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RE: Forum Software upgrade - Printable Version

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RE: Forum Software upgrade - Renegade - 05.10.2006

How are you, gentlemen !!
All your posts are belong to...MyBB 1.2.x!

For those who didn't notice yet, I just upgraded the forums software to the latest version, and, with that, to a new development branch. Below are some of the more important advantages and changes this upgrade brings us:
MyBB 1.2 Release Announcement Wrote:AJAX
It's been requested many, many times and we kept saying "Hold your horses! It's coming!"

MyBB now makes use of the javascript XMLHttp extensions. Included AJAX based functionality includes auto completion and suggestion of usernames whilst composing private messaging, inline thread subject editing and inline post message editing.

Improved RSS and syndication support
We realise that content syndication is a very important technology and we've greatly improved support for it in MyBB. Feeds can now be served as Atom feeds, all data is properly sanitized and validated before being used in feeds and we've also designed a class which can generate an RSS feed from any data you pass to it as well as a class that can parse RSS feeds and return an array of information from them.

New reputation system
The old reputation system in MyBB had some serious flaws (it was very easily abused, votes could not be edited or deleted without diving directly in to MySQL). The folks over at the Messenger Plus! Community Forums addressed this by cleverly designing a reputation system similar to the feedback system of eBay. A similar modification was also written for MyBB called the "Alternative Reputation System" by Smethead (Who I'm very sad to hear is leaving the modifications community). Our new reputation system is based around the ideas and implementations of those two wonderful additions made to MyBB.

You can now only give a reputation to a user once but you can in the future edit or update your reputation of that user. Reputations are also publicly displayed (limits abuse) and can be deleted by administrators.

Multi-quote
A popular feature on other competitors applications is the ability to select multiple posts to be quoted and then on the "New Reply" page, have them loaded automatically in to the message area. We've implemented this in to MyBB - we find it extremely useful and hopefully you do too.

You can also cross quote replies from other threads and then have them loaded in to the message area using AJAX by clicking on a link which states there are external quoted posts.

Full-text searching (and search improvements)
If your database server supports full-text searching in boolean mode then you can switch over to using this amazing functionality which allows users to create complex search queries (along the lines of '"mybb rocks"' or 'example or tester' - and even more amazing). The database server handles the searching and quickly returns sets of results.

Search functionality has also improved overall. Results are now cached after the initial search which means browsing results is now much more efficient.

Improved CAPTCHA images
The CAPTCHA images used when registering have also been improved. They now support slanted and randomly positioned text, random TTF font selection and random characters and symbols in the background.

The same system has also been implemented when guests attempt to make a new post or reply to ensure they're not automated systems (bots)
These updates save us, directly from before to now, already two plugins I'd have to reinstall: The Alternate Reputation System and the Newsfeed Headers. Unfortunately, moving to a completely new development branch (1.2.x, instead of 1.1.x) means all other plugins, as well as the templates and themes, are incompatible with our current version. It'll take some time until we get updated versions. However, since the primary usage-related plugins (said AWS and RSS ones) are superfluous by now, general usage of the board is not affected by that. It just looks very...default.

If any problems arise through this upgrade, or if you have any questions or comments, please reply here.
And don't forget to share some reputational opinions - due to the new "stateless" system, all records are clear at the moment. Wink

Edit: I just used this opportunity to re-label the mod-related profile fields to more ambiguous "project" related fields, so be sure to update them if you used them before (since I'll re-include them in the template soon).
Oh, and this inline editing thing is way cool. Big Grin

Edit 2: More news from the frontlines: I just added a new MyCode tag: [ modenc ] (to be used without the spaces);
Code:
[modenc]What the fuck[/modenc]
turns into What the fuck, a link to a page of that name on ModEnc opening in a new window.
I have also added a new profile field: IRC nick. If all works out as planned, this'll show your online/offlineness on GamerNET IRC, where #RenProj is situated.

Edit 3: Oh, kids, stop me - I'm having too much fun.
Code:
[thread=445]this very thread[/thread]
will generate a link to this very thread Wink
The number inside the MyCode is any thread number here, the code between the tags is a description of your choice.

Edit 4: One more time:
Code:
[bug=27]some bug in the bugtracker[/bug]
Will link to some bug in the bugtracker. Number is of course any valid bug number, sans the prefixed zeros.

Edit 5: I just reset all accounts to "Use default theme", since there are only the MyBB Default Theme, and the just re-created Renegade Projects New Bright, which is the actual default theme for now. Red Theme of Death will not be re-created at this point in time, Whiteboy's Rules' skin will follow in due time (theme editing is annoying).

Edit 6: Behold! ...my AJAX powered RSS feed ticker, bringing you ModEnc's recent changes and the last 25 issues updated in the bug tracker!


RE: RE: Forum Software upgrade - hopalongtom - 05.10.2006

Hope the Whiteboy's Rules theme is back up in time for the mod release!


RE: RE: Forum Software upgrade - Marshall - 05.10.2006

What happened to the Arcade?


RE: RE: Forum Software upgrade - Renegade - 05.10.2006

GOD DAMNIT, PEOPLE.
Thy Admin Wrote:Unfortunately, moving to a completely new development branch (1.2.x, instead of 1.1.x) means all other plugins, as well as the templates and themes, are incompatible with our current version.
'nuff said. Tongue


In case you wondered: You weren't the first one to ask. Wink


RE: RE: Forum Software upgrade - VK - 05.10.2006

Rather good,
Now it correctly insert formating tags in Opera 9.0 Smile


RE: RE: Forum Software upgrade - Whiteboy - 05.10.2006

Well, the WR theme has returned pretty quickly, and improved as well. Thanks a lot Ren Smile

You might want to edit your first post though, to include the word "Arcade" somewhere, because without it, some people who just used ctrl+f to find out what happened to the arcade aren't going to find much... stick in "THE ARCADE IS GONE" in large text and there ya go Tongue


RE: RE: Forum Software upgrade - Renegade - 05.10.2006

Nah, they'd fly to Marsh's post and see the already big-lettered response.


RE: RE: Forum Software upgrade - hopalongtom - 05.10.2006

When/if its back we have a chance to be on the leaderboards before Whiteboy can restore his origonal scores!


RE: RE: Forum Software upgrade - Renegade - 05.10.2006

Are you suggesting I am not competent enough to backup a database?


RE: RE: Forum Software upgrade - Bobingabout - 05.10.2006

no, he's just wishing Tongue


RE: RE: Forum Software upgrade - hopalongtom - 06.10.2006

Yeh, I want to beat Whiteboy for at least longer than a day this time!