UBB.threads 7.6.0 - Progress Report (04-09-2015) - 04/09/2015 8:09 AM
7.6.0 Progress Report: "Abba Zaba... You my only friend."
A lot of the current work has been focused on getting the Control Panel cleaned up, both in display and behind the scenes. Working from top (Master Settings) to bottom (Tools & Information), this bit of progress has been completed through to the Permissions section earlier today. Portal and finally, Tools & Information are next on the agenda.
While progressing page-by-every-page through the Control Panel, I have come across a few options that just didnt display correctly or didnt function as one would expect them to function. I've fixed everything as I came to it.
I've progressed with adding more much-needed examples to non-obvious site settings where I could see that an example would be extremely helpful to have.
Time was also put in to correcting HTTPS/SSL issues and getting UBB.threads fully working with it. One of my personal larger sites is running full HTTPS, and I am happy as a clam with the current functionality and the security benefits!
The Subscriptions pages (user and admin sections) have gone through a nice facelift. Group Images are now removed when a group's subscription expires. The Subscription settings layout has seen a lot of attention and has been the major focus for the past week and a half. A lot has been put into improving it and make it a worth-while way of monetizing your forums.
There were a few more new minor features added, but outside of what was mentioned above, the past month was spent fixing bugs, cleaning up old code, moving html formatting to css, and making UBB.threads fully HTTPS-compatible. Lets jump in to the progress report and see what some of those changes were.
Changelog 2015-04-09
Admin
• CHANGEUSER -Updated to accept https in addition to http.
• LOGS -SQL Errors Logs now displays in chronological order. Size is now always displayed in bytes. The reports are formatted to be more human readable.
• MEMBERMANAGE -Options for saving a custom search and Saved Searches are now always visible. The View/Edit Members tab items have been correctly arranged and now utilize Expandys. Registration Queue tab has also been cleaned up and no longer overflows on thin windows - It also matches the display format of MEMBERSEARCH (the member search results page). Ban Lists tab has been given proper usage examples.
• RSS -A lot of layout work has been done to allow the page items to be viewed and managed much more easily. In addition, the VIEWBOARD section regarding Forum RSS Feeds has been given usage explanations and settings recommendations.
• SHOWUSER -Rearranged the Edit Profile layout pages slightly. The bottom tabs are now sorted in an order as one would expect. Updated the preferences to handle moving away from "Time Offsets" to using "Default Time Zone" settings.
• STYLEPREVIEW -Additional style items have been added to the preview page.
• VIEWBOARD -The string file has been corrected from "FORUM_PERMS" to "FORUM_PERMISSIONS" so at to now pull titles from the correct language file. Configuration items now hide when they are unchecked/turned off.
• MULTIPLE -Text entry boxes that were based on a set number of columns are now based upon a percentage of screen size. In most cases, you'll now have more room to see what you're doing.
• MULTIPLE -If appropriate, more descriptions of what each setting does, have been given an example of what should be entered. Some current descriptions/examples have also been updated to add clarity.
Cache Builders (Portal)
• FEATURED_MEMBER -Registration date is now displayed as just "Month Year" -- ex; "June 2006"
Includes
• COPPAINSERT -An example parental consent and approval COPPA "Children's Privacy Policy Guidelines" file is now included within the UBB.threads software.
Libs
• ADMIN.INC -The "Submit" button now has the correct padding to space it apart from the content on certain pages.
• HTML.INC -The site default language is now set, if the language settings are not configured for that visitor. For example, an unregistered user.
Scripts
• SHOWPROFILE -Homepage URLs will now accept https as being valid. Homepage Names are also now generated. User profile display presentation has also been cleaned up. Moved the SHOWPROFILE formatting code to the template and out of the script files.
Styles
• ADMIN -A few more slight layout adjustments. (tabs, wrappers, descriptions, etc.)
• COMMON -All Post Buttons now have a "white-space:nowrap;" placed on them.
Templates
• COPPAFORM -This page now displays correctly.
• EDITDISPLAY -Removed Time Offset and replaced with Time Zone.
• HEADER -Added code needed for displaying forums on mobile devices.
• HEADER -Testing new cookie related items to help prevent users from instantly being logged out just after logging in.
• HEADER -Moved the Forum Closed message below the forum header. This will now look like a message to the users (NEW: header/closed/footer), instead of a warning and a blank page (OLD: closed/header/footer).
• ISLAND_FEATURED_MEMBER -If there are none, tell the users that there are none at this time.
• MYCOOKIES -Long cookies now wrap when they need to. They no longer wait for a proper word-break before wrapping.
• PRINTTHREAD -Further CSS cleanup to improve the display of this page.
• SHOWPROFILE -Formatting has been removed from the script files and correctly placed in to the templates. Visitor Comments block was given a facelift. It now utilizes the space better, giving the comments more room to be displayed. "UBB Buddies" sections has been renamed to "Friends and Followers." The user avatar sizes are now standardized.
• SUBSCRIPTION -The default language that PayPal is to use when displaying it's pages to your subscribers, is now set by the new $lang.PAYPAL_LANG string. This is configurable within the Language Editor (Admin) and is set to "en_US" within the stock ENGLISH language file.
General
• MULTIPLE -Admin/User: Many templates were given "Major Section" comments. This will make customizations to these files a bit easier for forum owners who like to modify their default templates.
• MULTIPLE -Admin/User: More alignment formatting converted from inlined HTML to CSS, and called through the CSS files.
• MULTIPLE -Admin/User: All pages relating to Subscriptions have been given a nice facelift. Presentation and language strings have been updated for clarity.
• MULTIPLE -Admin/User: Previous devs left a few "strange comment words" in multiple scripts and template files. They have been "un-stranged."
H/t to "Morgan" for pointing out some long-standing subscription system issues
--
NOTICE: At the time of this post, UBB.threads 7.6.0 is very much still work in progress. This current code will change several more times before being published to the Members area of http://ubbcentral.com. This *WORK IN PROGRESS* code is not available for download or purchase. This series of progress reports is being made public to share the development progress on UBB.threads. Items may be pulled from the final release or may be reworked to have a different presentation than what is depicted in this post. This is very much WORK IN PROGRESS and not by any means "final."
A lot of the current work has been focused on getting the Control Panel cleaned up, both in display and behind the scenes. Working from top (Master Settings) to bottom (Tools & Information), this bit of progress has been completed through to the Permissions section earlier today. Portal and finally, Tools & Information are next on the agenda.
While progressing page-by-every-page through the Control Panel, I have come across a few options that just didnt display correctly or didnt function as one would expect them to function. I've fixed everything as I came to it.
I've progressed with adding more much-needed examples to non-obvious site settings where I could see that an example would be extremely helpful to have.
Time was also put in to correcting HTTPS/SSL issues and getting UBB.threads fully working with it. One of my personal larger sites is running full HTTPS, and I am happy as a clam with the current functionality and the security benefits!
The Subscriptions pages (user and admin sections) have gone through a nice facelift. Group Images are now removed when a group's subscription expires. The Subscription settings layout has seen a lot of attention and has been the major focus for the past week and a half. A lot has been put into improving it and make it a worth-while way of monetizing your forums.
There were a few more new minor features added, but outside of what was mentioned above, the past month was spent fixing bugs, cleaning up old code, moving html formatting to css, and making UBB.threads fully HTTPS-compatible. Lets jump in to the progress report and see what some of those changes were.
Changelog 2015-04-09
Admin
• CHANGEUSER -Updated to accept https in addition to http.
• LOGS -SQL Errors Logs now displays in chronological order. Size is now always displayed in bytes. The reports are formatted to be more human readable.
• MEMBERMANAGE -Options for saving a custom search and Saved Searches are now always visible. The View/Edit Members tab items have been correctly arranged and now utilize Expandys. Registration Queue tab has also been cleaned up and no longer overflows on thin windows - It also matches the display format of MEMBERSEARCH (the member search results page). Ban Lists tab has been given proper usage examples.
• RSS -A lot of layout work has been done to allow the page items to be viewed and managed much more easily. In addition, the VIEWBOARD section regarding Forum RSS Feeds has been given usage explanations and settings recommendations.
• SHOWUSER -Rearranged the Edit Profile layout pages slightly. The bottom tabs are now sorted in an order as one would expect. Updated the preferences to handle moving away from "Time Offsets" to using "Default Time Zone" settings.
• STYLEPREVIEW -Additional style items have been added to the preview page.
• VIEWBOARD -The string file has been corrected from "FORUM_PERMS" to "FORUM_PERMISSIONS" so at to now pull titles from the correct language file. Configuration items now hide when they are unchecked/turned off.
• MULTIPLE -Text entry boxes that were based on a set number of columns are now based upon a percentage of screen size. In most cases, you'll now have more room to see what you're doing.
• MULTIPLE -If appropriate, more descriptions of what each setting does, have been given an example of what should be entered. Some current descriptions/examples have also been updated to add clarity.
Cache Builders (Portal)
• FEATURED_MEMBER -Registration date is now displayed as just "Month Year" -- ex; "June 2006"
Includes
• COPPAINSERT -An example parental consent and approval COPPA "Children's Privacy Policy Guidelines" file is now included within the UBB.threads software.
Libs
• ADMIN.INC -The "Submit" button now has the correct padding to space it apart from the content on certain pages.
• HTML.INC -The site default language is now set, if the language settings are not configured for that visitor. For example, an unregistered user.
Scripts
• SHOWPROFILE -Homepage URLs will now accept https as being valid. Homepage Names are also now generated. User profile display presentation has also been cleaned up. Moved the SHOWPROFILE formatting code to the template and out of the script files.
Styles
• ADMIN -A few more slight layout adjustments. (tabs, wrappers, descriptions, etc.)
• COMMON -All Post Buttons now have a "white-space:nowrap;" placed on them.
Templates
• COPPAFORM -This page now displays correctly.
• EDITDISPLAY -Removed Time Offset and replaced with Time Zone.
• HEADER -Added code needed for displaying forums on mobile devices.
• HEADER -Testing new cookie related items to help prevent users from instantly being logged out just after logging in.
• HEADER -Moved the Forum Closed message below the forum header. This will now look like a message to the users (NEW: header/closed/footer), instead of a warning and a blank page (OLD: closed/header/footer).
• ISLAND_FEATURED_MEMBER -If there are none, tell the users that there are none at this time.
• MYCOOKIES -Long cookies now wrap when they need to. They no longer wait for a proper word-break before wrapping.
• PRINTTHREAD -Further CSS cleanup to improve the display of this page.
• SHOWPROFILE -Formatting has been removed from the script files and correctly placed in to the templates. Visitor Comments block was given a facelift. It now utilizes the space better, giving the comments more room to be displayed. "UBB Buddies" sections has been renamed to "Friends and Followers." The user avatar sizes are now standardized.
• SUBSCRIPTION -The default language that PayPal is to use when displaying it's pages to your subscribers, is now set by the new $lang.PAYPAL_LANG string. This is configurable within the Language Editor (Admin) and is set to "en_US" within the stock ENGLISH language file.
General
• MULTIPLE -Admin/User: Many templates were given "Major Section" comments. This will make customizations to these files a bit easier for forum owners who like to modify their default templates.
• MULTIPLE -Admin/User: More alignment formatting converted from inlined HTML to CSS, and called through the CSS files.
• MULTIPLE -Admin/User: All pages relating to Subscriptions have been given a nice facelift. Presentation and language strings have been updated for clarity.
• MULTIPLE -Admin/User: Previous devs left a few "strange comment words" in multiple scripts and template files. They have been "un-stranged."
H/t to "Morgan" for pointing out some long-standing subscription system issues
--
NOTICE: At the time of this post, UBB.threads 7.6.0 is very much still work in progress. This current code will change several more times before being published to the Members area of http://ubbcentral.com. This *WORK IN PROGRESS* code is not available for download or purchase. This series of progress reports is being made public to share the development progress on UBB.threads. Items may be pulled from the final release or may be reworked to have a different presentation than what is depicted in this post. This is very much WORK IN PROGRESS and not by any means "final."
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