DreamAccount v3.0 Released!

Date: 04-17-03

DreamAccount v3.0 Released!

Main objectives of this release:

1) To add support for a lot of new payment processors.
2) To add a new feature called the DA API.
3) To simplify the overall admin area layout.
4) To simplify the customization and configuration process.

To download V3.0, or to view upgrade instructions from a previous version, please login to the members forum area.

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NEW FEATURES IN THIS VERSION:
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The really big feature in this release is something we have wanted to do for a long while. After spending many long hours and a few thousand more lines of code, we are proud to announce this new feature. It is actually two-fold:

1) We completely rewrote the htaccess functions, so that you can:
> Choose between encrypted or plain text .htpasswd files, which is great for some systems that do not work well with the PHP crypt() function.

> Protect multiple directories with one membership.

The htaccess code has also been entirely rewritten as a modular class to be able to change the .htpasswd files on a line-per-line or append basis, instead of regenerating the entire file(s) each time information is updated or an order is placed. This will offer some big performance enhancements for those of you with a LOT of accounts.

2) We have integrated a new feature we will call the DA API. This feature will allow us to interface with many other MySQL based programs, such as CMS, Portals, Forums, Ticket Systems, etc, and manage the customers in that software and their access levels, based on their DreamAccount billing status. This will allow you to integrate all your customer's logins and manage access to your various web-based programs without the use of Htaccess. As you know, htaccess can be perfect for some situations, but awkward in others.

To demonstrate the power of this new feature, we have integrated support for pMachine (www.pmachine.com) which is a webblogging program available for free or commercial use. Since pMachine allows you to define different access levels for each account, this is a perfect demonstration of the flexibility of the DA API.

We plan to integrate support for the following products within the next few months:
- vBulletin
- phpBB
- postNuke
- phpNuke

Would anyone be interested in Radius integration? How about LDAP? Let us know, as we are considering these as well.

Another big change in 3.0 is the ability to allow your customers to sign up using a normal username, instead of requiring that it be their email. This has been a big request in the past.

We also added support for 9 new payment processors in this release!

- Paysystems IMA (IBA NOT SUPPORTED)
- Nochex.com
- Protx VSP Direct
- PlugnPay
- Netpayments.com
- DPILink
- eWay
- SurePay
- SecPay

We also streamlined and built a new theme for both the admin and members areas. See the new demos:

http://dreamcost.com/dl/demos/dreamaccount/
(Members Area)

http://dreamcost.com/dl/demos/dreamaccount/admin/
(Admin Area)

We felt that to much of the configuration need to be done by manually opening configuration files, and making code modifications. We have done the following to completely do away with this and make configuring HostAdmin easier:

- Secondary payment processors can now be managed via the admin area. (such as PayPal, 2checkout, worldpay, etc)
- Coupons can now be managed via the admin area.
- Blocked emails/domains can now be managed via the admin area.
- Blocked IPs can now be managed via the admin area.
- Required/displayed registration fields can now be managed via the admin area.
- Billing grace period, default hosting plan, DNS info, Members area template file, the e-mail registration validation feature, and the SSL URL confuration can now be managed via the admin area.
- The currency settings for WorldPay, PayPal, & NetPayments is now configurable via the admin area as well.