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Status of JomSocial 3.0 and Our Testing Process

A lot of people have been wondering when we will release JomSocial 3.0 so I wanted to give you a quick update.

The development is done!

The development of JomSocial 3.0 is finished. We are no longer adding features or making changes. It’s done. Yay!

Stepping up our quality assurance process

As soon as I took over the JomSocial project, I realized that we had to make some significant changes in our quality and testing processes. The product had become so complex we really needed to make sure that all of the parts were working properly.

A couple of months ago, we hired top quality assurance expert Bryan Lamb to help us step up our game and produce a much more stable application. Bryan brings with him over 20 years of experience doing quality assurance and managing testing teams for large corporations such as Apple, Yahoo and Macromedia.

Bryan has introduced us to a few of the testing processes that big companies use, and we have been incorporating them into our development cycle.

we hired top quality assurance expert Bryan Lamb to help us step up our gameIn this photo you can see Bryan Lamb explaining about Quality Assurance process to the JomSocial team

Writing test cases

JomSocial is the most complex application available for Joomla. There are literally thousands of different actions that members, visitors and admins can perform. To build to the right quality, each of these actions should be converted into a “test case” and then be checked on all browsers, including mobile browsers.

Our goal is to have 1,500 test cases written and executed before the beta release.

The testing process

Once we’ve prepared all the test cases, we’ll start testing. This will be done in a few steps:

  1. Internal testing - Our team will test JomSocial in order to find bugs, styling issues and other other problems.
  2. External testing - Once all the bugs from the internal testing are squished, we'll have a specialist QA company perform the 1,500 test cases on different browsers and mobile devices.
  3. Beta testing - Once external testing has squished all the bugs, we’ll be ready for beta testing. Our beta testers will use different platforms and use Jomsocial in conjunction with other Joomla extensions and templates, to see what breaks.

About our new beta testing program

In the past, we used to unleash the beta version of JomSocial and ask for feedback. It didn’t really work. Only a few people actually reported bugs and few did it in a way that actually helped.

This time, Bryan will run a closed beta testing program. Anybody can apply to be a beta tester but we’ll be selective. We will be looking for beta testers who have a high stake in the success of JomSocial: in particular, third party developers, template developers, translators or those with active communities. We will also accept people who are passionate about JomSocial and are willing to take the time to properly test it and submit bug reports.

Hopefully this process will be easier to manage, yield a much higher quality of bug reports and allow us to fix the bugs quickly.

When we are ready for beta testing, I will let you know so that you can apply to be a beta tester.

Quality takes time

I know you’re keen to get your hands on JomSocial 3.0. I also know that you expect it to be as bug-free and as stable as possible. Reaching that quality is not easy. It takes time. We’re putting in the hours to enable the new JomSocial to reach you as soon as possible

So, when will it be released?

Realistically, we hope to start our beta testing program by the end of this month. Depending on the number and complexity of the bugs our beta testers find, we will probably need a few weeks to get everything working and a stable version ready.

It’s worth waiting for!

The good news is that JomSocial 3.0 is fantastic. Our designers have really come up with some great new designs that look slick both on the desktop and on mobile.

So, what’s new?

Here are some of the changes you can expect to find in the new release:

Bye-bye old introduction area.

The old design was looking a bit… well, old. The new version will let you use your own image to create a special look just for your site. Check out the screen capture below:

Bye-bye old introduction area

Away with you, old toolbar.

The toolbar was getting old, too. So we swapped it for a new, slick one. Take a look below.

Away with you, old toolbar

Cover photos for profiles, groups and events.

Now you can use cover photos to give your profiles, events or groups a unique look. Check it out:

Cover photos for profiles, groups and events

Responsive design.

Letting your visitors use JomSocial easily on their mobile devices was the most requested feature. It’s done. Take a look at these screen captures.

Responsive design.

Improved usability.

Usability is a real passion of mine, so we’re stepping it up in this department too. I’ll tell you more about that in another newsletter.

This is a very partial list of all that’s new in JomSocial 3.0. It was worth waiting for, right?

Thank you for being so patient!

I know it’s hard to wait when you have projects that depend on a new release so I just wanted to thank you for bearing with us while we take JomSocial to a whole new level of quality, design and usability.

Any questions or comments? Post them below, I’d love to hear from you!

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