Status Update

This is a quick update about what's going on here at UNA. Some plans, thoughts and observations...

UNA 9.1

The 9.1 will take 2-3 more weeks and we will have a couple of Betas. It's a fairly large update, with some new features, improvements and lots of fixes. Hence, we want to polish it up before letting it out. 

Some notable updates will include a fix for duplicated posts when in feeds when using Channels; Timelines/Feeds speed improvements; optimisation of cover images; support for native mobile & desktop apps; delayed video publishing (until transcoded); simple attachments to Posts (like in updates, plus mini-polls); and even an update for creation of a global multi-level labels hierarchy for site-wide "content taxonomy".

Here's how it looks in GitHub... 84% complete so far.

We are also looking a lot at improving the loading speed in general, experimenting with different caching systems and optimising the code. 

Mobile and desktop apps

We are currently testing iOS, Android, and MacOS apps here at UNA.IO. Windows app will appear in a day or two. Our testing results in really good feedback, so we can make key improvements before releasing the code to everyone. 

Source code for all apps will be made public later this week or early next week. Actual apps release for everyone to be able to use the apps with your UNA sites will happen along with UNA 9.1 update. We had to make some changes in the platform core to make the apps work.

We've only been using the apps for a short time so far, but they already seem indispensable. Interestingly, we found that using a separate app for Messenger on a desktop is really convenient if you plan to use your messenger for team collaboration or even just want users to be actively engaged. Sending notifications for the whole site to the desktop may quickly become "too much" while doing it just for the messenger feels just right. Anyhow, we plan to provide both combined apps (site+messenger) and separate a Messenger-only set of apps.

Points

We're using the Points app from AQB Soft here on UNA.IO. It's the very first build, but you can already tell how much fun it may be and how many different applications it may have. For now, definitely treat it as an experiment, though. It is young.

Messenger

An update for UNA Messenger app is imminent. Internally we're using it exclusively for team communication. Dropped Slack/Skype for good and minimised e-mail usage to the bare minimum. Expect visual improvements, small new features and better performance.

JOT

JOT is a ReactJS-based frontend app for UNA, which you'll be able to use as an alternative UI for the most actively used elements that require "live" updates, like Timeline, Comments and Messenger. JOT is a bit like a template, but not for the site design - but rather for site functionality - converting some of it from reloading/polling to SPA (single-page-app) flow. 

JOT is a key part of the overall ecosystem strategy. Since mobile and desktop apps rely on WebView a lot it is important to make the site feel fast, or better yet "instant". While it's not feasible to do it for everything (it may not be user-friendly or SEO-friendly then), we should definitely use it for Messenger, Feeds, Comments, Notifications and some other features.

We are getting very close to the first Beta for the JOT app for UNA. It may well be available along with 9.1 or shortly after. 

X-Plans

About 3/4 of our time goes into working with client projects under the X-level plans. You can see them at https://boonex.com/ustart. These plans allow us to offer dedicated customisation, implementation and maintenance services for individual projects. While these are much pricier options than the DIY Pro and Cloud plans, the results are absolutely mind-blowing. Through close collaboration between the clients and our team, we manage to build really unique communities. Just the ideas we're working on every day make me feel really excited about the future of the UNA platform. 

The biggest side-effect of X-level services is the number of improvements we get to make in the platform while building experiences we never even thought of.