You’ve been hearing this for months, if not years by now: the new Mods site is coming soon.
That was in fact, always true. However, the person who was working on it had to leave the team last year and left us his work.
Since I offered myself to do the Mods site, I decided to start from scratch and create a plugin instead of a separate website – that would make integration much easier.
I started back in October 2011 and by now the Mods site is almost fully operational – apart from the Plugin Translations feature and a few final touches, everything is done! It has been tested thoroughly by me and the rest of the team and even though it’s not perfect, it does what we wanted to just fine.
Now let’s get to what’s really important: what’s changed? how does it work? what’s new?
The entire Mods site is now based on a single word: collaboration.
You will now be able to have people working on the same project as you, contributing to it, discussing it…in one single place.
Major features:
- Collaboration
- Control Panel
- Builds
- Bug Tracker
- Suggestions
Collaboration
When you create a project (no matter what kind of project is – a plugin, graphic, whatever) you will be considered the author of that project.
As the author, you can invite other people to become collaborators of your project and help you with it – being it as a tester, developer or anything else.
Control Panel
The Control Panel is the place where you can view what’s going on over the projects you work on and of course, manage invitations from other users.
Another feature of the Control Panel is the one that lets you create a project (for obvious reasons, this is the most important one).
When you create a project you are required to submit an initial build and that project will be set for “Awaiting Approval” unless you are considered an “Approved Developer”.
An “Approved Developer” is someone we think has gained enough confidence from us to believe that any project created by that person is safe for the end user.
Builds
Every project is now built around builds. That is, whenever you want to upload a new change you just submit a new build (a ZIP containing the latest data).
That build is automatically considered “dev” and can be downloaded by anyone. When you think you’ve reached a stable status, you can switch (requires approval) to “stable”.
The latest stable build is the one that appears on the download page – don’t worry, you can browse a list of builds and download any.
Builds may only be submitted by the author and its collaborators.
Bug Tracker
Is there a better way to have a stable project than having a bug tracker built-in with the new system? We thought one would be very important and decided to implement it.
You can decide if it’s private (author only) and if collaborators can access it or not or even give access to certain users who are not direct collaborators.
If you don’t agree with us and don’t like bug trackers or have a bug tracker somewhere else, you can even link to that one if you wish and disable the default one.
The way the bug tracker works is similar to the way Redmine works so if you’re used to work with Redmine you will not find strange to work with this one – but of course, don’t expect it to be thaaaaaat powerful, I only have got two hands!
Suggestions
Receiving feedback from users is very important if you want to create amazing software. Because of that, we decided to implement a Suggestions page in which users can give suggestions for your project.
If you don’t like it, feel free to disable it, it’s all up to you!
Other Features
Besides those major features, the Mods site also contains a few others which make it even better:
* Previews – you can now manage your project preview images in a much better way than before.
* Translations – plugin projects are the only ones who have got translations and can be easily managed by collaborators – only they can submit translations.
* Change Log – whenever you submit a new build, you are required to enter a change log. The change log of the project is the combination of every build’s change log.
* Recommended – we got rid of the project ratings. You can recommend projects but not give any rating.
* Statistics – this page shows you relevant information about the most downloaded projects as well as the most recommended ones.
* Mod CP – Projects and Builds can be easily managed from the Mod CP which speeds up the approval process.
* Whenever an update is awaiting approval, users can still download the latest stable (or any other) build without problems.
* If the project hasn’t been updated for more than 6 months, you will see that information when viewing the project page.
* Support – a new link has been added to the project page which links to the Plugin Support forum on the MyBB Community. However, project authors can change that link to their site’s URL if they wish.
* Optionally, users may enter their PayPal email address which will result in a Donate button being shown on the project page.
We hope you are still excited about it. We are too. We really want to push this live as soon as possible but as you know, we all do this on our free time. One thing is certain though: we want to release this at the same time as MyBB 1.8 (or perhaps sooner!).
Thank you!
MyBB Blog 
Not much for us theme developers to be in awe over.
@Joesph – I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at. It’s supposed to be a system to manage themes and plugins easily, as an upgrade to the current system. The point of the system still remains the same.
The buttons throughout the new mods site seem to have been taken the lazy way out. Instead of a button its a link in parentheses.
@Joesph – What I assume you’re referring to are actually links. The buttons use the
<input>tag and the links use the<a>tag.Can you elaborate? I’m not getting it.
Looks fine. 🙂 Will it be available with new default theme when 1.8 will be release?
@Correct US – It won’t be publicly available but it will be integrated with the MyBB template system so it will resemble the new 1.8 theme.
Concerns me you guys are doing exactly the same as phpBB does with their MODs. Can’t you be unique?
I have never used phpBB and I’ve never went to their “mods site” (not sure if it’s named like that) so that definitely doesn’t apply here.
The development discussion of the new Mods Site in the staff forums has over 500 posts. While the aim of providing a complete plugin resource may be similar for both phpBB and MyBB our Mods Site plugin was developed independently.
It’s looking good, well done. I’m looking forward to using it 😀
Yay! No more waiting forever for approval. xD j/k
Seriously though, looks great. Though I agree no love for theme devs. I was hoping to see something like a central demo board that any “stable” uploaded themes were automatically sync’d with. Maybe even a “View Differences” option to show differences in the new theme from the original one.
But still, nice work.
differences in the new CSS from the original one* x.x
Not that a list of changed templates wouldn’t be cool as well. 😉
Is removing ALL approval for the first plugin from a user (or in fact, any upload to the mods site) really such a good idea? What about those who want to make a malicious plugin – now when they submit it the dev version is free to download by all with no code checking etc. As I read it, you only get involved when a submission is switched to “stable”.
Correct me if I have misunderstood the post…
When someone creates a project, it is necessary to include a build with it. That build should be validated by moderators and then, if everything’s alright, the project should be approved along with the build.
Oh? I misunderstood the post then.
“That is, whenever you want to upload a new change you just submit a new build (a ZIP containing the latest data).
That build is automatically considered “dev” and can be downloaded by anyone. When you think you’ve reached a stable status, you can switch (requires approval) to “stable”.”
It was my understanding only stable builds needed moderator approval.
Great job with the new mods site Pirata!