GROUPBOARD/GROUPWORLD NEWSLETTER - September 2004

This is an occasional newsletter which is sent out to all registered Groupboard and GroupWorld.net customers a few times a year.

Voice conferencing module now available for Groupboard.
Groupworld.NET: set up your own 3d chat worlds and online conferences.
Bugfixes.
New Mac version of java fixes many problems.
Mozilla now works with Javascript versions of Groupboard.

Voice conferencing module now available for Groupboard

We now have a voice-over-ip conferencing tool which can be added on to Groupboard or Groupboard Designer. You can see a demo of Groupboard with voice conferencing here:

http://www.groupboard.com/mp/board.cgi?board_id=24449&large=true&groupconf=true&groupconf_id=24449

Note that it uses ActiveX rather than java, so it only works on Internet Explorer running on Windows.

Pricing starts at US$99 per year for a hosted 15 user voice conference and it is also available as an add-on for the standalone server version of Groupboard. Please contact us if you are interested in trialling voice conferencing with your Groupboard.

Groupworld.NET: set up your own 3d chat worlds and online conferences

We have been working hard over the last 6 months developing our new product Groupworld.NET. Aimed at both personal and business customers, it has features such as audio and video conferencing, 3d graphics and desktop sharing, allowing you to set up a virtual meeting room or a 3d chat world. It also has a built-in programming language which allows you to easily develop your own multi-user applications or customise the existing ones. For more information and screenshots, please see:

http://www.groupworld.net

We are hoping to make a full release sometime in early 2005. In the meantime, please contact us if you are interested in helping us with beta-testing. We are particularly interested in anyone who is interested in developing example 3d chat worlds (using 3d studio objects and/or our custom c/java-like programming language), as well as any business customers who would be interested in talking to us about reseller opportunities.

Bugfixes

We have fixed a number of bugs over the past 6 months, the main ones being:

Implemented a workaround for a bug in recent versions of IE which meant that the "set background" window didn't appear when the button was clicked on in the javascript user interface.
Fixed a bug in Groupboard Designer which caused freehand drawings to appear in the wrong place if multiple users drew at the same time and compression was enabled.
Fixed bugs in Groupboard Designer with regard to selecting and moving polygons.
Fixed a bug in Groupboard Designer which prevented backgrounds containing spaces from working with the "Place Image" tool.

All of these fixes have been updated on the hosted versions of the software. If you are using a standalone version (on your own server) and want to upgrade, please contact us for details. There is no fee to upgrade to newer versions of the same product.

As far as we are aware, there are now no known bugs in any of our products. If you do encounter any problems, please let us know so that we can investigate and fix them!

New Mac version of java fixes many problems

Apple has recently released a new version of the Mac Java runtime (1.4.2) which fixes many problems that prevented some java sites (including Groupboard) from working properly on the Mac. Although we ourselves don't have any Mac machines, a number of our customers have reported that Safari now works perfectly with Groupboard and Groupboard Designer after downloading the new version of java. If you do encounter any problems on the Mac, please contact us. Note that the new version of java has only been released on OSX 10.3.

Mozilla now works with Javascript versions of Groupboard

The latest version of Mozilla (1.7.1) fixes a long-standing problem which caused the browser to generate security warnings if a java function was called from javascript hosted on a different web server. This bogus security check has been removed in the latest version of Mozilla, so now the javascript versions of Groupboard work properly on all browsers when the html code is on a different web server from the java classes.