Musicalmidget’s Blog

I’ve been syaing it’s coming for a while, but the new MyBB Mods website finally went live today. The new website boasts a host of new features and improvements. I mentioned some of the important ones in the official announcement, mostly so as authors could begin making the required changes to their submissions as soon as possible. However, there are plenty of other things that weren’t in the announcement. Here are a few…

The statistics page has had a major overhaul. You can now view the latest submissions and updates, the most popular submissions and the highest rated. Additionally, for each, you can choose to view only submissions of a certain type. For example, I could click “most popular downloads”, and then filter the results using the options on the left to view the most popular plugins only, or the most popular themes, and so on.

With the help of some AJAX magic, you can edit your reviews inline, just like you can in MyBB or on the MyBB Ideas site.

When you make a submission, you can specify a link to a live demonstration of your mod or theme. If you enter an address here, it’s automatically shown to users along with the other options on the information page for your submission.

It’s not so much just me running the mods site anymore. I’ve had help from a number of people and I should really take this opportunity to thank Chris Boulton and Tikitiki for their help during the development of the new site. Together, we’ve really worked hard on this update and we hope you enjoy the new site!

You won’t have seen much of me over these last couple of days. I’ve not vanished off the face of the earth, at least not yet anyway. I’ve instead been beavering away at some of the many new features planned for MyBB Mods, particularly the submissions page. I posted a while ago that I’d started planning and putting together the new system, but the last couple of days I’ve been working almost constantly on turning the plans into a reality. There are so many things to do though, I’m nowhere near finished yet.

I’m very excited about some of the planned features and would love to show you them all, but I’m going to resist for the moment. I will give a related update on the submissions script though. Did I say submissions script rather than submissions page? I did. Thanks to the new features for the site, it simply isn’t feasible to keep all the submission options on one page. Rather, the new and improved script will be split into four steps, two of which are optional.

Step one is where the basic information about the submission is entered. A screenshot of step one is attached to this post. It’s largely the same as the last screenshot I posted, although there are a few differences. Can you spot them? Note that the image is cropped this time. That’s because some of the new features I’ve been working on were also displayed on the page, and tempting though it may be, I’m not ready to reveal them quite yet. I was up until 5AM in the morning working on this, largely because I was fighting as usual with the simplest of javascript code (another hint at something on the page maybe?).

Step two is where the actual submission file is uploaded. Why not allow that in step one you may ask? Well, during step one, a GUID (globally unique identifier) is generated for the submission. This GUID can be added to a the info function of a plugin before it is uploaded in step 2. By adding the GUID, users of the plugin will be able to check for plugin updates with only one click in the new Admin CP that you’ll see in MyBB 1.4. For more information on the feature, see Tikitiki’s related blog entry. The GUID is shown to the user during step two if they’re submitting a plugin, as are suggested instructions for adding the GUID to the plugin file. Below the GUID is the file upload field, which is obviously shown for all submissions. A screenshot of step two is also attached. Note that the “What is this?” and “Show me an example…” links load the associated content below in a javascript controlled drop-down (that wasn’t the javascript causing me problems, so what was? ). Also just a quick note that the existing submissions system has been generating GUIDs for new submissions since the end of March, although they haven’t yet been shown to users for implementation, since only a select few have access to the version checking feature at the moment. However, once MyBB 1.4 is released, users who already have submissions in the MyBB Mods database will be able to see their GUID (or generate one if their submission was made before the end of March 2007) from the site control panel.

Steps three and four are both related to some of the new features I’ve been working on. They’re also both entirely optional, so users who don’t want to make use of them don’t have to go through a submission process that is longer and more complicated than it needs to be. Instead, if a user decided not to make use of one of the features, they can simply skip the step and be done with it. I don’t have any screenshots of these new features for you just yet, but keep an eye on this space.

Although the submissions script still may change before it goes live, the current step four would provide some easy to find additional information about a submission, if the author decided to use it. Not any old information though, something specific. The current step three is also very exciting and could potentially benefit all MyBB users.

Am I being a little vague? All will be revealed soon.

I haven’t even scratched the surface on some of the other things I’ve been working on or have planned. But, after working until 5AM yesterday and from 11AM to now (about 3:30AM) today, I hope the hard work pays off and users can start enjoying the updated site soon.

Take a look at the Modifications and Plugins page at MyBB Mods. Notice anything? There are now 200 different downloads available for MyBB 1.2, of which around 175 are plugins. Similarly, 68 themes are now available for MyBB 1.2, and that number is steadily increasing. I dare say the current theming contest at MyBB Fans could have something to do with the increasing number of themes cropping up not just at MyBB Mods, but around the MyBB community in general.

Anyway, since the 200 limit has now been reached, I thought I’d share a little something. I moved back home again yesterday after finishing my second year at university. Today, I decided to sit back and make a start on a few improvements planned for MyBB Mods. The first of these improvements is to do with download previews. The current system is very old and has needed updating for sometime now. Currently, authors can link to two URLs to provide previews of their submissions. In order to bring the preview feature up to date, authors will soon be able to submit images with their submissions, which will then be shown automatically on the download information page (thumbnails will be shown in the case of large images). The system will work in a similar way to the MyBB attachment system, in that you’ll be able to upload the attachment and add it to the submission. There will be a limit on the number of images which can be attached to submissions. Although that limit hasn’t yet been decided, it will be more than two, which is all that the current URL based system allows for.

Fancy a screenshot?

I should point out that the values entered into the form in the above screenshot are blank by default, however I placed information into them for the purpose of the screenshot.

The system is a long way from finished and there are several other features I want to create/improve upon before any of them go live. I’ll be working on them over the summer however, with a little bit of enjoying summer too. I’m sure I’ll post some more information soon though.

If I’ve said it once then I’ll say it again. The summer holidays are great for getting things done I haven’t had the time to do during university term time. Today for instance, I was able to put the finishing touches on a new design for MyBB Mods that I’ve been working on for a while now. You can finally see it in action at the main MyBB Mods website.

There are a couple of new features in todays updates, but most are layout based. Some additional features will be added shortly. I’m delighted to have finally been able to use some icons from the Silk icon set available from Fam Fam Fam in the new design. I originally came across this fantastic icon set when Chris Boulton began using some of the icons on his personal blog. Since then, I’ve noticed them cropping up all over the web, and why not? They’re pretty damn nice and free to use too!

With one large job out of the way today, tomorrow means I’m free to get back to work on something I’m currently implementing into the MyBB 1.2 code. Anyone with access to the MyBB staff forums will probably know what this is. Everyone else, well you’ll see soon enough. I haven’t posted much MyBB related stuff on this blog for a while, but now I’m working more on the development of MyBB again, there’s likely to be more MyBB related postings here in the future.