Mark Purser

Many here have been no doubt watching the evolution of NEO, our React App interface for UNA, with avid interest. As this project comes so very close to its fruition with a number of NEO based apps launching this week it seems timely to reflect on what might be the next steps in the evolution of the UNA-verse...

As @Andrey Yasko reflected with me this afternoon, he and a good number of the UNA team have been developing the UNA codebase for 25 years. In any age, that's a long time, in internet years, that's millennia! Across this time, and particularly in that last decade since Dolphin evolved into Trident and then UNA, the UNA team, past and present have assembled an incredible suite of components that can be used to build almost any configuration or social community or membership based site.

A Lego Set of Possibilities 🏗️

UNA 14 offers an incredible system to build out almost any dream site, with a robust core of system modules, a multitude of performative modules and slick templating system, there is no limitation to what can be built with UNA. UNA has often been described as a Lego set of building blocks that will empower you to build the community site of your dreams, however...

The Problem... 🤷‍♂️

The challenge with UNA is that it is too good, too sophisticated and 'too much' for most mortals to easily grasp. Make no mistake, there are some incredible sites that have been built on UNA, however most of them have been created by skilled developers, and we have always struggled with what I describe as a 'retail product' something that mere mortals, the dreamers and doers can configure with limited time and resources. There have been significant efforts made to create 'opinionated' templates that give new builders an already evolved starting point, Spacenook being an excellent starting point, however we have known for a long time that we need more.

Less is More 🎯

One of the great challenges for UNA developers (UNA team included) is switching apps off. Especially with new communities, there is often a desire to add more and be more, to offer more and more features, thinking we can win fans through features. However what we now clearly know is that when it comes to community development, less is most certainly more, people go to Reddit to ask obscure questions, Instagram to scroll stories, Tinder to find love, Twitter to argue about politics, Telegram to send naughty messages and Facebook to have our data stolen 👀... There is obviously a crossover with these features, but it certainly seems that people enjoy diversity in their apps, which is why Facebook Messenger has never taken over as a stand alone messaging system and Quora is not a dating app.

UNA meets NEO meets AI 🫶

NEO has been an ambitious project for the UNA team for over 2 years now, developing an UNA front end built on React, enabling an instantaneous native app experience for UNA. We now have a number of projects about to be released on NEO, which is pretty damned exciting, and as we move beyond that, we start to look at how we can offer NEO more widely.

AI enters the Chat... 🤖

With AI we now have a way of building with UNA that is truly revolutionary. You may have noticed the release of Agents & Assistants with UNA 14, this might look like a small thing, but is actually a REALLY REALLY BIG THING. Agents and Assistants have built into UNA the infrastructure to offer sophisticated AI integration into UNA. At the moment it seems light, but make no mistake this is a game changer for all of us.

Vibe Coding with Good Vibes 🥳

Vibe Coding is a programming approach that uses natural language prompts to instruct AI tools to generate software code. We give the AI Assistant a general instruction of what we wish to create aka "The Vibe" and the AI creates an app. The issue here is that whilst the front end interfaces can look fantastic, there is little depth to the code, and the logic is usually always problematic, in simple terms, the apps might look cool, but they are buggy AF.

The Future is Looking Fast! ⏩

So what would happen if we gave our Vibe Coding AI based App and instruction to build an app, but use the UNA code base, and the NEO React front end? With a mature database logic, deeply integrated administration layers and a suite of integrated native apps with features to cover almost every configuration solution, you would be be right to think we have an app building super weapon. Imagine, 'hey UNA, build me a version of Instagram but for snow skiers', 7.5 mins later, you have it, locked and loaded, 'Hey UNA, make me a site like Twitter, but for school teacher' make a cup of tea, site is ready... Imagine, instruct, tweak, launch... What has traditionally taken weeks, months, years, could now be done in minutes.

The mind boggles, the enthusiasm bubbles, UNA 2025 is going to be 🚀

What a journey! Took us well over a year this time. UNA 14 Final is released and now replaces 13.1 as a recommended stable. We call it Sirius - the brightest star.

The early days of v14 were very much about compatibility with the new React/ReactNative SDK we developed, focusing on APIs, authentication compatibility, DB performance improvements and all the goodies a CMS needs to perform well as a "headless" application server. Then, AI hype hit and we add Agents, Assistant and created a reference for feeding AI all about UNA alerts and actions. We enabled support for InnoDB, integrated Grapesjs editor, added HTMX routing in tabs, cleaned up the default template and made hundreds of smaller improvements. This is still a very "fresh" release, mind you - it will need a a few iterations to make Agents effective and more tuning for the Assistant.

Most importantly, UNA 14 Sirius opens the opportunity to release the React / RN frontend apps. We have them in production on a couple of projects now, and have 3 more scheduled for go-live in the next few weeks. Most of the core modules have been adapted, but we are actively updating them in preparation for public preview. Watch the 14.1 progress - NEO app will be released along with UNA 14.1.

Major New Features

Subgroups

One of the most anticipated features in UNA 14.0.0 is the introduction of Subgroups, allowing for more complex organizational structures within your community. This feature enables you to create hierarchical group relationships, making it easier to manage large communities with diverse interests.

Timeline Enhancements

The Timeline module has received substantial improvements:

• New Timeline Filters panel for better content discovery
• Enhanced privacy controls for Timeline content
• Improved handling of media content in Timeline
• Better management of past events in Timeline
• Fixed issues with followed groups in Timeline blocks

Agents App

The new Agents App introduces AI-powered assistants, automators and helpers to your UNA platform:

• Support for working with images
• Separate comment forms for Agent interactions
• Loading indicators in Assistant chat
• Enhanced user experience with AI-powered features

Context Improvements

The Context system has been significantly enhanced:

• Ability for authors/admins to enable/disable tags
• Generate thumbnail images from cover images
• Create contexts using the Create Post (Public) form
• Improved media handling and privacy controls

Enhanced Security

Security has been a major focus in this release:

• New option for 'X-Frame-Options'
• Multiple security enhancements throughout the system
• Improved error handling and logging
• Better protection against potential vulnerabilities

System Enhancements

Performance Optimizations

• Optimized sys_accounts table for speed performance
• Sessions deletion optimization
• Improved MySQL balancer for better database performance
• Enhanced service calls cache method
• Optimized database operations with multiple DB nodes

Developer Tools

• Improved Studio interface with better page block management
• Enhanced error logging and handling
• Better support for price field types in Builders
• Fixed PHP deprecated warnings
• Improved DB error handling
• Packages manager for all JS dependences - supports rapid update of dependencies and GitHub can scan package.json for known vulnerabilities in libraries

Storage Improvements

• Better handling of S3 URLs for embedded images
• Simplified error responses for file operations
• Enhanced PDF preview support with authorized S3 URLs

Module Enhancements

Ads Module

• Paid promotions
• Integration with Shopify
• Show promotions in Timeline
• Allow targeted ads based on age and country segmentation

Events Module

• Check in at event
• Calendar enhancements
• Past events are now hidden in Timeline 1 day after they happened
• Join questionnaire
• Main hashtag
• Browsing filter

Notifications

• Added captions to notifications
• Ability to change notification dates
• Improved push notifications system

Market Module

• Updated Name field
• Fixed empty button in invoices/commissions management
• Improved embed functionality

Search Functionality

• Fixed margin spacing issues in search results
• Enhanced extended search capabilities
• Improved label field handling in search forms

Payments System

• Fixed issues with invoices and commissions management
• Enhanced seller verification during shipping in Ads module

Bug Fixes

UI/UX Fixes

• Fixed wrong background in Password field
• Resolved modal issues in Studio
• Fixed slider functionality
• Corrected hashtag parsing and double linking issues
• Improved reactions popup based on mouse support

System Fixes

• Fixed issues with @mentions links
• Resolved problems with history.js
• Fixed infinite redirect for devicePixelRatio > 1 when cookies aren't allowed
• Corrected permissions search by title and description
• Fixed issues with DB 'listTables' method

Module-specific Fixes

• Fixed Analytics module JavaScript errors
• Resolved issues with Photo/Video attachments in Timeline captions
• Fixed Studio Pages creation functionality
• Corrected Organizations manage menu visibility
• Fixed issues with anonymous posting in Discussions

Updated Documentation

• There has been significant updates to the documentation for ‍‍UNA API, especially for Alerts / Hooks
• Updates have also been made to the UNA Wiki, to extend coverage to UNA 14, this is an ongoing work in progress.

Release Timeline

The development of UNA 14.0.0 progressed through multiple milestones:

• Alpha Releases (A1-A3): Initial implementation of core features and system architecture changes
• Beta Releases (B1-B2): Feature refinement and early bug fixing
• Release Candidates (RC1-RC5): Extensive testing and bug fixing to ensure stability
• Final Release: Polishing and final adjustments

Upgrading to UNA 14.0.0

Upgrading to UNA 14.0.0 is straightforward directly from your Studio, make sure you read the full upgrade documentation to ensure a smooth transition.

Improvements changelog

Full list of the improvements in 14.0.0

Who doesn't love a good whistleblower? Especially when they are spilling the dirt on our mates at Facebook. It is concerning stuff, Haugen’s document dump revealed what many suspected but couldn’t prove: that Facebook created more lenient secret rules for elite users, that Instagram made body issues worse for one in three teen girls, and that Facebook knowingly amped up outrage on its main site through an algorithm change in 2018, potentially leading to the January 6 storming of the US Capitol building. Her suggestion is greater transparency, with external observers and more investment toward internal guidance, looking to minimise harm as a highest priority.