New Feature

I have just added a new feature in Indonesian Linux Forum which is RSS feed that can be customized based on each account. This feature was requested by Walecha on his Twitter posts (here and here) to me and i find quite a nice mod called SmartFeed which is available for phpBB3 engine and it's quite customizable, suited for my need.

I downloaded the mod and upload it to the server and start installing it. The installation is very straightforward, but there are a lot of steps to be done in order to complete this process. Don't worry, everything is well written on the documentation file, so don't be lazy to read it.

After completing all the steps, the final step must be done manually, which is to refresh all the templates, stylesheets, and imagesets for the current theme. Basically this will delete all cache entries and force every users to get a copy of the latest file from the server again so that they will see the new feature.

This feature is very customizable and it's based on user preferences. Meaning that every users might choose their's preferences. For example, i might be interested to see only posts from Slackware section and not the rest. It's also possible to set the time intervals between updates or the display method of the RSS. Try it for yourself and let me know if you have any problems with this new feature

Let's just say this is my gift for this Chinese New Year event. I hope all of the members enjoy this feature and happy holiday

phpBB 3.0.9 Released

After months of development, finally the updated version of phpBB 3.0.9 is now out for public. This release is dubbed as a maintenance release, meaning it fixes LOTS of bug fixes, but also it introduces two new caching module, called WinCache and Redis and also it can limit amount of failed login attempts per IP.

I have completed the update process in Indonesian Linux Forum and hopefully there are no regression found on this release . Let me know if you found one though.

New phpBB Release 3.0.8

This morning, i also got a surprise from phpBB announcement mailing list saying that there is a new phpBB release which is a maintenance update for the previous 3.0.7-PL1, but it also contains one security fix which relates to BBCodes. The Changelog will list all changes (it contains a number of bug fixes and also improvements since last release) and it's recommended to be read before upgrading.

When i got this announcement, i grab the updated package and start upgrading Indonesian Linux Forum at 5.45 AM in the morning and the process was completed at 6.30 AM. I think not many people have accessed the board at that time, so 30 minutes of downtime will not affect too many people

Anyway, the forum is now back serving all of you and have a nice discussion on the forum

phpBB 3.1 Feature Freeze

After a long development, future phpBB 3.1 that will be called Ascraeus is now on Feature Freeze phase, which will freeze the development of new feature and focusing on stability of the release before the final version will be released.

Below are the status of features and improvements in phpBB 3.1:

Merged:

• Coding Guideline Modifications RFC Ticket
• Autoloading & Class Naming Convention RFC Ticket
• Removal of subsilver2 RFC Ticket

Patch in progress:

• Improved Page Titles RFC Ticket
• Avatar improvements, Gravatar RFC Ticket
• Improved template engine RFC Ticket
• SQLite 3.0+ Support RFC Ticket
• Updated BBcode engine RFC
• Request Class RFC Ticket
• Switch to PHP timezone handling RFC Ticket
• Modular Cron RFC Ticket
• General Hook Architecture RFC Ticket
• Resume support for attachments / HTTP range support RFC Ticket
• Soft Delete RFC Ticket
• Enhanced Team Page RFC Ticket
• Improve User Pruning feature RFC Ticket
• Rename MSNM to WLM RFC Ticket
• Link global announcements to forumsRFC Ticket
• Simple message API RFC Ticket
• Attachments Management RFC Ticket
• MOD Installer RFC Ticket
• Cleaning up the ACP UI RFC Ticket
• No db storage of themes and stylesheets RFC Ticket

RFC only:

• Migrations (UMIL) RFC Ticket Data Providers RFC
• Changing IP banning to use ‘longest prefix matching’ RFC Ticket
• Ability to delete auto login keys RFC Ticket
• Authentication Plugin Refactoring, User Integration & OpenID RFC Ticket
• Session Backend Abstraction (memcache support) RFC Ticket
• Search Backend Refactoring RFC Ticket
• Pre-Compile Template Includes RFC
• Overridable imageset and theme paths for CDNs RFC

Exam and phpBB

On Tuesday, i teach 3 classes in a row, making it one of the busiest day in a week (besides Thursday). But the worst is not over yet, as i have to do other things when i came home (after i accompanied my girlfriend to Amplaz tonight). I have to make a mid test questions for two classes and also upgrade Indonesian Linux Forum engine to the latest phpBB which has just released this morning.

Luckily, i have managed to finish both of them on time, so it's time to get some sleep before another busy day tommorrow

Upgrading Forum

I have just completed an upgrade for Indonesian Linux Forum. It's now running the latest phpBB version, 3.0.6. At the beginning, i was kinda worried, since phpBB 3.0.6 contains lots of new features and some of them are major changes compared to 3.0.5. Luckily, the upgrade process works just fine and no issues occurred during the upgrade process.

Please enjoy the forum again and please post any problem on this thread.

I'm sorry for some inconvenience during the upgrade process.

phpBB 3.0.6 RC1

In order to make sure everything is OK with the final release, phpBB team decided to release their first RC1 of phpBB 3.0.6.

The following is a list of major new features implemented in phpBB 3.0.6:

• Backported 3.2 captcha plugins:
  
  • Classic and GD CAPTCHA
  • reCaptcha (based on API from recaptcha.net by Mike Crawford and Ben Maurer)
  • Q&A CAPTCHA
  • 3D Wave (by Robert "Xore" Hetzler)

• Introduced new ACM plugins:
  
  • null (to disable caching completely)
  • memcache (http://pecl.php.net/package/memcache)
  • APC (http://pecl.php.net/package/APC)
  • XCache (http://xcache.lighttpd.net/)
  • eAccelerator (http://eaccelerator.net/)
    

• ATOM Feeds
• bare-bones Quick Reply editor in viewtopic
• Users can report PMs to moderators which are then visible in a new MCP module
• Ability to copy permissions from one forum to several other forums.
• Send statistical information (anonymously) about PHP and phpBB configuration to help improve phpBB.

I just hoped that the upgrade process will be painless when the final version is released

Waiting for New phpBB Release

The release schedule for phpBB 3.0.6 is getting closer and closer and i'm getting worried since the next release will contain quite a huge amount of changes. While it's a good news that new features are coming in, compatibility and upgradeable factors are also important, mostly for administrators who maintain the board.

New changes in 3.0.6 will have quite a big impact to the main application, so early precaution must be made to make sure the migration from earlier version works as intended.

Let's just hope the upgrade will be as smooth just like the previous version

Captcha Plugins Competition

As i have said last week, next release of phpBB (3.0.6) will have new Captcha system. Few days ago, phpBB team announced a captcha plugins competition for public.

There will be three categories: Community Choice, Team Choice and First Approved. The winner will get a free bertie (phpBB mascot).

Check this page for more information about the competition.

Good luck and have a good competition guys

Cool, but Nightmare for Administrators

The phpBB team has discussed and posted some news (actually i was a little outdated) about the upcoming phpBB 3.0.6. While it will contain bug fixes, it will also introduce some new features that be nightmare to some administrators, since they *may* have to revamped their forum to the original state before they upgrade to the latest version.

In general, next phpBB release will contain:

• New (pluggable) CAPTCHA plugins
• ATOM feeds
• Cache/ACM plugins
• PM Reply/Reply for All
• Quick Reply (i love it very much, as i don't have to deal with PM Quick Reply again)
• Log search
• Many bug fixes

You should read the news here and here (special discussion about CAPTCHA plugin)

Forum Linux Upgraded

It's been a while since phpBB released an update to Olympus (codename for phpBB 3.x). Well, today i checked the system tab on phpBB and there was a red sign, meaning there was an update for phpBB and i quickly looked on the phpBB 3.0.5 Release Notes. It is an important update and there are some new features as well, such as better CAPTCHA protection, ability to refresh the CAPTCHA visual images, better performance on full search, and many more.

I disabled the forum for a while to do the maintenance and after about 30 minutes or so, i re-enabled the forum again and now it's running perfectly on 3.0.5

With each version, phpBB is getting easier to upgrade, thanks to the automatic update package. In my case, all of the MODs i have been installing is still preserved without having to reconfigure it again. In the past, every time i performed an upgrade, i have to reconfigure the MODs again.

Enjoy the forum again and sorry for the inconvenience during the upgrade process.

Manage Your MODs

If you maintain several forum boards using phpBB, then you will all know the pain you get when new version comes out. You will have to upgrade the engines and also re-check the MODs that you have installed to make sure it works with the new changes. In phpBB 3, things are getting better, as the automatic updates has a diff feature which can be used to compare and merge those differences, but in some case, manual look must be done.

If the MODs has a new version or you would like to remove the MODs, then here comes another nightmare. You will have to manually edit the files changed and delete the unnecessary files. Is there any tool to help you create installation package for MODs?

The answer is there is. It's called UMIL (Unified MOD Install Library). Here's the snippet from the main website:

This utility enables MOD Authors to create simple installation scripts for their MOD that allow the user to install, update, or uninstall a modification quickly. Released under the GNU GPL license, UMIL is included within MOD Packages to make MOD Installations simple and automatic.

What are the features of UMIL?

1. Add, update, or remove configs
2. Add or remove modules
3. Add or remove permissions
4. Set or unset permission options from roles and groups
5. Add or remove database tables
6. Add, update, or remove table columns
7. Add or remove table keys/indexes
8. Purge / Refresh Caches

It's not yet released as a final version (still 1.0.0 RC2 per 29 March), but this tool will soon help administrators to manage their MODs

Upgrading Forum Engine

This morning, i logged in into Indonesian Linux Forum and i saw a notification saying that the installation is out dated because newer version has been released. Because it's still early in the morning and it's weekend, i thought it would be nice to perform an upgrade because some people might still be sleeping at that time.

So i download the automatic update package, disable the board, upload the extracted files, start an upgrade process, and in less than 10 minutes, the forum has been upgraded. This is faster because the changed files are less than previous updates. I also used this chance to upgrade the Quick Login MOD. The older version doesn't work out of the box, so i decided to upgrade and hack it a little bit to work on 3.0.4 (the current version is designed for 3.0.3).

Everything is back to normal again now and you shall see no differences with the previous installation, but at the backend, there's a difference

Better Upgrade Mechanism

I have just upgraded Indonesian Linux Forum engine (phpBB3) to the latest version (3.0.3) which has just been released today. As always, i checked the changelog before i upgrade. phpBB offered several ways to upgrade the installation system. The preferred way is to use automatic updater which will look all your files, check the difference, and then merge them whenever possible. This feature is very handy and it has been improved since last update.

The new mechanism works better with modified file (mostly if we install MODs), so the upgrade process is slightly easier than before. In the past, i have to check all the MODs after upgrading, but now, i don't have to anymore, as the MODs are still preserved and the updater merged the new changes into the old one, so no full replacement needed.

Bravo and salute for the phpBB's developer. They have made their users easier by providing good upgrade mechanism.