phpBB Weekly

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Episode Duration: 50:34
On This Episode: David Lewis (Highway of Life), Paul Sohier (Paul), Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty), Ashley Pinner (NeoThermic)

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Douglas was off taking a test during this episode, so he couldn’t make it, but then again, David forgot that it was Saturday, which is why the live stream of phpBB Weekly never happened! Whoops. Anyway, David managed to grab together a couple of team members to talk to for what could almost pass as another episode of the Official phpBB Podcast.

Anyway, this past week, the inevitable phpBB 3.0.1 was released featuring dozens of bugfixes, including two security-related fixes. As this marks the first non-RC-related update to phpBB3, they spend a little bit of time reviewing the process for updating from 3.0.0 to 3.0.1 and the importance of keeping your boards up-to-date. In addition, they discuss other common support issues with upgrading and how upgrading relates to the importance of keeping core code changes in MODs down to a minimum for compatibility.

They then discuss the recent alpha release of a MOD by naderman (of the Development Team) of the Sphinx Search Plugin for phpBB. Sphinx is a free open-source SQL fulltext search engine that is now another option that you can use for indexing your board’s content on your search page, and will quite possibly be showing up in phpBB 3.2 “Ascraeus.”

Yuriy gives us a quick update on the latest Londonvasion details (and by the way, you should also check out phpBB Weekly’s latest Londonvasion plans), and David tells us about Star Trek Guide’s new MOD Manager, as well as how you can obtain the “Borg Invasion” style that was used for STG’s recent April Fools joke.

No MOD or Style of the Week was selected this week, but we promise that we will make up for lost time next week and get back into the MODs and Styles selections.

Technical Note: Apologies for the background sounds in this episode–David discovered after the fact that he forgot to turn off his Skype sound effects!

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It’s been about three and a half months now since phpBB3′s gold release rocked the galaxy, and so now the hype has simmered down and the devs have rested up and the first big wave of post-release bug reports have rolled in. So now, three and a half months after the release, the Development Team has been working hard on the inevitable 3.0.1 release.

Confirming what David has promised us for these past few months, the Dev Team will be quietly issuing “quality assurance” release candidates of every minor release in an effort to avoid repeating instances of having to issue a new release within days of a previous one (as happened twice in the 2.0.x line and once during phpBB3′s RC stage). Anyone can help themselves to these release candidates (and the QA “Quack and Assassinate” Team will be forced to dive through them), and they will likely materialize into a full version of phpBB 3.0.1 by the end of the week. There will be a mailing list to subscribe to if you want to help test out release candidates when they come out (they will not normally be published on the announcements forum to the general community). As a reminder, while the RCs are not fully complete, the chances are that they will fix more problems than they cause; the purpose of the QA testing is to ensure that they don’t introduce any significant new problems.

So far, the list of changes for 3.0.1 features fifty bugfixes–it’s obvious that the dev teams have been busy, in addition to their recent release of 2.0.23 plus working on the development of Ascraeus.

We have been planning something special for this Saturday’s episode of phpBB Weekly, and thus, we will not be able to discuss phpBB 3.0.1 on our show this week. However, this is just a note to you to keep an eye out for the new release and update! (You know, I hear that the new auto-updater is like super-easy and totally rocks!) If you’re interested in helping to test out the release candidates, feel free to help yourself.

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Download MP3 Episode (28.9 MB)

Episode Duration: 50:31
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), David Lewis (Highway of Life), and Scott Stubblefield

The jury was out on whether or not we would be able to recover from our, um, interesting episode last weekend, but we came around with a somewhat more serious episode this week. This episode featured our tenth guest interview in this podcast’s short history, and represents our response to the many comments that we have received from our listeners recently asking for us to focus a bit more on styles for phpBB.

On this episode, we were joined by phpBB style author Scott Stubblefield, who makes some of our favorite styles for phpBB2 and for phpBB3. On this episode, Scott tells us about how he got into making phpBB styles, his experiences as a style author transitioning from phpBB2 to phpBB3, tips for users interested in making phpBB styles, and much more. Plus, David answers a frequently asked question regarding how long it will be before the phpBB.com Styles Database finally comes back online.

The MOD of the Week is Quick reply for phpBB3 by rxu, and the Style of the Week is Star Trek for phpBB3 by Scott Stubblefield.

Be sure to join us next week when we will have a very special surprise topic that will be sure to knock your socks off…

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

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Download MP3 Episode (17.9 MB)

Episode Duration: 31:18
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples)

Every podcast has great episodes and poor episodes–this was one of our poor episodes. David Lewis was unexpectedly absent from this episode (he apparently got injured the previous day and was unable to make it to the episode), but this left Douglas unprepared to fill the void. In this episode, Douglas comments on comparing phpBB to other bulletin board platforms, and he also introduces phpBB Weekly’s Listener Survey and Prize Giveaway. That’s about all that this episode offers though, but David and Douglas are planning to make up for it with a good episode next week.

The MOD of the Week is Random Avatars MOD for phpBB2 by mosheen, and the Style of the Week is Invision Blue Template.

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

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we are going to have to cancel phpBB Weekly for this Saturday, January 12th. David’s move to Spokane, which has been the cause of his absence for the past few episodes, has unfortunately had some issues which have slowed it down. Therefore, he will not be able to be here this Saturday for phpBB Weekly. At the same time, I will be out of town for a meeting, and will not be here for phpBB Weekly. Therefore, we are not going to be recording an episode this week.

phpBB Weekly #047, which was intended to be the episode where David will be revealing for the first time what’s new in phpBB 3.2, will be postponed to next Saturday, January 19th. David promises that he’ll be there, and I’ll also be there, so it will be great for both of us to be on the show at the same time for the momentous occasion. Even better, David will be joined by MOD Team member Josh W. (A_Jelly_Doughnut) and Development Team member David M. (DavidMJ)*, who will be joining David in revealing what’s new in the up-and-coming 3.2. And, of course, I will be there, serving as the curmudgeon offering my opinions and judgments on the revealed features, and asking as many more-in-depth type questions as I can, while also making sure that the episode doesn’t trump two hours. And, based on past experiences, with something this big going on, you can expect that there will be some more team members lurking about on TalkShoe, especially now that TalkShoe is more accessible now.

Oh, and of course, we invite you to not only come live and be among the first to learn about the new stuff coming in the next major release of phpBB, but also join in with your own questions and comments! Come in live to the chat room and share your opinions on the new features as they’re introduced, or call in live on the show and talk with our guest team members! Or, if you have questions and comments that you’d like to share, feel free.

Finally, the last thing that I am going to pitch is to ask you all to mention what some of the features you’d like to see in phpBB 3.2. After all, this podcast isn’t just for hearing what the team members have to say, it’s for hearing what you, the community, has to say. Who knows (David does) whether or not your most-wanted feature will actually be showing up in 3.2, but sound off in this topic about what you want the teams to deliver in 3.2, and we’ll be sure that they hear what you want them to hear.

In order to keep the discussion for this particular episode in one easy-to-find place, the comments for this post have been closed and we ask you to please respond in the phpBB Weekly forum topic.

We do apologize for the inconvenience of suddenly canceling this weekend’s episode, but we’re really looking forward to the exciting episode that we have planned for the 19th, and hope to see you then!
–Douglas Bell

* Guests are subject to change without notice.