Author Archives: Tom Moore

Reporting Bugs and Issues and New Development Changes

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As we move closer to the first beta release of MyBB 1.8 the MyBB Team have been hard at work streamlining some of our behind-the-scenes services and workflows.

Changes to Development

A while ago we mentioned moving to a GitFlow workflow over at our GitHub repository. If you’re interested in helping us develop everyone’s favourite forum software take a look at our new Development Workflow and how you can get involved.

MyBB 1.6.x will now start using this workflow. MyBB 1.8.x will start using this when it reaches its first beta phase.

Timed Releases

With our new workflow the master branch in our repository should always be production ready. While only the latest release, available from MyBB.com, is supported on our support forums this allows us to provide set dates for bug fixes and maintenance releases.

You should see new MyBB releases every two months from January 2014 regardless of how many issues are resolved. So you can expect 1.6.13 in March ‘14, 1.6.14 in May ’14 and so on. There is no limit to how many versions we’ll have in the 1.6.x series until its EOL date.

Security releases remain unaffected and patches/releases are created whenever high risk vulnerabilities are reported and fixed.

Reporting Bugs and Issues in MyBB 1.x

One of the last remaining legacies of MyBB’s development cycles, Redmine, is now officially retired and no new members or issues can be created.

Instead, you can now report bugs and issues you find in MyBB in two ways: via the Community Forums (in the 1.6 Bugs & Issues forum or the 1.8 Bugs & Issues forum) or directly at GitHub.

In the near future we’ll be moving all existing open issues to GitHub and archiving Redmine. At the moment existing users there can still comment and act on issues.

Becoming a Contributor

The MyBB Team will also be moving development discussions about the core into the open development sections on our Community Forums. To be able to start new threads and reply to these discussions you need to join our new Contributor group.

More details can be found in the Joining the Contributor Group thread.

Moving 1.8 to Beta

Finally, we’re almost there. After almost 2 long years the MyBB Team have been busy finishing up the last remaining roadmap items for the first beta phase of MyBB 1.8.

Even at this exciting (and long overdue) stage there are still many tasks left to complete before you should be using 1.8 on your live forum.

Why not download a copy of MyBB 1.7 today and give it a test drive on your localhost – and let us know what you think!

MyBB & Team Update

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Every so often developments, changes, discussions and events occur that make even the most resilient users, team members and followers lose interest in our project. We, as a group, can only apologise for the miscommunication and missed chances to set things right.

We realise that with every step you take we need to be right beside you and not in the shadows pulling the strings. We need to learn from how you use our software, embrace the unique customisation of your forum and make it as easy as possible for you to see what we’re planning – and how you can help us accomplish that.

We understand that we need to be more open; this week, we’re taking the first steps to do that.

Team Changes

  • There will be one ‘MyBB Team’ usergroup to which all team members will belong to.
    This change is mainly for our internal processes only as there are a number of shared tasks and responsibilities across the group. Each member still belongs to a sub-group, such as Support or SQA, to which they’ll focus the bulk of their time. The member’s team will be visible by their usergroup badge and not username colour.
  • There will be no application process or job vacancies for team member positions.
    Being more open will allow users and followers to discuss changes, make commits and write documentation without being a member of the team. We encourage anyone and everyone to help in all aspects of the project and, if they accept, can be invited to join the team for a more permanent group position and a pretty usergroup badge.
  • Members of the MyBB Team should be considered core workers who regularly contribute to the project.
    With open development forums we’ll be relying more on user contributions and interactions to move the project forward. The team will be there to help and guide you through the hoops whether you’re a beginner or an expert.

Forum Changes

  • We’re reorganising Support forums to help provide the quickest service possible.
    A new Installation and Upgrade Support forum is being created to help users who are struggling to get their forum going. General Support, Security Management and Support, Merge System Support and International Support will also be a part of this category.
  • We’re moving International Support to 3rd party sites for users to get help in their native language.
    MyBB has a large non-English following and we struggle to support these users. By providing easy access to the best support forum in their native language they’ll benefit from their local community. International Support will be closed to posting and have only one thread per language – which will include language pack addons for the language and a list of support forums available.
  • We’re making an official repository for language packs.
    The mybb-translations repository on GitHub will hold all official language pack addons for MyBB and we hope translators will move to this model. They’ll be able to get support from other members of their community to help translate MyBB into their language. Greater communication with translators will help have packs ready for new releases.
  • We’re centralising the Resources forums to provide a one-stop place for modifications.
    The Resources section on our forum will change to include Plugins, Themes, Translations, Third Party Integrations, MyCodes and Tutorials. Sub-forums in these categories will provide Releases, Support, Development and Requests threads.
  • We’re removing the Requests/Services/Jobs forum.
    This area has been a near constant thorn for team members and moderation and, by redirecting users to the Resources forums (for plugins/themes/logos) or Web Development forum (for domains and general help), we’ll have more time to concentrate on our project.
  • Being a part of the MyBB Team is a privilege, not a hindrance.

    While we actively promote user contributions we expect all members of the community to rightfully respect team members, who are dedicating their time to help.

    Personal attacks, trolling and disrespect is not acceptable anywhere; whether on a forum or workplace; and it will not be tolerated. Past history and rules have cultured a group whose sole intention is to disrupt, disengage and challenge and this has to change.

    We feel those who are responsible for this change know who they are. We want the MyBB community to be friendly, mature, creative and open. If users of the community can’t do this new forum permissions can restrict them from certain areas and, ultimately, a permanent ban will be issued.

    No users, regardless of length of membership, status in the community or reputation, are immune to this.

Development

  • There will be new development forums for MyBB 1.6, MyBB 1.8 and MyBB 2.0. These include Discussion, Bugs and Issues, and Suggestions and Feedback.
  • While these will be available for everyone only members of the new Contributors group will be able to post in the Discussion forum. This usergroup can be joined via your User CP and is exclusively for people who contribute to the project (via making resources, tutorials, guides etc. or interacting on GitHub).
  • We’ll be turning off new issues on Redmine, our development site, and moving bug reporting to the forums. Once confirmed these bugs will be reported automatically on GitHub by a team member. While we would prefer users to follow this to be able to discuss bugs and reproduction, we won’t reject issues posted directly on GitHub if you prefer that method.
  • We’ll be moving to a GitFlow workflow for our main repository.
  • We’ll be running scheduled releases so that you can expect regular updates for your forum (this won’t affect security releases).

Summary

These changes are all about cleaning up, refreshing and changing the way the MyBB project works to focus on our primary aim – to make great forum software – and for others to help us do that.

We’ll be making most of these changes this Friday, 1st November. Development changes will happen at a later date and more information will be available soon.

Q&A

The prospect of a Q&A has been openly suggested quite a few times and I’m pleased to say that, alongside these changes, several team members and I will be available this weekend to take your questions. Look out for a thread in the Community and on Twitter for more details of this.

We hope to see you there!

MyBB Team

MyBB Merge System 1.6.10

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MyBB Merge System for 1.6.10 is now available from the MyBB website and is a maintenance update to the MyBB Merge 1.6 series.

This release is to ensure that users of the MyBB Merge System are able to upgrade and continue to use MyBB 1.6.10.

If you are using or looking to upgrade to MyBB 1.6.10 it is imperative you use this version of the Merge System.

Development Updates

The MyBB Team are working hard to create and update modules for the MyBB Merge System. More information is coming soon!

MyBB 1.8 Tour: Roadmap

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MyBB 1.8 is the next minor release for the 1.x series. The aim of this release is to introduce a level of standardisation and organisation that MyBB has previously lacked and to bring the series into line with other products and services that we hope to bring to you in the near future.

1.8 is a huge leap forward for the 1.x series. It will introduce some powerful new features while also providing a stable forum solution for your community for years to come. It will also allow us, the MyBB Group, to focus on the next generation of our software – the anticipated 2.x series.

Status

Due to the extended development and testing phase of 1.6.10, as well as the usual lull in activity due to workload, exams and holidays, MyBB 1.8 isn’t as far along its roadmap as we would like. Naturally we are disappointed but we remain committed to creating and providing one of the most advanced free forum software packages available.

Further to this we are, as a group, undergoing huge changes to how we work to help make releases quicker. These past 12 months has seen an insane amount of work completed by our team, much of which is behind-the-scenes, and we hope to bring news of this to you very soon.

With updates in mind, you can now find the MyBB 1.8 Roadmap on our community forums. This thread will be kept up to date with the latest news, features and bug fixes that are happening during its development.

Release Date

As always, MyBB 1.8 will be released when we feel it is ready. We opened our GitHub project to the public so that anyone – not just the MyBB Team – can help with development of the 1.x series. Even if you can’t code, anyone can download both branches (1.6 & 1.8) to help test bugs and offer suggestions for improvements. Alongside our roadmap you can keep up to date with the project and see what is coming next.

1.8 is not feature locked at this moment in time. However, we don’t plan on introducing further major overhauls to help avoid plugin and theme incompatibilities.

Joining the Team

There has never been a more exciting time in MyBB’s history; with 1.6 ready for new technologies, 1.8 on the way and starting 2.x soon (which is looking absolutely awesome) 2013 is already proving to be a busy year. If you feel you have got what it takes to be a dedicated volunteer for the project we’d love to have you on the team!

We’re currently looking for developers for the 1.x series, SQA team members and members for our new Resources Team – who will be focused on managing our community services. If you are interested in any of these PM a staff member, post an application in our Private Inquiries forum or send us an email.

Getting Involved: MyBB GitHub Now Available

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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

MyBB 1.6.9 Security Release

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MyBB 1.6.9 is now available from the MyBB website and is a security release for the 1.6 series.

What’s added/changed in this version?

It has come to our attention that there is an SQL injection vulnerability in all versions of MyBB, including MyBB 1.6.8. We advise all MyBB forum owners to upgrade their forum as soon as possible.

With thanks to frostschutz and StefanT for finding and reporting these issues.

Vulnerabilities fixed:

  • High Risk: An SQL vulnerability when editing a post
  • Medium Risk: CAPTCHA systems non effective, providing possible brute-force access

Bugs fixed:

  • An issue with the editor not working in Firefox 16 and above

We apologise for any inconvenience.

Upgrading from 1.6.8 and Other Versions

Before performing any upgrade please remember to backup your forum’s files and database and store them safely. If you have edited core files, including language files, please make sure you make a changelog for these changes so you can make them again once the upgrade is complete.

To upgrade, follow the Upgrading process. The upgrade script is required. There are changes to 1 language file (messages.lang.php). There are changes to 3 templates (portal_welcome_guesttext, loginbox & codebuttons).

If you’re using MyBB 1.6.8

If you’re using MyBB 1.6.7 or below

Reporting MyBB Security Vulnerabilities

If you think you’ve found a vulnerability in MyBB, we advise you not to publicly post it on these forums or publicly release information about it elsewhere until we’ve had time to prepare and release a patch.

As always, you can send through security related messages on the MyBB website from the Contact Us page or in our Private Inquiries forum – where you can start a new thread that only you and the MyBB Team can see.

Thank you,

MyBB Team

MyBB 1.8 Tour: The Retirement of Supertux

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As MyBB approaches its 10th-year anniversary it’s quite easy for us to dwell on history. Even with the changes we’re working on in MyBB 1.8 you can still compare the early versions of our product to our next major release and see that they are made from the same group of people. Despite the dozens of Developers, SQA Testers, Support Team members, PR guys and Management we’ve had over this time, who have each made their mark in their own way, the consistency of MyBB as a forum system at its core is one of the fundamental mantras of the MyBB Group.

With that in mind, whenever we do come to develop around a feature, we’re cautious to remove the legacy it might leave behind. It is often a tough decision between moving forward and embracing something new and doing what we know. MyBB 1.8 gives us a great chance to look around and research how to improve these features for our users; with around 40 planned research projects into different areas of MyBB we’re aiming to bring a higher level of usability and functionality to your forum.

Avatar Changes

With Gravatar, an avatar hosting service, being integrated into WordPress, Redmine and GitHub (alongside other websites and many 3rd party addons for other software) it brings together an opportunity for us to provide a consistent platform for users to have the same look wherever they go. In MyBB 1.8 you can now use your Gravatar email in the Avatar URL field. Options in the ACP allow Administrators to control the content of avatars with Gravatar’s age-based rating systems.

Changing Avatar

The MyBB 1.8 Change Avatar

Alongside Gravatar is our new format_avatar function. This introduces the ability to pass a user’s avatar information to a single function to work out the correct dimensions to display on the page; it also means we aren’t parsing the same avatar twice for the same user on the same page. If the user has no avatar set Administrators are able to set a default avatar from the ACP to use instead.

These changes do come with some sad news; in MyBB 1.8, we’ve removed the avatar gallery feature. We’ll all be disappointed to see the end of Supertux and Mr Spam but we thought it best to keep a clear and simple method to change user avatars in which the avatar gallery was a much non-used feature to the majority of forums.

News and Version Check Changes

One of the main aims of MyBB 1.8 is to help improve the services we offer to our own users. This involves keeping users up to date about what’s happening and new versions of MyBB.

News Feed in the ACP

News Feed in the ACP

In the ACP, we’ve introduced a small news feed into the Dashboard. We’ve also moved the Version Check, which used to have its own section, into the Dashboard too so that all updates are in the same place right in front of administrators. A new task is to be added to regularly check for any updates (versions and news) rather than relying on users to catch the ‘Your last version check was…’ message that may otherwise be easily missed.

The Little Things

Some of the other, smaller changes to MyBB 1.8 come to fix those trivial things people may (or may not) have noticed. These include removing the option to rate your own thread and changing trim() in templates to rtrim() so that those with OCD can create pretty source code for their themes.

We’re also looking to provide public access to our GitHub repositories in the very near future where a few problems have stopped us from doing so sooner. As soon as the MyBB 1.8 theme changes are ready we’ll also be making that project available too – alongside development standards for non-team members for those who want to get involved in helping us create the best free forum software.

Changes on the Team

Many will have noticed some changes on the team recently. We’ve welcomed back on-board Polarbear541 to our SQA Team and StefanT and Nathan Malcolm have moved over from SQA to the Development Team. All have quickly jumped into their new roles and we’re looking forward to their contributions.

Joining the Team

Being apart of the MyBB family and developing the future of forum software is no small task. Being volunteers takes dedication and patience as well as the skills to pull off your role. Take a look at Joining the Team, and if you meet the descriptions, send us an application – we’d love to have you on the Team!

MyBB 1.8 Tour: July Update

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Since we announced MyBB 1.8 back in April work towards making a public beta has been slow. This time of year is traditionally the busiest for the team members with exams, workloads and personal projects – not to the mention most of us enjoying the summer (or lack of, in some cases!) – often taking over from our usual MyBB duties. Where we were once working on the code every day there has been weeks without anything being done at all. This is, unfortunately, the perils of volunteer work.

We know you’re all just as excited about MyBB 1.8 as we are, and we haven’t told you everything that is changing yet, so we’re stepping it up a gear to put it all together as fast as we can without compromising our new features. We’ve tried setting deadlines (and failing miserably) and I know you’re sick of the usual ready-when-it’s-ready story so all I can say is please bear with us. We’ll be working hard to bring you this feature update and that starts with our move to GitHub.

Git Migration

Part of the fallout from when MyBB.com was partly taken over was to have an overview look at how we do things behind the scenes to see if we could improve our services. This understandably has a knock-on effect on our development; we decided it was best to drop SVN and move to GitHub ahead of the 1.8 schedule. MyBB 1.6 development also happens over there too.

We’ve briefly hidden the 1.6 repository so that our team can get used to this new service and for us to sort out some new standards for developers and contributors to follow. This is a pretty big change not only for users but for our team as well so we need to take some time to get used to it too.

That being said, we haven’t quite got rid of everything. We will still be using the development site – powered by Redmine – as the central place to report bugs and issues with MyBB and the Merge System. It is up and running but we are having a few problems syncing the repository on GitHub and our local copy here. We hope to have this – and the GitHub project – up and running soon.

Consistency in 1.8

A general trait that has been hanging over 1.8 during planning and early development is consistency; making sure everything we do looks and feels the same as though it is from the same product, system and service. Everything from MyBB.com to the install process on your own forums will be getting a makeover to the new upgraded style giving MyBB in general a clean modern look. We’ve replaced the popular FamFamFam icons with the equally popular Fugue icon set to give 1.8’s UX (user experience) a fresh appeal – meaning 1.8 uses CSS buttons and carries PNG icons instead of GIFs. We’re looking into providing sprite images too for the ever-conscious large forum owner as well as providing theme artists a new opportunity with this style of coding.

1.8 Installer and Postbit

1.8 Installer and Postbit

Alongside the jQuery update and base colours, 1.8 themes are sure to be some of the best in the series.

Full Feature Update

So, as you might have thought by now, MyBB 1.8 is going to be a bigger update than most people imagined. While not 2.0-esque, it will certainly provide a full feature update that will require careful planning and action. And, to settle the nerves of the plugin developers, there will be no major updates to the plugin system – meaning for the majority only the compatibility section of your plugins will need updated for them work in 1.8.

By providing an update like this we hope to extend the life of the 1.x series while also providing the tools and processes for developers to create even more amazing themes and plugins. It also gives us, as a team, a chance to rebalance our own structure to provide a better product for you all to enjoy.