Hey everyone,

It has certainly been quite a while since a developer last posted a blog entry here. Rest assured, the development of SMF hasn't stalled at all. While it is unfortunately true that a few developers have left, the remaining lot haven't given up hope on the project! We have actually been working together to get RC1 out!

In fact, over 314 entries have been added to the changelog since the release of beta 4 public in September last year; 33.8% of them have even been added in January this year. This effectively means that a lot of bugs were squashed in about four months time.

And it gets even better. RC1 is no longer miles away; in fact, our charter members have had access to a preview of RC1 for almost a week now. We're ironing out the last blocking bugs and hope to release it to the public shortly.

While statistics may appeal to some of you, I expect most of you like to hear solid facts instead. For those of you, I've compiled a short list with the changes to look forward to.

A new, improved profile template
That's right, we changed it, at long last. If you really can't wait, have a look at the profile section on this site.

Improved administration centre areas
While we all agreed the new administration centre is a definite improvement, we thought certain areas could do with some improvement. Among the changed areas are the forum maintenance, server settings, core features and the languages areas.

Better multilingual support for modifications
As most modifications only modify the English language files, this generally caused a lot of confusion for users using other languages on their forums. SMF 2.0 RC1 contains improvements that'll hopefully make this a problem of the past.

Lots of bugfixes
As you'd expect from a supposedly more stable version, it fixes a lot of the bugs that may or may not have haunted your life as an end-user or mod developer. This includes issues with the semantic version of our default theme.

So, what does this all mean? It means SMF 2.0 RC1 will be out soon. I cannot state an exact date, but it's definitely soon enough to be looking forward to.

Aaron

Quote from: Aäron on January 24, 2009, 06:23:10 PM
Hey everyone,

It has certainly been quite a while since a developer last posted a blog entry here. Rest assured, the development of SMF hasn't stalled at all. While it is unfortunately true that a few developers have left, the remaining lot haven't given up hope on the project! We have actually been working together to get RC1 out!

In fact, over 314 entries have been added to the changelog since the release of beta 4 public in September last year; 33.8% of them have even been added in January this year. This effectively means that a lot of bugs were squashed in about four months time.

And it gets even better. RC1 is no longer miles away; in fact, our charter members have had access to a preview of RC1 for almost a week now. We're ironing out the last blocking bugs and hope to release it to the public shortly.

While statistics may appeal to some of you, I expect most of you like to hear solid facts instead. For those of you, I've compiled a short list with the changes to look forward to.

A new, improved profile template
That's right, we changed it, at long last. If you really can't wait, have a look at the profile section on this site.

Improved administration centre areas
While we all agreed the new administration centre is a definite improvement, we thought certain areas could do with some improvement. Among the changed areas are the forum maintenance, server settings, core features and the languages areas.

Better multilingual support for modifications
As most modifications only modify the English language files, this generally caused a lot of confusion for users using other languages on their forums. SMF 2.0 RC1 contains improvements that'll hopefully make this a problem of the past.

Lots of bugfixes
As you'd expect from a supposedly more stable version, it fixes a lot of the bugs that may or may not have haunted your life as an end-user or mod developer. This includes issues with the semantic version of our default theme.

So, what does this all mean? It means SMF 2.0 RC1 will be out soon. I cannot state an exact date, but it's definitely soon enough to be looking forward to.

Aaron

Well I hope it gets released today or tomorrow.

That's excellent news! Thanks for the update, Aaron. Can't wait until RC1 is released.

excellent news thanks Aaron

Very good Aaron.

Quick question, witch developers left?

No. The witches stayed. They're good at brewing up cauldrons of new code.

Quote from: antechinus on January 24, 2009, 10:25:50 PM
No. The witches stayed. They're good at brewing up cauldrons of new code.

-.-
nuff said

Yeah! Can't wait!

Quote from: antechinus on January 24, 2009, 10:25:50 PM
No. The witches stayed. They're good at brewing up cauldrons of new code.

I actually laughed aloud to that one!!

Keep up the good work Devs!! And great work so far

Great work devs ,keep it up 

I can't remember are there still template changes to be made before release or are those pretty much done with?

Oh and thanks for the good news.

Very nice to read.
Will the upgrading/updating after RC1 be abled to be made through the adminpanel/package manager, so we don't have to upload/download  patches.
I know, i'm lazy. I don't like uploading/downloading stuff back and forth.

Quote from: Tapsa2 on January 25, 2009, 04:22:11 PM
Very nice to read.
Will the upgrading/updating after RC1 be abled to be made through the adminpanel/package manager, so we don't have to upload/download  patches.
I know, i'm lazy. I don't like uploading/downloading stuff back and forth.

Yes, I believe you are going to need to download it and replace the files. As there are many changes between betas and RCs.

Quote from: Blind Bandit on January 25, 2009, 12:46:59 PM
I can't remember are there still template changes to be made before release or are those pretty much done with?

Oh and thanks for the good news.

There are more template changes coming. The idea is to get them all done by the time it goes final.

Quote from: Tapsa2 on January 25, 2009, 04:22:11 PM
Very nice to read.
Will the upgrading/updating after RC1 be abled to be made through the adminpanel/package manager, so we don't have to upload/download  patches.
I know, i'm lazy. I don't like uploading/downloading stuff back and forth.

I believe the patches start with final versions.  There will likely be too many changes and bugfixes to generate an update package.  Update packages are meant to be for minor updates, not major updates involving a lot of changes

Quote from: antechinus on January 25, 2009, 04:32:41 PM

Quote from: Blind Bandit on January 25, 2009, 12:46:59 PM
I can't remember are there still template changes to be made before release or are those pretty much done with?

Oh and thanks for the good news.

There are more template changes coming. The idea is to get them all done by the time it goes final.

Thanks for the clarification.  Hopefully the road to gold will be a little more expedient now that RC1 is almost here.

How far is that mile in time .

excellent news!

Quote from: Mystery? on January 25, 2009, 07:21:08 PM
How far is that mile in time .

A mile is 1/186,282 of a second. So it should be here by the time you read this post : )

gotta say, RCfun is 1 to play with

Stop teasing them.

I said nothing about RC1.

Quote from: antechinus on January 25, 2009, 11:41:24 PM
Stop teasing them.

Why? I would if I were just a charter LOL

Quote from: Fustrate on January 26, 2009, 01:14:37 AM
I said nothing about RC1.

But you were very crafty with your words

I cannot wait to upgrade. Great job guys

good news 

Quote from: α¢αηѕ on January 24, 2009, 10:18:18 PM
Very good Aaron.

Quick question, witch developers left?

http://www.simplemachines.org/about/team.php

Quote from: H on January 26, 2009, 03:10:55 PM

Quote from: α¢αηѕ on January 24, 2009, 10:18:18 PM
Very good Aaron.

Quick question, witch developers left?

http://www.simplemachines.org/about/team.php

wasnt their always 4

Thantos, Jay, and Orstio come to mind

Great news! Can't wait to see RC1.

Excellent news!! Keep up the great work guys!!

Bout time there was something posted about this, and for those who want to know a time fram for release I have one thing to say:

The release date is any time between the time of this post and the actual time of release, when is that? No one knows, guess we'll have to be patient

It's tomorrow!!

(always coming but never here, not literally tomorrow )

Very exciting news!
Does SMF2 have:
* WYSIWYG posts?
* Auto-backup plug ins or new core auto-backup that emails the backup to you?
* RC1 themes that also work when it "goes Gold"? Or will themes possibly need a total overhaul when upgrading to Gold? What does upgrading to Gold mean?
* Easier CSS templates or theme modification, more CSS based?
Now I'm suddenly all excited about SMF 2 ... I thought it was going to be light-years away. 

Quote from: eclipsenow on January 30, 2009, 05:16:08 PM
Very exciting news!
Does SMF2 have:
* WYSIWYG posts?
* Auto-backup plug ins or new core auto-backup that emails the backup to you?
* RC1 themes that also work when it "goes Gold"? Or will themes possibly need a total overhaul when upgrading to Gold? What does upgrading to Gold mean?
* Easier CSS templates or theme modification, more CSS based?
Now I'm suddenly all excited about SMF 2 ... I thought it was going to be light-years away. 

1) WYSIWYG Editor - yes
2) Auto-backups - No? There is always room for a plug-in's.
3) Themes from SMF2.0 RC1 will probably need to be updated to work with final.
4) Yes many more things are CSS based.

Quote from: eclipsenow on January 30, 2009, 05:16:08 PM
* RC1 themes that also work when it "goes Gold"? Or will themes possibly need a total overhaul when upgrading to Gold? What does upgrading to Gold mean?

SMF 2.0 RC1 templates won't probably work with SMF 2.0 Final. They might work, it depends on changes made to templates and CSS.

Thanks for that. Are there less files to modify in the templates?

Is there a way to load a "package" of say 6-10 files into Dreamweaver just for styling purposes? Say a dummy template set up so that it "looks" like SMF 2 and then maybe just 1 or 2 CSS files to edit (with accompanying images to copy across to image folders, etc)?

If it was in Dreamweaver, I might have a hope of understanding how to style. My wife is a professional "blue chip" graphic designer, but we mainly concentrate on print. I'm just beginning to learn CSS and am pretty bad at the "back end" side of things. I find editing XHTML files interspersed with php quite frightening. 

If I had just a few CSS files to edit in DW, I might be able to get my head around it all and offer a few clean "designer" themes... but as it is, our design is lightyears ahead of our ability in backend / web stuff. Any ideas?

No there are not less files to modify.

You will be able to do a lot with just css though. Loading them would be a matter of selecting the ones you want to load. Standard operating procedure. Why would they need to be in a package?

To format the CSS in Dreamweaver I'd like the XHTML pages that "set up" the basic "content" of the site for me... otherwise, what's the point of using Dreamweaver? I may as well just write the code in Firefox's firebug or something (which has its limitations as it doesn't show background images in the CSS).

The whole point is that I'm not that comfortable with CSS yet, and can't just "think in code". I need a few content pages that "mimic" the content of the forum so that I can modify the CSS in dreamweaver and see it as I go.

Personally I've never used Dreamweaver anyway. Best way to do this sort of thing is on a local host. Quick. Easy. Immediate results. If it's trashed it can be fixed in no time. Piece of cake. Once I have it pretty much sorted, then it goes online.

Is there one "master-blank" template that has really easy instructions on how to modify the themes? What about youtube tutorials so I can see a "master" at work?

It would be awesome to just have a nice, clean, user-friendly template that had say an easy header plug-in at the very least. If I were running SMF, I'd even have such a thing core.

EG: 3 basic core themes with different but easy WYSIWIG modifying, and plug ins for uploading very specific headers. (EG: The "Professional-basic" header must be 770 pixels wide and can have a height between 70 and 100. Upload HERE) and then the widget uploads it to the right spot, so that even total newbies can do it.

But I'm not a php or programmer guy, so I'm all hot air and ideals, not in the real world I guess.

They'd call that "bloat" and the devs hate bloat. Really editing css isn't hard at all once you get the hang of it, and that doesn't take long. You could request a mod to do this I suppose but really most people don't do a lot of it. It's more of interest to designers, and if you're doing a lot of design work you really do need to learn at least some coding.

Like I said, local hosts (server on your desktop for testing) are great.

Yeah, I've tried doing Joomla on MAMP but the thing is I don't think in CSS yet, and get a block when I get Firebug open to code. Also, while I would probably appreciate it as a "newbie designer", I'm talking about theme editing for the very technically challenged that just used Fantastico to install SMF, let alone playing with individual files.

Hmmm. I find Firebug rather intractable myself and rarely if ever use it. I do most things in Notepad++ and FF Web Developer. The thing I like about the local host is that transferring images and files is so quick and easy.

Anyway yes, you could add umpteen features to make editing mindless but it isn't going to happen with SMF. There are plenty of custom themes around and minor changes really aren't hard. Even complete beginners manage them fairly well as long as they get a bit of advice.

OK.... I see your point.

Also, I meant Web Dev... the CSS editor rocks (apart from omitting background images). Also the find DIV / block elements etc... it's all good.

While learning Joomla or CSS on Lynda.com, they constantly RAVE about Firefox's Web Dev.

Quote from: Aäron on January 24, 2009, 06:23:10 PM


A new, improved profile template
That's right, we changed it, at long last. If you really can't wait, have a look at the profile section on this site.

I just can say: "wow!"

Yep, it's all good. However, on a tangent thread I just asked if there was a phpbb3 to SMF2 RC1 converter being developed. Imagine all those phpbb3 guys getting fed up with copying code into strange boxes when they could just upload a package with the package manager. Imagine them hearing that RC1 was out! Imagine them rushing over here and finding a converter ready to rock and roll. That's what I'm talking about!

(Anyway, it's a bit off this thread topic so if you have a comment please answer at link above).

Did I ask if WYSIWYG posting will be a part of RC1?   Some of my newbie board members can't seem to get their heads around the "preview" function and would like to WYSIWYG... it kind of gets me thinking of mybb which has WYSIWYG (but no where near as large a community support, or even Fantastico support for that matter).

Anyone see this comparison at forum matrix before?
http://www.forummatrix.org/compare/MyBB+SMF

WYSIWYG has been part of Beta 4 so yeah it's in RC1.

I've seen forum matrix's comparison before

Quote from: Jade on January 31, 2009, 05:32:27 PM
WYSIWYG has been part of Beta 4 so yeah it's in RC1.

I've seen forum matrix's comparison before

Its been there since before Beta1 too.

Quote from: Antechinus on January 30, 2009, 11:04:49 PM
<<< The thing I like about the local host is that transferring images and files is so quick and easy.

Anyway yes, you could add umpteen features to make editing mindless but it isn't going to happen with SMF. There are plenty of custom themes around and minor changes really aren't hard. Even complete beginners manage them fairly well as long as they get a bit of advice.

I can attest to the truth of this. I had never touched CSS or PHP before about a week ago and I have been able to do some reasonably significant manual tweaking. This http://gregnmary.gotdns.com:8080 started out as Arron's Bright Forest theme and I, as an absolute noob was able to fumble through getting it to look and act how my wife wanted though it's still a work in progress.

What he's saying is exactly how I've been doing it. Keep backups of the files and if I blow anything up I just copy the old one back and play some more.

BTW, I'm using KATE on the same Linux box the forum is running on.

Quote from: Shadow82x on January 31, 2009, 05:39:28 PM

Quote from: Jade on January 31, 2009, 05:32:27 PM
WYSIWYG has been part of Beta 4 so yeah it's in RC1.

I've seen forum matrix's comparison before

Its been there since before Beta1 too.

Wow there was a beta 1?
I came in at 3, then 3.1

Fact: SMF Betas start at random numbers.

Not true.  There's always been a beta 1 and 2.  Beta 1 and 2 of SMF 2.0 were only available to charter members

sorry, forgot the </sarcasm> I've been a CM since 2007

Quote from: Fustrate on January 31, 2009, 10:25:06 PM
Fact: SMF Betas start at random numbers.

I knew it!!

Quote from: metallica48423 on January 31, 2009, 10:31:33 PM
Not true.  There's always been a beta 1 and 2.  Beta 1 and 2 of SMF 2.0 were only available to charter members

Suuuuurrree!!!

Is WYSIWYG core or a plug in? It seems that the moment people start developing a theme in a new release, plug-ins start playing up.

Core.

Wikid! 

Lastly, how hard would it be for me to "theme" the Notify button to "subscribe / unsubscribe" toggle? What would that involve? Some php? (Starts biting nails....  )

Do support staff do stuff like this for Charter Members? 

Changing the text strings is easy...admin interface for it in 2.0 too.

Sweetness... I can't wait. I'm PUMPED! Lol.

Rise up
Can wait..

I cant wait for the RC1 , nice job Developers ^^

I was waiting for someone to say "so when's it coming out"?

so... when's it coming out? ;-) 

Quote from: TarantinoArchives on February 03, 2009, 06:48:31 AM
I was waiting for someone to say "so when's it coming out"?

so... when's it coming out? ;-) 

When it's ready. 

Quote from: ethankcvds on February 03, 2009, 07:50:29 AM

Quote from: TarantinoArchives on February 03, 2009, 06:48:31 AM
I was waiting for someone to say "so when's it coming out"?

so... when's it coming out? ;-) 

When it's ready. 

SMF - the duke nukem among forum software

oh god no

More like the Zelda among forum softwares -- slow releases, but damn good when it does come out

Avatar related

Quote from: metallica48423 on February 03, 2009, 05:40:29 PM
More like the Zelda among forum softwares -- slow releases, but damn good when it does come out

Avatar related

wow!! I will have a lot of fun with SMF 2.0

I'm gonna play SMF 2.0 all night when it comes out... and get the Master Sword before all y'all!

On a totally unrelated subject, shamelessly related back to SMF...

I would NOT recommend EA Store support

SMF gets to your addiction quicker

Well... RC1 is released now Now how about RC2? Lol, jk

Quote from: aldo on February 05, 2009, 11:04:21 PM
Well... RC1 is released now Now how about RC2? Lol, jk

It will released before 2.0 Final

Lol. Are you sure...

Anyways... I guess next time developers post something like this we know its like 5 days away XD

News?

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=293556.0

Quote from: H on March 08, 2009, 08:45:59 AM
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=293556.0

Very nice, and smf 2.0 final?

Well theres still at least one or two RC's before Final.

Well it seems that it isn´t this year that the final release is going to be released

You didn´t gave more news about the project, it is still on?

Who says it can't be this year? It's only May...

Well May is close to July, which is close to September, which is almost November, which is just about December, and then it's 2010.

Quote from: Fustrate on May 04, 2009, 10:53:05 PM
Well May is close to July, which is close to September, which is almost November, which is just about December, and then it's 2010.

And may is also the 5th month of the year, there's 7 more left.

lool :\

no miles, just months away

Quote from: rommul on June 18, 2009, 09:36:06 PM
no miles, just months away

2.0 RC1 was released months ago, actually.

How about new version smf 2.0 RC2 ??

RC2 is under development. It is released when it's ready.

The latest dev blog item by Sleepy is
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=310301.0

Why ask about RC2 when RC1 is an absolute mess still.

Because RC2 should fix issues in RC1.
Thats how our versioning works. Beta 1 through 4, RC1, RC2, RC3?, RC4? 2.0 Final.

The only reason we had RC1-1 was to patch security issues.  We don't usually do a dashed version.
Eg we do not do RC1-1, RC1-2, RC1-3

I have about had it with 2.0 been trying to get the upgrade ready for members despite a certain tech help ( nameless due to being smf staff) who is never there.

Thankfully we have a 1.1.9 backup still so once I find a suitable theme (if there is one) then I will be going back to 1.1.9

It's well-known that 2.0 isn't ready for the big time yet. If your site is mission-critical, you should still be using 1.1.9

Quote from: Fustrate on June 28, 2009, 08:29:16 PM
It's well-known that 2.0 isn't ready for the big time yet. If your site is mission-critical, you should still be using 1.1.9

Funny how many sites are using it now and how long has it been around? Several years I was told.

All 3 of the tech staff recommended an upgrade so...

Quote from: regularexpression on June 28, 2009, 08:14:45 PM
We don't usually do a dashed version.
Eg we do not do RC1-1, RC1-2, RC1-3

Exactly. We do RC1.1 or RC1.2 or RC1.3

Quote from: TheListener on June 28, 2009, 08:31:20 PM

Quote from: Fustrate on June 28, 2009, 08:29:16 PM
It's well-known that 2.0 isn't ready for the big time yet. If your site is mission-critical, you should still be using 1.1.9

Funny how many sites are using it now and how long has it been around? Several years I was told.

All 3 of the tech staff recommended an upgrade so...

They use it because they accept the risks.

Quote from: http://download.simplemachines.org/Note: As this is in early beta we do not suggest running SMF 2.0 RC1.1 on a production site.

Hey now, enough.

Might I suggest filing Bug Reports on the problems you've experienced.  In that way, we can at least take a look at the problems you're having to see if there's something we don't know about.

It would certainly be much more efficient than posting off-color remarks that are more likely to anger someone than help fix any problems that might be legitimate issues.  Otherwise, all we know is what we find in testing and what's reported to us.  I've personally been using 2.0 since the early alpha stage and have had relatively few problems even from that early stage.

So please, let us know.

The frustrating thing is, 2.0 betas and RCs have been out for so long now, that a lot of mod developers have abandoned work on their 1.x versions and focus exclusively on the 2.0 versions. Often there are lingering bugs in the 1.x editions that now simply won't get any attention. While it's good that the mod developers are on-top of development for the upcoming version of SMF, the abandoning of support for 1.x by them doesn't march in-step with the official line about the betas and RCs of SMF2 to not be used for production sites, and to only be used for testing. While that's what's said on the surface, there then seems to be an unspoken assumption that everyone just run the latest 2.0 RC/beta anyhow. Given the complaints about bugs though I'm just not comfortable with that, so I'm "stuck" on 1.1.9 and the buggy, unsupported mods.

It's getting to be that the only way you can play by the rules is to not use mods... one of SMF's biggest strengths (and one of the reasons I went with SMF over the other options). It's like, either live with the buggy mods or live with the buggy SMF2.

I don't bring this up to pressure the SMF development team at all... I understand things take time. I've done software development myself. It's just a statement of fact... and more of a frustration with the mod developers than anything. This transitional period is a rough and difficult one to ride through for those of us running sites.

SMF cannot control mod authors, who are free to support or create mods for what ever version they like . Yes, some mods are buggy....but I've never had issues finding mods for a 1.1.9 site. Any mod for 1.1.x is likely to work, sometimes you just have to install it by hand though. I had 180+ mods on my 1.1.5 forum before I upgraded to 2.0 .

Quote from: Jade Elizabeth on June 29, 2009, 10:52:51 AM
SMF cannot control mod authors, who are free to support or create mods for what ever version they like .

I realize that. I'm just providing the SMF team feedback of the "state of the union", so to speak, from the trenches of a lowly SMF user. While the SMF team can't control mod authors, the culture of SMF being a powerful system because of mods implies the expectation that you're going to use them... so how well that dynamic is working is important information to know, in my opinion.

I'm right now faced with 2 rather important mods (for my forum) that aren't working properly. I'm not naming names in this thread as it isn't the appropriate place... but the feedback from both was basically that they're only working on the 2.0 versions now, no more development is taking place on the 1.x versions, regardless of bugs. It's very frustrating.

Being an SMF user doesnt make you "lowly" or any less than the team. We became team members BECAUSE we use SMF .

Look at my two forums. I customise them to pieces, simply because I can and I like to mess with things. But I USE them, and I'm very active in using them.

Also, I find it frustrating when mod authors WONT upgrade their mod for 2.0, like the drafts mod... I could REALLY use that. It works all ways, and mod authors are getting a lot of pressure over it all .


I've made a few of my own mods, and I support all versions and bug fix when needed . Then again mine change like, 2 lines of code .