Shared calendar across domains

The shared calendar plugin included with the Enterprise version of NutsMail is a popular item. It allows creation of public or private event calendars that can be shared between groups of users.

The easiest way to manage the calendar data is to store it directly in the data folder of your NutsMail installation. This is accomplished by enabling the “calendar_file_backend” plugin. No initial setup or configuration is necessary, but this solution has its limitations. If users log in to NutsMail from under different domain names, they may be denied access to the calendar files created by other users.

To remedy this situation, the shared calendar functionality should be set up with the “calendar_sql_backend” plugin. With this plugin enabled, the calendar data is stored in a database, which eliminates the access denied problems.

To use the sql backend plugin you need to create a database, specify its access information in the plugin config file and manually create the database tables. This is a bit more troublesome than using the ready-to-go file backend plugin, but it provides a more flexible solution for inter-domain calendar usage. Happy calendar sharing!

Skins upgraded to Roundcube 0.7

The Roundcube team has been very busy this past year, they released 7 upgrades to Roundcube! The latest version, 0.7, doesn’t introduce any new functionality, but it does fix a lot of bugs and security issues. We wanted to make sure our skins are fully compatible with the newly released Roundcube before we crack the New Year’s champagne, and we made it! You can download the fixed Alpha and Alpha Mobile from the customer area. Litecube and Litecube mobile didn’t need any fixing, so there’s no need to re-download those.

And since this is probably our last blog entry this year, we wanted to wish you all a happy New Year and thank you for using our NutsMail and Roundcube themes! We hope to provide you with even more and better software in 2012!

NutsMail News RSS reader

As you may have noticed, NutsMail comes with a handy little plugin called NutsMail News. It’s an RSS feed reader that displays the latest headlines from the news service of your choice on the sidebar. You can choose from many pre-defined news services in several languages, or you can define your own. The RSS is retrieved and displayed using AJAX, so it doesn’t slow down the loading of the webmail.

Some of you reported that if NutsMail runs on an SSL-secured server, the plugin causes a browser warning. We have now fixed this issue, so the plugin can be safely used over SSL. If you’re having problems with the SSL warnings, re-download the Enterprise package from the customer area and upgrade to the latest version of NutsMail.

This plugin is available for the Enterprise and Unlimited license holders. If you have a Basic or Premium license and would like to see how the plugin works, you can test it on the demo site. There are more advanced features available with the Enterprise license that make the webmail experience more complete. If you like any of the features listed, and you’d like to upgrade your license to Enterprise, it’s easy! All you need to do is pay the difference in price between the license you have now and the license you’re purchasing. Let us know if you’re interested!

NutsMail 4.2.1 released

We have just released a minor upgrade to NutsMail (version 4.2.1) which fixes some small bugs and issues. We’re actively working on the next major release, NutsMail version 4.3, which will be fully compatible with DeployMail, our new mail management system for WHM and CPanel. DeployMail will enable WHM admins to manage domain-specific NutsMail settings and resell NutsMail themes to their CPanel clients. Version 4.3 will be capable of running independently just like the current versions do, but with one setting change it will become fully integrated with the DeployMail control panels.

But while we all wait for this Star Trek-like technology to become available, let’s not forget to upgrade to NutsMail 4.2.1, which is available in the customer area.

Android bug fixed in NutsMail mobile themes

There is an odd bug in the Android 2.x browser. Hyperlinks covered by popup menu boxes are still clickable, even though they are not visible. Since our NutsMail mobile themes use popup menus to economize on space, this bug caused strange problems: users trying to click Forward or Reply would actually click the links located under the menu, like Open Message or Write Email.

We have just released new upgrades to fix this problem, so if you use NutsMail mobile themes, we encourage you to upgrade them to the latest version available in the customer area (version 2.2). We hope this fix will make life easier for all the Android users out there.

Another upgrade to the Roundcube Alpha skin

Our Alpha skin is getting better with every upgrade! Thanks to a pointer from one of our customers in Scotland (devonto.com) we have fixed the problem with the plugins registering their buttons on the settings bar. The upgraded theme version (2.0.2) is available for download in the customer area.

Roundcube Alpha skin upgraded

We upgraded our Roundcube Alpha skin to version 2.0.1. This upgrade fixes some display problems on Internet Explorer 7 and 8. We recommend that you suggest to your Roundcube email users upgrading to Internet Explorer 9 or above, since the earlier versions aren’t fully compatible with the latest technologies used in Roundcube so there might still be some display discrepancies there and there. You can download the latest version of the Alpha skin from the customer area.

Skins upgraded to Roundcube 0.6

Two of our Roundcube skins, LiteCube and Alpha, have been upgraded to version 2.0 and are now fully compatible with the newly released Roundcube 0.6. If you have purchased these skins, you can download the new versions in our customer area. Please note that the new themes will work properly only with Roundcube 0.6. They will not work with any previous versions of Roundcube.

This upgrade concerns only the desktop skins. The mobile skins (LiteCube Mobile and Alpha Mobile version 1.1) are compatible with Roundcube 0.6 without needing any upgrades.

I’d also like to mention that since in most cases Roundcube skins are not backward compatible, we’ll continue actively developing only the latest versions of the skins. The previous versions (compatible with the older versions of Roundcube) will be available for download, but will not be fixed or upgraded anymore. So if you submit any suggestions or bug reports, they will be implemented or fixed only in the skins compatible with the latest version of Roundcube. If you’re using an older Roundcube version, we encourage you to upgrade to get the latest and best of what our skins have to offer.

Our demo has also been upgraded to Roundcube 0.6: http://nutsmail.com/rc.

Where are all the Roundcube mobile skins?

I come across many questions on various forums asking why there are so few Roundcube skins. Users don’t understand why such a widespread and fast growing system like Roundcube can have so few theme choices.

As far as I can see, there are two main reasons for the lack of Roundcube skins. The first reason is that Roundcube has a very quick development cycle: new program versions are released fairly frequently. This is great for the webmail functionality, but unfortunately it’s a difficulty in skin development. By the time a developer creates, tests and distributes a skin, a new version of Roundcube will be available and the old skin most likely won’t work on it. It needs to be upgraded and in some cases undergo a complete overhaul. Not many developers can afford keeping in step with the new Roundcube releases.

The situation is even more complicated with Roundcube skins for mobile devices. In addition to the development cycle problems, there’s the inherent lack of Rouncube support for mobile systems. It’s just plain difficult to create a Roundcube mobile skin. When creating ours, we spent a lot of time not only putting together the designs, but developing the technology needed to transform the typically desktop-oriented Roundcube output into a mobile-friendly form. It was a challenge to say the least.

But mobile devices are here to stay and will only gain more users as time goes on, so providing Roundcube and SquirrelMail with mobile skins is very important. If you ever tried using Roundcube with its default skin on an iPhone or a smartphone with Android you know what I mean.

Well, even there aren’t dozens of Roundcube skins available out there, at least there are a couple on our site you can try . We have two skins available, Alpha and LiteCube, both bundled with their mobile versions and a plugin that selects the correct skin version (desktop or mobile) depending on the device that’s used to check the mail. In a few days we should be done with upgrading the themes to work on the newly released version of Roundcube (0.6). If you’d like to see how the skins look, click here, or visit our Roundcube demo at: http://nutsmail.com/rc (username: test (at) nutsmail.com, password: testtest). We hope you’ll enjoy using Roundcube with our mobile themes on your smartphone!

NutsMail translations: filling the gaps

We receive many questions about how to make NutsMail work in local languages. Although SquirrelMail (and thus NutsMail) is translated into 158 languages, the translations aren’t included in the installation package. They need to be downloaded and installed separately. (Available here.)

The difficulty with localizing SquirrelMail is that it uses third-party plugins to enhance its functionality, for example, message details, preview pane, bookmarks, calendar, etc. But most of the published translation files only include the translation of the SquirrelMail core, not of the third-party plugins. So even if you get SquirrelMail (or NutsMail) working in your language, you will still see some English text here and there – the text created by the plugins which are not translated.

NutsMail comes with a number of third-party plugins enabled by default. This makes it a webmail solution that is feature-full right out-of-the-box. Unfortunately some of those plugins are not translated, which can make it difficult to fully localize NutsMail for those who don’t know how to create their own translation files.

To fill these gaps, we decided to build a repository of the missing SquirrelMail plugin translations. The translations will work in NutsMail and SquirrelMail alike, so the current SquirrelMail users will benefit from the new repository as well.

If you find that your NutsMail is missing translations in your language, and you’d like to see it fully localized, please let us know and we’ll send you the missing text to translate. When you send it back to us, we’ll compile it into the proper format and post it in our translation repository for download. This way you’ll be able to fully localize your NutsMail setup and contribute to the SquirrelMail community.

We hope this new project will be of help to many non-English NutsMail and SquirrelMail users!