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IP.Board 3.1.0 Development News

Posted by Matt, in Beta, 3.1.0 23 December 2009 · 4,580 views

beta ipb 3.1.0

Laurel resting isn't an activity we do at IPS and we're all very hard at work on IP.Board 3.1.0 now that we've finished primary development on our suite of applications. We've got lots of exciting things planned and progress has already been made on a few key features.

As an early Christmas present to our community and to continue our honest and open development, I wanted to show you one of our already completed 3.1.0 features:

Enhanced Status Updates
During the latter stages of IP.Board 3.0.0's development, we added in very basic status updates in users profiles that was further enhanced by the index page sidebar hook. We've seen this feature get a lot of use on our own community and we wanted to take it to the next logical step and allow archived statuses and status replies.

There is a new tab in a member's profile for recent status updates and recent status actions.

Posted Image

As one would expect, this is all handled via Ajax with normal post operations for those who do not have javascript enabled. Replies appear instantly, comments are deleted instantly and even status updates are removed instantly. See it in action below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp3XHU72YME

There is also a new page for all status updates:

Posted Image

You can even receive email notification on any replies to your statuses or any replies to statuses you've replied to:

Posted Image

This takes a minor feature and gives it a little more focus and should help increase traffic between user profiles and give more of a social feel to your bulletin board.

Your status can also be updated automatically from Facebook if you are using Facebook connect.

As always, please keep in mind these are early preview screenshots and may change between now and the first public release of IP.Board 3.1.0. As always, we'd love to know what you think.

giggsey

Dec 23 2009 07:55 AM

You have way too much fun talking to yourself.

Looking great though.

Lewis P

Dec 23 2009 07:59 AM

How does the index hook function now then, or is it obsolete?

Kotonoha

Dec 23 2009 08:22 AM

Is that little thing in the bottom right corner for resizing the text area and if so is that replacing the increase/decrease editor size buttons everywhere else too?

Vince G.

Dec 23 2009 08:37 AM

Is that little thing in the bottom right corner for resizing the text area and if so is that replacing the increase/decrease editor size buttons everywhere else too?

I think it's a browser feature.

iAdi

Dec 23 2009 08:39 AM

COOL!

Chimpie

Dec 23 2009 08:46 AM

Great addition to an already useful feature.

Matt

Dec 23 2009 09:05 AM

@Lewis - the sidebar will be improved, screenshots after the holidays

@Kotonoha - Safari does that automatically.

Green Cat

Dec 23 2009 09:08 AM

Great improvement Matt, any chance of getting a "I like" feature too ? Thanks and Merry Christmas

- pdcgomes likes this

mz_

Dec 23 2009 09:14 AM

Looks great. I agree with the above, and chance of the "like" feature? and maybe a "dislike" feature that facebook hasn't added yet?

- Black-Elmo likes this

Jean

Dec 23 2009 09:26 AM

Great news! I like these features.

Enkidu

Dec 23 2009 09:53 AM

returnfalse

Dec 23 2009 09:57 AM

Looks brilliant! Will see it be useful

edivad

Dec 23 2009 10:10 AM

can we know at what are you working at for ipb 3.1?

bfarber

Dec 23 2009 10:21 AM

Haha, I was teasing Matt about the "like" feature before he even posted this, as I was sure someone would request it.

One thing we were curious about - what does everything think about the layout? There was some concern that it would seem too similar to Facebook's layout, but on the other hand it's actually adapted from the profile comments screen with some space compression applied to make things more compact. The fact that it looks similar to Facebook's layout is due to a lack of any natural and good-working alternatives. Just curious what people's thoughts are - if anyone has suggestions on how to change it's visual look, or if it looks good as is (generally speaking)?

Zepher

Dec 23 2009 10:22 AM

Status Comments are Cool! A ratings system integration would help. Facebook connect integration + friend's updates and the 'all updates' pages are great features too. Thanks :santa:

Lewis P

Dec 23 2009 10:46 AM

@bfarber:

What strikes me straight away is the input boxes. The actual status input box is smaller than the status comments boxes. Seems a bit strange to do it that way, but perhaps its just me.

The thing I'd probably change first anyway is the background colours of the statuses. Maybe alternate them row1, row2 with a 1px border between them. Similar to comments on the blog. Then, do something similar with the comments.

Status (row1)
|-- Comment (row2)
|-- Comment (row2 altrow)
|-- Comment (row2)
--------------
Status (row2)
|-- Comment (row1)
|-- Comment (row1 altrow)

You get the idea. That helps distinguish between things.

I'd probably then add the profile popup icons next to members names (http://community.inv.../125437-zepher/).

Something else that could possibly be done… Notifications. Maybe add a new 'Message' count to the profile picture in the top-right that indicates comments on statuses. Will mean that if you have emails off, makes things a bit easier to find.

Otherwise, I don't really see how else it can be changed. Without making it look like a topic on it's own accord.. you can't do a lot with it.

filipvtf

Dec 23 2009 11:07 AM

It is a great feature, looking forward to it

Brett B

Dec 23 2009 11:27 AM

To create a pseudo 'like' feature, how about allowing users to rep status updates and comments on status updates?

Brett B

Dec 23 2009 11:27 AM

To create a pseudo 'like' feature, how about allowing users to rep status updates and comments on status updates?

Ditchmonkey

Dec 23 2009 11:38 AM

I'm a little underwhelmed on this one. Nobody uses status updates on my forum. Hoping that significant updates will be announced that are related to core forum functionality. Are we going to get tags in 3.1 or not?