MyBB Community Forums

(2020-10-23, 10:21 AM)NoRules Wrote: [ -> ]F#ck 1.9, give us an official responsive theme (please  )

I have said all along I won't be using 1.9 and have often asked for a simple stripped down version of 1.8 which is responsive.

I'll probably get put down again, but it's time to be honest and say that 1.9 isn't going to happen. If it does, it will be a long time before people trust it.

If you look at Wikipedia you will see it says "Lead Developer Euan says beta version of MyBB 1.9 will land by March 2019" I don't know who updates Wikipedia but even that is still showing "The latest version of MyBB 1.8.x is 1.8.19, released on September 11, 2018" Time to be honest and say MyBB doesn't have enough volunteers.

It's not about forums are dying, there are many still doing fine but we do need an official responsive 1.8. Do that and you will not only keep the uses but you will also encourage newbies to try the software.

Apologies to all of those working on 1.9 and MyBB I know there are some working hard and are passionate about the project, but there won't be much of a project left to work on soon.

I'm still running my 10 year old forum on MyBB which I started with but I don't know how much longer I can do this without it being suitable for today's users.

Getting 1.8 officially responsive must now be the priority. 

Good luck in your choice and thank you, you should all be proud for what you have achieved so far. I just hope the good days of the MyBB community can come back.

Take care.

(2020-10-23, 10:21 AM)NoRules Wrote: [ -> ]F#ck 1.9, give us an official responsive theme (please  )

You know what the response will be? "There are already responsive themes available" 

#1. Those responsive themes are often buggy and not completely responsive. 
#2. They are not always updated with latest releases. 

An official release would obviously be updated frequently.

But don't get your hopes up it wont happen. You will be lucky to even see a 1.9 beta release in 2022.

Seeing this drama here is petty, and probably isn't going to light a fire under the MyBB team. If anything, it's more likely to discourage them. If your intent is to rally the people to do more, you're doing it wrong.

I'll discuss myself my own experiences with MyBB, and talk about our specific use cases so hopefully, someone else here can be inspired or informed by what I'm talking about.

I run a major forum for Silicon Graphics and IRIX vintage computing. A pretty niche topic, but our predecessor (nekochan.net, now defunct) ran PHPBB 3 - so that's what I naturally, in 2017 started on for irixnet.org, our successor site. There were many immediate issues we found:

1. The codebase wasn't compatible with PHP 7.2, only 7.1.
2. We were not able to maintain SSL agnosticism, meaning users could access over HTTP and HTTPS - reason being is it would fill the forum's session tables and break a bunch of things, requiring an onerous task of emptying that regularly and apologizing to users who got logged out
3. Issues with its in-built PHP mailing functions. For those unaware, mail() and sendmail on *NIX machines produces an unauthenticated, mostly unverified header. We had been using an SMTP account with Zoho, and it didn't work out.
4. We got featured by a semi-major publication and got slashdotted to hell, despite a relatively efficient setup. For days, the server pegged itself trying to keep up.

All of this led me to look for an alternative. A user recommended XenForo, but I personally revile Xenforo - it's proprietary, costs money, isn't as easily extensible, replaces "PMs" with "conversations" and livechat functions, and there's an overabundance of issues that made it a poor browser cross-compatibility system.

That led me to MyBB, and since the move, I've noticed MyBB is very secure, though it has some persistent, and annoying bugs, and it has better performance, licensing etc.

Let me touch on the concerns outlined here:

1. Obsolete templating. Yeah, it's not great, but it's far from the worst.
2. Lack of in-built responsive themes. Not a huge deal for me, as we're not aiming for mobile friendliness as a major guideline. A vintage computer forum doesn't need something like that to be the forefront. Others, YMMV and I empathize with your frustration. Get a developer, though. Forums are expensive to maintain and rarely turn a profit anymore, but there's no use trying to navigate this without having a dev at your beck and call.
3. "Obsolete features"

I'm curious what people want out of a forum these days that MyBB cannot offer by default? Is it that icky "conversation" crap that Xenforo wants? Is it live notifications/AJAX notifs? Is it post reactions? What?

Frankly, I see a lot of this as overcomplicating things. At its most basic level, a forum provides places for discussion and its needs may not be met by a particular implementation of that.

For those haranguing Euan and the other devs on this, go use another software already and quick crap-stirring. It's nauseating to watch. Xenforo is expensive and ugly.

Our main competitor uses Xenforo, and they seem happy with it and all. That's all fine and dandy, but their size is 3 times smaller, and about half as active if that on a regular basis, and their primary mode of comms is discord.

Hi,

if there's a time to put a "Watch Out! We got a badass over here!" meme is now, but I know mods don't like them....

But I'll waste my time answering him just for the people who read his nonsense, not for him.

(2020-10-24, 03:44 AM)Raion Wrote: [ -> ]Seeing this drama here is petty, and probably isn't going to light a fire under the MyBB team. If anything, it's more likely to discourage them. If your intent is to rally the people to do more, you're doing it wrong.

Nope, we just love MyBB, we appreciate their work, but we need some things to keep forums active (in my case only 1 thing, an official responsive theme)

(2020-10-24, 03:44 AM)Raion Wrote: [ -> ]I'll discuss myself my own experiences with MyBB, and talk about our specific use cases so hopefully, someone else here can be inspired or informed by what I'm talking about.
(...)

Blah, blah, blah...

(2020-10-24, 03:44 AM)Raion Wrote: [ -> ]Let me touch on the concerns outlined here:

1. Obsolete templating. Yeah, it's not great, but it's far from the worst.

I no see a lot of people hating the template system, maybe you don't read enough posts...

(2020-10-24, 03:44 AM)Raion Wrote: [ -> ]2. Lack of in-built responsive themes. Not a huge deal for me, as we're not aiming for mobile friendliness as a major guideline. A vintage computer forum doesn't need something like that to be the forefront. Others, YMMV and I empathize with your frustration. Get a developer, though. Forums are expensive to maintain and rarely turn a profit anymore, but there's no use trying to navigate this without having a dev at your beck and call.

We're not talking about you! We are talking about the people that can't pay for a theme, we are talking about the people that no have coding experience in theme creation or modification. I have a responsive theme, I changed it as I wanted, but I still asking for it not for me, for the users that they really need it.

(2020-10-24, 03:44 AM)Raion Wrote: [ -> ]3. "Obsolete features"

What????? We ask for new features (and always will).

(2020-10-24, 03:44 AM)Raion Wrote: [ -> ]I'm curious what people want out of a forum these days that MyBB cannot offer by default? Is it that icky "conversation" crap that Xenforo wants? Is it live notifications/AJAX notifs? Is it post reactions? What?

Seriously, read all the posts on this thread, and others thread and you'll know.Or stay more time in this forum, since 2017 it's not enough time....

(2020-10-24, 03:44 AM)Raion Wrote: [ -> ](...)

There are other forum software than the one you mention.

Maybe it's time to put a fork in it?

Look I think this whole thread is simply going off topic tbh everyone is talking about their own personal views or opinions about MYBB instead of the main ''Picture" every once a month or week a team of the staff can make thread or post maybe on here that really shows Ok Update for 1.9 fixed core structure for example something similar to this https://community.mybb.com/thread-229261.html Also yes I think maybe a Default Mobile theme can be released for 1.8 until 1.9 is done but an release date won't hurt to us when as we can't keep waiting for like 5-10 years or longer also I am sure the staff team knows when as they have locked forums on 1.9 Demo with a password it reads https://imgur.com/a/QWNotCi Not sure if its a joke or not but if it is a bad joke (so it should released by the staff)

(2020-10-24, 08:36 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]Maybe it's time to put a fork in it?

At this point if the team here doesn't give a real answer and continues to leave everyone in the dark and get it done then you may actually be the only hope. I think you and Xerotic could really get things going quickly just based on the experience you both already have.

(2020-10-22, 04:56 AM)Darth Apple Wrote: [ -> ]Many have suggested this before, but I think I will echo an idea that some other users have brought to the table.  What are our short/long term plans for the 1.8.x branch?

MyBB is bleeding users and has been for a long time. It's largely because forums/communities have changed so much and have modernized in an entirely different direction over the past decade. To me, it's sad. I love MyBB to death. It's the only open source software that is so customizable it can be made to look like almost anything, and the decline of forums in general has taken its toll in many ways in recent years.

And I know I will sound like a broken record here, but the #1 reason people have turned to other softwares (phpBB especially) is because of the responsiveness. It really, truly is a big concern. It's not because the default theme itself is important (nobody ever uses the default theme on any software, ever. That's always the very first thing to get changed. ). But the problem is that every single theme on the mod site today is based on it. Because of that, very few of them are responsive. Only a handful exist, and most of them are paid themes and I'm not sure if many users are aware of how to even find them.

I know others have brought this idea to the table before, but I still believe it's worthwhile to mention. Have we thought about making a 1.8.25 release that is exactly the same as 1.8.24, with no other difference than to include a secondary responsive theme right out of the box? This wouldn't replace 1.9, per se (we still need 1.9 to bring us forward), but this would buy us some time and allow a plethora of modern, responsive themes to enter the mod database in the meantime.

Just my two cents,
-Darth

(2020-10-24, 11:14 PM)Furious Wrote: [ -> ]

(2020-10-24, 08:36 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]Maybe it's time to put a fork in it?

At this point if the team here doesn't give a real answer and continues to leave everyone in the dark and get it done then you may actually be the only hope. I think you and Xerotic could really get things going quickly just based on the experience you both already have.

Furious I think the answer will be at post #655

(2020-10-24, 08:16 AM)NoRules Wrote: [ -> ]Hi,

if there's a time to put a "Watch Out! We got a badass over here!" meme is now, but I know mods don't like them....

But I'll waste my time answering him just for the people who read his nonsense, not for him.

I wasn't referring to you specifically, there were users at post numbers 651 and 659 who mentioned bailing on other platforms, and in particular user Furious' continued complaints.

(2020-10-24, 08:16 AM)NoRules Wrote: [ -> ]Blah, blah, blah...

Well that wasn't very nice. I worked hard on that.

(2020-10-24, 08:16 AM)NoRules Wrote: [ -> ]I no see a lot of people hating the template system, maybe you don't read enough posts...

In the current 1.8 system, the templating engine has security issues, and a lack of interoperability with other applications (many of which use Twig, which is what 1.9 is targeting)

(2020-10-24, 08:16 AM)NoRules Wrote: [ -> ]We're not talking about you! We are talking about the people that can't pay for a theme, we are talking about the people that no have coding experience in theme creation or modification. I have a responsive theme, I changed it as I wanted, but I still asking for it not for me, for the users that they really need it.

It's not the 90s or 2000s anymore. Let's face it. Forums are more niche than ever, and if you're putting out a forum, it makes sense to have a developer of some kind. It doesn't cost that much; with the gig economy like it is you could probably get a theme made for as low as $40. My forum's theme (CrossBB, based on BootBB) was already partially done, but I paid a fair bit more to get something easy to modify for CSS.

(2020-10-24, 08:16 AM)NoRules Wrote: [ -> ]What????? We ask for new features (and always will).

People were claiming that the forum and its features are obsolete, yet weren't actually being verbose.

(2020-10-24, 08:16 AM)NoRules Wrote: [ -> ]Seriously, read all the posts on this thread, and others thread and you'll know.Or stay more time in this forum, since 2017 it's not enough time....

Tacitly insulting or dismissing me isn't productive.

Quote:In the current 1.8 system, the templating engine has security issues, and a lack of interoperability with other applications (many of which use Twig, which is what 1.9 is targeting)

As far as I know the Twig templating engine is integrated. The delay has been other changes they felt were warranted.

I've called over and over again for the full focus to be on a default responsive theme. So they want Twig, fine. But do Twig and a simple Responsive design and release it. They are also doing mailer and PDO changes. Stuff that COULD be done later on.

The bigger and more important change is a responsive default theme. Why they continue to add to that mission I don't fully understand and I certainly don't agree with it.

We are nearing 3 years from when this thread was started. And I don't even want to count the years since 2.0 was announced and then ditched. Most of us can read the writing on the wall. A major update may never fully materialize.