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IP.Board 3.1.0 Development News

Posted by Matt, in Beta, 3.1.0 23 December 2009 · 663 views

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:

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.

Lewis P
Dec 23 2009 11:56 AM

Ditchmonkey, on 23 December 2009 - 04:38 PM, said:

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?

I'm sure there is more in the pipeline. Releasing a new version with just ONE new feature won't exactly go down well. :rolleyes:

AtariAge
Dec 23 2009 11:57 AM

Looks good--status updates are used heavily on my forum so I'm sure my users will appreciate this additional functionality. It does look quite a bit like Facebook, but I don't think anyone's going to complain about that.

..Al

Ditchmonkey
Dec 23 2009 12:14 PM

Lewis P, on 23 December 2009 - 08:56 AM, said:

I'm sure there is more in the pipeline. Releasing a new version with just ONE new feature won't exactly go down well. :rolleyes:

I know there is more coming, but everyone was hyped up about the announcement we would get before xmas and I'm hoping this isn't all we are going to get before the holidays.

Glumbo
Dec 23 2009 12:23 PM

Looks really good

Lewis P
Dec 23 2009 12:42 PM

Ditchmonkey, on 23 December 2009 - 05:14 PM, said:

I know there is more coming, but everyone was hyped up about the announcement we would get before xmas and I'm hoping this isn't all we are going to get before the holidays.

I'd stick my neck out and say that at least 80% of 'core' IP.Board users will enjoy having this enhancement, it is fairly big if you think of it - it is a massive step forward to full social networking that has been a long requested feature by many users.

Saying that though, I can see where this would be a let down for people as it's not a major forum feature that they may want such as tagging and this might be something that is a minor enhancement or possibly seen as a waste of development time.

It all depends on the type of forum you run really. If you run a social-based community or one with a tight-knit core user base, this is going to be great for you. If you run a corporate or business forum, you might not want this as it has no relation to what you want to achieve.

Ditchmonkey
Dec 23 2009 12:48 PM

Lewis P, on 23 December 2009 - 09:42 AM, said:

Saying that though, I can see where this would be a let down for people as it's not a major forum feature that they may want such as tagging and this might be something that is a minor enhancement or possibly seen as a waste of development time.

I only see it as a waste of development time if the truly important core features are not addressed in the next release (things like tags and improved search). I'd just like to hear about the important stuff first.

Nervosa
Dec 23 2009 01:31 PM

This is a great set forward for social interaction, just having forums isn't gona make it when users just wana chat or just say stuff.
I have see maybe of posts where users post things like "Hey I got (something something)". This is viewed as spam and removed.

I would like to see this updated status updates merged more with blog, truly giving the user their own place on your site.
People might think its to much like FB, or turning into it, but there is a reason FB works and is so big.

Tim Dorr
Dec 23 2009 01:35 PM

Since you'll be pulling in status updates from Facebook, are you going to also pull in status comments from Facebook as well and overlay them with whatever's locally in IPB? There's a stream.getcomments API call for that.

noj75
Dec 23 2009 01:40 PM

WOW! I am loving this move to IPB. This is what I'm talking about!! Looks excellent. Can't wait.

Matt
Dec 23 2009 02:21 PM

@Ditchmonkey,

Of course this isn't the only new feature in 3.1.0. We're still very much in heavy development. We have loads planned, I wouldn't even say this is a major new feature. Improvements in search are definitely on the list. We have more discussion regarding tagging, though. It's often requested but we want to do it right and efficiently.

Matt
Dec 23 2009 02:22 PM

@Tim Dorr, that has crossed my mind too.

AtariAge
Dec 23 2009 02:47 PM

Matt, on 23 December 2009 - 01:21 PM, said:

Improvements in search are definitely on the list.

Looking forward to seeing the search improvements.

..Al

c u l8er
Dec 23 2009 04:39 PM

bfarber, on 23 December 2009 - 03:21 PM, said:

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)?

Move the comment button inside the text box and align it at the bottom right corner. Something different, and we don't waist space under the comment box.

Neven Golenić
Dec 23 2009 04:53 PM

Wait, are you telling us that you're going to release version 3.1.0 in which the main NEW feature will be status updates? (w00t)

edivad
Dec 23 2009 06:04 PM

No he isn't.

Darken
Dec 23 2009 06:47 PM

Nice!

Glumbo
Dec 24 2009 01:16 AM

I'm glad that there will be other new features in 3.1

Alex K.
Dec 24 2009 01:28 AM

Needs JS animations. Other than that, great work.

BRamburn
Dec 24 2009 12:13 PM

This is cool feature

Strike X
Dec 24 2009 01:58 PM

Good stuff excellent.

Features MUST HAVE:

- Member Management from APC ( 'Registered between', 'Last posted between', 'Last active between') - calender should popup to select a date.
- Logged in automatically after validation - http://community.inv...showissue=19513

Remove crappy prototype to JQuery - it will improve speed by %50 !!

Thanks