ModemBB Archives - Page 2 of 3

Luna: A reference guide for planning

So, I’ve got this fancy bundle of paper here next to me. It’s a information guide about our Luna project, perhaps better known as ModernBB 4. ou might would like to read it. Now, I’m still working on it (refinments), and will publish it tomorrow. Also, stay tuned for the 2nd alpha release of ModernBB 3 tomorrow.

Round-up #12 – Taking advance of the 384 Group design and code guidelines

The 384 Group, which we are part of, today announced that all websites and software that are part of this group, have to follow new guidelines for both design and coding (coding in case it’s a software product). This affects us prety hard, as the ModernBB Group is the only group inside the 384 Group that actualy provices software (simply because all software that is made by other groups, except for FluxSmile – who doesn’t has to aply to the new rules). What does this mean for us?

ModernCount
ModernCount is a piece of software, less known than ModernBB, that is developed by us. Through it’s available as download at the Studio 384 website. Anyway, it has been a while since the latest update (version 3.1) and this piece of software realy can use a big update. That’s why ModernCount 4 will be released soon. This version will follow the new design guidelines, through it’s the only piece of software that doesn’t has to follow the code conventions, for now.

ModernBB
ModernBB on the other hand, has to aply to the new design conventions starting 15 May 2014, this means that the next feature release after this date has to be designed according those rules. One month later, on 15 June 2014, the code has also to be conform the coding conventions. This means that ModernBB 3.3 will have the full design, and ModernBB 3.4 will have the refactored code. Through, of course, we are allowed to get things ready before then, so it’s highly possible that ModernBB 3.2 will already start following some of those new conventions.

Note that, since the front-end of ModernBB is clasified as a “public section”, it doesn’t have to follow the design conventions. Only the Backstage has too. The front-end has to follow the code conventions, through.

ModernBB.be and ModernBB Group Blog
The good news on this part is, that the new design and code conventions are based on the design en code conventions that are used to design and code ModernBB.be (and Studio384.be), thus both websites are already ready. Our blog, however, has to be redesigned so it fits better in (and this was planned for a while, but now we just have too). This should be done by 1 July. That same day, Studio 384 will also refactor their own blog.

Why do we have to do this?
For developing reasons, it’s important that the 384 Group delivers a great experience around all of it’s products and software. This is why we have to do this. We will later publish those conventions online.

Round-up #13 – Redesigned experiences – UPDATE

4th blogpost in 3 days, we’re going hard in April! Anyway, I would like to talk about something you might have noticed in ModernBB 3.1 and in our announcement for ModernBB 3.2 and 3.3: we’re revamping some serious stuff in our forum software. Is this a coincidence or…

Well, no. It isn’t. As you know, we were planning a rebuilded forum software, named Vanellope. But we stopped development of it when we started working on ModernBB 3.1, which backported the new topic view. And that’s exactly what’s going to happen now everywhere else. Version by version, you will see ModernBB switch to a new design. Page by page. What version of ModernBB is going to redesign what? Here’s a list:

ModernBB 3.1	– Topic view (part 1)
ModernBB 3.2	– Profile – Help – User list (part 1) – Topic view (part 2)
ModernBB 3.3	– Backstage
ModernBB 3.4	– Index – Forum view – Login – Register
ModernBB 3.5	– Installation – User list (part 2)

Why are we doing this? Because it’s time to reimagen the way forums are designed. Why not all at once? Because we simply don’t want to create one big redesign release. We want you guys to be able to play around with the new stuff whenever it’s finished. Are you guys going to be able to follow the above scheme? If you ask that, you don’t know us. Of course we wont. Through this is the planning now. Tomorrow it could be different.

In other news, expect ModernBB 3.1.1 to be released somewhere in the next 7 days.

Round-up #14 – Let’s do a round-up about round-ups & more useful stuff

Well, it’s a very active month, I guess. It has been quite in the round-up category for a couple of weeks, and now, we’ve posted 3 posts in less then a week in it. This time, I want to spend some time to round-up all round-ups and talk about some more recent changes.

ModernBB.be blog
First of all, you probably noticed our completely redesigned blog. This is done as part of the 384 Group design and code conventions. The style blends in way better then our previous one. That’s clear. Anyway, you can’t access all posts very easy now, and comments aren’t available either (so is a sidebar and pagination). Those are things we will add later on. For now, you’ll have to deal with the stuff we got. At least, it’s now responsive and faster.

ModernBB is a growing platform
Perhaps you noticed on the ModernBB Twitter feed, but the first tutorial about ModernBB that isn’t from the 384 Group was posted yesterday on YouTube. A nice “thank you” to the people over at Coder’s Guide. What does this mean to ModernBB, you ask? Well, since yesterday, the amount of downloads is growing faster then before, and I’m prety sure we can thank this video for that. The fact that ModernBB has now a third-party tutorial, is great. On the other hand, the people at Wikipedia think we are also worth to have a page there. So, if that thing is running behind, update it! All of this is proof that we are actualy getting somewhere, we’re growing, and that’s great and prety important for a community.

For the mather, as part of the 384 Group coding and design conventions, ModernBB is going to get some official brand assets. This means that, very soon, an updated to our website will add a new “Brand Assets” page to the “About” section, here, you can find all of our logos (which means, all color schemes). You will be able to use those logos wherever you think you want to mention us. As much as possible, ofcourse.

ModernBB 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5
In the 4 upcoming feature releases, we will spend a lot of time on modernizing the interface of ModernBB. 3.2, 3.4 and 3.5 will focus on the front-end. While 3.3 will focus on the Backstage. The 3.2 updated is planned for late May. 3.3 should be here early this summer. We hope to get 3.5 out before the end of the year. 3.6 and onwards will focus on making ModernBB a platform with modern features, as we will put some work in a better template system and a plugin system (again). Another feature that is being worked on right now, is a fancy new update system that allows you to update ModernBB right from the Backstage with a click on a button.

That doesn’t mean that 3.2 until 3.5 will only focus on design, we’re also adding new features and improving others, just no big feature updates, unless realy required, or if I finish the new styling system and plugin system before the time it was planned. The development of both those features will start shortly and have their own branch and milestone on our GitHub project.

Looking for developers
If anyone is intrested in developing ModernBB: good news. Since I’m the only developer, I’m looking for people that can join me in creating a better piece of forum software. How can you get started? Join our forum, create a GitHub account (if you don’t have one yet), push some nice improvements to our repository, etc. If you’re good at that, I’ll add you to our team so you can claim some tickets for yourself.

Developing Luna #1 – Announcing Luna

A while ago, I posted a tweet on Twitter, showing you guys my desktop wallpaper. I announced that something was “coming soon”. That was, perhaps, a little bit too optimistic. Anyway, I think regular visitors are familiar with the name “Luna”. It has been a codename for a while here, first planned for ModernBB 2.5, then for 3.0, then a complete rewrite and start from scratch, then back to 4.0 and then to 3.5. Anyway, it didn’t stay at 3.5, as it is now, again, the codename for version 4.0. Or 5.0, it depends how long development will take. Through we are also considering to go back to 1.0. That’s why Luna is currently developed in the 0.x-branch.

And today, I’m happy to announce that we are working on the next generation of ModernBB, named Luna. Before we get started about this – you’re about to read an awful long text about this project – I want to say that we will keep working on ModernBB 3.x. Our recent release, ModernBB 3.4 is prove of that , through most of our attention will start going to Luna from today on. We’ve still planned some updates for ModernBB 3.x, so stay tuned on that, more information will follow.

Hit it
So, lets kick of the future! Luna will be a major update. This means that the whole codebase will be changed, so will the interface, both Mainstage as Backstage. We will not use the current Random-styles and Aurore 5 for those 2 components respectively. The good news, however, is that Luna will be able to understand your ModernBB 3.x database. Or much of it. Luna will require some serious changes to the database., and because of this, we will only support upgrading to Luna from the latest version of ModernBB 3. This is currently ModernBB 3.4.1, but can Always change, of course.

Luna will provide you and your forum’s users a brand new experience, focused on communication and social interaction. And this is kind of the reason I post this here today. On the following part, we want some feedback. Luna will not use the concept of “categories, forums, topics, posts” anymore. Instead, the index will provide you and your users an overview of threads from all sections (threads are the replacement for topics, sections for forums). Threads will be labeled with a nice colorful label to show from what section they come. Clicking on a thread’s name, will bring you into this thread.

Of course, you can filter easily on a per-section base by clicking the sections name. The section and index view allow you to see which topics are closed, solved, pinned, followed by you, how many comments they have and who started the thread. The main page, will in fact contain more of a log of what’s going on on the forum. Who logged in, what’s the newest topic, what’s the newest post, etc. Sections will function close to this (but this is a feature that isn’t planned for the first Preview).

Threads will have a horizontal design by default (means: profile information above posts instead of left or right). This gives us more space to show more content, like the sections list, which will be always visible inside the index, section and thread views. The new thread view allows us to build in a new feature, “threaded subjects”, which means that posts can be nested into each other. It’s another way to quote someone without having to copy the actual text. A “threaded” view is optional, and we will allow to use the traditional view like it is today, with only one level of posts.

Profiles
Luna will provide a completely redesigned profile. For starters, we will put more focus on the content the user has created on the forum, both threads and posts in threads made by others. We will also add a nice view to follow up on the topics and posts you have starred. Luna will also provide updated personality settings, like new social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and more. We do consider the ability for other users to comment on peoples profiles.

The settings, both personality as board settings, will get a separate file in the structure of Luna. It will have an updated design, through mostly work in the same way as ModernBB 3.4 does today. The administration for the users will happen here to, and contains some new useful features.

Backstage
Once again, the Backstage will be present in Luna. Through redesigned and build from the ground up as well. We’re planning to make the Backstage a more modular setting page, allowing developers to add new abilities to it without the need to modify the actual Luna Core. This redesign will be familiar to you, as it will be based on our website’s design (ModernBB 3.5 also has a design similar to ModernBB.be). The function of the Backstage, will not change – there isn’t much to change, it’s meant to manage, nothing more, nothing less – through we will provide new possibilities, of course.

Installation and upgrade path
The installation of Luna will be similar to that of ModernBB, through I’m now planning to make it a 3-step installation (making the database connection, making user, basic settings). If you want to upgrade from ModernBB to Luna, you’ll have to update the the latest version of ModernBB. For now, the preview supports updating from ModernBB 3.4.0, 3.4.1, 3.4.2 and 3.5-dev. This will change in the future. As soon as 3.5 is released, support for upgrading from 3.4 will be dropped. So you’ll have to be on the final version of ModernBB to upgrade to Luna.

Frequently Asked Questions

It’s a lie, I’ve not been asked anything about Luna, especially not “frequently”, but I can imagine some of you wanting answers on this anyway:

Where can I download Luna?
Nowhere, you can’t. I’m currently developing Luna on my PC, away from GitHub, away from Git, for the matter.

When will you put this on Git? When can we try it out?
I’ll put it on Git (and thus GitHub) as soon as I think I’ve got something worth looking at. That will probably be the same day I release Luna Preview 1. Preview 1 is planned for late Summer 2014.

When will we get a final release?
I can’t tell you. There is a lot of work to do. Preview 1 will contain just basic features, nothing to fancy. Starting from that point, we will have to build up most of ModernBBs current abilities. When I think we’re there, I’ll release the final build.

How many development releases will there be?
I don’t know yet, through for now, I want 3 alphas out (Preview), 3 betas, 2 RCs and the final build. This can take a while, I can’t tell how much time will be put between those releases.

What about future updates for ModernBB 3 & ModernBB 1.6?
We’re planning to support ModernBB 3 after the release of Luna for another 6 months. Of course, you shouldn’t expect any feature updates anymore. As soon as Luna hits RC, we will round up our feature development in ModernBB 3. As you also know, we are currently developing an update to ModernBB 1.6, our very old – and very first – release. Version 1.6.6 is supposed to be the final release (which wasn’t planned in the first place). So don’t expect any updates at all after 1.6.6.

And Luna?
For Luna, we will add more frequently new features, we’re not out of how we’re going to do this, because the current X.Y.Z versioning would make our numbers go crazy. We’re looking into using X.YY version numbers for the future, but that will be decided later on.

Stop with that “Luna” thing, just call it “ModernBB 4″, why would we need a codename?
First of all, this isn’t ModernBB 4. Also, I like codenames for stuff. Like we had Blythe, Zoe, Odd, Mellow, Vanellope, Neon and Kate in the past, Luna is one of them too. What do I mean with “this isn’t ModernBB 4″? Well, I’m not sure if I want to keep hanging on ModernBB as a brand. Sure, the software is now known under that name, but it sounds like I had a moment of non-inspiration when I thought of that name. And heck, that’s exactly the case. With other words, this major rewrite might bring a rebrand too.

Is Luna this final name, you ask? No, it isn’t. Through it has potential to become the final thing. As you know, there has been a time I wanted to rename the project to “Vanellope”, this name is now out of order for my project. Luna is for now the only candidate, so it might end up being the final name. But then again, “ModernBB 4″ is also in the running to become the final name. I guess time will tell. So will the first Preview. By then, the decision should be made.

ModernBB/Luna & Bootstrap/jQuery

oday, the Bootstrap developers released Bootstrap 3.3. This is the final major release for Bootstap 3 before moving on to Bootstrap 4. And well I would like to talk a little bit about that (a little, realy). We’re planning to bring Bootstrap 3.3.0 to the next update for ModenrBB 3.5 (version 3.5.3 that is), and obviously, to the latest Luna development version. TrentUI in the later one will be replaced with Bootstrap 3.3. However, Bootstrap announced their plans for Bootstrap 4 today too, and we’ve decided to not bring Bootstrap 4 to ModernBB. we will continue to update ModernBB with the latest version of Bootstrap 3 as long as it last. Bootstrap 4 will only be used for Luna, as it will require (according to their plans) for our project a lot of changes (we’re using panels a lot, and guess what’s going to change drasticaly).

However, the guys over at Bootstrap weren’t the only once to announce some drastic changes. The people at the jQuery Foundation announced jQuery 3, killing of jQuery 1.x and 2.x (we’re currently using 2.1). Once again, ModernBB 3.5 will not be provided with an update to this major revision, but only to jQuery 2.2 (if that ever gets released). Luna on the other hand will start using jQuery 3 as soon as it is available in the test branch.

With some luck, we will be able to include Bootstrap 4 and jQuery 3 in the final release of Luna 1.0 mid next year. If not, we might dedict a whole major update on simply upgrading to Bootstrap 4 and jQuery 3 (yes, it’s going to be that drasticaly

TEN awesome THOUSAND

So I decided to take a look at ModernBB’s ModernCount control panel (we’ve got other software besides ModernBB you know), where we track the downloads. And today I saw the counter standing on 9.984 downloads. Which is a very impressive thing, because that means that 10.000 downloads is a very close milestone.

And thus we hit that milestone. Today, 18 November 2014. 19 months after ModernBB was founded, 14 months after the first real release (ModernBB 2.0). And let’s make it clear: I couldn’t be more happy! 10.000 is quiet the archivement. It’s nothing compared to others, for instance, if WordPress would have an avarage of 10.000 downloads every day, it’s a bad day for them. We got it in 14 months together.

And I’ve got a lot to thank Coder’s Guid and Neil for this. After they started using ModernBB and made an installation tutorial about ModernBB 3.1, our donwloads made a hole in the roof. Mutliple times a week. Now, a bunch of months later, I’m still feeling the consequences of that. So for this, thanks! However, it’s not only because of CG that we got to the 10.000 of course. No, I also have to thank all the 9.998 other people (the first download was by myself, later downloads I made aren’t counted by ModernCount) that downloaded ModernBB.

I hope all of you enjoyed it so far, and I hope all of you are helping me out with the next 10.000, and let’s hope they come faster than the previous 10.000 (let’s try to do it in less then a year)! I’ll be fine if it takes as much time, but let’s hope that it doesn’t take more time. Anyway, I’m sure that the downloads will continue to grow as we are on the edge of releasing the first real Luna Preview. And in just 3 weeks, we also have our third update to ModernBB 3.5. Stay tuned!

Announcing ModernBB 3.5 Update 3: An update for your eyes

In ModernBB 3.3, we revamped the black-blue Backstage interface into a brighter and white-color (because you’re free to choose a color) design. This made the interface quiet bright. ModernBB 3.5 once again revamped the design, making the navbar white too. Making the interface even brighter. And well, we got some comment on that, so our next update, ModernBB 3.5 Update 3 is about to revamp the Backstage interface once again.

And we’ll do that with a couple of small changes. First of, the navbar will use the color accent you choose once again. This already breaks the majorly white design of the Backstage. However, that still makes up for a rather bright interface. And that’s not easy for the eye, and is power consuming for both you and your device. That’s why we change the white background into a dark grey. This matches the color we use in Luna a bit, but it fixes the problems we have with it.

But improvements for colors isn’t the only change that ModernBB 3.5 Update 3 will bring. We will make it more easy for large touchscreens, that do not get the hamburger-menu, to navigate the navbar thanks to improvements to the dropdown lists for touch. Another (major) change is that we’re now using Bootstrap 3.3.1 instead of ModernBB 3.5 Update 2 and earliers Bootstrap 3.2.0.

Further, ModernBB 3.5 Update 3 will bring small improvements to security. Unlike Update 1 and Update 2, Update 3 will not patch a security hole, but improve generated passwords. What brings us to the next point: this update will also bring the ability of ModernBB to check the strength of passwords. Finaly, ModernBB 3.5.3 will be able to recognize a FluxBB 1.4 and 1.5 and a ModernBB 1.6 and 1.7 database, so you can update from these systems again. This is due to we won’t support updating from these releases to Luna 1.0, and thus, ModernBB 3.5.x is a required stop if you want to update from ModernBB to Luna. And last but not least: we’re also fixing a couple of bugs (3 for now).

Stay tuned for this update, which will be released on 9 December 2014! Is it the final update for ModernBB 3.5? No, after this, we will simply move on to ModernBB 3.5 Update 4, which is planned for February. If you’re now using ModernBB 3.5 Update 1 or lower, and especialy ModernBB 3.5 and lower, remember to upgrade as soon as possible to ModernBB 3.5 Update 2. Update 1 and 2 fix important security issues! So do not wait for ModernBB 3.5 Update 3 to be released.

A year with Random and what’s ahead for it

Whoho! Today, we’re celebrating the first aniversary of Random. Random has been our default style through the existence of the second generation of ModernBB (that includes, but isn’t limited to ModernBB 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4 and 3.5). Through the current design language was introduced in ModerrnBB 2.2, which was released November 30th, 2013. So yes, we’re also celebrating 1 year ModernBB 2.2.

A brief history
Random, introduced as Randomness 1.0, together with Kindness, Awesomeness and Radicalness, was the default theme of ModernBB 2.0. It was a major redesign and completely different from ModernBB 1.6’s Air design. However, we weren’t to happy with the design and thus, ModernBB 2.1 focused on doing it all over again. This release, Randomness 2.0, introduced the general structure of the design as you still get it today.

Randomness 2.1 however, the version of Randomness that contains the currently used design guidelines, was released with ModernBB 2.2, while originaly made for ModernBB 3.0, and made improvements to performance, brought a brighter design and made other major improvements. Randomness 2.2 was the ModernBB 3.0 release and mainly focussed on making Randomness compatible with the new ModernBB 3 features.

Randomness 2.3 was part of ModernBB 3.1 and introduced some ideas from Vanellope (the project, not the ModernBB version), resulting in a major design enhancement to the topic view (and we got good comments on that one). Due to the good comments, the rest of ModernBB couldn’t stay behind, and thus, Randomness 2.5, part of ModernBB 3.2, redesigned all other pages, still staying true to the Original guidelines from Randomness 2.1.

Random 3.0 was released with ModernBB 3.3, it wasn’t a major difference for the eye, through Random 3.0 introduced support for ModernBB’s new style engine. Random 3.1 would improve further upon with ModernBB 3.4, including support for the new editor and other features. Finaly, the current Random 3.2 also brought support for the new ModernBB 3.5 features, but no major changes where applied.

Random 4.0
With the upcoming update to ModernBB, we will celebrate Random’s 1st anniversary with a redesign of the styles. This includes the default styles Random, Kind, Awesome and Radical, but also Luna, Pinkie, Shy, Happy and Magic, which you can download from ModernBB.be. These styles will (for now) support ModernBB 3.4.1 and up (so if you’re running an older version but want to use these new styles, your in luck, through you should update).

These new versions of the default styles will also include Improved information about them (updated screenshot, new logo, etc.).

2014 was awesome!

2014 has come to an end. And to be fair: for ModernBB, it was a rather awesome year. Let’s take a quick look at a year of work!

Last year, we ended with the development of ModernBB 3 beeing at full swing. We released 40 new version of ModernBB and Luna in the past year, the first one beeing the ModernBB 3 Alpha 1 (core 0.0.30.1534). During 2014, 5 development releases of ModernBB, 6 pre-releases of ModernBB, 22 stable ModernBB releases and 7 development releases of Luna followed. The most recent one beeing Luna 1.0 Preview 2 DEVED (core 0.2.3478), earlier this month. And later today, you’ll be able to enjoy Luna 1.0 Preview 2 NEWED (core 0.2.3573)!

40 new versions is a lot. During 2013, we only released 23 versions of ModernBB. Note that ModernBB came to existence in April 2013 through, and that the real development actualy kicked of in late June 2013. So, on avarage per active month, we have released a lot more releases last year.

But releases aren’t what matter. Neither are downloads, through we’ve seen some realy nice numbers the past year! We closed of 2013 with 2045 downloads in total, making an avarage of 227 download each month since April. 2014, however, closed of with 11.780 downloads in total, making an avarage of 811 download each month. December 2014 was our best month up until now, with 1309 downloads. This means that, if we do not shrink in downloads, the amount of avarage downloads can be doubled during 2015 (let’s hope even better!). 2013 to 2014 was over 3 (almost 4) times more download per month!

But like I said, numbers doesn’t matter. Well, there is one number that does: the number of happy people. And we hope that we did make some people happy with all the work that is beeing done to ModernBB 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7 and Luna 0.0, 0.1 and 0.2 during the past year. A lot of features have joined the fun since last years final 2.2 release. And in fact, a lot of features are joining right now since the 3.x branch in Luna. Next year arround this time, I hope to be looking back at a beautiful Luna 1.0 and Luna 1.1 release (yeah, only 2 major releases planned for next year, 3 if you count ModernBB 3.7 (but that’s planned to be not such a major release) 4 if we might get to Luna 1.2, it feels weird!).

Well, I wish you a Merry Chrismas (a little bit late, but I already did this on Twitter too) and a Happy New Year! Enjoy the fun! I’m out for this year!

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