Originally, phpBB had planned on a ground-up rewrite from their existing phpBB 3.0 base for phpBB 4. Relatively recently, they completely changed their approach to modernizing their development and have come up with... phpBB 3.1. It was released today, and it looks pretty slick. Most of the changes are very much beneath the surface changes, but they have done some really neat stuff, including:

• A responsive default theme (whoo!)
  
• Notifications system
  
• Contact pages and improved "show team" pages
  
• Many theme improvements (may look similar, but they've touched up on a lot of details)
  
• A real plugin system (finally!)
  
• Tons of code cleanup (and symfony components)
  
• Security auditing to ensure minimal vulnerabilities
  
• Improvements with announcements, soft deletes, and other forum related features.
  
• More neatness on header links, usage of dropdowns, etc.
  
• Lots of additional ajax
  

I recently switched away from my old iPhone 4 (with its small screen) in favor of the HTC m8. I have to say, there was a lot to be said about the iPhone's small form factor. It was very comfortable to hold in my hand and fit very nicely in my pocket. However, the small screen size made some things very hard to read on the screen, and typing was not the easiest. I'm sure the iPhone 5.x models were a little easier to use in terms of typing and reading text while keeping a unique form factor, but I can't say much considering I've only ever used the iPhone 4.

I have to say, the large screen on the m8 is pretty nice, however. It's not gigantic. I've seen phones that are a good bit larger, but the m8's screen is definitely large enough to type more comfortably and to read what is on the screen. Perhaps I'm just a little biased towards the large screen on the m8 because its design so happens to make it very comfortable to hold, but so far, I have to say that having the larger screen space has definitely been worth it for me.

What is your opinion? Do you prefer smaller phones that are easy to hold, or larger phones with larger screens for better usability? Be sure to vote in the poll!

What is your opinion on using object oriented heavily? And by heavily, I mean basing an entire application on it. We're definitely not talking about applications that selectively use any sort of combination between "procedural" and object oriented programming styles here.

Personally, at least as a PHP programmer, I hate code that is object oriented for no reason (although, to be fair, PHP isn't the greatest as far as object oriented code is concerned ). Some may call the shots and call me a bad coder for it, but if something isn't an object, I don't really see the point in making it one. Of course there are advantages. One of my favorites is the fact that you can use function names that you want without having to conflict with other functions from other elements of the code. It definitely helps keep function names very short and easy to remember.

However, that said, I find code that is object oriented for no reason to be much messier and significantly harder to follow. I personally use procedural code for elements of code that aren't necessarily objects or meant to be object oriented, or for basic API functions used throughout the code. For things that can be considered objects (where instances need to be created, etc. ) I'll definitely make use of object oriented code very quickly.

What is your opinion? Do you feel the advantages of clean code and the lack of conflicts between variables and function names are worth the mess involved in making entire projects 100% object oriented? Or... are you more like me and use object oriented code only when it makes a specific task at hand significantly easier?

MyBB 1.8 has an already emerging database and with the emergence of designers like enVy, the standard has seriously upped since the 1.6 free theme database.

I know I need to work on the footer, but I kept it here in case I've been working for naight this whole time.
Nevermind, I somehow finished the footer.

The modern trend of web design... instead of actually, you know, making a web page in standard article form, you make it in slideshow form and make people click like 20 times to read three paragraphs. And it's a great idea, for, you know, webmasters.

Why? ad revenue. I personally find it so annoying that the moment I see a page that uses this, I immediately close the tab, only to be confronted with a bunch of popups and an alert notification trying to get me to stay on the page.

I mean, totally understand the need to make revenue. I have expenses of my own to keep projects online, but there are ways about getting the revenue without alienating users. To each their own, but they certainly won't get traffic from me. Anyone else find this extremely annoying?

Microsoft apparently announced their development preview roadmap for what will be called Windows 10 recently. Of course, as rumored, the start menu is back, but they've made some interesting improvements that people will probably love if they weren't particularly happy with Windows 8 or 8.1

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/30/686869...d-official

From the looks of it, the development preview will be free. Anyone interested in testing this? I know I sure will be.

You may have noticed we were down for a good part of the morning. I was pretty busy doing a server reinstall, which was long necessary for security and for stability reasons. Most things should be up and running now, and you may notice some speed improvements as well.

In case you're wondering where things are as far as makestation on MyBB 1.8 is concerned, here is a preview.

We all know the typical "show us your desktop" for desktop computer users. Us smartphone users (particularly android users) will have some good customization over our "desktops" (or better termed, home screens) as well, so this will serve as the official "show us your homescreen" thread here on the forums.

Here is my current one. Yes, I blacked out the city.

MyBB has it's own community site that houses the MyBB community of the world.

Regional forums that offer special support for MyBBers of that region have also popped up. MyBB-Ir, MyBB-Esp are some examples.

I followed suit and created a MyBB-India, but I never really had the time to push it off ground.

With MyBB 1.8 coming, a push to the launch is possible as with the release of MyBB 1.8, activity will see a significant push.

Should I give it a try again?

BAM/Board Announcements Manager is officially ready for MyBB 1.6 and MyBB 1.8 forums. BAM allows you to create and to manage announcements in your forum header without requiring edits to the templates, and uses a style for announcements that is similar to that of the MyBB official support forum. It also allows for features such as usergroup based permissions and random selection of announcements.

2/27/2020: Bam 2.0 update! New features:

• Dismissable announcements!
  
• Paste a link to specific pages to display your announcements. Most MyBB pages are fully supported! (Including SEO-friendly URLs built into MyBB. )
  
• Global announcements are now handled on a per-announcement basis. You can also make announcements display on multiple pages, specific forums, and more.
  
• Random mode redesigned and significantly improved.
  
• Three new color styles, for a total of seven.
  
• New jquery effects, style settings, and many polishes.
  
• Activate or deactivate an announcement with only a single click.
  
• Add new tags, variables, and directives for more features.
  
• New tags to load announcements with a custom template, or only on specific themes and languages. (HTML is also supported in BAM 2.0)
  

• Support for an unlimited number of header announcements, with reordering capabilities.
  
• Four included color classes, with additional support for custom classes.
  
• usergroup permission control by announcement.
  
• Support for BBcode and emoticons in announcements.
  
• Ability to optionally display the date posted on announcements.
  
• Ability to display announcements globally.
  
• Ability to parse the username if {$username} is placed in an announcement. (Parses to "Guest" if the user is not logged in. )
  
• Optional random mode functionality.
  
• Ability to turn announcement into a link.
  

Attached Files

  BAM 1.6.zip (Size: 11.82 KB / Downloads: 667)
  BAM 1.0 - fixed.zip (Size: 25.6 KB / Downloads: 332)
  BAM-2.0.zip (Size: 56.73 KB / Downloads: 384)