Questions or comments about version 1.0.4 or about Commons In A Box more generally? Visit our community section.

• Updated plugins: BuddyPress 1.7.1, BuddyPress Docs 1.3.4, BuddyPress Group Email Subscription 3.3.2, Invite Anyone 1.0.21, bbPress 2.3.2, More Privacy Options 3.5, BP Groupblog 1.8.2, Bebop 1.3.2
• Properly activate the CBOX Theme when installing BuddyPress on a secondary site
• Workaround for a bbPress 2.2.x role permissions bug when a user creates a new site in BuddyPress
• Theme improvements: Support for BuddyPress 1.7.x; removes the Site Features slider limit of 8 slides

Already using Commons In A Box? You should see an upgrade notice on your WordPress Dashboard > Plugins panel. Upgrade as you do with any WordPress plugin, and Commons In A Box will walk you through the rest of the process. If you’re a new user (welcome!), download Commons In A Box 1.0.3 from its home in the wordpress.org plugin repository. And, as always, if you have comments or questions, please stop by our Community area.

• Updated plugins: BuddyPress 1.6.4, BuddyPress Docs 1.2.10, BuddyPress Docs Wiki 1.0.3, BP Group Announcements 1.0.2
• Fixes inconsistent Updates count in toolbar
• Theme improvements: Better appearance on mobile devices; fixes bug in Superfish menu; better compatibility with Markdown plugin;more intelligent activity tour display for members with no groups/friends/favorites

Update through the WordPress plugin updater, or download version 1.0.2 directly at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/commons-in-a-box.

As always, if you have questions, concerns, or comments, check out our community pages.

• Plugin updates: BuddyPress 1.6.3, BuddyPress Docs 1.2.9, Bebop 1.2.2
• Fixed a bug that prevented the bbPress plugin from posting activity items when a site is set to be invisible to search engines
• Improved the group email subscription default settings
• Better device responsiveness for the Commons In A Box theme

Download Commons In A Box 1.0.1 from the wordpress.org plugin repository, or click the upgrade button in your WordPress Dashboard.

The last few weeks have seen a string of beta releases of the Commons In A Box package, driven by the extremely helpful testing and feedback of an intrepid group of CBOX Pioneers. Many thanks go out to those who have been putting Commons In A Box through its paces.

Have you been waiting for Commons In A Box to leave beta before trying it out? Now’s your chance. Download v1.0 through your WordPress Dashboard (Plugins > Add New > search for “Commons In A Box”), or from the wordpress.org plugin repository.

Questions or comments about Commons In A Box? Features you wish it had, or bugs that you’ve found and would like to see fixed? Join our growing community of users. If you’re a developer, check out commons-in-a-box and cbox-theme on Github.

Happy Holidays to all – now get building!

• Compatibility fixes for WordPress 3.5. This includes fixes to the Commons In A Box theme’s dashboard panel, and an upgraded version of BuddyPress. As of 1.0-beta4, Commons In A Box officially requires WordPress 3.5 (most functionality will work on earlier versions of WordPress, but we will no longer be supporting these versions).
• A number of important bugfixes to the theme admin panel
• We’ve modified the way that Commons In A Box configures discussion forums on a new installation, and written up a guide that explains how legacy forum content can be handled
• Improved internationalization support, which means that Commons In A Box can now be localized into any language

As always, our team sends a huge thanks to those users who’ve been testing Commons In A Box through our beta period and reporting issues. Do you have problems to report, questions to ask, or suggestions to make regarding Commons In A Box? Check out our community pages.

He talks about how easy it is to set up:

Setting up a CBOX website is five-steps simple and clearly explained with the site’s installation guide. I was able to go through the whole process in under ten minutes’ time, where most of that was waiting for my web host… I then installed the CBOX plugin, made a few more adjustments (as explained in steps three, four, and five), and I was ready to go! My site isn’t all that pretty or populated yet, but I’ve now got the tools to build the community.

He also focuses on CBOX’s potential uses in the classroom, and how it can “invigorate” students’ use of social media by letting them create groups for projects and use forums to discuss issues, and conveniently respond to threads via CBOX’s reply-by-email functionality.  He also sees how professors can create a community of students for all their students, where they can “overlap … learning and experiences with that of others…”

What if you’d like to run a blog, a discussion forum, and a wiki for your students to use? Or what if that community that you want to reach out to is much, much larger than a classroom? In that case, I’d recommend you check out Commons in a Box…

Reply By Email – One of the new features in Commons In A Box 1.0-beta2

• New A La Carte plugin: BuddyPress Reply By Email. RBE allows users to interact with your Commons In A Box-powered site from the comfort of their email inboxes.
• New Recommended plugin: BP Group Announcements. This plugin replaces the “What’s New” update box on group home pages with a new Announcements tab, where group admins and mods can post messages for group members.
• Theme improvements: The Commons In A Box theme team has been hard at work fixing bugs and implementing enhancements, including better responsive CSS, better styling for forum threads, improved performance of the Theme Admin panels, improved Slider performance, improved appearance of user and group navigation, and more.
• A new Settings page, where Commons In A Box will provide fine-grained control over BuddyPress and other plugin-specific options.

Many thanks go out to those who tested Commons In A Box during the first beta period, and special thanks to those who reported bugs.

Current users of Commons In A Box should receive an update notification in the WordPress Dashboard that a new version is available. And, as usual, you can download the latest version of Commons In A Box from wordpress.org/extend/plugins/commons-in-a-box. Questions or comments about version 1.0-beta2? Visit our community pages.

Designed along the lines of his “Makerspace,” which fosters a community “hackers, makers, and tinkerers” by providing a physical space on campus, Maker Commons provides a virtual space for a “maker” community to grow, collaborate, and share.

The site is just getting started and is open to everyone “passionate about bringing hands-on learning to our schools and communities across the world.”

Here is a screenshot of the site’s homepage: