Just for reference, I would like to note a few important X3 features that were added in the latest release-branch [0.12-0.14] prior to release-version. We had a
long forum thread ongoing since August 2015, generally about this new release-version.
New features of X3 [0.12-0.14]
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Brand new JSON settings
The settings structure has been redesigned from ground-up to make X3 as flexible as we want it to be. The new JSON format allows us to utilize settings across both PHP and Javascript, and merge default-settings with user-settings. When you make changes to global settings, your changes are stored in a unique file config.user.json, which allows you to upgrade X3 easily without loosing your settings. Also page-settings have been moved to page.json files within each folder, and only settings that are
not default get stored in each file. You can now also set global-default page-settings, so that you only need to change a minimum amount of settings for each page you create.
New image "landing page"
Each and every image in your X3 website now has it's own "landing page",
see example here. These pages are not generally viewed by humans, because when clicking a smaller image, they will normally see the image in the X3 popup window.
So what is the point? There are a few reasons to have a landing-page for each image:
1) SEO - Having a unique page for each image, with all meta data included in the document, will give a the best foundation for having the image-page indexed in search engines.
2) Sharing - Most sharing services (including Facebook and Google+) require a PAGE to be shared, so you kinda need an image-page for this. You could share an image directly (without a page), but don't you want visitors to land on your website, instead of just a plain link to an image? The image-page also includes the images meta-data, so that correct title, description and preview-images are used when sharing.
3) Accessibility - As far as robots can see, each link in your galleries now goes to the image-page. The X3 popup is really just a human-interface that hi-jacks the click for improved image-viewing without leaving the current page. Also, if a visitor does a "open link in new tab", the image-page will load in the new tab (just like facebook galleries etc.)
CSS hosted on CDN
In addition to the X3 javascript, we are now serving the X3 CSS files from a super-fast CDN (content delivery network). Personally, I think this is a really cool feature, which generally speeds up all X3 websites.
Fail-proof conditional CSS- and Javascript loader
Sometimes, CDN resources may fail to load if the visitor is behind some kinda firewall, or located in a country with some strict limitations. Now, if a CSS or JS resource fails to load, X3 will automatically load the local version of the CSS/JS file instead. This makes sure your X3 website does not break in these rare cases.
Justified layout fix
Fixed "orphan" bug, and dramatically increased rendering speeds for the popular
justified layout.
New X3 Popup
We have implemented a new awesome popup method for viewing images. Test it
here by clicking an image. The new popup has some really cool features, including zoom-in animation (from thumbnail), image-sharing, transitions, zoom, superior touch/swipe functionality from touch devices, and extensive settings from the X3 admin panel. The popup-method has also been made available for you to use in your page content,
read more here.
Added Font-Awesome
X3 now uses
Font-Awesome, which by default is loaded from a fast CDN service. Font-awesome is used natively in the X3 design (icons), and can be used in your page content also,
read more here.
New Sharing Toolbar
There is a slick new sharing toolbar available, which is by default attached to the left side of the visitors screen. The toolbar is primarily used for social sharing, but can also be used to add other links and features. It is highly configurable from the X3 admin panel, and makes clumsy, large 3rd-party services like "AddThis" redundant.
New Footer
New footer, configurable from the X3 admin panel. The new footer allows custom content, and editing the "icon-buttons" with your own links, icons, colors and titles.
New initial diagnostics
We have now enabled new diagnostics by default. This allows X3 to make sure that necessary folders are created, and that permissions are correct when the website is run first time. If diagnostics reports that there are no issues, you can safely disable diagnostics from panel settings, and continue with your X3 setup.
New Panel Tools
New "tools" page available from the X3 admin panel: #menu (pre-create menu), #preload (create site object when using the "preload" option), #authorize (check your license authorization vs domain), #reset (reset settings), #htaccess (for diagnosing and editing .htaccess file)
More
- Much improved codebase.
- Native support for
chatra.io chat (See demo
@mjau-mjau.com, bottom right button).
- New customizable 404 (page not found), in panel -> manage -> custom/404.
- New customizable favicon, in panel -> manage -> custom/favicon
- Faster page-creation times with menu-fragment caching.
- New "prevent context-menu" setting, to prevent visitors from downloading images.
- New panel/custom.css, to add custom CSS rules to the panel.