For the old timers around here, you probably remember TikiTiki/Ryan and how early on we broke nearly everything in MyBB (the board software we use right now). We were simply orders of magnitude bigger than any of the boards they had at the time. So their lead developer (TikiTiki/Ryan) was here a lot working with me to make MyBB hum for such a big board.

Well, several years ago TikiTiki/Ryan moved on from MyBB, and it's been a state of slow decay for me since. MyBB now iterates way faster than I would like. I don't fancy having to redo every team skin site wide annually or biannually. Yea. In addition, PHP, the programming language the board is written in, has itself taken on a more fast paced development. As a result you can go from a state of the art brand new MyBB install ... to totally unsupported version of MyBB which requires totally unsupported (and not easily available even) version of PHP in just 2 to 3 years. Now pile on top of that TapaTalk as a moving target as well. And juggling all this mess while making sure it performs well on our unusually large board (which usually requires custom patches from me) becomes quite a chore.

As a result, I think it's time I bit the bullet and wrote my own board software for the site to run on. That way it can be built from the jump with our unusual feature set in mind and once completed be very low maintenance.

For the computer illiterate among us, have no fear. I intend to keep the LOOK and FEEL of the new board as close to the existing MyBB experience as possible. I'll even be carrying over all the MyBB graphics and icons (thanks GPL license!). Ideally, you should barely be able to tell a change has occurred aside from new features. The biggest negative impact to existing use of the site is that the mobile app will be killed off entirely. Instead, the idea is to have the site automatically detect you're mobile and serve you a mobile friendly layout. And for the mobile layout to offer you notifications on your mobile device through the browser. It means one less app for you to install and worry about, but you still get the notifications you want anyway. And then I don't have to go through tons of hoops to run OS X in a VM just to release an iOS app, or deal with the enormous segmentation of Android (we still have people using the app on Android effing 2.3 .... the current Android version is 7.0).

So yea. That's what has been up my sleeve with the ??? appearing around here. The goal is to launch this puppy August 1, 2017. Just in time to work any bugs out before football.

Have a feature you've always wanted here that you want in the new board? Well, here's the feature discussion thread: http://csnbbs.com/thread-794495.html

Want to help test the new board as it gets developed? Send me a PM. Bonus points if you're a Mac user who can test with Safari or a Windows 10 user willing to test with both of the stupid versions of IE they have on Windows these days. But if neither of those applies to you, don't let that stop you.

If you have questions that AREN'T about new features .... post 'em here.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

I had to go to NC State's computer lab at 3:00 AM to run a damn Cobal or some other **** code thing to crunch data back in the Stone Age. I do not want to know of the gobbly gook you speak. The internet is the Devil's tool.

so what you are saying is what?

(10-14-2016 11:21 AM)UTSAMarineVet09 Wrote:  so what you are saying is what?

Getting rid of the current board software. Replacing it with stuff I'm custom writing. Will look almost the same but have new features everyone desires and be low maintenance which I desire.

(10-14-2016 11:24 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(10-14-2016 11:21 AM)UTSAMarineVet09 Wrote:  so what you are saying is what?

Getting rid of the current board software. Replacing it with stuff I'm custom writing. Will look almost the same but have new features everyone desires and be low maintenance which I desire.

and you will get rid of the csnbbs app, but now the website will be more mobile friendly?

I prefer desktop view on mobile. anyway to give us an option for that? BTW great work with this place.

May the force of AngularJS and Material Design be with you!

Cool!

Just curious -- let's say you have a working build. So why can't you just use that in perpetuity?? So what if it goes out of version? Does the board break a lot, or something?

(10-14-2016 11:28 AM)UTSAMarineVet09 Wrote:  and you will get rid of the csnbbs app, but now the website will be more mobile friendly?

Yes. But by "now" I mean .... August 1, 2017. :)

(10-14-2016 11:29 AM)UofMstateU Wrote:  May the force of AngularJS and Material Design be with you!

THERE WILL BE NO CONVOLUTED JAVASCRIPT AD INFINITUM.

Just simple old school jQuery. Works on everything. Doesn't have dependencies. It aint broke, so don't fix it.

(10-14-2016 11:29 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  Cool!

Just curious -- let's say you have a working build. So why can't you just use that in perpetuity?? So what if it goes out of version? Does the board break a lot, or something?

TapaTalk and PHP are a moving target. I have more or less accidentally forked MyBB to keep it working to the site's performance demands. I can handle running a fork of a PHP web app. I cannot also handle running my own forks of TapaTalk (which is closed source anyway) or PHP. And that's what I'm looking at in another 2 years if I don't do something now.

this board has become part of my life. i guess i should say thanks. thanks gts. congrats on having such a broad reach of folks

(10-14-2016 11:28 AM)john01992 Wrote:  I prefer desktop view on mobile. anyway to give us an option for that? BTW great work with this place.

Yes. Default behavior will be to observe the "desktop mode" button if you have it enabled in Chrome. Not sure if there's simlar functionality in Safari on iOS. But there will also be a button to switch as well.

I wanna code!!!!

It's a shame. I honestly think this board software is better than Vbulletin or phpBB or the crap that 247 and scout uses for their boards.

One minor thing I might add is when someone gives a positive rep for a post you can see a "[User Name] liked this post" at the end of the post, though it's not a big deal.

(10-14-2016 11:30 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(10-14-2016 11:28 AM)UTSAMarineVet09 Wrote:  and you will get rid of the csnbbs app, but now the website will be more mobile friendly?

Yes. But by "now" I mean .... August 1, 2017. :)

is the government helping you?



jk jk lol

Elixir/Phoenix...

(10-14-2016 11:49 AM)EigenEagle Wrote:  It's a shame. I honestly think this board software is better than Vbulletin or phpBB or the crap that 247 and scout uses for their boards.

One minor thing I might add is when someone gives a positive rep for a post you can see a "[User Name] liked this post" at the end of the post, though it's not a big deal.

I like that idea. I'll add it.

And MyBB is indeed better than vB or Invision or phpBB or the in house turds cooked up by Scout/Rivals/247. But stock MyBB doesn't do well on our site, and I don't want to fight to square the circle between stock and "actually works in the real world here" like I have been, particularly when doing so is getting harder and harder.

(10-14-2016 11:50 AM)UTSAMarineVet09 Wrote:  is the government helping you?



jk jk lol

Yep, they're jacking my health insurance rates and terminating the plan that I could allegedly "keep if I liked it" for the 4th time. I feel the love of the state shining down upon me.