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Hi there,

As the year comes to a close, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the milestones and accomplishments of the past 12 months.

Wait, before I jump into that, please mark your calendar: the yearly JReviews Holiday Sale begins next week! It's the one and only time of the year you can get JReviews and addons at a discount.

2022 was in many ways a transition year, as JReviews and the entire ecosystem went through some  compatibility-related changes.

First, there were two parallel versions of JReviews and addons that required attention for most of the year making the development-and-release cycles more complicated. Imagine having to maintain two versions of JReviews, plus addons, for WordPress, Joomla 3, and Joomla 4. I am happy that's over now! With JReviews 3 reaching its end of life things are now back to being somewhat simpler.

Then, there was the Joomla 4 stable release, and upgrades from PHP 7 to PHP 8. Both of these consumed a lot of time throughout the year to ensure compatibility as bugs were reported and fixed.

Below is a recap of the year's milestones, in no particular order:

  • Released JReviews 4 stable with several iterations to fix bugs specific to Joomla 4.
  • Released a new Joomla 4 Smart Search plugin that syncs searchable custom fields and the listing's main media photo with the smart search index.
  • Added support for PHP 8.1.
  • Added WebP image support with the ability to seamlessly convert all existing images, providing significant storage and performance savings. You can enable it in Media Settings.
  • Added BuddyBoss integration via the now-renamed BuddyPress & BuddyBoss Addon. This is a free addon available to users in all plans.
  • Added support for BuddyBoss profile reviews using the Everywhere Addon.
  • Major update for the Dashboard Addon to add support for custom events, and upgraded the Google Analytics integration to GA4, which was really painful to implement. This is a free addon available to users in all plans. The addon also works with Fathom Analytics which is a privacy-focused, easy to use, and with first-class support analytics provider. We use it ourselves.
  • Released new Rest API Addon and built a free demo app built in Ionic + Vue that shows how to consume the API.
  • Released new Assist AI Addon, which gives users access to an AI that can save time and help write better user reviews. It can also auto moderate submissions, checking if content is sexual, hateful, violent, or promotes self-harm.
  • Added integration with the new CloudFlare Turnstiles captcha, a better alternative to Google ReCaptcha because of its privacy-focused approach. After implementing this solution on the JReviews website, spam registrations dropped to zero overnight from dozens per day.
  • Re-launched the JReviews website website for better user experience for managing account information and licenses.

Looking ahead to next year I look forward to:

  • Continuing to modernize and improve JReviews and simplify the code to streamline development and maintenance.
  • Exploring new opportunities for extending and improving the functionality of JReviews.

If you've been on the fence about renewing your existing JReviews plan, or just haven't been able to get to it, this is a great time to do it as things continue to move forward.

Thank you always for your support and loyalty 💚

All the best!

Alejandro