phpBB Weekly

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Episode Duration: 1:01:08
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), David Lewis (Highway of Life), and some unexpected guests (hint hint)

We’re back for another episode of phpBB Weekly with Douglas hobbling along via Skype on his iPod touch as he marks three weeks since the damage of his beloved MacBook. But where there’s a will, there’s a way, even if that makes him sound like he’s on a digitized cell phone. So what, this is phpBB Weekly, we should be used to funny-sounding audio by now, right?

However, you’re definitely going to want to give a listen to this episode to hear the unexpected (and completely unplanned) surprise that puts Douglas on the spot towards the end of the show. We actually re-recorded the end of this show last Monday (which was Douglas’ 18th birthday), since the end of the live recording we did on Saturday turned out very badly due to technical problems. So even if you listened in live, you didn’t get to hear it, so be sure you take a listen!

After apologizing and explaining his difficulties in getting episode #122 released, Douglas and David take a look at the newly-released second RC of phpBB 3.0.6, which includes regression fixes from RC1, and also introduces some major changes to phpBB’s auto-updater to allow it to be more tolerant of potential conflicts with MODs. Quite frankly, the developers have made quite a few more checkins in the few days since RC2, that we wouldn’t be surprised if we see a third release candidate before 3.0.6 goes final. But we’ll just have to wait and see…

The other big release of the weekend is MODX 1.2.3, the “toasted motherboard” edition. As this is the first release to the MODX spec in the past eight months, Douglas and David take the opportunity to dust off their ongoing conversation about MODX, and its usability and purpose compared to the gone-but-not-yet-forgotten Text Template. Also, Douglas’ experiences doing phpBB Weekly without a computer have brought a bug with phpBB3′s print view to his attention, which he will report as soon as phpBB.com lets him log in again.

The MOD of the Week is Board3 Portal by avaren, and the Style of the Week is 1thank by gokinstudio.com.

There will not be a phpBB Weekly episode this Saturday, October 3rd. We will return live on October 10, and Douglas will hopefully be back in front of a normal computer by then.

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Episode Duration: 1:12:25
On This Episode: David Lewis (Highway of Life), Francis Lewis (Handyman), and Michael Williams (mtotheikle)

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NOTE: These show notes do not contain as many links as we would like them to due to the phpBB.com outage. We will add more links where appropriate once phpBB.com is back.

Douglas was at a conference in San Francisco during this episode, and you know what that means: David brings on guest team members to help him out. He was joined on this episode by Paul of the MOD Team, Francis Lewis (Handyman) of the MOD Team and StarTrekGuide, and Michael Williams (mtotheikle), Development Leader of StarTrekGuide. And the topic of discussion? Our well-known favorite topic of discussion–MODs.

First off, MODX 1.2.2 and AutoMOD 1.0.0 beta2 have been simultaneously released. MODX 1.2.2 mainly contains a number of XSL fixes and tweaks, and AutoMOD 1.0.0 beta2 includes a few new features and a number of bugfixes. The four of them also discuss some of their favorite MODs, take a look at some of the biggest MODs for phpBB3 and phpBB2, and chat about how MODding has evolved from phpBB2 to phpBB3.

February 1st marked the last day that the Development Team would release security patches for phpBB2, thus ending any and all support for phpBB2. It also marked the last day that any phpBB2 submissions would be accepted into the MODs Database. We talk about the ending of security patches as well as discuss how long it would take for very large boards to upgrade from phpBB2 to phpBB3. Finally, they also discuss the recent blog post on phpBB.com discussing why team members don’t give private support to users.

Last week’s poll question, “If you could add one more feature to the new WhiteHouse.gov website, what would it be?”, is still open and will run through Saturday, February 7. So go vote!
The MOD of the Week is Mods Database by lefty74, and the Style of the Week is Hermes by CyberAlien.

Be sure to join us next week when we will have a special edition phpBB Weekly episode with featured discussion of the ongoing phpBB.com outage, joined by members of the phpBB teams who have been busy this week rebuilding the site.

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Episode Duration: 1:02:19
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples) and David Lewis (Highway of Life)

On this episode, Douglas had just gotten back from Washington, D.C., and was thawing out. (Actually, make-up work from his week-long absence is the reason why this episode took so long to get released; sorry about that.) Nevertheless, we somehow accomplished David’s continual quest for “shorter episodes” with a release that is just barely over an hour. Not too shabby. And they said it couldn’t be done.

In addition to a bit of reflection from the inauguration, we pretty much covered some of the recent news. David gave us a preview of the upcoming release of MODX 1.2.2 (which has actually now been released, but we’ll talk about that on our next episode), and then he mentioned that a new variation on phpBB’s CAPTCHA has been committed to Subversion for 3.0.5 that will allow you to add a “wave” to the CAPTCHA image. (See the before and after.) Douglas also shares some of his experiences with reCAPTCHA, a good alternative CAPTCHA service for those of you who want a CAPTCHA that’s a little bit more humane. (Anyone want to write a phpBB3 MOD for it?)

David and Douglas also cover the recent blog post on fighting CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) and the measures that phpBB takes (and MOD authors should take) to help protect against CSRF. And in passing, David also shares that a new Junior Developers Team has started, and the developers have put together a very comprehensive page on how you can get involved with phpBB development.

Last week’s Poll Question of the Week was “Do YOU think there’s a government plan to close down the internet?” There were 2 votes (16.67%) saying “Yes, there certainly is.”; 4 votes (33.33%) saying “No way, this is just a crazy conspiracy theory.”; 5 votes (41.67%) saying “The government is watching every move I make, therefore I cannot provide a definitive answer to this question.”; and 1 vote (7.14%) saying “How the heck should we know? Or care?”. This week’s poll question is “If you could add one more feature to the new WhiteHouse.gov website, what would it be?” Vote in the poll on our right-hand sidebar, and leave a comment as well if you want to. The poll closes on February 7th.

The MOD of the Week is IGN Style Colored Names by Trel, and the Style of the Week is twilightBB by Daniel Exe.

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Download MP3 Episode (33.6 MB)

Episode Duration: 58:47
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples) and David Lewis (Highway of Life)

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We actually had the chance to carve out a shorter episode of phpBB Weekly today, thanks to the fact that the recent surge in phpBB news has finally started to calm down. We took more of a MOD author’s/developers angle on this episode of phpBB Weekly.

For starters, MODX 1.2.1 is out. This update mostly consists of an updated XSL which brings a long some nice user interface enhancements, and gives Douglas the opportunity to rediscover how much better MODX has become since the last time he looked at it seriously a year or two ago. (We won’t rewrite the changes in MODX 1.2.1 here when you can see them by clicking on the link.) Plus, David also talks about the possibility of introducing new action tags into MODX in the future and asks for feedback from MOD Authors on what they would like to see. More about MODX is available at the MODX Resource Centre, and you can also see a sample of MODX 1.2.1.

Then, we go into-depth with the new phpBB Code Wiki, and discuss in-depth the purposes of the wiki, what kind of articles can be found on the wiki, and most importantly, how anyone can help contribute to the wiki to make it better. Our discussion is based on a blog post about the wiki that David posted last week.

The MOD of the Week is Upcoming Birthday List by lefty74, and the Style of the Week is RedSilver 3 by jozomannen.

phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.
Also, be sure to check out the People’s Choice Podcast Awards. Nominations are now open (through the end of the day on September 30), so if you really like phpBB Weekly, consider nominating us!

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Download MP3 Episode (27.3 MB)

Episode Duration: 47:40
On This Episode: David Lewis (Highway of Life) and Paul Sohier (Paul)

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Douglas was away on a tour of Beijing, China with his school during this episode (which partially explains why this episode was somewhat late in its release), so David was joined on this episode by Paul (of the MOD team) to go through the latest flurry of phpBB news.

In this episode, David and Paul began by talking about the release of MODX 1.2.0, covering the changes and the benefits that the new version provides to the MODding community, as well as the much much easier MOD packaging policies. In addition, the Styles Database and Demo were officially opened, meaning that phpBB3 styles submissions will finally start to be validated! Yay!

They also recap on BertieZilla’s experiences at LinuxTag Berlin, where the phpBB guys shared a booth with Joomla! and gave out gummy-Berties. And, speaking of Berties, it looks like Bertie 3.0 is about to be shipped!

Finally, David, Francis, and two other team members will be at Joomla!Day Vancouver on June 14th, and David gives a preview of what to expect.

The MOD of the Week is Display user’s age in viewtopic for phpBB3 by EY, and the Style of the Week is ComicBook for phpBB3 by thecharmed01.

phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.