Message boards function are a means of communication.  You could say that was the entire point of having a forum and you'd be quite correct.  We work our best to deliver a useful product, but I don't think we really communicate enough with the public.  Our community is often touted as one of our strongest aspects, but that's because our members are so wonderful, not because we relate with you to the best of our ability. At a recent meeting, we decided that more team/community interaction and bonding was needed.  This is one effort to start us off.

We hope to make these newsletters either quarterly or monthly.  They will contain comments from the team that are probably of interest to modders, currently involved members and new members wanting to be more involved. Not everything warrants a full announcement, and reading through a ton of posts to pick up on individual sentences isn't probably something you have time for.  This newsletter should help to summarize everything in one go.


First, we are going to talk on the subject of releases.  As you have probably noticed, we released SMF 1.0.7 and a patch for SMF 1.1RC2 not too long ago.  This went very smoothly and there haven't been any major problems reported from upgrading.  We ask for your help.  Please mention these updates to the Admins of any forums you're a member of which haven't updated yet.  SMF 1.1 RC2 brought with it a lot of new features and a new theme.  This was a big step for us to take and the feedback has been very positive; but as with every major code release, there are bugs.  None of these bugs are too serious, but alas, we have a few, this means we're going to have a third release candidate (RC3).  We feel it is needed to ensure a better release and less stressful time for users of the final version, making sure to keep our reputation intact.

While we're on the subject of bugs, we intend to squash them but we can only fix them if we know they exist. We have implemented a more efficient system for working with bugs once they are reported.  We will be refining this process a bit more in the coming days. We need your help; we need the community to report all bugs they find to the SMF Coding Discussion board. With our new system, we aim to provide more feedback and status reports on bug killing.

For a long time, there hasn't been a lot of information available in one place so we present the Online Manual to counter this. We need feedback and requests. If you think something should be on the manual, please post and ask for it.  If you wish to write something, please notify one of the members of our Doc Team to be sure it isn't already in work, and if it isn't we will do our best to incorporate your work into our manual.

Pink is a controversial color on the team, you may have noticed the ugly/beautiful "On Hiatus" badge of some of our team. This is to identify that those members may not be posting for a short while as they have had to attend to other things but are intending on coming back.  We stand behind the fact that real life always comes first.

With 1.1 Final on the way we will soon be moving our concentration to the next version of SMF, for this we will need your input, so start dreaming and post them to the feature requests board. We also would like to ask your help at the release of SMF 1.1 Final to digg the site. We will make sure there are more details available about this soon.

Well that concludes our first newsletter, as with everything else, we love your feedback, so please post it and let us know what else you'd like to know about. Thanks for reading and I hope it's given you more insight on what's happening at the moment.

what about any openings in teams?
there were some that i responded to
but ife send the pm's to [unknown] and didnt make a copy,
but are there any?

I know you dont have deadlien etc but have you got a rough idea when RC3 will be released

Quote from: Leipe Po on April 09, 2006, 10:02:12 AM
what about any openings in teams?
there were some that i responded to
but ife send the pm's to [unknown] and didnt make a copy,
but are there any?

Theres no openings as such, but the team is always looking and watching people and this is how team allocation works, as long as you keep active and helping in some fashion, you'll be noticed. That topic is old and no longer used.

Quote from: sloopz on April 09, 2006, 10:11:13 AM
I know you dont have deadlien etc but have you got a rough idea when RC3 will be released

Theres no rough idea been posted. Basically when all the major bugs are swatted, then we can think about the release.

Thats a very interesting read there Trekkie. I noticed on the team page that there's a number of the team on hiatus, and even a few that have dropped into the SMF Friend group.

When we released RC2 we said it would be the final Release Candidate.  However due to the number of serious bugs we are seriously considering an RC3.  However nothing has been firmly decided one way or the other.  There are a few major issues that must be addressed prior to an RC3 and/or Final release.  Once those issues are addressed we'll make a decision then.

If you want to be part of the team I suggest that you simply start helping out in the area you want to join.  So if you want to be on the Doc team, head over to the OM and start helping out, write and/or edit some documentation.  If you want to be on the Support team start giving people some solid quality support.  After a couple solid months of doing that don't be afraid of sending a PM to the team leader letting them know your interest.  But whatever happens don't turn down joining one team because you want to be part of another.  We try to work as one team, our badges just show were our main focus is.

I think this is a great idea having newsletters
If there is an RC3 release, will there be new features in it?

I think we've added one security related feature from RC2.  Other then that, there shouldn't be any new features from RC2 to Final.  Adding non-security related features at this time would defeat the purpose of testing.

Quote from: Trekkie101 on April 09, 2006, 07:40:24 AMWith 1.1 Final on the way we will soon be moving our concentration to the next version of SMF, for this we will need your input, so start dreaming and post them to the feature requests board.

I'd suggest keeping us informed as to what features you are considering or which features seem like they could make it into the next release, tentatively, of course.

I think that would go far to satiate a lot of the members who want to know more and stay informed. I'd think it'd also help to prevent members from asking about the same popular features over and over again, such as custom profile fields / extended profiles.

Even just a rough guestimation of things that are being considered would do very nicely, that and how likely it is for a specific feature to be added.


I love the newsletter idea. You may want to post a blurb and a link to this in the News: area at the top so people can find it more easily. Should this be posted in the Chit Chat board, why not the News and Updates board?

i have no problem with digging the story, i already have some of you on my friends list.. however we have to pretty much all digg it at the exact same time, or relativly close to each other.. otherwize digg.com wont really pick up the story
thats not to say that you have to give a date on which your going to release 1.1 final.. it just means that when its released, you have to try and make a time/date when we should all digg the story

also, from what i've noticed.. i think we will need a good solid 50+ diggs in a short amount of time to get the story dugg to the front page

Quote from: anunlike on April 09, 2006, 04:53:15 PM

Quote from: Trekkie101 on April 09, 2006, 07:40:24 AMWith 1.1 Final on the way we will soon be moving our concentration to the next version of SMF, for this we will need your input, so start dreaming and post them to the feature requests board.

I'd suggest keeping us informed as to what features you are considering or which features seem like they could make it into the next release, tentatively, of course.

I think that would go far to satiate a lot of the members who want to know more and stay informed. I'd think it'd also help to prevent members from asking about the same popular features over and over again, such as custom profile fields / extended profiles.

Even just a rough guestimation of things that are being considered would do very nicely, that and how likely it is for a specific feature to be added.


I love the newsletter idea. You may want to post a blurb and a link to this in the News: area at the top so people can find it more easily. Should this be posted in the Chit Chat board, why not the News and Updates board?

We're still not sure the features ourselfs. Later on in the post I ask everyone to posy feature requests, a list will possibly be made public detailing some of our aims, but SMF 1.1 still isnt final so its not our main concentration yet.

I posted it here for the first issue to see how it goes, if it goes well and enough people are intrested we can move it go gain more attention.

Quote from: electrohome88 on April 09, 2006, 04:58:54 PM
i have no problem with digging the story, i already have some of you on my friends list.. however we have to pretty much all digg it at the exact same time, or relativly close to each other.. otherwize digg.com wont really pick up the story
thats not to say that you have to give a date on which your going to release 1.1 final.. it just means that when its released, you have to try and make a time/date when we should all digg the story

also, from what i've noticed.. i think we will need a good solid 50+ diggs in a short amount of time to get the story dugg to the front page

We shall have a Digg strategy made a post should appear shortly.

Quote from: Trekkie101 on April 09, 2006, 07:50:38 PMWe're still not sure the features ourselfs. Later on in the post I ask everyone to posy feature requests, a list will possibly be made public detailing some of our aims, but SMF 1.1 still isnt final so its not our main concentration yet.

Of course.

I just think that when people are getting antsy about the final release of whatever version it is, if you start a bit of discussion on the next version's features (or significant changes), it could preoccupy everyone who's waiting (im)patiently for that final release.

uups...

My fault, I didn`t read everything...

I think a news letter is a great idea. I wouldn't of known about a possible RC3 without it... Keep up the good work guys/gals

To those that have asked the question about Support Postions. We all actively look for new potential in the forums. The best advice I can offer is you certainly need to know SMF inside and out, PHP knowledge certainly is a bonus.

An overwhelming desire to help people out and to be within the SMF boards on a regular basis will help you secure such a position in future.

I think it would be fair to say that the RC3 release is really a product of the great work Compuart has done getting international support working over the last few months. There have been many, many changes as a result of the internationalisation which mean we need to do another RC release before it could be declared final incase any problems crop up as a result.

As far as I'm aware there have been no major bugs with RC2 at all.

Thanks for the newsletter guys!

I didn't get no newsletter about this..?

We didn't mass mail people for this.  We figure the last few mailings have been enough.

thanks for the info about rc3 ! 

I like this forum, so do no take me wrong please...

If you release a RC3 I will definately NOT recommend my customers to use this application, since they have a lifecycle for their plans and they cant wait until the end of year 2006 before the new and most wanted smf will get released. In that sad moment we have to choose an alternative which most probably will be invision (not free but trustful) or own forum.

Please consider again, that you are losing possible future users of your application if you delays and delays and also never gives out a clear timetable, even opensource need to show a professional plan to prove their quality and let users have a chance to plan when to do implementation of this application.

roxspace,

I'm confused - what is wrong with RC2? If we release an RC3 no-one will force your users to use it. I'm bemused as upgrading SMF is not difficult (It's a five minute process) and it's not as if it's necessary to upgrade to RC3 if you do not wish - simply wait for final.

I think it's absolutely clear why we didn't give out release dates. If you would have asked me when RC2 came out when final would have been released I would of said April. Now it is May and we are doing another RC. Isn't it better that we give no indication of date instead of giving one and then missing it?

The problem we had with RC2 was that we didn't have the multi-language support we needed for use with MySQL 4. That's taken a *load* of rework to get it right and we find ourself needing an RC3 to ensure it works correctly (Even though we've done considerable internal testing).

Besides, once 1.1 Final is out it won't take long for people to be looking to the next big release. It seems on one hand you are saying you don't want us to release and on the other you are saying you do? If you are not comfortable with the release process you should stick with the current stable range (1.0.x); people using the current development version (albeit in RC) should not expect guaranteed release dates - especially from a free project.

Thanks for a good and clear answer.

Why we cant stick with the "current release" is because it lacks some important features which your upcoming will have. Also like someone else earlier said, that it is a matter of logic when to choose version number, your 1.0.x source tree is old now and is expected to get replaced very soon, it doesnt helps our customers for example.

How far into the future is RC3 ?  After that I atleast expect 3-4 months before final release (even if you cant tell me).

Also, from RC3, are you going to use the same old templates in the final version ?

And to be honest, is the version number 1.1 little low if you consider all recoding, new features and all ? I think it is a near version 2.0 which would also give a more sane reason to why it takes time.

I'd assume that the same templates that would be RC3 would be in the 1.1 Final.

I'd thought that would've been obvious... 

The main templates from RC2 should work for RC3 that should work with Final. Only the source code should be changing with the rest of 1.1 (By main I mean the ones like index, Display etc - not admin ones). The one exception to this is the utf support changes - if you need full utf support you need to use the templates which will come in RC3 as they have charset added to the form tags.

That answered a lot for me

I will wait for RC3 since the UTF8 support in the templates, hopefully atleast that one will not take to long before a release to the public for testing.

Keep up with the good work, this is still one of the best opensource web applications that is available.

I can't wait to see RC3 wage war against all the mods I have installed for RC2. Perhaps I'll just wait for the final version to come out. After all the headache I had getting all my mods to work with RC2, I don't have any more hair left to yank out. Well, I don't have any more hair that would be pleasant to yank out, that is.

I think it'd do that for most of mine. But I doubt that there will be much difference in the files between RC2 and RC3.

You could always make a test installation to check if your mods will work, and upgrade if they do.

I saw the "on hiatus" position a few days ago and I was alarmed. It reminded me "SMF friend".

It is written in the Newsletter

QuotePink is a controversial color on the team, you may have noticed the ugly/beautiful "On Hiatus" badge of some of our team. This is to identify that those members may not be posting for a short while as they have had to attend to other things but are intending on coming back.  We stand behind the fact that real life always comes first

- Controversial acts and labels cause unnecessary controversies.
- "On Hiatus" is put as position, not status. Position doesn' t change with vacation.
- Everybody with a little experience may put the information that he will not be able to post for a while in his personal text or sig.

It's up to the Team to decide but ...

I don't like "On Hiatus", neither as a label nor it's use. I think it must be withdrawn.

Its only controversial due to it's color.  Some people attach silly meanings to colors and thus do / do not like the idea of having a pink badge.

The fact that it shows as the position on the forum is just a limitation of the system.  We set the primary group to the on hiatus group and give their normal group as a secondary.  However if you look at the team page http://www.simplemachines.org/about/team.php you'll see that their hiatus status hasn't changed their position.

The fact is though, while we are more then knowledgable enough to put the information in our signatures, many of the users do not look their for that type of information.  Also putting the information into the signature doesn't change the team page.

Originally the color of the hiatus group was done as a joke to encourage a particular member to return quickly, but now its become a running gag for the team.  Heck we've even make it into a verb.

In seriousness the Hiatus group serves its purpose well.  It clearly identifies the person as being away and provides some light entertainment for the forum.

I'll give you feedback: the new theme sucks. Do a IPB or phpBB3 rip-off to make a deacent theme.

Sigh, thats hardly feedback, FWIW in my opinion IPB's theme is chunky and ugly and phpBB3's theme hasn't even been released yet .

Anyway, if you don't like the default theme, create your own, it's not hard, or use one of the ones someone else has made

If you can't offer constructive critisism, don't bother.

Quote from: Nordoelum on July 04, 2006, 05:51:46 AM
I'll give you feedback: the new theme sucks. Do a IPB or phpBB3 rip-off to make a deacent theme.

Oh, thats really original - just rip off others work.

And rather pointless, esepcially for a default. A default software theme should be unique. And the Core theme does it for SMF IMO.

Hey, lets face it. SMF is a really nice piece of work. How ever, treating this nice piece with a theme that looks way 1998', isn't that good in my opinion.

m3talc0re can make some niffty themes you know.

@Ben_S: Check your glases, IPB Default skin, pwns

Birger

pwns?

Seriously, pwns?

M3talc0re has left the building. But if you think that it's too 1998, then the themesite and system is just for you. I hear it very much "pwns"

Ohh yeah

The system pwns, even though the ACP need som redesigning. Yes, SMF pwns free solutions.

He have, because of the AJAX discussion?

Birger

One thing I think is different with SMF is that it's defualt is effectivly able to be a default and also be IPB's "Lo-Fi" theme at the same thus making it easy for dial-up users and so SMF wont need one.

You might have right on that one.

In time, I will look into how to make themes for SMF.

Birger

If you really need lo-fi, you can use imode, just like I am now

It pwns!

Try SAF or SMFOne and you'll maybe like them or anything by Koni

Here's my feedback: UTF-8 should be default encoding (that's great that simplemachines.org moved to UTF-8, anyway Joomla is going to use it and it is slowly becoming a standard). Default theme is nice but it should have more vivid colors and some (small) changes of placement of navigation links/buttons should be made (maybe official, sticked topic "What forum interface should look like" would be useful). Anyone uses "« previous next »" ? Currently the interface is a bit chaotic. Also some improvements in posting are needed: first of all quick reply with all options and "quote selected text" (I know this feature seems to be an unnecessary gadget for people who never used it, but using forum without it is like using IE after getting used to Opera or FF interface).

if you have something to wine about the default, just make your own,
you should be glad they doesnt charge money for the brilliant piece of software,
and there are alot of people who want to help you oout for a small fee,
but again, if youre not willing to pay for it, do not wine about it...

my 2 cents,

Leipe_Po