MyBB has no default setting to deactivate the registration agreement for your users. The following tutorial will show you, how you can deactivate the agreement if you do not need it. Continue reading Deactivate MyBB Registration Agreement
MyBB 1.6 is no longer supported
As I announced before in this post, the MyBB team decided to drop the support for MyBB 1.6.
Since MyBB 1.8 has been released more than one year ago, this is a very valid decision. If you are still using MyBB 1.6 you should really upgrade to MyBB 1.8 now because you’d risk security issues otherwise.
If there are plugins that have not yet been updated to MyBB 1.8 compatibility they’ll probably never will and you should drop them.
MyBB 2.0 design demonstration on Video
The MyBB team released three videos to show off some of the new MyBB 2.0 design on different devices.
They follow a responsive webdesign approach like most modern websites do. Even some MyBB 1.8 forums do have a responsive design which works on any device.
I think that this design will be pretty close to the alpha and beta design of MyBB 2.0 so you should look at it.
Get a first sneak preview of MyBB 2.0 here.
Continue reading MyBB 2.0 design demonstration on Video
MyBB 1.8.6 and 1.6.18 security updates
The MyBB development team released new version of MyBB 1.8 and MyBB 1.6. MyBB 1.8.6 is a maintenance and security update, MyBB 1.6.18 is a pure security update.
You should update your MyBB forum to include security fixes for low and medium security issues.
If you are using MyBB 1.8.5 you can use the changed file package to update to MyBB 1.8.6. Do not forget to run the update script!
Check the update descriptions on the MyBB blog.
Keeping your MyBB at the newest version is important to prevent hackers from getting access to your forums data. If there are security updates you should always do these updates as soon as possible.
Is MyBB a good alternative to bbPress?
If you want to extend your WordPress blog with a open source forum software you’ll probably stumble upon bbPress. But there is a wordpress integration for MyBB too.
You need to choose the right tool for your business. The following post will compare MyBB and bbPress. Continue reading Is MyBB a good alternative to bbPress?
MyBB 2.0 receives Profile Field Enhancements and Unit Tests
The MyBB development team released further information about the new MyBB 2.0 version at the official blog. Beside small features like the ability to directly quote parts of existing posts, there have been two good announcements. The MyBB profile fields will receive a huge update. Admins will be able to group these input fields and use different input types on these fields like selects, texts or textareas and special fields like URLs or email. It’s not clear if they’ll be stored in fitting types in the database (like Pimcore does it for example) though. Continue reading MyBB 2.0 receives Profile Field Enhancements and Unit Tests
MyBB WordPress User Integration
In this post, I’ll tell you how to integrate your MyBB forum with a WordPress blog.
Wordpress is probably the most successful blogging software in the world. And beside blogs you can also use it as a small CMS for websites.
If you’re running MyBB for Business, you might want to get a blog or a website too. It’s a great opportunity to earn some extra cash.
But if you are running two different systems, you’ll have two different user bases. Your users, having registered in MyBB already, have to type their email adress over and over again if they want to comment on wordpress. They’ll need to register a second time in WordPress for subscriptions.
This is annoying for users. So let’s fix that. Continue reading MyBB WordPress User Integration
Further information about the MyBB 2.0 development progress
The MyBB development team added further informations about the development of MyBB 2.0 in a new blog post.
It seems that they listened to the community who asked for more informations about important decisions (I wrote about this topic here). They restructured the official suggestion forums but they are still informing the community lately. The community does still not have any major impact on the developing.
MyBB 2.0 is using SASS during the development process and might be using Sass or LESS for themers later. They try to follow the BEM syntax for the MyBB CSS. MyBB 2.0 will probably use of gulp.js build system to minify and distribute CSS and JS files.
MyBB 2.0 will provide a conversation system instead of the classic single PMs as we already knew. This is a good step which should probably already have been taken with the release of MyBB 1.8. Users will have a threaded look for the PMs, conversations with multiple users or whole usergroups will be possible. Continue reading Further information about the MyBB 2.0 development progress
Find a profitable niche for your MyBB forum
If you want to use MyBB for Business, you’ll need a good niche for your forum.
For starters – don’t create yet another general gaming forum. The web is swamped with such forums.
If you want to go for a gaming forum, specify the forum on a certain game or certain aspects of games.
TheBorgGaming has been a successful gaming forum for example. They focussed on certain racing games like World Racing 2 or Grand Theft Auto. And they provided additional value for their visitors in form of free modifications and addons for these games. Once they stopped hosting these free DLCs, a lot of members lost interest in this gaming forum. Continue reading Find a profitable niche for your MyBB forum
MyBB is NOT a community driven project
Recent activities in the MyBB community showed off, that MyBB is not a community driven project. The community is allowed to post suggestions for MyBB 2.0 but the developers are making the major decisions about the future of MyBB without asking the community.
Turns out that MyBB 2.0 will be developed with Laravel 5 and does use Twig as the template engine. The requirements are PHP 5.4 and MySQL 5 or postgresql.
The framework and template engine of MyBB are huge decisions as they have a major influence on the compatible third party components. You could easily integrate a content management system like Pimcore, if MyBB would use the Zend framework. Or integrate a picture gallery built with the Symfony MediaBundle with MyBB 2.0.
Of course this is still possible but it’ll require more effort for the integrating developers.
Especially plugin and theme developers will have to learn the Laravel framework and the twig template engine if they want to continue contributing to the MyBB world. If they decide against the chosen framework, they’ll soon be gone.
You’d have thought that there would’ve been a poll or a public discussion about such huge decisions but there have been none. MyBB development team member Euan T stated that two developers chose the framework when they started working on MyBB 2.0.
While he agrees that the community could have been more involved into the progress, he also states that the developers have no interest in writing blog posts and explaining major development decisions to the community:
A few days ago another major decision has been taken by the MyBB development team without discussion with the community – they’ll switch the license for MyBB 2.0.
You can see that MyBB as open source software is not driven by the community but only supported by the community. Community members are allowed to find bugs and post suggestions but they have nearly no influence on the future of MyBB.
If you are using MyBB for business, you should be aware that major decisions will be taken without asking of informing the community at an early stage.