IPB 3.2 - Early Beta Preview

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Quillz said:
I guess when the board reopens, the CKEditor will have been restyled, too.
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We had a lot of compliments on the new functionality of our editor but most were put off by its look. We agreed that the default skin is a little ugly and not really suitable for a professional application like IP.Board so we took an afternoon to skin it to fit in better.

We're pleased with the end result. In a very short space of time, we were able to match it to the current editor which will give you and your members that familiar IP.Board feel.
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Xenforo and IPB are both leaders in the forum industry, I will say IPB is a bit more refined than xenforo but that's just personal preference and that's 3.2 btw wasn't a fan of the look/feel of 3.1.
VB left the building YEAAAAAAAAAARs ago.
 
3.1 = clunky.
3.2 = smooth. :)

I think the move towards more Ajax and a proper working VNC are going to be key elements of 3.2's take-up, and the new (more minimal) layout should win fans too.

I'm enjoying the development of 3.2 and look forward to introducing it to my CycleChat members.

Which is quite a turnaround since I was looking to move away from IP.Board at the beginning of the year!!

Cheers,
Shaun :D
 
GeeksChat said:
3.1 = clunky.
3.2 = smooth. :)

I think the move towards more Ajax and a proper working VNC are going to be key elements of 3.2's take-up, and the new (more minimal) layout should win fans too.

I'm enjoying the development of 3.2 and look forward to introducing it to my CycleChat members.

Which is quite a turnaround since I was looking to move away from IP.Board at the beginning of the year!!

Cheers,
Shaun :D
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I agree to a point. I honestly feel the follow system (use to be watch system) is going to be the biggest improvement. I could never get the watch system to show me when new threads were replied in and when testing the follow system in 3.2, looks like they did the job.

I also think the cleaner user cp was a much needed improvement for the end user. I'm so glad that they are finally listening to some of our complaints/suggestions to improve the software for the people that actually visit our sites rather than their own agenda's or people with no site activity's thoughts on how forum software should work.

I can't wait for it to be released. Then I can actually do a nice comparison between IPB and XF and know whether I should stick with IPB or not (which is looking like I will if everything works like it should). I think the big plus that IPB has right now is the implementation of sphinx and how it handles on their site. I think that will be a huge improvement for us that have a lot of posts and user activity and need more accurate results.
 
Just been looking at the re-opened preview board again. They've made some good changes with CKEditor, it matches perfect now. But the "Like This" button is a blatant feature copy taken from XenForo. Sorry, but it obviously is.
 
I am actually removing myself from IPB on my main forum purely due to the way they release things .... Gallery is still clunky, yet working on another product. One never seems to get completly finished before the next is started, and its actually a shame because for the most part its actually a good product.

I do like 3.2, but dont think it quite looks the part as xenForo does. But in the same respect, its only a skin and most of the time changed. The best thing about IPB's existance along with xenforo's existance is that there are actually 2 decent competing forums again! And I really think they will compete. Have heard a lot of conversation especially on admin forums regarding the size of IPB versus the size of xenforo, but in reality are they really that different in size? You got 4 full time coders that I can see on invision that work for a company, versus 2 of the best coders on xenforo who OWN the company ..... To me thats a massive difference.
 
I am actually removing myself from IPB on my main forum purely due to the way they release things .... Gallery is still clunky, yet working on another product. One never seems to get completly finished before the next is started, and its actually a shame because for the most part its actually a good product.
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What you said there, was what finally stopped me using IPB 3 in the end. Plus, I would hate to be running all their add-on products like "Gallery, Blog and Download" with the Forum Board, looking at the pace they keep releasing newer updates all the time your expected to keep using. Absolute nightmare having to keep doing it, and on a very very regular bases. Just too much hassle because they release updates way too fast for my liking! Every other fortnight or month there's either a Gallery, Blog, or whatever else product update made available.

If you run most of these add-ons, your spending more time updating your site all the time than anything else.
 
Now the question is: what of the new version of IPB would you like to see on Xenforo? I don't intend "copying" features, ma simply caught good ideas...- The "collabetition" of Joe Ward!

I'd like for example the avatar in the last post on the homepage, and the page dedicated to the last notifications...(i've already suggested this here).
 
I'd like to see XenForo drop TinyMCE and use CKEditor instead. It's miles better testing it on the IPB 3.2 test board. I can see why both vBulletin and IPB have opted to use it above TinyMCE. I think it's one area that lets XenForo down a lot.
 
A few editors were trialled during development and TinyMCE had the least problems of them all at the time.
 
mrGTB said:
I'd like to see XenForo drop TinyMCE and use CKEditor instead. It's miles better testing it on the IPB 3.2 test board. I can see why both vBulletin and IPB have opted to use it above TinyMCE. I think it's one area that lets XenForo down a lot.
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I hope if and when they change over to CKEditor they do something with the smiley manager, A popup box and/or dropdown menu solution won't cut it and I'll leave the product behind if the happyplace mod doesn't work with ckeditor which I have no doubt it would not work.

That said, CKEditor does look nice, feels better and I have to say IPS have done a good job with it but the smiley popup box let's it down badly. It's seriously a showstopper for me.
 
Brogan said:
A few editors were trialled during development and TinyMCE had the least problems of them all at the time.
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To my understanding the bug the devs were waiting for to be fixed that stopped xenforo using it has now been fixed. Maybe the devs could step in and confirm that.
 
Does CKEditor not offer the option of showing a certain number of pre-defined smilies in a side-column for adding fast? Then you click a link to view extra ones for using? Your never going to beat that as being the best way for using smilies, because the side-column offers - one click add smiley, no pop-up or drop-down box at all to add them instantly like this picture shows them being used on my forum.

Snap1.webp
 
What do you think about "follow" topic/content feature?

mrGTB the editor of MyBB is very very similar to editor of the old IPB 1.X. And i don't understand because they changed this...is perfect! I agree with Shelley...the pop up is simply "stupid".
 
mrGTB said:
Does CKEditor not offer the option of showing a certain number of pre-defined smilies in a side-column for adding fast? Then you click a link to view extra ones for using? Your never going to beat that as being the best way for using smilies, because the side-column offers - one click add smiley, no pop-up or drop-down box at all to add them instantly like this picture shows them being used on my forum.

View attachment 14922
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It'll be possible I'm sure, but that is another layout, which is old, doesn't utilise space efficiently which I wouldn't want, use. There's better options if the devs over at IPB are willing to put the time and effort in.
 
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I see your point about the side-colum method wasting unnecessary posting space. Another way could be to line-up smilies below the post box itself to avoid that. Kind of like how UseBB do it with their forum software.

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