SurfiOnline

So normally we wouldn’t go all out and completely reveal a new and upcoming feature in MyBB 1.4 but this time, it’s an exception. If you’ve read the MyBB Games interview with Ryan then you’d have heard about the feature already.

You guys asked for it, we promised it for 1.2 but sadly had to leave the feature out - but we’re delivering now. MyBB 1.4 will include a brand new and completely redeveloped calendar/event system. From ranged and recurring events through to multiple calendars and moderation tools, we’ve got the features you’d see in a commercial bulletin board for free.

So lets take a look at what I spent pain staking nights writing.

Refreshed Monthly View

New Weekly View

You can now drill down in to a weekly overview by clicking the small >> arrows on the monthly view. It’s smart and will show you an entire week and where different months end/begin.

Event View

The detailed event view page has also been refreshed.

The Ranged and Recurring Options

When creating an event you’ve got a fair amount of options in regards to the date and time you want it to show up on. We needed an interface which didn’t just throw it all at you. Similarly to the Google Calendar event creation - we show and hide the different options for each recurrence type depending on what you’ve selected.

You can also see here you can specify which time zone you want the event to show up in.

Jump Between Calendars

With support for multiple calendars, you need a way to move between them!

Mini Calendars

You can also generate mini versions of the monthly calendar view that even link to days with events on them. Stock with MyBB, these are shown on the weekly view of the calendar but you can easily generate your own with the call of a function.

And More?

There’s some things I can’t show you right now - essentially our Admin CP interface for managing calendars and permissions but it’s very powerful. We’re not ready to release screenshots of our new Admin CP at this time.

• Each calendar can have permissions for groups assigned to it - you can make a particular group a moderator of the calendar for example. Otherwise calendar permissions are inherited from the default group permissions.
• Ability to set the start day of the week for each calendar - for example set the start of the week to a Monday instead of the default Sunday
• Don’t want to show birthdays on a particular calendar? Disable them. Want to limit the number of events before “X Events” is shown? Too easy.
• Ability to specify if you wish to moderate all events for a particular calendar before they’re visible (with calendar permissions for groups able to bypass the moderation queue)
• Enable HTML, MyCode, IMG Code and smilies on a per-calendar basis.

Stay tuned for another MyBB update some time soon.

Yes, we’re still working on it. As I’ve already told numerous people, we’re taking the time on putting together a quality and stable release, a lot better than all past releases on MyBB. There are going to be improvements everywhere. Major commits have slowed down recently and there is concentration being put in to existing features as well as attention to detail on others.

New Captcha Images

Captcha images are the random images generated on registration used to disallow automated registrations. The current ones in MyBB suck because they were fairly easy for bots to bypass. I’ve just put in place a new system which is fairly extensive and random which should improve a lot on the existing captcha images.

• The system supports using random TTF (True-type fonts) for characters if your server supports Freetype. A directory exists in which you can upload your own custom TTF fonts which will be randomly selected per character. TTF based characters also randomise in terms of size, angle, colour and shadow position. Servers which do not support TTF fonts will use plain GD fonts in multiple characters and offset positions, but “blown up” bigger to take up more space on the canvas.
• Along with the previous random ‘dots’ on the canvas of the image, there will be random circles, lines, and squares which are also random colours.
• Strings are now only 5 characters - which still leaves for a huge number of possible combinations but allows the characters to be spread out and easier to read by people.

For example, four generated images.

The first image shows standard generation using the built in (ugly) GD fonts, the second shows generation with Trebuchet MS as the font, and the other two show the use of random fonts per character.

Translatable Settings

“But I could already do that by renaming them…” you say. Bad idea! We override them during upgrades, you’ll make them only available in one language. With 1.2 you’ll now be able to do this with the aid of language files:
/**
* Translation instructions for settings and setting groups:
*
* Groups:
* * Obtain the group name (not title) from the edit group page.
* * Add language variables in the following format:
* $l['setting_group_{name}'] = “Group Name Here”;
* $l['setting_group_{name}_desc'] = “Group Description”;
*
* Ex:
* $l['setting_group_general'] = “General Settings”;
* $l['setting_group_general_desc'] = “Description of general settings here”;
*
* Settings:
* * Obtain the setting name from the edit seting page.
* * Add language variables in the following format:
* $l['setting_{name}'] = “Setting Name Here”;
* $l['setting_{name}_desc'] = “Setting Description”;
*
* Ex:
* $l['setting_bbname'] = “Board Name”;
* $l['setting_bbname_desc'] = “Description for board name here”;
*
*/

Nifty.

Subscription Mail Queue

In the code, I’ve also implemented a queue based subscription mailing system. For small boards this won’t make much of a difference but those boards with a larger user base and many people subscribed to threads and forums will notice the difference.

The way it works is when a reply is made to a subscribed thread, all emails for the subscribers are generated and then stored in the database. At the end of each page view, MyBB checks to see how many messages are in the mail queue - if there are some, it will send a maxiumum of 20 of those messages per page view until the queue is empty.

Other New Things

• Theme CSS can be cached to the file system.
• MYBB_ROOT and MYBB_ADMIN_DIR constants define locations within MyBB. All opened files/folders are referenced with these paths.
• RSS & Atom (Yes, Atom support was also added) auto discovery.
• Mr. Clippy (a paperclip) is making his way to threads with attachments. From now on, MyBB tracks the number of attachments per thread and displays a little paperclip on the forum display page with that number.
• Support for MySQLi (MySQL Improved)
• For moderators, the number of unapproved threads/posts in a forum is displayed on the index, the number of posts unapproved in a thread is also shown on the forum display page.
• Search flood checking - A user can only perform 1 search in x seconds.

There is of course, more than that and we’re working to get a release ready.

So today after an interesting discussion with Kieran, one of the other MyBB developers, about showing different notices to users and such (such as if their private messaging quota is used) I suggested we use a bitfield/bitwise system for storing which “notices” the user still has visible (and hasn’t dismissed). Not knowing much about how bitwise works in PHP apart from how it’s calculated using binary I set out to do some experiementation and find out the end results.

Along with everything in PHP, bitwise operators are easy to grasp and can easily be used in IF statements to check the value of a “bit field”. Take a look at the following code:

<?php
$notices['can_view'] = 1;
$notices['can_post_threads'] = 2;
$notices['can_post_replies'] = 4;
$notices['can_edit'] = 8;

$testers[1] = 1;
$testers[2] = 5;
$testers[3] = 9;
$testers[4] = 14;

foreach($testers as $key => $tester)
{
    echo “$key”;
    foreach($notices as $key => $notice)
    {
        if($tester & $notice)
        {
            echo ” - $key”;
        }
    }
    echo “<br />”;
}
?>


Now thise code will print out the following:
1 - can_view
2 - can_view - can_post_replies
3 - can_view - can_edit
4 - can_post_threads - can_post_replies - can_edit

So basically we can store a lot of data (be it preferences, yes/no options, permissions) in the one column in the database and variable in PHP and just perform if()’s to see if a certain value is in the field. (or an option is selected in a users profile).

For example, using the above code the following code would calculate if a user ($tester[1]) had the can_edit permission:

if($tester[1] & $notices['can_edit'])
{
    echo “This user can edit”;
}
else
{
    echo “This user cannot edit”;
}


The other interesting this is that this would also allow users to easily and effectively add their own “user options” or “permissions” to MyBB without having to modify the database by adding a new column to store the data - in fact using bitwise operators would reduce the size of the database all together.

I can see many useful places this can be implemented in to MyBB:

• The permissions system for user groups and forums
• User options (such as if they want to receive email notification to threads)
• Forum settings (such as is open, can use BB code)
• Basically any other options which can have a yes/no or on/off value

Chances are we’ll end up moving to a system like this for MyBB for storing these preferences and permissions, but instead of running in to it we’ll research it some more and find out the best possible ways of implementing it.

(Someone sent me an email saying I should write more about PHP/MyBB here :P)

According to the Wheelman, I don’t update this place as much as I should be updating it and i’m inclined to believe him. I mean, why is it so hard for me to spend 10 minutes of my not-very-precious time writing out a new post? So, from now on i’m going to try and keep this place updated a couple of times a week and have a few ideas for a bit of interesting content such as tips and tricks for developers, designers, and just general tips on software usage.

I signed out of school yesterday as my exams finished last Thursday for good. So many people have gone around asking me how it feels to be free, and to be totally honest, to me it doesn’t feel a piece different from before.

I have lots of things going on at the moment such as doing my schools website (still!), the yearbook CD for my year, getting MyBB 1.0 Final ready for release/beta, working at Target, and much more. My spare time is actually more scarce than before! Heh.

Now MyBB 1.0 Final. I’m posting this here instead of the MyBB Community Forums, for a change. Work is progressing along at a pretty ordinary pace at the moment with a few new features whose implementation has been completed:

• Archive/lo-fi version of the board content (forums, threads, posts).
• New permissions system including support for users being in multiple groups.
• Users can join ‘publically joinable groups’, these groups can optionally have group leaders who have to approve memberships before members are listed in the group.
• New theme system, allowing pretty much full customisation of the board via CSS, with theme inheritance and parenting systems.
• New header layout design (and a new logo!)
• New postbit and New Thread/Post Reply images
• A built in module system allowing easy expansion and control of new features.

With the module system in MyBB, we plan to offer a variety of modules such as a shoutbox, gallery, and blog system which are not included in the MyBB release by default, but can be downloaded via the MyBB website and installation is as simple as uploading the required files, going to the Admin CP, modules section and clicking ‘Install’ or ‘Activate’. The module will then be able to be deactivated, managed, or uninstalled via the same modules section.

The new header design resolves the incompatibility problems with various old web browsers (such as Mac versions of IE), and provides a more attractive and ergonomic menu and toplinks section as well as the welcome back message. The new header design incorporates a new clean version of the MyBB logo which gives a stylish look but still maintains the simplistic layout design.

You’ll learn more about these changes when we post more information regarding the new features as well as some screenshots of the new version in the MyBB Community Forums, but i’m telling you now - this release is something to really look forward to!

In that scarce free time I mentioned above i’ve also been experimenting with WordPress 1.3 Alpha 4, the new features it contains - specifically the new theme system, to work out how i’m going to get this website updated when 1.3 is finally released, as well as how I can use the custom page designer included with the release to my full advantage to generate pages as well s the menu’s which you see throughout the site. I’ll probably end up posting more information about this further on in the week as well as some of the code I will be using. The WordPress team have done a really nice job with the release too, incporporating more than I could ever imagine, but just what I need in to their awesome software.

I think its a bit of TV time now, while I get some Windows and Linux updates downloaded and installed.

Catchya later!

As apart of our senior physics coarse we have studied two topics relating to space and the universe and galaxies around us. These two topics were “space” and “astrophysics”. Space is kind of the introduction topic, and then astrophysics is an elective which can be taken up. Astrophysics (well, astrophotography in particular) is a really strong interest of mine and last night (Tuesday, 21st September) I had the pleasure of attending an excursion with my classmates (our last excursion forever! :-o) to an observatory in Wentworth Falls (the Blue Mountains). They have an impressive setup for a small observatory and they have an amazing sky, so dark and so full of stars. We chose a really good night to go too. We arrived (after departing school at 4:30pm) at the observatory at around about 8pm (thanks to the peak hour traffic). The company on the bus was good too (Thanks Fry and all of the others! :p, although now she probably regrets sitting next to me ;)) and everyone had a great (unforgetable) time too.

We were split up in to two groups, each group being the two different classes. We first went to watch and learn about the night sky using a framous astronomy program called Starry Nights. I have the same program at home and contsantly track various stars, constallations and planets using it. Okay, back to the topic. After learning about the sky we swapped over with the other group and went to the small observatory. The scope was excellent in terms of resolution and sensitibity and our “hosts” knew exactly what they were looking for and where to find it. We looked at the moon, Alpha Centauri, and one of the more famous globular clusters (who’s name I forget right now). We decided to go back to the moon in the end as we had some time left over.

Want to see something cool? Below are four images (and one on the right) taken with my 5megapixel camera put up to the end of the scope. They returned some amazing pictures (we took four in total) and the guide/instructor made comment that my camera was setup perfectly for astrophotography in terms of exposure, f-stops, and other settings.

Check them out, they’re awesome! (Warning, they’re about 1.4mb in size and of a large resolution)

• First Photo (A bit over exposed)
• Second Photo (Not very well focused)
• Third Photo (Okay)
• Fourth Photo (The best one, the one on the right)

It was a great time, and these were some amazing shots. I do hope to get in to astrophotography a bit more now, as I have been motivated after seeing these images. I have the equipment, I just don’t have the time or enough experience right now..

..on the Internet.

Every so often, someone talks to me in their own form of abbreviated internet language. This annoys me because you have to sit down and try and figure out what every second word is, then you can at least obtain half a sentence and maybe it is understandable. If you can’t then you have to go back through and read it all, paying close attention. Hopefully after this long and time consuming process you have something that makes sense. But the majority of the time you don’t.

I can’t stand people who abbreviate words excessively on the internet, and what they don’t realise is that sometime is not even an abbreviation, the word is the same length except they change a few letters around, or they could be too lazy to type one more letter to form a ‘real’ word in the English language. Works like “sik”, “guyz”, “newaiz”, “u”, “r”, “nite”. Read more for the abbreviations which are becoming common and annoy me the most!

I can understand this in SMS Messages on a mobile phone because you are limited to a certain amount of characters per message, but on the internet, its not like you are really limited, or you pay by the character or message you send.

It’s not just the abbreviations either. It’s also the aLtErNaTe CaPiTaLiSaTiOn, as well as the all-caps text, such as “OI! MAN! MAN!” That is just plain outright annoying and hard to read. If you want me to read your message and pay any attention, and even respond to it quicker, you could type it properly? Oh, then we also have the people who constantly hassle you, for example, they will say “Hey” once, then when you respond they will say “Hey” four more times, then there is the other groups who will just constantly send you messages even if you don’t reply. For example:
[quote]User: Hey
User: Hi
User: Are you there?[/quote]
If i was there, perhaps i would respond to you?

I can understand things like “bbl”, “brb”, “cya”, because I too use them and they are quickly becoming a ’standardised’ way of talking on the internet. But these other abbreviations, people just make them up as they please.

So please! If you are going to talk to me, can you try and talk in English, that we can both understand?

Newaiz! I guess I will be c’in u around!

Common and annoying abbreviations include:

• u = you
• r = are
• y = why
• newaiz = anyways
• guyz = guys (and other words with a z on the end)
• evry1 = everyone
• 2dai = today
• 2morow = tomorrow
• nite = nite

I’m sure there are loads more too, these are all that my brain is capable of picking up right now though..