MyBB Community Forums

Just wanted to comment about the latest blog post from MyBB.

https://blog.mybb.com/2018/06/28/mybb-2-...t-on-hold/

I'm glad that MyBB has finally put 2.0 on hold. It was always imho a stretch of the imagination for the resources of MyBB team and was going to break everyone's existing plugins and themes all at once. That's not an upgrade, that's a new software. We all pretty much love how 1.8x is for the most part and we're both familiar and comfortable with the coding and theme designing.

I can applaud the new changes and direction. Going to Twig seems a very reasonable solution as well update using Composer and Docker. Incorporating current technologies should be done regularly. Replacing that awful SCEditor is also a huge win. It's buggy and imho just sucks. The old MyBB editor imho worked very well and just needed a way to extend it. Still unsure how well TinyMCE will do but it can't be much worse the SCEditor.

The need for responsive these should be the highest priority though and I've expressed this over and over again but I will not be silent and I want to make sure that any new changes first deal with the problem of mobile compatibility for MyBB. And btw, I like the 1.9x concept theme at MyBB. Decent base to work from. MyBB doesn't have to have a complicated base theme. It just needs the default templates to be non-table based and responsive. Let designers do the bulk of the CSS changes. Just make sure MyBB functions and features work.

IMHO if MyBB changes to Twig and gets the theme to be responsive that's 1.9.0 and should be released so that the brave can upgrade and be immediately responsive and designers can make new themes. The changes for the editor, swiftmailer, and other parts of MyBB should be done in 1.9x updates in increments. This lowers the development and release time for 1.9.0. Please please please consider that. I don't think you'd get any admin to disagree with the urgency for responsive design as default. We are suffering in search results and losing ground to mobile compatible sites. Google has more or less removed rank from MyBB forums because they are not responsive and by default fail their mobile test.

Google Wrote:Starting April 21, 2015, Google Search will be expanding its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in Google Search results. Users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results optimized for their devices.

Notice the "significant impact" part? Google results are now mobile-first for SEO. I used to have 10 million pages in Google. Now I have 300k. And before you say "why should we care about HF" please note that if this is effecting me this drastically then it's effecting everyone else too that does not have a responsive theme. So if MyBB gives a crap about admins having success with their software they need to address this problem very quickly.

A plan seems to be in place, and I like the plan. But please release 1.9.0 ASAP even if it's just the TWIG and responsive theme and heck, even if it's a little buggy. The faster you release the quicker we can get to 1.9.6 (6th update probably 12-18 months) which is where most of the bug are found, reported, and fixed.

Thank you for the blog post and the changes to the policy.

It's nice to hear some good feedback. We listened to the users about the direction they wanted the project to go in and we are moving forward.

All templates have currently been converted into Twig and Justin is currently working on the 1.9 theme. Eric is working on JS changes to fix some of that mess. Euan is going to be working on a PR for the TinyMCE editor update so we can launch 1.9 with more than just a responsive theme. Obviously it is very important we have the responsive theme but if we are upgrading the editor and fixing the JS we are squashing a large amount of extremely annoying bugs. Understandably users want us to get this out ASAP and I personally feel the same. There has been a huge amount of progress on the project recently in terms of 1.9 and further announcements which will be made in due course.

We are going to be pushing out 1.8.16 very soon which fixes a large amount of bugs and once we have got this out of the way we are all going to be working towards pushing 1.9 forward.

Quote:Euan is going to be working on a PR for the TinyMCE editor update so we can launch 1.9 with more than just a responsive theme.

But is that really such a high priority and required for 1.9.0 release? Can't that be done with 1.9.1 so we can get the ball rolling?

(2018-06-30, 06:21 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:Euan is going to be working on a PR for the TinyMCE editor update so we can launch 1.9 with more than just a responsive theme.

But is that really such a high priority and required for 1.9.0 release? Can't that be done with 1.9.1 so we can get the ball rolling?

Replacing the editor with TinyMCE isn't as huge of a task as it sounds IMO. The problem with the old 1.6* editor was mobile compatibility, and the only reason why it's not coming back and we're going with TinyMCE instead is because there's an experienced team (in relation to editors) behind it.

This is the perfect time to push out a new editor especially whilst the theme's still being worked on, leaving 1.9* for much less significant things.

Quote:Replacing the editor with TinyMCE isn't as huge of a task as it sounds IMO.

I'm aware that it may not take very long but again, is it necessary? And little things add up. Focus imho is what MyBB dev team needs. You can easily start deciding to add a little of this, then a little of that, and next thing you know it's weeks and weeks delayed because despite these being small changes we have a relatively small team with a small amount of free time. This is the cause for long delays.

So yeah, change the editor. But understand the delays hurt the project and that a responsive theme should be the only concern anyone should have. Changing the editor if it's as easy as you say can then be done in a future 1.9x update.

It makes sense to me to launch 1.9 with theme related improvements. Reponsive being the main obviously but additionally the editor and other small changes which are submitted. I think breaking all of the themes at once rather than in stages makes more sense.

(2018-06-30, 04:34 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]

Google Wrote:Starting April 21, 2015, Google Search will be expanding its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in Google Search results. Users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results optimized for their devices.

Notice the "significant impact" part?  Google results are now mobile-first for SEO.

Google doesn't care one whit which version of MyBB you use. You can make any of them responsive.

Whoever considers this to be oh-so-important has already done it years ago.

MyBB GoMobile has been available back with MyBB 1.4? 1.6? Anyway, Google as in https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly is perfectly happy with it.

MyBB 1.9 is not the magical solution that makes every existing MyBB board responsive. A new theme will be hard to update to, at minimum you have to be prepared to lose, and/or re-do, all of your customizations. People will opt to not bother with it. I fully expect people to whine a lot about this release because things like this can't be a 1-click-update magic.

MyBB 1.9 will make MyBB more responsive in the long run for new MyBB installs, and new themes to be created in the future; whoever is impatiently waiting for this update hoping it will resolve issues with existing boards in the short-term, you simply have the wrong expectations. If you need a solution for a specific board right now because of "significant impact", you have to do it yourself.

Quote:Google doesn't care one whit which version of MyBB you use.

They do care. If your argument is to use a dual theme with GoMobile I'm going to disagree that it's a sensible way to execute mobile compliance. If you run two themes both have to be altered for plugins. If you run two themes you do have twice the amount of problems. GoMobile won't have the elements from plugins and still look good and that's because it is not a responsive theme. Only one purely designed for mobile size. That's not the standard of today.

Quote:Whoever considers this to be oh-so-important has already done it years ago.

What you say is true. Which is why I'm telling MyBB very adamantly how important it is. Apparently MyBB didn't get the memo. I don't understand the pushback except the fact you make that Google SEO plugin.

Quote:MyBB 1.9 is not the magical solution that makes every existing MyBB board responsive.

Correct, MyBB software is the nightmare software you don't want to run if you expect mobile compatibility. MyBB could solve this problem just as the competing software in the market has already done. By making a responsive theme as default asap.

Quote: whoever is impatiently waiting for this update hoping it will resolve issues with existing boards in the short-term, you simply have the wrong expectations. If you need a solution for a specific board right now because of "significant impact", you have to do it yourself.

Absolutely fair comments. But a responsive theme is going to break updates and make them much more of a hassle. I'd rather give $1000 to the MyBB team to have a responsive design default than to pay a designer $1000 for a custom one at HF that will break on an update. I'm also caught in a situation where I want to be as close to MyBB base as possible and I like their 1.9x concept but if I have to wait 18 months that's going to be a problem. It's not like their time schedule history has been very good and I can rely on them to make releases in reasonably fashionable time. And sure, I know you'll say they are volunteers and work for free but that's sort of my point. If excuses are going to be made when it comes to scheduling releases then make sure to prioritize what really needs to be done.

I know the moment I have my own responsive theme it's the moment I'll be trapped from upgrading to new versions of MyBB, even minor ones.

It doesn't take much research on the forums to see how many request, expect, and need a responsive theme. For your position to be "do it yourself" seems antiquated and argumentative to the needs of the community. Responsive theme should have been done for 1.8x and it was not. I wasn't vocal at all during that time, and I feel I should have been. I might have rallied the community for that change. I do hope that my voice isn't only heard but also supported by the community.

Is there anyone who will say that MyBB doesn't need a default responsive theme immediately? MyBB used to stand up well against paid software. Now it's very far behind on a number of fronts. I'll even say that 1.8x was a step backwards because of all the bugs. 1.8x had no significant changes which truly enhanced functionality. 1.8x was a different table-based theme, a change to an editor we all know sucks, and a move to jquery which from the end-user perspective is more or less the same.

If MyBB expects to remain relevant it must be responsive and not in a year. Personally, I think they recognize this already. As I continue to state though, focus needs to be 100% and everything else pushed aside.

(2018-07-01, 01:19 AM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]If your argument is to use a dual theme with GoMobile I'm going to disagree that it's a sensible way to execute mobile compliance.

It's just an example, for a solution that was readily available for free years ago, and it works - for Google too, so the entire "we have to rush this because of google!!1" argument is a bit baloney.

You can just as well use a real responsive theme within the existing template system of MyBB 1.8. If you wanted responsive ASAP you'd do just that without any other code change.

But that's not what MyBB 1.9 is about. It's about development. It's outlined in the first paragraph of the blog post.

What you are asking for (theme only ffs) is not development. This is something that can be done by the community or by yourself, no need to wait for MyBB to release a new version at all.

I like myBB, but I need it to be responsive. I tried myBB GoMobile some years ago but that didn't work well as it wasn't being updated. Starting over with a 1.8 responsive theme when 1.9 is allegedly coming soon seems like a waste of time and energy. But if 1.9 isn't coming soon, I'll need to go elsewhere for responsive software. Can't wait forever for myBB however much I like it.