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I've spent the last few weeks thinking long and hard about this, CJ Menu needs a rewrite. it was my first 4 app coming from IPS 3.x. as it was a "learning curve" app, there were a lot of things i was unfamiliar with and was making "work arounds", that could be done differently in the framework or better. as i was looking at the codebase (face palming a lot) i decided that it would be better to start from scratch and create a new app. So Menu Groups Manager was born out of this decision.
Menu Groups Manager will have a lot of the same features that CJ Menu has (plus new features), it wont be feature parity with it, as some features in cj menu weren't given a lot of thought, i just added them cause i thought they were "cool" or "interesting". so with MGM, the plan is to figure out what features are good, which ones are bad and go from there. It will also address issues that were introduced with me tacking on features over the years with it.
I will make a more indepth what is being kept/removed and the new features when i begin to finalize them. I am always opened to suggestions, and this would be the perfect time to ask for them :).
Also a side note, anyone who has purchased CJ Menu, will have an opportunity to get Menu Groups Manager for free for a limited time after Menu Groups Manager is released.
 

As some of you have noticed, i seemed to have either abandoned my apps or just disappeared. fear not, i am still actively developing and around. the reason for radio silence, life. as some of you know i do have a job outside of my development, we took on a new contract there from several local business and were upgrading their systems, so i was quite busy (as i usually work from home, but this last several weeks, i was out in the field).
the other even that happened, like most, i have a laptop and a desktop and i also have roommates. I usually use my laptop thru out the day to do things with and at night, its the domain of my sisters children (for school) and/or my sister (for her work) and i use my desktop. however at the beginning of the year, i purchased a new motherboard and cpu (any one curious it was a ryzen 6 1600) and a new monitor (a samsung 4k tv). well after a few days, my gpu died (gtx 970) and i was forced to go back to my intel cpu/mobo to use it's onboard gpu (as ryzen doesn't have one) and i was limited to 30hz on my new monitor (and it was causing me headaches) so i was unable to work, till late in the evening (around 9pm) but i that was nearing my bedtime (as i was getting up around 4am for my other job).
so these two events left me with very limited time to keep up with everything, but i am back now. I am also looking to hire a friend of mine who is familiar with my apps, to help me out in times like this, but i will need to bring him up to speed as things like the babble chat service can be daunting to some one who is unfamiliar with how it operates.
Over the next few weeks i will be addressing the outstanding issues and reports i have. monday i will be releasing a updated versions of downloads plus to address a few issues that have cropped up in it and to introduce a few new features that have been requested.
 

There might be a delay in replies to pm's, emails and support tickets for the next week or so.

There will not be a 2.6.1 version of the babble self hosted,  as a vast majority of the changes were for the chat service. There will be a 2.6.2 released in a few days to address a few other issues for self hosted (that were in the self hosted specific bits of the code). 

Babble 2.5.0 will be released the next few days. This release is mainly for Commands. A lot of the planned features for commands for 3.0.0 have been backported to 2.5.0, to help fix several issues. mainly cause of confusion when it came to permissions or "quirks" in the previous system that would allow some of the "moderator" commands to be used by everyone or groups that weren't a moderator.
Features/Improvements:
Custom Commands/included commands and aliases have all been merged. Permissions are now handled per Command (including any added commands). Custom Commands of the basic type found in previous versions can be created, along with more advanced form ones, like the included commands. there will be new guides to explain how to do either. Custom Commands:
you will still be able to add your own custom commands. there will be 2 types you have a choice from. Basic, basic works identically to the way the custom commands from previous versions, and advanced. Advanced are php based ones, designed to do more advanced things, all of the included commands are of this type. I will make guides for both of these types, to better explain how they are to be used, and what options are available to you.
Aliases:
Aliases still exist in this version, but they are now included with the commands. Instaed of one HUGE list of available commands, with their stacks all visible. The Aliases have their own tab within the command.
Help:
Help has its own tab now inside the command, and will be using translatable, so you can customize the commands help per language you have installed.
This is a much needed improvement for babble, hopefully it is a welcomed change . let me know what you think or if you have any questions.
 

I've been working to get 2.4.0 stable and released sometime this week. it will have the following changes:
clubs - babble will be able to be used in clubs. improved online list (hopefully i have solved the ghosting problem, from my testing it seems to be resolved. remember if the user is logged in anonymously they will not show in the online list, this is to remain consistent with way IPS works, so keep this in mind if you experience it after this update.) removed the sources/Node folder. babble.js and package.json will be available to you in the ACP under node settings. this was done to reduce the overall size of babble's tar file for various reasons. as some sites owners are not willing or unable to increase the upload size limits. and it can be a hassle to have to upload via ftp and then run the upgrade process manually.  removed the emoji one library, this was an a frivolous addition to babble early on. i will make the images available so existing messages can still use them. i might make it an "addon" later on for babble, but we will see. it is also a very "large" library, and my goal with this version is to reduce the install tar of babble. i've also been working on resolving currently any open bug reports with this release. will no longer support nginx or apache proxies, they were a very messy work around for ssl, but since babble now supports SSL, these are no longer required, and they lead to much confusion to people trying to set it up. removed the SSL tab in configuration. this again lead to much confusion when people were trying to configure SSL.  if it is not obvious, version 2.4 will only be IPS 4.2+ compatible, as the addition of clubs has broken backwards compatibility. this version also heavily modifies the babble.js and the node modules installed.  there will be a new install guide to go along with this release. so once you upgrade the app, the babble front end will more than likely stop working. if you have any questions or comments, leave them below.  

this morning at around 6 am the chat service experienced some down time as i was performing some maintenance,  i will get a better "alert" system when the service is scheduled for maintenance. 

as some of you might know, cj menu was my first app for IPS 4.0, and it was also a "testing" ground for various ideas, some better than the others. to put it simply i made a lot of bad mistakes with cj menu. things i didn't quite understand at the time due to lack of documentation and/or experimenting with the framework in different ways. cj menu does work and remained relatively solid for long periods, but its "code" base i would've said when i came out with it would've allowed flexibility to add new things in easily, i now say is a beast with two left feet and a gaping maw that constantly runs into walls. so i would like to know everyone's thought one CJ Menu 4, what you liked about it, what you hated about it, and what you would like to see in 5. 
It would be invaluable to get your feedback on things, so i have an idea where to take it. cause CJ Menu in general was well "CJ's Menu" not a true "Menu Manager" i had envisioned it be. as for the version bump, i will not be "re-releasing" it, it will replace CJ Menu 4, so there wont be any messy "re-buys" to it. this is something i owe the people who have bought it and been supportive of it for a long while, so it wouldn't be right of me to recharge cause i messed up a few years ago when designing it. so please leave your comments down below  

If you have purchased a package from here, and wish the invoice to be moved to the IPS market, please send me a PM with your IPS email address and i will generate you a invoice over there. Please take notice, that renewal terms are different on the IPS market. 
For babble Chat Service users, the next version i will be changing the "license key email" to "license key identifier", you will be able to find this in Store->manage purchases (it is not up yet, but will be in a few days, i'll send out a email when it is ready). your license key will remain active during the transition and after it. I am making this change due to discussions going on about the IPS market, as some clients don't feel "comfortable" in having to register at another site, but babble chat service requires a license key, so i will need to be able to generate a license key without having to tie it to an email. if you wish to have your babble chat service invoice transferred to IPS, let me know and i can do that as well. 

the chat service is now live, so if you are a self hosted and wish to join the service send me a PM . 
as for self hosted, i will be adding clubs to the self hosted here in a few days. i haven't forgotten about it