UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Chit Chat anyone else annoyed by infopop?

mebbe its just me.

i've had my UBB license for almost 1.5 years now, and i gotta say, im getting kind of annoyed.

the consistant upgrades of the boards are driving me nuts!! sure, its actually a good thing -- great bidniz practice by infopop to continually strive to distribute a better product... but for hackers / modders / and the purpose of this board, its horrifying!!

i used to visit ubbdev.com all the time, and now... i dont have much to do here anymore

it seems like 5.45 was out forever, with tons of hacks and add-ons and abilities and features... then, one day, everything stopped, in preperation for v6 to be released. so, i upgraded, but found there was little support (here). .... then, after a few hacks were released, people stopped, again, to wait for 6.1. then that came out and people had to remake / reinstall / resupport hacks.

this happened again for 6.1.0.1 and .2 and .3... now its happening for version 6.2 (etc).

i know didly about cgi code and templates and all that, so i cant really hack anything by my lonesome. so, im constantly waiting for a new version of (insert hack name here) to come out, so i can finish off my boards. ... but, it seems like over the past year or so, i havent been able to catch my breath with all the infopop upgrades.

i used to love to customize the look and feel of my boards (as a site designer, thats my joy). but now... i don think i've even created a header graphic in the past few months, for fear ill have to redo it again after the new hacks are released.

again, i know its not like infopop is doing anything bad (its actually quite the contrary!) but i find myself coming to these boards less and less because i know there'll be less and less use for it (for me) because of all these upgrades -- something i find very frustrating.

anyone else bothered by this?

[ 01-07-2002 11:40 AM: Message edited by: drkknght ]

I'm not bothered at all, it takes a few seconds to upgrade with Beyond Compare, and it's better than having a buggy version.

Also, you can stick with 5.47e, 6.05, 6.1.0.3, etc, just not with buggy versions.

Rob,

It's a simple matter of preference.

There are many users who are content to use a stable older version that is well hacked.

There are others that like to use a newer version for which fewer hacks may be available.

And there are others who constantly wait for the newest version to come out, which generally will always have the least amount of hacks finished.

The jump from v5 to v6 was a major one, and many of the modifications had to be rebuilt from scratch.

The change from 6.05 to 6.1 was necesitated due to performance issues, and modifications then had to conform to the new cache and/or php requirements, as well the push to incorporate wordlets and valid xhtml.

With the performance issues seemingly abated, IP is now focusing on adding some of the long awaited features for their users. This is a good thing.

In terms of the number and frequency of upgrades, there will always be plenty of beta versions as development continues on a new version. Features, bug fixes and security patches. If you are running on a stable version, then there is really only the occasional upgrade to fix something that comes up.

As a user, you can do things, like use Beyond Compare or Multihack to reduce the time spent hacking and rehacking your board. You don't have to know a lot of cgi in order to use either, and many of the hacks being coded these days try to make it easier for the user to install.

Templates many sound scary, but I know that you know enough HTML to customize them. You don't have to be a perl wiz to edit templates.

Upgrades and so forth are always going to be part of a developing piece of software. UBB™ continues to evolve. You don't have to upgrade every time a new version comes out, and you can continue to do new things without taking the plunge to the latest beta.

It's a two sided coin. Users often complain how many times they have to upgrade, but also demand that various features be added to the base code.

We try to fill the gap in between and provide functionality until such time that IP incorporates something into the base code.



-Tacks

good points, all of'em.

and i definitely dont want to sound ungrateful for infopop doing all they can to bring out a better product.

certainly, those like me who use ubbdev and other such features to hack and modify the boards are in the great minority of infopop's customers, and thus, have to understand that they're simply doing what the majority would like.

its just frustrating, thats all

i loves me the "big-name" hacks (i.e; who's online, avatars, news fader, etc), and these are traditionally the "heart-breakers."

meaning, when 6.0 was out, everyone was waiting and dying for who's online for 6.0. ... after weeks of patience, it was learned that 6.05 was coming out, so who's online plans were scrapped, in favor of promoting the newer versions WOL. same thing for the other hacks and their newer versions. repeat for 6.05 - 6.1 - 6.1.5, etc.

(and, from what i hear, 6.2 will actually FEATURE wol!)

it just gets to be a pain, as i want to install a final, working version of those mods before tweaking the rest of my boards (so i dont run into compatability issues). but then, if those hacks never materialize, neither do the rest of my mods.

i've used programs like multihack before, but never beyond compare, so i spose i should check that out, n'see if that helps the situation a bit.

Hackers ~~ Less than 3% of their user base.
I'd much rather have a buggy featureless, incomplete version.

[ 01-07-2002 12:28 PM: Message edited by: Greg Hard ]

I have to admin that i normally hop right on new versions, but not betas. I have a 6.2 beta board on my LAN. I love hacking templates, and creating a new and original feel (or at least attempting to) and the move from 6.05 to 6.1.0.3 was very painless in that regard.

I really don't see 6.2 in the near future for my .com board because I don't want to rebuild it again. I admin that I have uttered a few explitives when I hear about the release cycle for new versions but I just have to remind myself that I DO NOT have to upgrade each time.

My .org board is in total flux right now and I'm still settling on a format, color scheme and focus for it so 6.2 will probably be there right after the "final" release.

this brings up many good points, i was on 5.45 for god knows how long and dident dive into the v6 series until 6.05 came out, i always seem to wait until something is "final" before i jump into it, on out 6.05 we have over 104 hacks installed, i have yet to see anthor v6 (or v5 for that matter) running live with that many hacks in the system, its a pain for us to upgrade cause we enjoy hacking way to much and over hack alot, however lord dexter and myself have begun working with tim on his 6.2 beta, we like what we see, so we decided to upgrade and start over again with 6.2, every person has a differnt way of doing things, im glade to see infopop putting out many new versons and happy they will start providing a text file witht he codes changed fomr verson to verson

I dunno if i read it right or what not but it sounds like to me that hes just saying instead of having so many upgrades, why not just combine a bunch of the upgrades together, and release fewer, but bigger version, that way it might give people a time to breath once and a while

I agree with you, Infopop is bringing out new versions very fast. But if they are doing this, don't overhack your board then so you have less work to do once a whole new version is out (eg. 6.1 to 6.2) and then if 6.2 stays out for a while hack your board more, or just don't upgrade from a final version. (eg. 6.05 to 6.1.0)

this topic won't go over well with the 'overlords'(how ever you want to put them)

BTW, the betas aren't really meant to be put into public forums unless you know what your doing and know the consequences that may happen. If you don't, stay with the newest finals.

[ 01-07-2002 06:52 PM: Message edited by: raiyan ]

Why do you not add X feature? I want it now!

Why do you come out with too many updates?

Can I get this? I gotta have it.

I hate new versions, I'd rather hack my board and leave it alone.


insert picture of navaho's head spinning here.

I know how you feel navaho. No matter wat you do, you are gonna **** off somebody. I purchased my UBB about 2 months ago, and I just barely got it settled into production, and people are requesting X hack or Y hack. I finally said I'm waiting on 6.2. Simple fact is Infopop is pretty good at communicating to customers about new releases so you have time to prepare. I'm basically ready to migrate my board to 6.2 when it goes final. Sure I'll have to spend a few hours getting features back, but to me, that's the fun part of owning a UBB. I love seeing what UBB is capable of and the What can we put in next.

*Dreaming of seeing the Infopop Whiteboard for future releases*

Hey Rob, when you upgrade on the smaller releases, give Beyond Compare a shot... makes it much easier. We moved from 0.3 to 0.4 in less than five minutes. Plus, IP has started putting together a "upgrade from the last version" zip file containing only the files changed since the last version - makes it even easier.

Yes, file compare then minor updates is always preferable to complete reupload and rehacking.

As for the releases, I personally have no problem with the frequency of new versions. If anything else, I'd like to have new versions more often (Though that can't really be asked, I know you guys are working as hard as you can to get this stuff working ). New versions mean more bugfixes, security holes filled, features, etc. If you don't feel like upgrading, you don't have to. As it's been said, you don't have to upgrade each time. If you're concerned about the frequency of releases, then perhaps upgrade every two releases, or even three (unless a MAJOR security hole has been found)!

Personally, I make an effort to file compare and upgrade with each successive version, every two if I can't gather the time for every one.

So you'd rather them not? See, what the problem is, you can't satisfy everyone. If they released fewer versions, people would cry that the versions aren't frequent enought. If they release often, people cry that they release to many.

You can't satisfy everyone, so they do what is best for the business and the general population of users. Frankly, most of their customer base does not modify their board, so upgrades are as simple as uploading the files. For people that modify their board, the price of modifications is the stepped up difficutlty in upgrading.

Believe me, it's far better that IP releases upgrades as soon as bugs or security holes are fix. Want the opposite extreme? Look at MSA's wwwboard. that thing hasn't been upgrades since 1996 or 1997 (save for the one line of code he changed new years eve 2k to prevent the 19100 bug). It's far known that that's the most buggy, insecure piece of software out there....but he refuses to work on it.

Aren't you happier knowing that the software you run is activly supported and fixed as soon as something is discovered?

Another one oft heard: "Why don't they just wait until there are no bugs before releasing a version?"

1) No such thing as bug free software

2) Again, people would complain it's taking too long. People already complained that about the 6.x series.

2 cents

There is nothing wrong with updates, its only good to get UBB better.
What do you want? A board which doesnt work good or one with less problems and faster?

I've seen so many people complaining about UBB, and saying that other boards are better, in my opinion you can scrab that (there is not other better board for me than UBB)

You dont like new versions? or are you tired to upgrade? Just dont upgrade than, like me i lub my 5.45 ... Its maybe to buggy but i dont care. It sounds very hard like i said, but true facts are always hard

Just have fun with your board and dont let you get frustrated with updates, if you cant take it.

The fun for me is hacking the board, and surprising the users with features. Once I get 6.2.1 up, I'm gonna start surprising them. I only announce my plans with the UBB to the admins of the site.

See hacks are good if competitors do not have similar features. However with Jelsoft's vBulletin (www.vbulletin.com) you have this pretty impressive piece of forum software that has all the features we UBB users have been dying for for about a year and more, standard.

I know I hacked the living daylights out of 5.47e to get these standard features just because IP was having probs with 6.x performance.

vBulletin requires zero hacks for Avatars, Calendars, Memberlist, User Polls, Custom titles, Topic Rating, PM, Topic Views, Attachments, Uploading Avatars, fast searching, good forum permission security setup (groups), and a host of other features. All of this comes standard out of the box.

What's neat is that with vBulletin all their extra features can be disabled via the Admin panel so it does not appear Bloatware once you finish editing the templates which means you are not hacking at all.

IMHO even the new features IP has finally got around to releasing like user Polls has a weird interface. What are they doing?

I think IP has to figure out where the money is and catch up with these common features.

I really don't think Hacking is the solution for all these features I mention above. I mean I respect the programming capabilities of everyone who releases hacks, but it's surprising that IP cannot release them as standard features themselves.

Why use a hack when the competitors have a neat package that does it all? You worry about security issues with hacks all the time, at least I did with 5.47e hacks, specially PM hack.

UBB Threads seems to be an option but it is too expensive fornow.

Virus, I thought you bought UBBThreads?

UBB set the standard for the way BB's work on the net and all features in vB came from the hackers. It's a copycat. Simply said.

I have been here a while, earlier than some of the mods, and been using the ubb for ages.

IP do like to release a new version when their is enough of a reason to do it, i use to love hacking it, finding a new release and adding hacks to it to make it suitable, but after a year and a bit of running my site, i get fed up when a new release comes out, and normally wait for a few versions to pass before i even look at it, went from 6.05 to 6.1.03, because i know they would proberly release one a few days laters with a few fixes, so waited for 6.1.0.3.

Someone brought up the vb in thos topic, i have seen a lot of vb's appear, and been an admin of one at one time, and they are easier to work with becuase if you want a standard message board with good features, that is a good chooice, no hackin is required for WOL etc...

Greg, you are correct, UBB was the first major bb product, it set the mold, but since then many products have been released, was talking to one of the crew of phpbb, and that has come a long way, still needs a bit of work on the layout, but it is capable of competiting with the ubb for feature wise.

Jelsoft have started working on vb 3 now, no doubt IP are planning UBB 7, but at what cost? will the features of UBB 7 be what Vb 2.2 has now? or are they planning on making the next ubb have majority of the hacks pre-installed type thing?

My 2 cents is i hope they wait a while before making a version final, and maybe carry on beta testing for a while. I wonder how long it will be for the version after 6.2.1 to appear?

...and just to think we purchased UBB because our competitor website uses vBulletin

We hoped that UBB will catch up soon -- it has been 5 months, 3 releases and it still hasnt

I am sticking along still and trying to extract the best out of UBB. Thats all we can do -- so a big thanks is due to all the hacker community!

Have to say one thing though -- the support community is excellent -- prompt, receptive, friendly and helpful. This includes official infopoppers and unofficial hacker community.

On the con side...errr...well, I have come across this phrase many times in these forums: "if you dont have anything nice to say, then dont say it"

I don't think IP should have all these features in UBB's stock release, because it slows down the UBB. However, it might be a good idea to add 'addons' part to Members Area - with these hacks as official addons. 1 click, run HACKNAME.cgi - voila, you installed HACKNAME.

While everyone is being busy being annoyed anyways, be on the lookout for 6.2.1 sometime today

I hate to diss UBB because I really liked ubb 5.47e, and all you members here really helped me hack it so I like these boards also (ubbdev).

However I kind of see a similar argument about copying forum features to another classic case (which of course is much larger in any sense): Apple vs. Windows.

I used to be a Macintosh fanatic (when Mac Plus was the rage) and I remember using Win 3.0 when it came and all of us Mac users dismissed it as a copycat... and MS kept improving it and using other business tactics now Win stands as a monopoly while Apple (one of the originators/pioneers of the GUI) is a niche market.

So dismissing a product as a copycat IMHO is not the best way to evaluate a product, specially when it's a competitor.

I have not used 6.2.x and so I cannot say much about its performance, but I am reasonably confident to say that with the flat file feature of UBB will not be able to handle the "cool features" most SQL based forums can have.

I hope IP moves fast and adds the standard features to UBB Threads and makes it cheaper to grab marketshare.

Waht is it with this Infopop place? Man, they really piss me off. I just can't believe they just released another version... now I have to upgrade... grrrrr the nerve.They probally fixed stuff to.. man, now I have even less to complain about.

Oh.. and their tech support... don't get me started... they actually have the nerve to truly want to help. They even go as far as to fix things... man....

(sorry for going off topic)

I would have to say that I have spent many hours trying to get v6.2 to work with the look I want and with the features I want, and I have to say that it looks like the convoluted implementation is meant to discourage hacking and customizing. It looks to me like the code is overly complicated. The simple need of opening and reading files has multiple dependencies that make it impossible to decipher. The wordlets idea for customizing makes very little sense and serves to confuse customizing. Plus in my test website, I am seeing server busy, too many cgi requests errors constantly. The active site is running v5.47, and even though I paid for the upgrade, I don't think I will ever be able to use v6.x. I managed to get v5.47 to be able to be WC3 compliant, but I despair of getting v6 there. The XML compliant templates are a joke. Anybody can search and replace for
and put in < /br> or whatever it's supposed to be. I forget. I sometimes think UBB is a monster that's gotten out of control!