[Darth-Apple]

MyBB 1.8 beta 2 was released early this month, and from what I can tell, they will likely be releasing their final beta soon. I'm a bit hesitant to start migrating anything over yet because I'm still not sure if they will be modifying any of the templates, but once beta 3 is released, I definitely plan on beginning the port of our current theme. My goal is to be converted within about a month or so of MyBB 1.8's release, and I'm quite excited about it.







I actually don't like the new front end theme at all. I think it's a bit ugly and hope that somebody ports the current 1.6.x theme over for those who prefer it. However, the admin CP looks amazing on the new theme. They've made a lot of long awaited fixes and edits as well. Some things I've noticed so far include:

• you can't rate your own threads anymore.
  
• The buddy system is much improved
  
• Profile fields management is significantly improved
  
• They've added a contact us page and a theme switcher. That's two plugins admins no longer need to install. ;D
  
• They've significantly improved their editor pages so that the editor width is actually proper. That's a much needed improvement.
  
• Some statistics and forum team improvements
  
• Numerous PM system improvements
  
• Usergroup invites (this will be a feature to play with)
  
• Soft delete (recover deleted posts)
  
• Tons of new settings
  
• New anti spambot features, including security questions. (Yet another plugin we no longer need to install)
  
• Gravatar support
  

The default theme is a bit of a mess, but overall, they've made quite a few improvements that I've picked up on in my short one hour of test use. I'm pretty excited about it. Who else is looking forward to MyBB 1.8's release?

[Guardian]

Wow, a new default look. That was one thing I didn't know was coming.

[Darth-Apple]

Yep, they actually based it off of one of the old "Apart" themes I believe. It looks decent, but it's a bit bulky and just doesn't feel complete to me. I'm definitely going to port our current theme here at Makestation to MyBB 1.8 before I convert the community.

I was playing around with it a little more tonight, and overall they've made some pretty neat little improvements. They have what's equivalent to the default avatar plugin we're using here as well, so that's four plugins that don't need to be installed anymore. I'm really excited about that for sure.

[Darth-Apple]

Beta 3 was released today. Nothing huge was changed, but hey, it's a step towards stability. It's not at all unlikely that the final release will be within the next month or so.

[Electric2Shock]

The new default theme takes from the Apart series by Justin for MyBB 1.6.