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gorgonzola · May 9, 2002, 10:26 PM

Infopop just released UBB 6.3.0 a few days ago, and we'll be upgrading after they release the customary few minor bug fix releases in the next three to four weeks, give or take. Since we'll be upgrading from UBB 6.0.x to UBB 6.3.x, we'll get a rather large feature boost that includes all the features and fixes added in 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3, and I'd thought I'd post the changelog for these major revisions so you can take a gander at it and get an idea of where we're going in the next month or two.

Version 6.1 - October 19, 2001

* Ability to post without cookies (some functions still require).
* Optional UBB.classic� Accelerator added to enhance efficiency & speed.
* Private messages outbox, including ability to see whether message has been read yet.
* Add custom Graemlins (up to 25).
* Custom user titles (admin definable).
* "Update post indicators" link added to user profiles.
* Added dozens of other minor enhancements.

Version 6.2.0 - January 28, 2002

* "Recent Visitors," a more comprehensive implementation of "Who's Online"
* Post preview function
* Enhancements to the user search feature (new searchable fields, such as IP at registration, IP at last post, and birth date)
* After a reply or edit, you are now taken to your post in the topic
* Printer-friendly topic view
* XHTML templates (~99% compliant, thanks to Allen Ayres of UBBDev!)
* Topic authors may now toggle email notification from on to off and vice-versa by editing their post

Version 6.3.0 - May 09, 2002

* User avatars.
* Users can choose whether to see other user avatars or not.
* Updated the search feature to use less memory and search more accurately.
* Updated the mail library for increased error checking and return of error warnings.
* Added custom Member Title Levels.
* Added select all link to user search results.
* More XHTML improvements and fixed (thanks Allen Ayres).

Note: I have removed some of the more boring features like COPPA improvements as well as administrator-only stuff from those lists, as that doesn't affect the vast majority of our users.

Just something to look forward to. You'll note that some of those things are things we had to hack into the board before, while others are totally new ... this is a Good Thing, as it means we'll spend less time hacking, so we can keep up-to-date with the best version of UBB available more often. Also, since in 6.3 we have most of the features we hack in, things are looking good for following releases as well.

Coming soon...�

IUJHJSDHE · May 19, 2002, 04:07 AM

Thats all cool, Don't much like the custom titles idea.

Ahh I just don't like change!

<EDIT>: Oh by the way I don't want to tell you how to do your job but make sure we all keep our posts and post counts here

I am probably the only one who reads the archives just for the fun of it!

[ 05-19-2002: Message edited by: IUJHJSDHE ]

SteevAK · May 19, 2002, 04:18 AM

Avatars will be nice. I can just see rampant abuse of them at first though. . .I hope there is enough foresight to put stringent restrictions on them like the image sigs.

The upgrade looks great though.

I'm assuming the fora will get a makeover similar to the main page, yes?

chris v · May 19, 2002, 10:02 AM

Are you going to hae to go through the week-long process of adding back in all the interface hacks that the last upgrade put you through? I sure hope not, for your sake. It's all good.

CV

gorgonzola · May 19, 2002, 12:17 PM

Originally posted by chris v:
Are you going to hae to go through the week-long process of adding back in all the interface hacks that the last upgrade put you through? I sure hope not, for your sake. It's all good.

We still have to do a few hacks, but the new version has decreased the number we need to do considerably. We're hacking the code separately this time, so when we upgrade, the downtime should be relatively short, and people won't have to wait for things like "last post" to reappear.

Avatars will be nice. I can just see rampant abuse of them at first though. . .I hope there is enough foresight to put stringent restrictions on them like the image sigs.

Actually what we are considering doing is getting rid of image sigs and moving to avatars-only, since avatars don't affect the vertical length of the page, and are limited within code to 50x50 (no matter what your image is, it'll show up as 50x50), so they're better and easier to control than image sigs.

Thats all cool, Don't much like the custom titles idea.

We already have custom titles! Junior, Member, Senior, Veteran, Elite, Addict...

I'm assuming the fora will get a makeover similar to the main page, yes?

A small one. Logo, buttons, etc. We're sticking with the colors and the ribbing for now. The forums are very readable right now and we don't want to muck that up.

Demonhood · May 19, 2002, 03:27 PM

Originally posted by SkiBikeSki:
Besides a pixel limit on avatars, don't forget to put a kilobytes limit on. I'd hate to be waiting for an hour for my 56k modem to download each page.

i believe you can set in your user profile to simply not see any avatars.

ReggieX · May 19, 2002, 10:31 PM

What the heck is a "custom graemlin," besides a poor take-off on daemon?

reader50 · May 19, 2002, 11:02 PM

greamlin = smiley. But "smiley" sounds too simple, so they call them "greamlins". Progress, and all that.

It means custom smileys can be added more readily after the upgrade, without lots of code hacking.

Synotic · May 19, 2002, 11:30 PM

Maybe we could have a vote.. I prefer image sigs over avatars, I mean come on.. fixed length? 50x50? That's small as hell.. and wider than tall sigs look nicer, you can't really do that because anything less than 50 is tiny. Look at sites like thinksecret.. they look horrible.

Although it might be an interesting challenge for creativism.. we should still vote.

Demonhood · May 20, 2002, 01:30 AM

you mean a vote like in this thread?

starfleetX · May 20, 2002, 02:59 AM

What happened?

I thought we were supposed to get the upgrade on Sunday. Oh, I see, you're just taking after Apple and delaying updates 'til your users go apesh�t and threaten to switch over and use the competitor's products.

/me hopes the upgrade goes over fairly easily. Good luck guys!

Synotic · May 20, 2002, 10:21 AM

Originally posted by Demonhood:
you mean a vote like in this thread?

Yeah, I made my vote, thanks 'lax/gzl (assuming it was because of me since the topic was made after my post)

Mac Write · May 20, 2002, 03:38 PM

Why not work with vbulletin, and make the switch, vbulletin has had all these features for over a year, and alot more. Also VB3 is coming out soon and will have alot more enhancements.

I heard you tried this once before. Why not try it again and pay Jelsoft to do the install. I would recommend this forum to people if you ran VB if they didn't find my forums usefull . Also VB would be alot more effient since your already on a dedicated server.

Custimizing the forums to would so easy, thanks to t he template system.

So please make the switch to VB, I would be willing to help you guys make the switch.

Synotic · May 21, 2002, 12:50 AM

Originally posted by Mac Write:
Why not work with vbulletin, and make the switch, vbulletin has had all these features for over a year, and alot more. Also VB3 is coming out soon and will have alot more enhancements.

I heard you tried this once before. Why not try it again and pay Jelsoft to do the install. I would recommend this forum to people if you ran VB if they didn't find my forums usefull . Also VB would be alot more effient since your already on a dedicated server.

Custimizing the forums to would so easy, thanks to t he template system.

So please make the switch to VB, I would be willing to help you guys make the switch.

I personally think that UBB looks much nicer than any other boards and it would be more of a pain to have to make it look like MacNN's UBB looks now. I have used vbulletin and I really personally don't like the feel.

snomac · May 21, 2002, 03:04 AM

The only thing I like about vB is the superior search function. As far as looks and function layout goes I prefer UBB. I think it was mentioned before that this release would improve searching a bit, looking forward to it.

starfleetX · May 22, 2002, 03:12 AM

I assume that since this upgrade will beef up the search function, I won't have to skim through this monstrosity two or three times to find the right forum... eh?

A little organization would help... please?

[ 05-22-2002: Message edited by: starfleetX ]

daimoni · 01:35 AM

.

philzilla · May 22, 2002, 11:24 AM

Originally posted by starfleetX:
I assume that since this upgrade will beef up the search function, I won't have to skim through this monstrosity two or three times to find the right forum... eh?

A little organization would help... please?]

this has been addressed before. they're in that order, because that's the order UBB was given them. add another forum now and you'll see it at the end of that list. dig? i imagine you could re-order them, but it would be a case of a lot of awkward hand-coding, which i doubt anybody would want to tackle...

benh57 · May 22, 2002, 12:10 PM

Originally posted by philzilla:


this has been addressed before. they're in that order, because that's the order UBB was given them. add another forum now and you'll see it at the end of that list. dig? i imagine you could re-order them, but it would be a case of a lot of awkward hand-coding, which i doubt anybody would want to tackle...

Um, so? You don't work in software i see.

It's a bug. A bug is a bug, no matter what caused it.

That menu is just rediculous.

-Ben

Targon · May 23, 2002, 12:06 AM

Originally posted by SkiBikeSki:
Besides a pixel limit on avatars, don't forget to put a kilobytes limit on. I'd hate to be waiting for an hour for my 56k modem to download each page.

If u use a good browser like iCab you can enable a setting called "filter images from different server". Speeds things up a hellava lot when u dont want these images loaded.

Targon

Targon · May 23, 2002, 12:13 AM

Hope the new version doesn't change the "search by member name" function to "search by member registration number" as is in newer versions of the Info pop.

Will there be added a "search by exact phrase" to the search criteria?

Targon

iSilver · May 23, 2002, 04:00 AM

lots of good stuff there, can wait to see ho0w the avatars work on MacNN.

gorgonzola · May 25, 2002, 01:31 AM

Originally posted by daimoni:
A word of wisdom...

I heartily recommend having a beta staging site where you guys (and even some users) can test your UBB updates (imagine that!

)... unstead of just launching with the code changes.... and then having sytem-wide outages while you scramble to repair/debug the code (like what happened last time).

This is indeed what we have been doing.

lots of good stuff there, can wait to see ho0w the avatars work on MacNN.

Since a poll we conducted in the Lounge recently showed that not a single person wanted avatars, we're disabling them.

And regarding the search forums thing -- most of the improvements are in the backend, not the frontend, but we will try to hack the code to get the listing in display order instead of forum id. However, we will probably hack this after upgrading, not before ... for before, we're just going for reimplementing current forum features like last post and star status.

We *should* be getting along with this tomorrow, if all goes as planned

theolein · May 26, 2002, 09:49 AM

And the XHTML is going to render in all browsers? Are you sure you're not going to have problems with some Mac oddities such as Omniweb, and iCab ?

Mactoid · May 26, 2002, 01:37 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by theolein:
And the XHTML is going to render in all browsers? Are you sure you're not going to have problems with some Mac oddities such as Omniweb, and iCab ?<hr /></blockquote><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#xhtml" target="_blank">XHTML</a> is designed to be completely backwards compatible with any HTML renderer. I have been using XHTML for all my pages for well over a year and have never had any problems with a browser not understanding them.

Basically, all XHTML is is a well formed version of HTML. I like it because it doesn't allow all the brain-damaged crockery that HTML browsers have foolishly allowed people to get away with in their HTML.

reader50 · May 26, 2002, 06:00 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by theolein:
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 Billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300C. The Russians used a pencil.
<hr /></blockquote>The Fisher Space Pen, developed <a href="http://www.spacepen.com/usa/history/index.htm" target="_blank">privately</a>, and used by both <a href="http://www.spacepen.com/usa/penusers/space.htm" target="_blank">NASA and the Russians</a>. Before that, the NASA astronauts used pencils.

[ 05-26-2002, 06:03 PM: Message edited by: reader50 ]

chris v · May 26, 2002, 08:58 PM

Okay, for a few minutes there, this morning, there was a "who's online" (or was it a recent visitors?) box at the bottom of the topic listings in each category. Where'd it go, and when can we have it back? Was that causing a big slowdown?

CV

gorgonzola · May 27, 2002, 04:33 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by chris v:
Okay, for a few minutes there, this morning, there was a "who's online" (or was it a recent visitors?) box at the bottom of the topic listings in each category. Where'd it go, and when can we have it back? Was that causing a big slowdown?

CV<hr /></blockquote>Yes, we want this back too. It was causing a big slowdown, but in around two weeks, we're going to enable UBB Accelerator (we have to do some finagling with the backend before we can enable this) which increases performance significantly, and this should allow us to reenable that feature.

The reason why it's so demanding is that our boards are pretty popular, and it's tracking every movement of every user on the forums at a given instant.

So, it'll be back soon.

Cellery · May 27, 2002, 05:07 PM

A quick question, and I apologize if it's been asked before- why are some people with 1000+ posts listed as members and others with 100-200 posts listed as Addicted? Just a side effect of the upgrade?

hayesk shows up as a new member with 821 posts <a href="http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=12;t=005000" target="_blank">here.</a> In that same thread sungwoo and cjriviera show up as addicted. Just a little strange.

Apple Pro Underwear · May 27, 2002, 07:29 PM

mods,

i vote for making everything quicker. new features are nice, but MacNN is super slow and crashing the heck out of my browsers.

if a new UBB feature is causing inefficiency, get rid of it.

i think you'll get more members and etc if this thing is more like a baby beemer opposed to a suped up neon.

CaseCom · May 28, 2002, 01:25 AM

Hey, the upgrade looks good. Nice job.

philzilla · May 28, 2002, 05:55 PM

another philzilla hack request:

can we have the Forum in the get_daily page to be linked? not too hard a job... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />