Finally, after all the blood, sweat and tears, we are proud to present to you the future of Joomla blogging with EasyBlog 5! EasyBlog 5 stable has arrived and you can now download it directly from your dashboard. Due to the complications while developing EasyBlog 5, the team sacrificed quite a lot of their rest time; burning the midnight oil just to ensure that all tasks met the deadline and all bugs are squashed. However, I am very proud of the team and the outcome of EasyBlog 5. It is definitely worthwhile!
Redesigned User Interface
For those of you who weren't following the progress of EasyBlog 5 earlier, we have redesigned the entire user interface for EasyBlog 5 from ground up; both on the front end and the back end. For those who are upgrading from EasyBlog 3.9, you will notice major improvements over the prior version; it is as if you have installed a new component altogether.
Our goal is to ensure that all our interfaces are up-to-date with the current trend and to ensure that authors on your site are comfortable when they are crafting their blog post with EasyBlog 5. These are some of the screen shots of EasyBlog 5.0:
EasyBlog 5.0's New Composer
The core feature in EasyBlog 5.0 is the unique and brand new composer. We have enhanced the editor from RedactorJS which is already an awesome text editor. With the all new EasyBlog 5.0 composer, you are now able to drag and drop blocks into your posts without having the need to be a HTML doctor.
[embed=video]{margin: 0 auto;display: block;"width":580,"height":350,"autostart":false,"controlbar":"bottom","backcolor":"#333333","frontcolor":"#ffffff","file":"/eb5-blocks-image-720.mov","place":"user:67899"}[/embed]
Built For Mobile & Desktop
Apart from the "tap and drop" operation, we have also ensured that the properties for each blocks retains it's functionality without sacrificing the usability and user interfaces. Each of these properties on mobile view are designed in a way so that it does not clutter your mobile device or favorite tablet. Regardless of whether you own an iOS or an Android device, the user interfaces were designed from the ground up to be less cluttered.
All one needs to do is to tap to browse for a block and tap it again to place the block in the editor. As simple as that! Once you are done with crafting the post, simply tap on the Publish button and you are good to go.
Enhanced Media Manager
We have also enhanced the entire Media Manager in EasyBlog 5.0. Browsing and attaching medias are much more intuitive compared to it's prior version. Here is a short video on how the brand spanking new media manager looks like and how it works in a nutshell:
[embed=video]{margin: 0 auto;display: block;"width":580,"height":350,"autostart":false,"controlbar":"bottom","backcolor":"#333333","frontcolor":"#ffffff","file":"/eb5-media-manager-true.mov","place":"user:67899"}[/embed]
Additional New Themes
In EasyBlog 5.0, we are also introducing 3 new themes which is Wireframe, Nickel and Cobalt. All of these themes were crafted to play nice with your existing Joomla templates and it definitely has a very professional look! I myself was extremely impressed over these new themes, especially the way cover photos for your blog posts are being displayed within the listings.
Under The Hood
Apart from working on the usability and enhancements on the functionality, we have also focused on the overall performance of EasyBlog 5. We wanted to ensure that EasyBlog 5 is not only fast but extremely fast!
We developed an internal caching mechanism that caches common SQL queries and in which results a tremendous drop of SQL queries by 250 odd queries. Not only have we reduced the SQL queries, most of the SQL queries have been refactored and re-optimized. All in all, we have noticed performance improvements by 300% over the prior versions! Well done team!
In EasyBlog 5, we have also revised the way our JavaScripts are being rendered; you will notice a reduced number of JavaScript files being loaded on the page.
Join The Family!
All these writings about EasyBlog 5 and it's new features doesn't do justice to how cool the features really are. Seeing that the adoption rate of EasyBlog growing on a daily basis, why don't you join us? Grab EasyBlog 5.0, the future of Joomla blogging, and be your own judge on EasyBlog 5. Here's a 30% discount code to celebrate the birth of EasyBlog 5.0:
EBN5XT
You can direct any inquiries that you might have over on our official forum, or via our CRM. Come, join us!