    • The organization of the swipe menu has been improved
    • Several security improvements
    • iOS submission issues fixed
    • Fixed an issue that was causing Android apps not to be automatically published in the backend

Progressive Web App

  • General
    • You can now add advertisements (from GoodBarber, DFP, or Google AdSense) to your PWA. Like in native platforms, ads can be in interstitial or banner format. 
    • Web push notifications are now available and can be sent to users using Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Opera
    • Web notifications when a new Chat message is received 
    • Fixed a display issue in the background image of the header
    • Fixed design and behavior issues on the header element to go to a user's profile
  • Home section
    • A header can now be displayed in all navigation widgets
    • Fixed display issues in minimal template widgets
    • Fixed an issue that hid certain events in widgets
    • Fixed an issue that caused the app to crash when certain widgets didn't have a valid content source
    • The padding of widgets when displayed in full screen has been restored
    • Fixed an issue with the random sorting in Map widgets
    • Fixed an overflow issue on Firefox browsers
    • Fixed an issue that occurred when navigating between items in Big Carousel template widgets
  • Articles widget
    • Fixed display issues on Templates 3 & 5 in Firefox browsers
    • Fixed an issue causing certain images not to be displayed in detail views
  • Video section
    • Changed the duration format to hours:minutes:seconds
  • Map section
    • Fixed an issue in the dropdown template for categories
    • Fixed an issue that occurred when user tried to load more items
    • Fixed the TabBar display on tablet and mobile devices
    • Fixed an issue with switching between list & detail view on desktop
    • Fixed an issue that prevented thumbnails from being displayed on desktop
    • Fixed an issue that prevented the back button from working
    • Fixed an issue on the map icon that occurred when using a custom image
  • Sound section
    • The default thumbnail is now displayed in the detail view if the song doesn't have any image
  • Search section
    • Restricted content no longer appears in search results
    • Display problem when using the TabBar navigation mode fixed
  • Node section
    • Fixed display problems on template 10
  • Live section
    • Sharing problem occurring on mobile devices fixed
  • Calendar section
    • An event is now considered passed if the date is inferior to today; the time is no longer taken into account
  • Favorites section 
    • Fixed a problem that occurred when you tried to add something to your Favorites from a Search section's list of results
  • QR code
    • Fixed several problems occurring onSafari with iOS 11
  • Submission section
    • Fixed a problem that made text field colors invalid
  • Form section
    • Fixed a file uploading issue occurring in Firefox browsers
  • Settings section
    • HTML tags are now properly managed in the credits page
  • Scratch navigation mode
    • Fixed an issue with navigation opening when user returns back to the Home page
  • User authentication add-on
    • Fixed a problem with background color opacity on the login screen
  • Chat add-on
    • Several problems fixed
  • Loyalty card add-on
    • Fixed a problem with QR code validation
  • Swipe navigation mode
    • Fixed an issue that caused the "alwaysopen" JSON property not to work
  • Little Swipe navigation mode
    • Fixed an issue that caused the "alwaysopen" JSON property not to work
  • Other fixes and improvements
    • All external links now open in a new tab
    • Animations in navigation introduced for tablet and mobile
    • You can now disable use of user location in all of the app by setting the "geolocDisabled" JSON property to 1
    • Performance optimization
    • The <hr> HTML tag is now properly managed inside detail views
    • Several problems on Internet Explorer 11 fixed
    • Several problems with iframes on iOS devices fixed
    • Instagram images are now properly managed in detail views
    • Fixed an issue with the display of category dropdown list

Native iOS app

  • General
    • On your device's home screen, if you use a 3D touch on your app's icon, shortcuts are offered to open the app directly in the first 3 sections 
  • Home section
    • Fixed an issue reducing the quality of images in Photos widgets
    • Fixed an issue in the User widget template banner that caused missing usernames 
    • Fixed an issue that made widget button background colors disappear 
  • Articles section
    • Now when you use a 3D touch on an item in the list, a preview of this item's content will be opened in a pop-up
    • All articles in your app are now indexed in the spotlight search
    • Fixed an issue causing broken PDF links
  • Map section
    • Fixed an issue affecting the click on the map
  • Favorites section
    • You can now use a swipe gesture to delete a Favorite from the list
  • Menu section
    • Fixed an issue causing cells not to be clickable
    • In the Grid template, fixed an issue that caused cell background colors to be missing
  • Search section
    • Restricted content no longer appears in search results
    • Recent search glitch fixed
    • In event search results, when you click on an item, it is no longer the first item displayed in the detail view
  • Soundcloud section
    • Fixed an issue that caused the app to crash when a user tried to load more items
  • Settings section
    • Fixed an issue making certain links non-clickable
  • Custom URL section
    • Fixed an issue making certain links non-clickable
  • Slate navigation mode
    • Fixed an issue causing shortcut icons not to be centered when they didn't have a title
  • User authentication add-on
    • The click on the "Next step" button works again
  • Loyalty card add-on
    • Improved point validation via sharing 
  • Internal ad server add-on
    • Fixed an issue that caused the app to crash when using an internal ad widget in the Home
  • External ad network add-on
    • Fixed an issue that caused the app to freeze when using a MobFox interstitial
  • Other fixes and improvements
    • iOS 11 compatibility
    • Removed white spaces on the top & bottom of each content section (caused by the release of iOS 11)

Native Android app

  • General
    • Now when the user clicks on the header, he is directed to the Home
    • Now the user cannot try to load more content if there is nothing more to be displayed
    • Fixed an issue preventing a large number of items to be loaded
    • The app's status bar now takes the header's background color
    • Native shortcuts are now available for Android Nougat 7.1
    • Notifications now display an image for scheduled push
  • Home section
    • Fixed an issue where all ads where updated one after another
  • Articles section
    • In detail views, headers are now displayed with the right color
    • The blank space on top in the detail view has been deleted
    • Fixed an issue causing a blank page to appear after watching a video
    • In detail views, a problem was fixed causing certain text to be displayed in bold or italics instead of normally
  • Video section
    • We changed the video player for Dailymotion videos
  • Calendar section
    • ​Fixed an issue which caused information to not be displayed in the cover
  • Search section
    • ​Restricted content is no longer available to non authorized users
    • ​Fixed an issue causing the click on the cross icon not to work
    • Podcasts can now be played
  • Twitter section
    • ​In the detail view, an issue regarding the URL click was fixed 
  • Live section
    • In the live Radios, instead of displaying 00:00, the duration is no longer displayed 
  • Favorites section
    • You can now use a swipe gesture to delete a Favorite from the list
    • Fixed an issue causing the link to the Favorite content to be incorrect
  • Menu section
    • The title position has been adjusted
  • User authentication add-on
    • Public & private profile opening is now much faster
    • Fixed an issue causing the "Skip" button to be hidden
    • In the Profile section, the black bar above the tabs has been removed
  • Community add-on
    • Upper margin has been adjusted
    • Fixed an issue in subsection filters when sorting is unavailable
  • Chat add-on
    • You can now respond to messages directly in the notification. Only available for Android Nougat 7.0 and up
  • Other fixes and improvements
    • Added PDF detection so as to download it
    • Navigation mode no longer hiding the section when the "startOpen" JSON property is set to 1 and the user is coming from a notification
    • Fixed an issue related to sending WordPress comments
    • In Disqus comments, fixed an issue causing a blank page to appear when a user is signed into an account.
    • In content detail views, the button allowing a toolbar to be opened is now removed when no action is available

Plugins

  • General
    • On iOS, improved the loading time of apps using plugins
  • gbRequest method
    • Fixed encoding issues on iOS
  • gbGetMedia method
    • Fixed an issue preventing this method from working on Android 6.0 and up
  • gbGetLocation method
    • Fixed an issue preventing this method from working on Android 6.0 and up