<img src="http://www.ubbdev.com/members/ubb_member.gif" style="border: 1px black solid" align="left"><font size="2">Roundtable Discussion: UBB™ 6.2.1
Participants: Charles Capps, LK, Tackaberry, Greg Hard, DJLunacy, and AllenAyres

With the intro of 6.2 and it's subsequent release of 6.2.1, we bumped into each other in the UBBDev cafeteria and cornered Charles on what's happening on the UBB™ dev scene.



<font color="#677887">Allen :</font> How do you think the UBB project is coming along now that 6.2.1 has been released?

<font color="#99ccff">Charles Capps :</font> Well, we're coming along as expected. IMO, releases are taking far too long. We're really trying to get into a 45 day development -> public beta cycle. Hopefully we'll get that when work on 6.3 starts.

<font color="#677887">Allen :</font> What goals did you have for it going in and do you think they've been accomplished?

<font color="#99ccff">Charles Capps :</font> That's a little vague, can ya elaborate a bit more?

<font color="#677887">Allen :</font> OK, It seems to me that UBB is maturing into an excellent product - stable, and pretty much bug-free, what would make me wanna upgrade in the future?

<font color="#99ccff">Charles Capps :</font> My irresistable charm? We have a few very, very cool things coming up in the next few months. I wish I could tell you, but as I keep saying, then I'd have to kill you.

<font color="black">LK :</font> Which hack do you think the next version should include but it's not in the drawing board, and why isn't it in the drawing board?

<font color="#99ccff">Charles Capps :</font> Frankly, I haven't seen a new hack that would be worth inclusion since the Accelerator. Most hacks seem to either expand features in ways that we aren't doing for a reason, add features that most board owners wouldn't take advantage of, are simply ports of really old hacks (ala all the avatars, WOLs, etc), or perform no function other than adding eye candy.

Our next two features are Mass Move and Avatars. Mass Move hasn't been done since the EXCELLENT Carnell utilities back in the 5 series. Avatars have many implementations. We'll be using the upcoming OpenTopic implementation, as it's quite nifty.

I'd love to see a hack author try doing something that no one has thought of or implemented before. I want something that will make me sit down and wonder of why no one thought of it before. *THAT* is the kind of hack we'd consider putting into the UBB.

<font color="#677887">Allen :</font> Charles, people love the calendar, one of our most requested features and I have to say it is probably the most well-done modification we have here as far as features, code stability, and user/admin appeal

<font color="#99ccff">Charles Capps :</font> The calendar is currently number 13 on my working list of feature requests...

<font color="red">Tackaberry :</font> How about that "order a pizza" through the UBB™ I recall mentioned in the past

Seriously though. I would like to see enhancements to the Private Messages. That would include PM inbox on the forum summary.

There are also other things that should be done with PM's, such as the ability to edit them, and possibly multi-user PM's (more than one-to-one), such as small groups of 3 or more users with access to a thread. The ability to reply to a thread without having to wait for the other person to reply first. Take a thread off-line: public (or private thread) is replied to as a PM, rather than a forum thread.

UBBFriend tied to Buddy Lists, expand Buddy lists to allow custom groups.

<font color="#99ccff">Charles Capps :</font> What I want to do eventually is clone OpenTopic's private topic feature...

<font color="#344554">DJLunacy :</font> Charles: How long do you see the v6 series continuing?

<font color="#99ccff">Charles Capps :</font> While there have been a number of discussions regarding UBB7 on Community, I know of no plans to end the 6 series in the immediately forseeable future. There's still plenty of stuff for us to do.

<font color="#677887">Allen :</font> Those are good questions

<font color="blue">Greg Hard :</font> All of this sounds good. A webmasters love.

I wanted to see a simple implementation of the memberlist hack. Thanks for anchors, btw.

<font color="#344554">DJLunacy :</font> What new and upcoming feature excites you the most and why?

<font color="#99ccff">Charles Capps :</font> The one thing I'm most excited about isn't even a feature. I can't even tell you about it yet. Just wait for 6.2.2. Lots of people will be made very happy.

<font color="#677887">Allen :</font> Thanks, Charles, for some inside the beltway info, get back to coding and we'll send you a pizza and some Mountain Dew over tonight