We'll be posting some information here concerning version 8 as it progresses. Since this is a major rewrite we won't be posting every small change, but we'll try and list out some of the major ones.

We'll be using the Yahoo User Interface (YUI) Library and testing in the supported browsers.

We'll be saying goodbye to the table heavy design we have now. We'll still use some tables for tabular data, but we'll be using CSS for the layout. This ia a major change in itself and we'll be validating all pages to be XHTML Transitional compliant as we go along.

The majority of our graphics will be in .png format. All of these will be completely new and designed by professional graphics designers.

We're working on the Control Panel redesign first so you can expect to see notes and maybe some screenshots for this soon. Please note that any screenshots posted are subject to change as we certainly will be tweaking and adjusting colors, fonts, etc.

[UPDATE: Jan 14 2010] Most of the early screenshots look much different now with the latest design changes.

CHANGE: All config variables except for database connection info have been moved into the database.
CHANGE: Include files in the includes/ directory are now stored in the database as well.
CHANGE: Most all confirmation/intermediate screens are gone. When settings are updated, you will be returned back to the settings page with a confirmation up top. If there are any issues, the error will be noted. Form values will be retained, so you will no longer need to hit the back button to fix problems.



CHANGE: Ordering Categories is now done via a drag and drop method. On the Category Settings screen, you can change the name and description and instead of having to type in a number for the order, you can just drag the category up or down in the list to set the order.



CHANGE: Many of the old admin pages had fields where the admin needed to type in comma delimited values. We've changed this to something a little more advanced so the admin can easily add/remove from a list of values, without worrying about a typo on the separator.



FEATURE: Added an option to test the Email Settings from the control panel. This will allow the admin to send a test email to a specified email address to verify the settings are correct and working.
FEATURE: On the Gallery Settings Page, there are now buttons to test the graphics library settings to check if they are working and will give information on any errors if they are not.



FEATURE: Implemented sliders on the graphics setting page for setting full,medium and thumbnail image quality. Instead of typing in a number, the sliders can be adjusted in increments of 5 with a final value between 0 and 100.

FEATURE: It will now be possible to change a forum's parent from the forum list in the control panel instead of needing to edit the individual forum. Drag and Drop would not work for this instance due to subforums. The way this will work is you can click the "Change Parent" button and upon doing so you can then choose the New Parent for the particular forum. The forums that will be moved will be highlighted for clarification as in the example screenshot below.

Member Administration:

The Member Management area is currently being split up, so it will be easier to find what you're looking for. Some new features are just about finished like the ability to add users from within the control panel. The screenshot below gives the current layout of this area:

Database library just about completely rewritten which accomplished a couple of notable things.

• It is no longer necessary to pass the __LINE__ and __FILE__ parameters when doing a query.
• It is now possible to specify a slave database server. When a slave is specified all database writes will be done on the master, while all reads will be done on the slave.
• If multiple slaves are specified then when a connection is established it will choose a random slave to connect to from the specified slaves.

Member Viewing / Editing:

Initially when editing a member you'll now get a summary page which will include things like registration info, last visit, rating, total PM's as compared to their quota, and other information. We'll add information to this screen as necessary:



Also, as seen on this screenshot, in the new control panel anywhere that you are asked for a color for something you'll be able to pull up a color picker to make things easier:

Avatars:

Avatars have always given some trouble, such as not sizing properly, especially when a remote avatar was selected. We're changing how avatars are handled to help prevent this:

• Remote Avatars. If CURL is enabled or if GD has the ability to grab a remote image, the image will be stored locally and resized to fit the max width/height specifications. (If neither is available, the avatar will remain a remote avatar).
• Uploaded Avatars will be resized upon upload to fit the max width/height specifications.

The resize will be done using GD or ImageMagick, depending on which graphics library is chosen in the Control Panel. Images will keep the scale intact when resized.

Member Administration Continued:

A few more screenshots from the Member Administration area. The first couple have a bit of a dark color going on, because there are modal dialog boxes open.

The first one is for the member profile. Any field the user can edit in their own profile, you can edit through the Control Panel.



This second screen is from the Tools tab when editing a member. This will allow you to do a variety of actions on the member, banning, merging, etc.:



This third screenshot will be one of the more helpful new features. Currently if a member belongs to multiple groups, it's hard to get a grasp what their actual permissions are. Using the "View Permissions" from the Tools tab, you'll be taken to a screen that will show you exactly what permissions they have. You can view for each forum, site wide permissions and control panel permissions. No more guessing:

More Member Management Changes

We've altered the way things work once you have a list of users that you've searched for. Previously, if you only wanted to take action on a couple users that were on different pages, it was quite troublesome as you'd need to remove all of the other results first.

With these changes, your selected results will remain intact as you switch from page to page. Once you've selected everyone that you want to work with then you can choose to perform a bulk action such as Email, on all selected members on all pages. (Previously this would only take action on members checked on the current page).

Mass Mailer

Lots of changes to the Mass Mailer. First there is a WYSIWYG editor available. In the screenshot below this is the window on top and this is where you'll compose your HTML formatted email. There is a toggle to go directly to edit the HTML code itself as well.

You can then generate a plain text version of that email, where all of the HTML tags are stripped out. After that you can further edit the plain text version of the email in the lower window.

There is also an option to save the current email as a template where you can reuse it at a later date. You can save as many templates as you like each with their own name for easy identification.

Job Scheduling

In current versions, triggered events such as birthday emails, post count updates, etc. are all hardcoded to run at certain times. With Version 8 we're introducing a new scheduling tool. In the screenshots below you can see that you can get an overview of when jobs are going to be run. You can also add custom jobs as well.

You can have jobs run multiple times per hour, multiple times per day, a specific time of each day, a specific day of the week, or a specific day of each month.





You may notice in the first screenshot that there is a button for deactivating a job, but only on the last job listed. System Jobs, jobs that are created at setup, cannot be deactivated. You can change how often they run, however. Custom jobs, jobs that you create yourself, can be deactivated at any time.

Basically a job that is set to be run will fire off a script inside the cron directory. This is triggered by user activity, and it uses an asynchronous call to the script so it will run in the background without impacting the user that triggered it by browsing the forum.

Mass Mailing - Revisited

Now that we have the internal scheduler finished up we made some additional changes to the Mass Mailer. In this first screenshot you'll see a few settings in the lower section for the Mass Mailer. This will allow users on certain hosts to limit the amount of emails that are sent out per hour:



In this next screenshot, you'll see the actual Mail Queue. At any time you can check how many of the emails have been sent out at the current time.



You'll also see a couple of images on the right side. The image on the left allows you to cancel a current mail in the queue.

The image on the right allows you to send out all mails immediately. So if you have no restrictions on how much mail can go out, or if it's just an email to a smaller number of people you can use this to immediately send. Instead of refreshing the entire page for every batch of emails that has been sent out, you'll just get a little status box with an indicator of the progress so far like in the screenshot below:

UBB API

The long promised UBB API will be available with version 8. As we progress through the rewrite, many of the common functions are being moved into an API library. This will be fully documented upon release and will contain things such as:

Adding and Removing Users
User Login and User Logout
Sending Private Messages
Adding a Topic/Post
and more...

As we move on with development, we'll note any other API additions along the way.

Custom Profile Fields

No longer will be there a limitation of only 5 custom profile fields, all being just a text input box. You will now be able to create as many custom profile fields as you wish, choosing from text, radio buttons, checkboxes, select box, multiple select box and textareas. You'll be able to add as many options as you need for each custom field.

More Control over the Registration Screen

You'll now be able to set what order fields show up on the registration screen, along with what fields are required, optional or not displayed at all. All of this is done with an easy drag and drop interface as you can see in the screenshot below.

Permission Editor

In current versions when editing the permissions if it was an on/off permission you'd need to type 1/0 in a text box, or -1 if it was to be off no matter what.

In version 8, we've altered this as shown in the screenshot below, with an easier to use select box. On/Off/Explicit Off. The Explicit Off is the same as -1, so even if the user belongs to another group where the permission is allowed, they still won't get that permission.

Simpler Syndication

Current Syndication via RSS is a bit troublesome. You need to enable it for the various forums, configure the settings for each one, make sure the permissions are correct, since it's cached, make sure you aren't syndicating private forums, etc.

If you wan't to have an RSS feed that contains multiple forums, you need to configure that as well.

We're making this easier with 8.0. There is a global option to enable RSS along with the settings for the number of items, characters to include.

All feeds will be created when requested. So there will be no more caching issues. There will also be a method to create a feed that contains multiple forums without the need to manually configure this in the control panel. Feeds will also take into account user permissions, so users will only be able to subscribe to feeds they actually have access to.

Finding Control Panel Settings

As the number of settings in the control panel grow it becomes hard to find what you're looking for. For this reason, we've implemented a Control Panel Search. This will search through all of the settings in the control panel and come up with any matching results and a link to the page.

The screenshots below show how this works. It's in the upper corner of each screen, and just a small button to start so it doesn't take up much room. Clicking on it gives you the search input. Type what you're looking for, and up comes the results.

Login Changes

The login code has been moved into the API that was mentioned earlier. Also, there is a new option where the Control Panel will require a re authentication. So, if you're logged in to the forum and try to access the control panel, you'll need to login to the Control Panel first. This login will only last for the browser session, so even if you have chosen to remember yourself for the main forum, you will need to login to the Control Panel on each new visit.

This is useful mainly as a security measure if you're doing forum administration where others might be using the same computer.

As mentioned, this is an option in the control panel and can be turned on or off.

Content Rebuilding

Currently when rebuiling content, it needs to refresh the entire screen on each step. This makes the process take longer, and obviously uses more bandwidth than it needs to.

Also, if you are rebuilding multiple items it can be easy to forget which ones you've already rebuilt if the process takes awhile.

Version 8 will address both of these issues. The screen won't need to reload, you'll get a progress indicator on the right side. You'll also see which ones you've already ran as indicated in the screenshot below:

Private Topic Pruning

This feature was in older versions but never appeared in the 7.x series will now be available again. You will be able to prune/delete private topics that haven't been replied to in a certain amount of time.

Updated Database Info Page

Couple of changes to the database info page as you'll see in the screenshot below. First one, you'll be able to see a list of running mysql processes (how long they've been running, etc.)

The next change is the Optimization link. Previously there was no real way to know if a table needed optimizing in the first place. We've added a new column, that designates how much of the space in use is actually free space. That way you can see which tables need to be optimized to improve performance.

When the optimization is finished, the row for that table is updated so you can see the amount of space being used after optimization.

Also, when a table is being optimized it will automatically close the forum first and then reopen when finished, to prevent any problems during the procedure.

Executing SQL Commands

We've cleaned this up quite a bit. Previously if you typed an incorrect query it would result in an actual database error, now it will just show you the error in the results section.

If there are many fields where it would normally cause the whole browser window to need to scroll horizontally, the scrolling will now be confined to the results section. If there are many results, then the fields will be repeated every 25 rows, so you won't need to scroll all the way back to the top to find out which field a result goes with.

Saved queries are still there, just in a better location, and the results screen will show the original query you ran as well.

Logs

We've made a few changes to the logging features. There is an auto prune now available for both the admin and referer logs, and each night it will delete logs older than the designated date.

We've also added some filtering abilites to the admin log screen, so you can not only filter by date, but you can filter by username, ip address, group and action that was performed.

There is also a new ability to download the log entries to a .txt file with the filters applied.

Database Backup / Restore

We've overhauled the Database Backup routines. Again, no need for the entire screen to refresh, which will help speed up the process. You can still backup a single table or all tables. There is also an indicator that will show when the last backup was made for each table.

We've also added a Restore ability. This will allow you to restore a single table or all tables from a backup.

Permission Checks

A handy new feature on the permission check screen is the ability to update permissions via FTP. If there are files/folders that are not writable, you'll get the option to fill in your FTP information. If your server has access to the chmod command from FTP the script will update all of your permissions for you.

Groups and Subscriptions

Previously Groups and Subscriptions were each on their own screen. It was somewhat confusing in that you had to go to 2 different screens to configure each, setting up custom images for the groups, etc.

For version 8 we've consolidated this, so you can create/edit a group and setup a subscription for it on the same page.

Languages - Part 1

The first part of the new language editor is finished. Since all language strings will be stored in the database now we have a few new tools available.

You'll be able to add a new language file from within this page, either starting with a copy of all default language strings, or attaching an exported language file.

There are also 4 tools available noted by the small images in the screenshot below:

Resync: If the number of rows for a language is red, that means it doesn't match the number there should be. Resync will add any missing language strings, and also remove any duplicates or ones no longer used.

Import: Allows you to attach an exported language file and use that to update the language strings for that language.

Export: Allows you to export a language file to share with others.

Delete: Deletes the given language:

Languages - Part 2

We've finished up the rest of the language editor and this part should make life easier for everyone that modifies language strings.

Several things of note. You can now apply a few more filters to the list of language strings that will be displayed for edits. Along with the standards of strings used by a certain script, or that contain a certain phrase, you can also specify to only show strings that have been added in a certain version, and specify to only show strings that have or have not been modified. These last 2 settings will be very useful for those that do language translations as they can easily see what's been added in the latest version and what has yet to be translated.

You will also see in the screenshot that the default language string will always be available and will never be changed. So if you need to revert back to the default you can easily do so.

Also, to make it easier to flip through pages without losing any edits, as soon as you make a change to a string and remove focus from the textarea, it will be saved automatically.

Managing Images & Icons

This is pretty much the same as in version 7.x, however there are a few new things in this area to make things easier. You are no longer required to upload graemlins strictly from the control panel. You can FTP them into the proper directory if you want and then assign the markup code afterward.

The other notable change is the ability to upload multiple files through the control panel. Using swfupload, you'll be able to upload multiple files at the same time. This requires flash player to be installed, and will fallback to a regular file upload if it is not.

Custom UBBCode

We've made a few changes to this area to make things easier. Drag and drop for ordering the Custom Codes and also the ability to actually test the code and see the output on the same screen. This should make it much easier to create new custom codes.

We've also added the ability to export a single UBBCode along with all as you can do now.

Template Editing

We've made some substantial changes to the template editor as you'll see in the screenshot below. You can have multiple templates open at the same time for editing. You can also save your changes without losing your place as the screen does not have to reload during a save.

Syndication via Javascript

In earlier versions there was an option to include topics and posts on an external page or website via javascript. This option will be making a return.

When enabled it will allow you to insert a small bit of javascript on a webpage that will display topics or even gallery images from the forum designated in the javascript. This will only be able to pull from public forums.

Portal Layout

Lots of changes for setting up the portal layout. Instead of needing to go to multiple screens to set the order, change the cache time, add custom islands, etc. Everything will be done on one screen.

The displayed Islands and the order they are in is all done with drag and drop.

You can edit every island by clicking on the edit image which will display a popup for changing settings associated with that island.

You can add unlimited Custom islands by clicking on the "New Custom Isle" button. You can add unlimited post and gallery islands by clicking on the "New Post Isle" button.

We will be going back to displaying some information at the bottom of each page, such as forum permissions, who's online, etc, so we're going to stick with the left and right columns for the layout.

Template Editing - Part 2

Since themes will be able to contain custom templates in version 8, we realized we needed a way for admins to be able to compare their custom templates with the stock templates and see any differences, as well as a way to revert back to the stock template if needed. This will now be possible.

In the screenshot below you'll see a template comparison.

The left side shows the stock template line by line. If there are lines in red, that means they exist in the stock template but do not exist in the custom template.

The right side shows the custom template line by line (compared to the line numbers of the stock template). If there are lines in green, that means they exist in the custom template but do not exist or have been altered from the stock template.

Control Panel Beta Testing

Not a feature, but newsworthy anyways. We'll be starting beta testing of the control panel this week. This will speed up the whole process since the control panel will be thoroughly tested by the time the front end is finished.

This means that we'll be starting on the front end soon. Changelog might be a bit slow for a bit as we rewrite libraries and such, but we'll get some entries posted as things progress.

New Install Utility

New Installation Utility is complete. As you can see in the screenshot below the installer will take you through the various steps in a much better fashion than the old one.

If your server allows permissions to be changed via FTP, the installer will change all necessary permissions for you, so no more fumbling around in various directories and files.

The installer will also clean up after itself on servers that will allow it, and delete all of the files within the installation directory, so no need to do this manually anymore.

New Upgrade Utility

We've finished the New Upgrade utility, which uses the same format as the installer. Various steps will guide you through the process. Updating the database will go much smoother as shown in Step 2. Using some AJAX it will go much faster as well since the entire screen doesn't have to reload and we don't have to worry about timeouts.

Major Database Alterations

We're finished with the majority of the database alterations for version 8. A couple of the big ones being, all table and field names have been converted to lowercase, which will make moving to and from Windows/Linux servers much easier.

The other big step is the conversion of the table types to a character set of utf8. All of the data within the various tables will be converted to utf8, and all timestamps will be converted to GMT.

Portal Islands

As we move forward with the new front end UI, one thing has become clear in that on some screens, when both side columns are enabled, it doesn't leave enough space for other things, or it just looks too cluttered.

For example, the new User Control Panel. This is replacing the current My Stuff area and will have a navigation on the left side. With both side columns enabled, it ends up being 4 columns on these pages, which is quite messy and way to busy.

For that reason, we've added a new option at the top of each script, no_columns. When this is option is enabled, the side columns will not be displayed on that particular script.

Time to start giving some screenshots for the updated front end. I will note, that the final "look" is still being worked on, so colors, icons and other things will be changing as things move along.

Starting a Private Topic

The screenshot at the end of this post shows a few things. First, the new User Control Panel (not all options are in place yet, more will be coming). It also shows how it's much easier to start a private topic with multiple users.

The standard type in and click 'Add' is there, but a much better YUI implementation. Also, you can add from your Buddy List in a much easier fashion than the current select box. You can open your Buddy List, which will pop up a modal dialog with all of your buddies displayed.

Clicking the Add button next to a buddy in your list will either add or remove them from the list of recipients, after doing the standard checks.

Main Forum Page

A problem with version 7 has been if you don't have the portal enabled, there wasn't a decent way to display information concerning the forum, who's online, forum stats, events, birthdays, etc.

We're bringing back the Board Information Area from the pre-7 versions as shown in the screenshot below. This was taken from the bottom of the main forum list page, with a collapsed category above. We can't give away too much info yet

Please remember that in screenshots, we have to shrink things down quite a bit, so it's a bit smaller than what it will actually look like. You might not see small borders and such, but you can at least get the idea of the general look.

And also note that we'll have an extremely flexible skinning system, so if you don't care for the way a screenshot looks, it can be changed. And we'll have several themes available upon release.

Forum Information makes a return

To go along with the last post, we're also bringing back the area below the listing of posts while viewing an individual forum. Here you get a list of who's viewing the forum, the moderators, an icon legend and your permissions for creating topics/replies.

All of the display options for the forum (sort order, topic age, etc) are held within the "Show Display Options" bar. Clicking on that will show those particular settings.

Better Photo Gallery Layout

The problem with the current gallery layout is that different sized images can cause a bit of an issue with the overall layout. The vertical alignment of images on the same row can be non-conforming. This is a typical issue with many photo galleries in forums.

We've made some substantial changes to our layout to make it a bit more appealing as shown in the screenshot below. Thumbnails also have a few new stylings applied to them to make them look a bit better, including the box-shadow property for browsers that support it.

Techie Update

No screenshots for this post. As we add more javascript and css to the software, it can substantially add to the load times. We've taken a few measures to counteract this.

Any required javascript files will be concatenated into a single file and served up as a compressed file. The compressed file will also be cached, so when the combination of files is requested again, it won't have the overhead of concatenating and compressing again when it doesn't need to.

Etags are also used so it will pull from the browser cache when nothing has changed.

The same applies to all CSS files. We've also moved our javascript to the bottom of the page.

I realize this isn't a "thrilling" update, but it's a good update nonetheless as we want to make sure UBB remains quick and responsive.

Merging Topics

This has been a long standing point of contention in how this works. Currently, it just merges one topic into another. Maintains the current post id, so the order can be somewhat scrambed as posts from the source topic might appear right in the middle of the target topic.

We've changed this completely, so when you merge a topic into another topic, all the posts in the source target will be renumbered and appended to the end of the target topic.

More Gallery Changes

Currently, if a gallery topic contains multiple images you have to open each one individually which in turn opens up an entire new window. With the new layout, full size images will open in the same window in a lightbox. The buttons at the bottom of the screenshot will also allow for viewing all images in the topic by using the left/right buttons. You can also start a slideshow that will transition through all of the images on it's own.

Better Registration

Regisration will be a much more user friendly process in version 8. As you enter your main account information, it will check if the name is available, the strength of the password, if the password is valid, if the emails match, etc.

More Consistency

In the current version, many pages that present similar content might have a totally different look. For example, the active topics screen, search results, and watched content. They all present the user with a list of topics/posts, what forum they are in, who posted, but they look much different.

In version 8, we'll be much more consistent in our presentation as shown in the screenshots below of the 3 mentioned pages.

Multi-day calendar events

It will now be possible to specify calendar events that span multiple days. It will also be easier to do so with the small calendar popup for choosing dates. In the screenshot below, the start date has already been selected (the 19th), so you can see that when the end date is being selected, any date prior to that is greyed out and not selectable.

One other note in the screenshot below, we're currently working on our standard/rich text editor, so there is no markup panel applied to the textarea that you'll see.

Updated Poll Logic

We've updated the poll logic and display. Percentages weren't always correct when multiple choices where allowed, and the width of the bars weren't calculated as they should be. We've addressed both of these issues as well as added the option for different color bars:

Threaded Mode - Part One

Threaded mode has always had a variety of issues, tracking read/unread messages, lots of scrolling between reading a post and clicking another in the topic, difficulty in seeing the actual relationship in the topic tree, etc.

In our first part of the threaded mode redesign, we've addressed a couple of these issues and made a few other changes as well.

The actual tree has been moved to above the post and it's limited in height, so if there are a lot of replies, you can scroll the tree area without needing to scroll the entire page. The height can easily be changed in the CSS settings.

Instead of just showing the subject of each reply, a small snippet of the post is shown.

It's also easier to see the actual relationship between all of the posts.

More to come in this area that we'll be posting about soon, but you can see the current changes in the screenshot below:

Threaded Mode - Part Two

We've finished up with the rest of the changes to threaded mode. First, when you click on another post in the topic, it will not reload the entire screen. It now uses AJAX and only updates the post area with the post you clicked on.

In the topic tree area, the snippet of the post has been adjusted so it won't include any quotes/ubbcode. It will just contain a snippet of the actual post from the user.

If a user doesn't reply to a specific post in a topic, the reply will be attached to the original post, instead of the very last post. This will make the tree/outline more useful without unnecessary indentation.

Updated Standard Text Editor

We've updated our standard text editor, adding a few new options, such as indentation, undo/redo, sub/superscript.

Also when adding custom BBCode in the control panel, you can specify if the tag should appear in the "Media Tag" section or under the "Other Styles" section instead of just throwing it all under Media like it does now.

Also, when using the various markup buttons it will keep the text selected in the actual editor area, so it's easier to add more tags if needed.

We still have a little bit of work to do in this area and maybe a button or two more to add, but we've added a video of this instead of just a screenshot so you can see how it looks and works.

Plugin Foundation Complete

One thing UBB has been missing for a while is a plugin system , that would allow modifications to be installed without needing to modify the actual core software.

One of the big pieces while rewriting version 8 is we've been laying the foundation for the plugin system. We're adding various hooks to the code and templates to make this possible. We'll be starting with a small number of hooks, centering around the authentication system for starters. But this will allow for plugins to authenticate against a different database, ldap, etc.

More User Control Panel Changes

We've further split up the user control panel to make it easier to find the most accessed pieces. Changing your email, password, signature and avatar all have their own user menu and are all on their own screen:

CSS & JS Compression Changes

With our new system, by default we have the CSS and JS files being concatenated together and then compressed either using gzip or deflate. We'd also try to detect when this wasn't available and not do any compression.

During our alpha testing we've discovered that even when trying to detect for this it wasn't always foolproof so we've added a config option under the Advanced Settings of the control panel to enable/disable this.

Just thought I'd post an update that Jake has been doing some fantastic work on the user control panel / profile area, including things like status updates, ala facebook. Hopefully we'll get some screenshots up for this soon.