Affino 5.5.9 Release

This is an essential upgrade for all Affino users. This release has the most significant performance improvements of any Affino release with up to 70% less memory requirement and 40% less processing for the same usage levels. Additionally there are significant improvements in load-balancing, security, stability and usability.

The focus for the team continues to on improving the user experience and smoothing out the experience on all the new Affino 5.5 elements based on your feedback.

Upgrade Guidance

This is a must-do release for anyone hosted by Comrz. It is essential to re-generate Skins with this release as numerous optimisations have taken place in terms of the generated code. It is also recommended that you run the Re-Initialise Site option, followed by System Update, Design Element Update and Skin Update.

Key Enhancements

Improved 404 Error Handling – a major ‘behind the scenes’ improvement in 404 error handling means that Affino is now massively more scalable than in the previous Affino 5.5 releases

Optimisation – major optimisation of Affino on all levels. Completely new session handling for Bots (i.e. computers rather than users) prevents bots from doing deep searches, adding items to shopping carts, logging in as a user etc. Bot user account still in place to give Bots privileged access to specified content.

Secure Content Delivery Network Support – Affino now supports SSL encryption of media through Content Delivery Networks (CDNs). This is a major development as it allows sites running through CDNs to be fully secured and not throw ‘unsecured content’ flags on browsers

Other Enhancements

Forums – Forum listing now displays the Security Clearance applied to each forum

Media Editor – filters are back when editing media, basic black and white, pixelate, sepia, infra red and emboss filters

Order Referral Analysis – Affino can now track referrals through to individual sales, both on a per-sale basis and a persistent basis, i.e. all sales to an individual can be logged back to the original referrer.

Fixes

Application Bar – it is now possible to edit online forms directly from the Application Bar

Broken Link Analysis – extensively optimised to only keep the latest 5,000 records and maximum 30 days of records

eCards – formatting issues resolved

eCommerce – resolved order cancelling issues; fixed numerous issues with updating the store profile; updated the new dynamic shopping cart to synchronise the display with the checkout; resolved styling issues with the checkout; the original price is now available on each line item when processing orders; it is now possible to delete Store Profiles without the system throwing errors; Subscription Catalogue Item link errors resolved

Campaign Management – resolved issue with placement of Campaign Placement Areas; deleting Campaign Themes no longer throws an error

Conference Profiles – now redundant and consequently removed

Content Delivery Network Integration – numerous issues resolved with CDN integration; almost all media files can now be fed through CDNs

Design Centre – fixed object level navigation, now displays the last three objects worked on; Design Object previews much more responsive (preview thumbnail generation not available in this release)

Design Scripts – it is now possible to delete Design Scripts

Design Style – enforce Design Style sizes now works on Shopping Basket Design Element; ‘Get Exclusion’ error resolved; it is now longer possible to delete the Control Centre Design Style; it is now possible to copy a Design Style from the detail view

Design Menus – updated the media source for design menus to be fully integrated with CDN delivery

Email Notifications – notification now take the text colour and background colour from the design style, preventing scenarios where you can have white text on a white email message

eTests – assigning tests no longer errors out

Forums – forums who’s creators have been removed from the system are now no longer hidden

Geo Blocking – resolved numerous issues with Geo Blocking including major performance issue; making this an essential upgrade for any site running 5.5.8; Geo Blocking ID no longer automatically assigned to content

Images – image lookups optimised on load-balanced setups, now up to 90% faster

Internationalisation – resolve ‘Alt’ description character errors

Media Editor – updated ‘Get Album Art’ function on Media Editor to be compatible with the latest version of the Amazon API, i.e. no longer breaks

Media Library – Section listing issues resolved; when ‘Restrict Own Media’ is selected users can only see and edit their own media; it is now possible to set the sort order for media sections and items; only defined content can now be downloaded

Members – resolved issue which caused the members listing to error out

MP3 Player –now plays music from the listing; allows you to play multiple tracks from the detailed view; no longer throws errors; has new Twitter option and improved formatting

My Messages – sent messages folder no longer errors out; manage folders screen styling issues resolved

Newsletters – newsletter despatch and scheduling issues resolved

Pending Users – no longer errors out when approving users

Print Preview – resolved errors when previewing

Public Profile – public profile alignment issues resolved; no longer errors out

Site Settings – fixed error when editing site setting

Skins – when copying a Skin you are now taken straight to the new copy; Skin generation no longer points to broken links for style sheets and JavaScript files; Skins can now be copied from the detail view

SSL – resolved issues with the Login Channel