All Change for Affino 7

It’s all change for Affino 7. Work is underway on what’s going to be the biggest Affino release since we started Comrz.

 

Here’s a heads up on some of the highlights you will be seeing:

 

Architecture

In the biggest architecture shakeup in Affino’s history, we’re going to be moving Affino to ColdFusion 10 / Tomcat / Axis 2.0 / Apache / Quartz / Solr all in one go. The great news is that Affino 7 is already working well on this architecture.

 

Consolidating on Amazon’s Cloud Services

Over the years we’ve had great success from working with Amazon’s cloud-based services including EC2, S2 and CloudFront. It has taken considerable evolution of Affino to mould it to run on Amazon’s services, we will continue doing so with Affino 7.

 

Styling

 

Every Affino interface will have an evolved look in the upcoming release, including the Control Centre, App Bar and Live Editor.

 

A major evolution is the new HTML-based Object Designer which will allow you to design your Affino Skins on any device, including tablets and phones. We are also significantly improving the ability for you to style Affino with the more CSS customisation and greatly improved text styling.

 

There will be many new page styling options for large and small browser interfaces, including sticky buttons, panels and highlighted navigation.

 

Updated Control Centre

 

The Control Centre moves further to HTML 5, so you can now access management interfaces directly via dedicated URLs, e.g. Control/Promotion.

 

We are also completing the year-long updates we have been doing on every Affino Control screen to make each one smarter, faster, easier and better looking.

 

It also means that almost everything can be managed on your mobile / tablet devices and is ‘future proof’.

 

Mobile / Tablet / PC Targeting

 

This release will see the biggest evolution in Affino’s multi-screen evolution since we originally rolled out mobile skins over a year ago.

 

It sees the completion of dozens of ‘mobile first’ projects that we have been working on for over two years, including the dedicated Mobile API. Affino will deliver great mobile sites.

 

Messaging v2

 

We’re completely re-working Affino’s messaging to make smarter and easier newsletters; direct personalised messages and SMS communication.

 

Media Uploading v3

 

Media uploads are going to become faster and easier, as we flip how we handle media selection on its head. It means simple click-to upload and media URL pasting will become the primary means of managing media selections, since is natural as this is what is being done 90% of the time.

 

Advanced media uploads and management will also be improved, but these will become the secondary means of managing media and not get in the way of quick content management.

 

Leaner Code

 

Affino will be leaner in this release as we’re doing a great deal of refactoring, which means improved security and faster management, especially on mobile devices.

 

More importantly the HTML / CSS / JS code out-put of Affino will be optimised for smaller pages. Something which we will then improve on significantly in the following release.

 

Search

 

Product Searches will be faster and sleeker, but more importantly Site Searches will be working better than they ever have in this release.

 

And the Rest...

 

As usual we will also be working on hundreds of lesser tweaks, fixes and updates. We’re at 138 so far.

 

Projects

 

Whilst the Affino 7 development is underway, the Comrz team continues to roll out lots of custom projects for existing Affino users, in fact we have been doing so at the fastest pace yet.

 

We will continue to have rapid delivery cycles for smaller projects, but larger projects will increasingly need to wait for Affino 7 to be released in October so it is essential that you factor that into your plans.

With so many improvements you might be concerned that a great deal will change with your sites when you update, and undoubtedly many aspects will. We are however anticipating a smooth update process which maintains your sites as they are from a look-and-feel standpoint until you’re ready to embrace the updates.

 

We can’t wait to have Affino 7 with you, and will keep you posted with the latest developments as they arise.