Back in June 2012, after our MyBB.com domain was hijacked, we removed public access to our development repositories and moved to GitHub.

Today we are pleased to announce that our main repository, where the 1.x series is developed, is now available to the public!

Visit the MyBB repository on GitHub →

The Basics

The mybb repository consists of 3 main branches: Master, Stable and Feature. These branches contain a different set of code depending on the name of the branch.

At the moment of writing this post:

• Master contains code that has been (or is to be) publically released (currently 1.6.9)
• Stable contains work and bug fixes for the next minor version of MyBB (so 1.6.10, 1.6.11 etc)
• Feature contains all our work on the next feature version of MyBB – 1.8

Please note that, although all this work is available to you, MyBB only officially supports the latest release. Stable and Feature code may contain partially-committed features which are broken, incomplete or may never make it to public release and for these reasons we do not recommend using either of these branches on your own forums.

They will NOT be supported by the Support Team.

For Developers

Access to our repository provides plugin and theme developers the opportunity to work with the latest code. We hope members of our community, and those interested in our project, become more closely involved with MyBB’s development.

Cutting edge development is designed for advanced users only. While we will try and support you with your work MyBB can’t provide support for Git or GitHub. We’re working on improving our documentation about development.

About MyBB 1.8 Alpha

With the opening of our repository MyBB 1.8 is now publically available via the Feature branch. Please note that this only contains a handful of optimizations, features and changes that we are going to implement into this series.

Major features, such as the Report Centre, Spam Centre and our jQuery conversion are just starting to be worked on but accessing 1.8 should, however, give you an idea of the direction we’re heading in and what we’re trying to achieve with this version of MyBB. It should also allow developers to keep on track with what changes we’re making and, with that in mind, we do encourage anyone interested in working with 1.8 to get involved or get in touch via the 1.8 sections on our forum (coming soon).

Getting Involved

To get involved with MyBB development you will first need a GitHub account. Then, follow these steps:

• Fork the repository
• If you want to fix a bug – switch to the stable branch
• If you want to work with 1.8 – switch to the feature branch
• Make your changes (ensuring you follow the MyBB Development Standards) and push them to your forked repository
• Send us a pull request via GitHub with your changes and make sure you reference the issue ticket number your changes relate to (update the ticket too to tell us you’ve fixed it)
• SQA will provide feedback and, if it passes verification, your changes are merged into MyBB

GitHub Issues to replace Redmine

At the moment MyBB uses Redmine to power our issue tracker. Over time, we will be migrating to use GitHub’s inbuilt Issues tracker to provide closer integration between the repository and reported issues. It should also create a one-point resource for all development.

We’re starting this migration with MyBB 1.8. If you find a bug or problem within the feature branch you should first report it in the MyBB 1.8 Bugs & Issues forum. This allows members of the community to discuss the issue and confirm that it is, in fact, a bug. Once confirmed, a member of the MyBB Team will use a clever custom plugin (developed by Nathan Malcolm) to move the issue to GitHub for developers to work on a fix.

The new workflow eliminates the need for a separate account on Redmine and should allow more members to contribute towards development.

The MyBB 1.8 sections on the Community Forum will be available soon. In the mean time, please use the MyBB 1.6/1.8 Suggestions & Feedback forum.

Summary

There is a lot of new information here but it’s just the start of a new journey for MyBB and our community. By improving reporting methods, making it possible for non-team members to contribute and continuing to work on our new series we feel confident that MyBB will continue to be the best free forum software for years to come.

With thanks,

The MyBB Team