It is finally, finally, finally, again release-time for CBSubs! CBSubs 4.1.1 is now out! What a nice feeling!
Kyle and I have been working on improving incrementally CBSubs 4.1.0 since it's release last year. those improvements have been released each usually within 24 hours of development in our famous "nightlies" continuous development and release strategy, allowing people to access always the latest and greatest releases, while removing a good deal of release-stress on the team.
But, by doing so, a number of improvements have been silently added without announcement, or with a small reply in the forum that make our users very happy. It has been a long time without a "non-nightly" "stable release". And it also does good to our team to blow our horn with new features and fixes we are proud of.
By the way, the word "stable" has no real meaning anymore, as a "nightly" after a "stable" release is often even more stable, as it has more up-to-date code and minor fixes.
So it was more than time to release a "stable" 4.1.1 version, based on our latest nightly release. That way, users that are either not familiar with the quality-process and reactivity of our nightly releases, or prefer semantic versions all-at-once upgrades, can also safely upgrade to this maintenance and minor features release.
Main new features are detailed in the CBSubs 4.1.1 announcement on our front-page and the CBSubs 4.1.1 change-log available in the discussion forum thread as usual. While there are many new gateways-oriented features, I would like to pinpoint just one great feature that can be of great interest to shop owners: It's Feature #6119. It adds to the automatic mailer integration plugin a new trigger based on Pending order's (Baskets)'s latest update time. That way if a basket gets an update by the user or by the Payment Services Provider (PSP - corresponding to the Gateway), an email informing the user can be triggered, just after the update, or after a while. It offers additional possibilities to follow-up with your customers.
Now that CBSubs 4.1.1 is released, I'll be working on CBSubs 4.2.0, which is a features-release implementing not only some popular demands (and by popular I mean by a large number of users requesting the feature), but also some cool and powerful new possibilities giving even more power in flexibility to CBSubs.
One of the most popular demands is a Stripe gateway, which is planed with single payments support for CBSubs 4.2 and that Kyle will be implementing. Another one that we are aiming to include is the support of plan options (the plugin that we are already using on our site here in our Services to select with drop-downs the type or duration of services purchased, but updated to be more flexible and easier to configure). This will allow you to have more flexibility within a plan, and thus need less plans configured for a given project. But there will be more new features yet to be announced.
From what users tell us, CBSubs is not only the most flexible and powerful memberships management solution for Joomla, but also the most robust and stable one. It has been running many thousands sites for years. And also this site's sales just fine and safely since over 9 years, allowing users to get their software, and our team to continue working full speed on Community Builder and add-ons, while putting food on our families' table. All of that open-source since many years now.
I want to give here a very special Thank You to all our paying members. You make a BIG difference in Community Builder and allow us to do what we like most: Providing you with very powerful and very flexible solutions to build your own website with great freedom.
We will continue improving CBSubs while keeping its stability and security, so that upgrades to CBSubs 4.2.0 and following will be easy, specially with the new CB Install-from-web upgrade feature.
We are always looking forward for your feedbacks! Happy site-building!