MyBB Community Forums

Quote: If people can't even install a theme where the developer hasn't changed the compatibility yet

Maybe the core should also check for full compatibility and not wildcard compatibility too. Adding a warning could also suffice.

(2020-03-31, 05:33 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]I don't either. Just need a default responsive theme and 1.8x is ready to go. Plugins would just need to adjust for template changes. That's what I was hoping 1.9x would be but it's just another attempt to add features no one cares about such as Twig and a different mailer..

_You_ don’t care about these features, but I would say that is because you aren’t a theme designer. Of course a stock modern theme is essential, I’m not minimizing that fact, but updating the template system is important for getting third parties to keep contributing.

Contribution needs to be meaningful to get motivation going. You can’t expect developers not to implement or update for new technologies, talk has been done since years ago to apply these updates and even though it had failed or we have been slow to do it doesn’t means we should just drop these changes.

1.8 works pretty nice, yes, but it is outdated and needs replacing sooner than later.

I do agree the project needs better long time planning for specific features, as it is shocking how long it has taken to get a responsive theme, but we are too close to it in 1.9 that it would be frustrating to revert that work back. 1.8 needs to leave. We can’t just dispose of 1.9 as that would remove meaning, thus motivation, off the project.

I feel that MyBB is done

other forum software has important features such as responsive design and alerts built in. We are not getting updates on 1.9, it's like everyone is being left in the dark its been years now.

MyBB should have focused on a much simpler route and that is build 1.8 in to 1.9 instead of making 1.9 separate, that should of started with the priority being a responsive design and alerts built in and then gradually introduce new features and changes as time goes on.

Obviously that is too late now. If MyBB does not pick up soon, and by that I mean very soon it will fade away just like many other good projects did. I understand it is free but that doesn't matter if it becomes unusable due to falling behind.

Currently the world is going through some tough times with Coronavirus but that also brings opportunity to MyBB because developers will have more free time to be able to tackle stuff. But with that being said MyBB needs to create some kind of source of income like other open source projects do to motivate developers.

I also ask please give us an update on the current progress.

(2020-03-31, 05:33 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]That's what I was hoping 1.9x would be but it's just another attempt to add features no one cares about such as Twig and a different mailer.

Twig will help to prevent XSS. The current eval() method is also vulnerable to RCE. From a security point of view it should've been done a decade ago.

I'm pretty sure one of the reasons a new mailing system is being implemented was because you created a thread trying to debug why MyBB wasn't delivering mail (or something along those lines).

MyBB 1.9 shouldn't exist at all to be honest. All of this stuff would've been solved out of the box in 2.0.

Quote:_You_ don’t care about these features, but I would say that is because you aren’t a theme designer.

Neither is a huge portion of the admins using MyBB. Guarantee you that 100% of them want a responsive default theme immediately though.

Quote:but updating the template system is important for getting third parties to keep contributing.

I don't agree and I don't believe that to be true. Asking existing MyBB theme designers to learn TWIG seems like more work to me. Have you ever done a poll to confirm these beliefs? HF community rarely gets asked for input. We're just told by the team how things will go, we are never given a timeline. Then we just wait and wait and wait.

Quote:Contribution needs to be meaningful to get motivation going. You can’t expect developers not to implement or update for new technologies, talk has been done since years ago to apply these updates and even though it had failed or we have been slow to do it doesn’t means we should just drop these changes.

How many years passed before 2.0 was dropped? One has to ask how long will it take for either 1.9x to be released (out of beta btw) or before it's dropped too.

Quote:1.8 works pretty nice, yes, but it is outdated and needs replacing sooner than later.

1.8x works GREAT. Almost no real problems other than ones introduced by new updates. Even though new technologies and methods exist that does not mean 1.8x is "outdated" or needs "replacing". That's the fallacy the team continually pushes. And maybe there would be some truth to it if not for the FACT that by the time these updates actuallly come the technology has once again changed anyways.

Quote:as it is shocking how long it has taken to get a responsive theme

There ya go. Truth. There should be no excuses anymore. Just admission of the failures.

Quote:MyBB should have focused on a much simpler route and that is build 1.8 in to 1.9 instead of making 1.9 separate, that should of started with the priority being a responsive design and alerts built in and then gradually introduce new features and changes as time goes on.

I argued as hard as I could for that. Decisions were made behind the scenes that led to the current situation.

Quote:Twig will help to prevent XSS. The current eval() method is also vulnerable to RCE. From a security point of view it should've been done a decade ago.

This is true TWIG will help prevent XSS. And eval() is vulnerable to RCE...BUT, MyBB already has built-in methods to prevent it. A decade ago doing these changes would have made sense. Don't you think waiting for a decade means the changes are long past the point of immediate necessity? The change needed NOW is actually pretty simple. DEFAULT RESPONSIVE THEME.

Quote:I'm pretty sure one of the reasons a new mailing system is being implemented was because you created a thread trying to debug why MyBB wasn't delivering mail (or something along those lines).

I've seen those. I've never had that problem. I have had an issue with some fault in the recovery process where a code won't work. But I think we have resolved it by ensuring new codes are not created if one already exists. So no matter how many times someone does a PW reset for account recovery the code stays the same until it's actually successful. So far it's worked as expected.

Quote:MyBB 1.9 shouldn't exist at all to be honest. All of this stuff would've been solved out of the box in 2.0.

2.0 plan was faulty because you may as well as just started an entirely new project under a new name. It would have broken every plugin and theme. MyBB's appeal is mainly the ease to extend it with plugins. Just think how many sites use plugins and would refuse to upgrade to 2.0 knowing all their custom work would break. All just to have some fancy backend stuff that no one cares about. If the end-user experience works as we want (responsive theme) none of us really care how it's achieved.

Normally the pushback comes directly from MyBB staff and developers. It does not come from the admins using it. I never see an admin say, "hey, the mybb template system is old and I want to use TWIG instead." Actually a couple plugins exist that do well enough if you want template conditionals. I've never needed it personally, always found a way to use plugins or the PATCH plugin (which is great btw).

Who really thinks that in 3 years this project will still be relevant for a new install on a new domain? Any chance MyBB would start publishing download numbers?

Whatever the issue may be, they've said in the past that the theme is practically ready and that the template engine seems to be almost done. The hold up seems to be with the rebase and with other issues (as far as I can tell, correct me if I'm wrong). And Twig might not be what everyone was screaming for on the surface, but there are good reasons for doing it. Sooner or later, it will be so ridiculous to keep the templates in the database that MyBB is going to look foolish for it. They aren't converting the entire thing to Laravel or Synfony (thank god). Twig is good.

Honestly, what's done is done. MyBB 2.0 was perhaps a mistake, yes. MyBB is behind, yes. But the past is the past and the entire community is learning as we go. These guys (by your own admission) are not being truly funded. That's part of the problem. Unless we can get these guys paid, they're doing it for free. There is no sense in being a jerk to them about it.

That being said, you've been saying "do incremental improvements" for a while. To everyone who disagrees with that, it's 2020, and he is right on that. This is the way that software is moving towards. The waterfall model doesn't work anymore the way that it used to. Developers are focused on Agile methods and incremental improvements. Get a working prototype out there quickly. Then make it stable and get a version. Then make manageable incremental improvements (but keep it working along the way). 

Every indication seems to be that the MyBB team has long come to this conclusion.

Honestly we need to take an example from phpBB (a software that was severely stagnant for a long time and sprang back to life with 3.1). phpBB is doing incremental updates every so often that don't constitute "major updates," but they basically have three tiers (much like us). The difference is in how they time these.

phpBB 3: Akin to MyBB 1.x. Never going to change for a long, long time.
phpBB 3.x: The minor point number. Every time they need to do breaking changes, they do a few at a time and release. These happen every couple of years or so. It's annoying when it happens, but they put enough improvements into them to make it worthwhile, and the breaking changes generally aren't too bad to work with (akin to MyBB 1.6 vs. MyBB 1.8).
phpBB 3.x.x: No breaking changes (besides minor ones). Security and maintenance updates. Similar to MyBB 1.8.19, etc.

phpBB is doing the same thing as MyBB with regards to versioning, but they're releasing their mid-tier releases more quickly, and with less new features. That's the trade off, but they are doing incremental updates with much more development frequency, so it keeps the project alive and active. 

Just my humble opinion. They're doing what they can.

(2020-04-01, 12:57 AM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]Neither is a huge portion of the admins using MyBB. Guarantee you that 100% of them want a responsive default theme immediately though.

What I'm tryin to say is that features or code update might be necessary even if _you_ (anyone) believe you aren't getting any benefit.

(2020-04-01, 12:57 AM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]Asking existing MyBB theme designers to learn TWIG seems like more work to me.  Have you ever done a poll to confirm these beliefs?  HF community rarely gets asked for input.  We're just told by the team how things will go, we are never given a timeline.  Then we just wait and wait and wait. 

Contributors come and go, even team members, we can't rely on _old_ or _everlasting_ contributors, we also need to consider newcomers. The template system required to be updated, and no resources to write a custom system were nor are currently available. Implementing a new system, as surprisingly as it might seem, was the best option at the time and we shouldn't turn back now.

Could it have been better? Maybe. Is dropping the change now acceptable? I think not.

(2020-04-01, 12:57 AM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]We're just told by the team how things will go, we are never given a timeline.  Then we just wait and wait and wait. 

I agree planning and communication should be improved as possible. It seems to me people blame the team for not sticking to deliveries. Rather, I'd say I have never felt the "project" ever compromised nor stuck to much officially. In addition with a poor communication left users continuosly disappointed. (I'm not saying these were intentional situations.)

(2020-04-01, 12:57 AM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]One has to ask how long will it take for either 1.9x to be released (out of beta btw) or before it's dropped too.

I would find it unacceptable. I won't comment on my opinion regarding the past drop decision, but dropping once more would be unacceptable for both contributors and users.

Quote:MyBB should have focused on a much simpler route and that is build 1.8 in to 1.9 instead of making 1.9 separate, that should of started with the priority being a responsive design and alerts built in and then gradually introduce new features and changes as time goes on.

MyBB 1.9 is the approach of this idea applied over 2.0. We just disagree on features or updates implemented (alerts vs template system).

Quote:the theme is practically ready and that the template engine seems to be almost done.

Pretty much

(2020-04-01, 12:57 AM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:How many years passed before 2.0 was dropped?  One has to ask how long will it take for either 1.9x to be released (out of beta btw) or before it's dropped too.

you're right

Quote:1.8x works GREAT.  Almost no real problems other than ones introduced by new updates.  Even though new technologies and methods exist that does not mean 1.8x is "outdated" or needs "replacing". That's the fallacy the team continually pushes.  And maybe there would be some truth to it if not for the FACT that by the time these updates actuallly come the technology has once again changed anyways. 

I agree on many things that Labrocca writes,

Quote:Twig will help to prevent XSS. The current eval() method is also vulnerable to RCE. From a security point of view it should've been done a decade ago.

Quote:This is true TWIG will help prevent XSS.  And eval() is vulnerable to RCE...BUT, MyBB already has built-in methods to prevent it.  A decade ago doing these changes would have made sense.  Don't you think waiting for a decade means the changes are long past the point of immediate necessity?  The change needed NOW is actually pretty simple. DEFAULT RESPONSIVE THEME. 

Quote:Normally the pushback comes directly from MyBB staff and developers. It does not come from the admins using it.  I never see an admin say, "hey, the mybb template system is old and I want to use TWIG instead."  Actually a couple plugins exist that do well enough if you want template conditionals.  I've never needed it personally, always found a way to use plugins or the PATCH plugin (which is great btw).

Who really thinks that in 3 years this project will still be relevant for a new install on a new domain?  Any chance MyBB would start publishing download numbers?

long ago stop writing in part 1.9 but if I read what they write (and everything I read)
I agree on many things that Labrocca writes...

Please Team Dev.  Just Upgrade Theme to Responsive...  during all this time they would have been built.

Also stop writing because in the community there are one or two users who bullying what you write.

I'm not a development expert and I don't have the knowledge but it seems that users like labrocca make more sense about development time...

and yes, I know, for the user who does bullying
- Its a Software Free
- Team Development work in Free Time
- if you want to help Fork via GitHub
- Team Development have a social life
- Its Free work
- ¿what are you waiting for a free product?... etc...etc ... I already know all those words, just by looking at the threads of development...

Well... i just to enjoy the Software MyBB 1.8.x and for the next version (As a customer, as a user) I wish you all the best for the Software MyBB and Team Development but I don't plan to update to MyBB 1.9 or MyBB 2.0 because I know that they are going to give me a lot of problems with the update steps, learn new methods of updating via terminal, cannot downgrade, and surely it will also have security holes... So I prefer to stay with Software MyBB 1.8.x


community greetings

Short of saying
If you are not able to complete the project, let others do the job.
Partially free software, not complete
It is under license GNU LGPL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser...ic_License

(2020-04-01, 09:25 AM)@abdurhman@ Wrote: [ -> ]Short of saying
If you are not able to complete the project, let others do the job.

Feel free to submit a pull request any time you like, sunshine.

Have you seen a software license certificate? The program is open source but privately owned by the Mybb Group. Submitting an application to withdraw the program means assigning rights to the new owner