ModernBB 2.0-beta.3 now available
I’m proud to anounce the availablity of the 3rd and final beta of ModernBB 2.0! Starting today, you can find this beta on our download page. Starting tomorrow, we will work on ModernBB 2.0-rc.1, which will be the first of 2 Release Candidates of ModernBB 2.0!
Some of you might know that we never planned this third beta. However, when the port to Bootstrap v2.3 was finished in beta 2, I released that as soon as I would start working on ModernBB 2.5, I would break everything again. Plugins, extensions, themes, they won’t work with that new version because of my plans. That’s why all tickets for the ModernBB 2.1 and 2.5 milestone where moved to ModernBB 2.0, and here is the final product of that!
So… what has changed since beta 2? Well, first of all, we have ported the whole front-end to Bootstrap 3.0.0. We also updated Backstages version of Bootstrap from 2.3.2 to 3.0.0. This caused the design we used in beta 1 and 2 to get lost. Anyway, we will probably bring back the old Aurora theme in the first RC. Another improvment is the new front-end design, it’s not ment to be used for mainstream, but more a basic design to build other upon. We will probably change this too in RC1.
The parser has been updated with support for acronyms, tekst alignment and more. Those feature can be used much more easy with the brand new toolbar. The toolbar is customizable: you can choose by yourself what features should be displayed and wich not. We’ve also added new emoticons, 5 to be exact, and 13 new BBCodes for those emoticons. Posts that are reported will be marked in red and the report button will be disabled so a post can’t be reported twice. Another improvement is the redesigned Backstage index.
Users can now view their own profile without the need to log out or use another browser. They will also have a better experience when searching for content. We’ve added a “simple” mode too search. However, users can still access the old extended version. We also got rid of the quickjump feature, it’s wasn’t very usefull after all. We also fixed a bug with statistics on the forum, improved the design of the login page and the “Remember me” checkbox is selected by default.
Structural, ModernBB has changed a lot. The files for the backend have been moved to /backstage/, files for Bootstrap 3, that are used by both front- and back-end are moved to /include/bootstrap/. We merged all language files together until only 5 are left. We also did an amazing job with cleaning up the source code. It’s also inpossible to update to ModernBB 2.0 from PunBB 1.2, PunBB 1.3, FluxBB 1.2 and FluxBB 1.3. We also fixed the update checker bug. However, beta 1 and beta 2 users won’t be notified for the availability of beta 3 and later.
The website
The website has been updated again. It now displays milestones code names on the front page and the download page. To introduce them to you, ModernBB 1.6 has codename “Blythe”, ModernBB 2.0 is developed under codename “Zoe”. We’ve also updated the FAQ with some new questions and updated answers. The about page has been updated too and talks about ModernBB 2.1. The features page has also been updated and it list now some more features. We improved the changelog system too, it now shows related milestones, for example, when you look for ModernBB 1.6.0, it will notice that ModernBB 1.6-beta is related to this build. The “fixed issues”-count for stable build does also count the issues fixed in the pre-releases. This causes ModernBB 2.0.0 to appear in the list with 62 fixed issues. The ModernBB forums will be updated later today!
