The next purchase of commercial SPAW Editor license will mark an important milestone in sales so we decided to issue a single coupon code for this occasion which lets you buy one Enterprise license at unprecedented 100 euro price (60% discount!).

It was never sold this cheap before and wont be for quite some time in the future. So one lucky buyer can get it at the lowest price ever!

To get this discount just enter coupon code “round” (without quotes) when ordering Enterprise license. And remember that it’s a single item promotion so you have to act fast if you don’t want to miss it.

Update: sold!

Yesterday was the last day of our safari support effort. Unfortunately we have collected pledges for only $225 so neither the initial target nor our backup target were met.

We will evaluate other options of getting a Mac and implementing Safari support but no timeframe could be set at this point.

In case you are the one of those nice people who made a pledge, your credit card (or other source) wont be charged. Thank you very much for trying to help! And don’t forget that no matter that fundraising effort failed, you are entitled to 10% discount on any commercial license and this discount could be combined with other discounts (like at the time of this writing we are running CeBIT promotion with enterprise license selling at 199 euro instead of 250 and you can get additional 10% discount so the price would be less than 180). Drop us a line to spaw@solmetra.com to get your coupon code.

SPAW Editor PHP Edition version 2.0.3 is available for download from our download page

We have added a feature to customize predefined colors in colorpicker,
implemented an optional feature to convert special characters to html entities like ©, —, etc., and brought back highly requested quick image insert feature from SPAW 1.x. Fix for an ugly bug when editor wasn’t usable over HTTPS under Firefox is also included.

Not everything what was planned for this release was implemented but we thought that these changes are too important to just sit on them while we implement other features and fixes.

Here’s a complete change log:

1. FEATURE ADDED: optional feature to convert special characters to respectable html entities like © etc.
2. FEATURE ADDED: added a feature to quickly insert an image (in SPAW 1.x style)
3. FEATURE ADDED: predefined colors in color picker dialog could be customized
4. BUGFIX: removed unnecessary empty lines at the end of most language files
5. BUGFIX: numbered list items where rendered with value=”-1″ under Firefox
6. BUGFIX: SpawFm plugin: removed empty spaces in the end of include files
7. BUGFIX: under Gecko content area wasn’t editable after the first load when working over HTTPS
8. BUGFIX: additional bugfix for https under firefox issue: images were rendered as broken in editor
9. BUGFIX: SpawFm plugin: files were not listed when using HTTPS with Firefox
10. BUGFIX: SPAW usurped document’s mousemove and mouseup events
11. COSMETIC FIX: removed extra quote from the dialog_footer.tpl in spaw2 theme

It has come to our attention that someone named Hasadya Raed
has posted reports of remote include vulnerability in SPAW Editor PHP Edition version 1.2.4 in numerous places on the web (or at least they were copied from some source) like this

The report states that the file img_library.php is vulnerable because
it includes following lines:

include $spaw_root.’class/util.class.php’;
include $spaw_root.’class/lang.class.php’;

Since he found these lines he should have noticed that right above
them there’s a line like this:

include ‘../config/spaw_control.config.php’;

And any working copy of SPAW Editor MUST HAVE the file config/spaw_control.config.php and almost at the beginning of that
file there’s a line

$spaw_root = realpath(dirname(__FILE__).”/..”);

which defines $spaw_root variable which is later used in the lines stated as vulnerable.

While we accept that there is a very theoretic possibility that somebody just extracts SPAW’s archive into some directory and then don’t even tries to configure it but exposes this “installation” to the world and has register_globals set to “on”, we believe that this situation is so unlikely that it doesn’t deserve to be claimed as security threat and be spread all over security-related web sites.

We haven’t received any comments from Hasadya Raed so far. I will update this post if there are developments on this matter.

Our friend at amCharts.com has just released his second chart control in his collection of the beautiful eye-candy flash charts: Line & Area Chart

You can use these charts in conjunction with any server-side technology. You just have to output the values in XML or CSV formats. And best of all you can use fully functional version of the beauty absolutely free of charge (if you don’t mind a small link back to amCharts.com).

In addition to Line & Area Chart there’s also a Pie & Donut Chart which is as beautiful and as versatile as this one.

You can also help spread the word about amCharts by posting a link on your site, blog or forum and by digging this post on Digg.com

Half of the term for our fundraising effort to buy Mac to try and implement Safari support in SPAW Editor has passed but we only have pledges for less than 25% of the target amount. Judging from these numbers logical conclusion would be to assume that there’s no real interest in Safari support and investing significant amount (at least in this project terms) into this feature wont be highly appreciated by the community.

Sure, theoretically this could change in those 12 days that are left but something tells me that it’s not going to happen.

However we do understand the importance of support of all possible browser platforms. So, here’s the deal: if by the end of fundraising period (March 18, 2007) we will have pledges for at least 50% of the amount we will pledge the remainder ourselves.

In case you really want SPAW to work under Safari or know someone who is not aware of this effort or have a blog or participate in some forum where community would appreciate this feature, you or your friends or hardcore Apple fans or even Apple representatives can make a pledge of $25 or higher by visiting the page of this effort at fundable.org

You can find more information on the effort in the initial post.

And don’t forget that all donors (even if we don’t collect the amount and you won’t be charged anything) will get 10% discount on any commercial SPAW Editor license. So, if you were planning to purchase an enterprise license you will actually save money by donating $25! And if our campaign still fails you will just get 10% without spending a cent simply for showing good will.

If you make a pledge don’t forget to drop us a line at spaw@solmetra.com so we can send you a coupon code for your 10% discount since we can’t see your full email in fundable.org’s interface.

It came to our attention that when used under SSL with Firefox SPAW v.2 performed in some strange way: on the first load it worked ok, but on subsequent loads editing area stayed gray and inactive unless you switch to HTML mode and back.

We have traced this behavior to some kind of bug in Gecko which is beyond our understanding (which is sadly not the first time with Firefox) but we were able to cure it with a workaround. Since there are not enough changes for the next release yet, but this bug might be affecting many users working over HTTPS, we decided to release a quick fix for this issue. You can download it here. Just overwrite the files in this archive over your current files to apply it.

We would like to thank Ampco Metal SA for sponsoring priority upgrade for this issue.

In response to our fundraising effort I’ve got a couple of emails suggesting that Safari compatibility can be developed and tested using Konqueror browser on Linux since apparently Safari is based on KHTML rendering engine. I’m not an expert in Konqueror (and Safari for that matter) but from what I’ve googled there’s no so called “designMode=on” functionality in Konqueror:

——- Additional Comment #22 From Leo Savernik 2006-03-22 19:40 ——-
Suspended indefinitely.
A merge from Webcore will be done when the infrastructure is in place. Don’t even think about expecting it before KDE 4.

So there’s no other reasonable way to implement Safari functionality than using an actual Mac and we really need your help for this to happen.

As you have probably noticed current version of SPAW supports all the main browsers except Safari. This is not due to the lack of required functionality in Safari but simply because at this moment we don’t have any Mac computers in reasonable proximity. There’s also no other immediate reason to purchase a Mac but the a/m Safari support and we can’t currently justify this expense.

So we decided to ask for your help. If you like SPAW Editor and would like to see it working under Safari, you can donate as much as you can (current minimum is ) solely for the purpose of Safari implementation. We have set up a fundraising campaign at fundable.org.

Our goal is to raise at least 1000 US dollars for Mac mini purchase (currently it’s the cheapest Mac solution over here in Lithuania), but we would prefer to purchase a MacBook to save space (currently cheapest MacBook is priced at about 1600). So, if you would like to donate and notice that the fundraising is completed but the amount is below 1600 don’t hesitate - your donation is highly appreciated.

The system at fundable.org works this way: you make a pledge to donate with your credit card (via PayPal) or PayPal account. Your credit card (or account) will be charged if the goal of the fundraising is met within 25 days from Today, February 21, 2007 (deadline is March 17, 2007), but if the goal is not met you wont be charged anything. (Keep in mind that the amount will probably be reserved in your account).

As a benefit all the donors will receive a 10% discount for any commercial license of SPAW Editor. So, in case you were planning an Enterprise license purchase and you donate 25 dollars you will get a higher discount than you’ve donated! The discount will be valid even if we don’t collect the money in time and you aren’t charged.

If Safari support is important to you, please, help us make it a reality! Visit https://www.fundable.org/groupactions/spawsafari and make a pledge Today!

In case you have any question about this initiative don’t hesitate to ask us at spaw@solmetra.com

Disclaimer: we have designed version 2 of SPAW Editor with future extendability like this in mind and we will make a serious effort to make it work under Safari, but there’s no guarantee that there won’t be any critical obstacles on the way that we won’t be able to overcome in a timely manner.

Update: the system at fundable.org doesn’t show us complete email addresses of the supporters, so if you’ve made your pledge and would like to receive your 10% discount code drop us a line at spaw@solmetra.com and provide some information (your email, name, etc) so we can identify you.

We have released a new lightweight theme called - spaw2lite. It borrows button icons from the default SPAW2 theme but rather than using separate images for each button state it uses a single transparent image for each button and applies state related effects using CSS and Javascript.

At the same time we have removed all the markup which served no functional purpose.

As a result of all these changes “spaw2lite” uses 4 times less images weighing 10 times less than “spaw2″. And the markup weighs 4 times less too.

So if you thought that it takes too long for SPAW2 to load, grab the spaw2lite theme and speed things up!

Note: spaw2lite will only function properly if you have SPAW Editor PHP Edition version 2.0.2 (just released) or later