All-

Here is what I've been thinking about lately. I need your input badly. So, please humor me and read this fairly long post.

On Framework, PHP5, resources

As some of you know, I have developed most of nBBS myself. In parallel, I have also continued developing other projects, as those of you following me at nexus.zteo.com or on Twitter (twiter.com/chrisfr) already know.

It is becoming difficult for me to constantly re-invent framework pieces for these various projects and lately I've spent a lot of time creating my own PHP framework. Not that I do not like the frameworks already out there, but I needed something lightweight that would allow me to create new websites in a matter of hours.

One of my most recent projects, www.twitterified.com, relies on this new framework and every time I add a new piece to this framework, all my projects benefit. Actually it is very likely that this framework will soon be used in a big commercial project (1 million lines of code) with a dozen developers using it on a daily basis.

What are the pros of this new framework?

• Reduces potential for bugs drastically
  
• Code is organized logically and much easier to understand
  
• Active Records pattern allows any level developers to implement database-dependent features quickly
  
• Overall, very easy to develop for
  
• Ajax "on steroids": easy Ajax-ification of the web pages

What are the cons?

• PHP5 only! You need to let me know if you are stuck with PHP4!
  
• Slower than current, insanely optimized, software
  
• At first, a lot of features will be missing
  
• Integration with Wiki, etc. needs to be redone

On third-party software and components integration

About this integration issue: that's one of the things I am not happy with. I have decided to stop wasting resources on little-demand features and integration with Coppermine is an example of this kind of resource wasting. Note that we should not integrate with a nice image management program but I do not think that Coppermine is a good fit. Its philosophy differs too much from what I envision for nBBS (features with simplicity).

Some of the components I decided to use with nextBBS are needlessly complex and that leaves us in a rut. For instance, the rich-text editor, FCKeditor, is a nightmare to synchronize with nBBS and there are now new choices available that would be a better fit for a forum software. I believe that FCKeditor is too complex for editing forum posts. WYSIWYG is good, but trying to emulate Word is crazy.

On usability and overall philosophy

I have spent huge amounts of time making sure that wherever we -discretely- use Javascript, it degrades gracefully so that people browsing without Javascript can still use nBBS.
I now believe that it was an error. With more than 98% of web browsing happening with a Javascript-enabled browser, with the iPhone offering a perfect Javascript implementation, thus opening the era of embedded Javascript thanks to Webkit, I believe that trying to accomodate for 2 or 3% who made the conscious decision to block Javascript, in effect locking themselves out of the Internet, is a fool's errand and the effort could be better spent designing user-friendly interfaces.

If I was to "restart" nBBS, I would make two things my priorities, interface-wise:

• More dynamic, fluid pages: less users clicks, more instant results for their actions
• Simplification: nBBS would retain its power but would only reveal it progressively, offering, first, a simple, accessible user interface
  ( principle of "progressive complexity" )

On the admin control panel

I believe that the control panel offers an unrivaled set of options. However, I also believe that its organization is a mess. And it does nothing for contextual actions. The only example of real contextual management that we currently have in nBBS is validating new users directly from the members list.

What's the question, again?

My question is simple: do you think we should

• forge ahead with our current design, which works very well and fast, but does not make new developments or bug hunting easy and/but sticks with the canons of web forums circa 2000-2006,

• or should we take a step back and rewrite the software's backbone to use a framework that will allow more exciting future developments, but at the price of a - marginally noticeable - performance loss and, in the beginning, lacking some of the features currently available?

 

Please do more than merely vote. I could really use your actual opinion so please be vocal.

Thanks again for your continuous support, I mean it.

-Chris.

---

70 views, 2 votes?
Are you kidding me?

---

I know very little about PHP and the technical issues you address, but I can give you input from a user's view.  I think speed and ease of use is what's the most important to folks who post on message boards.  And also something that looks appealing/modern, but is still relatively easy to use.   As it is right now, I think Nextbbs does a great job doing that.  Reasons I like it are:

1. It looks sharp.

2. It runs pretty fast.

3. It can be customized.

4. There is a good support community (!)

5. The real-time chat feature.

The only negative I had, was the absence of the "traditional" login/password boxes.  When I upgraded my board to Nextbbs, the board members had a heck of a time figuring out where to login.  But got that squared away now.  I don't know how difficult it would be from a programming/code writing point of view, but that would be a suggestion of maybe what to integrate in the future.

Otherwise I like the software just like it is; it's a good balance between being visually appealing & "modern" looking and being functional.  

If you did decide to re-do everything, could we still use the version we have in place without having to upgrade?

Thank you for what I think is a great forum software.  It's amazing what you folks can do.

-Mia

 

---

Mia, glad you like it. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the myriad of little things that could work a little better so it's nice to read that you like it.

Regarding the login/password boxes, it is ironic that it is the issue that's been bothering your community, because there *is* an extension that takes care of adding these boxes to your header. I can look around for it if you're interested.

-Chris.

---

Okay Chris, you can consider me as one of the original. So my vote should count ten fold.
Chris over the past year the forums have slowed down in advancments. While I know you have been doing things, they are more behind the scenes. Which if you look at it we are were we were a year ago.
Because you rased this question in a slow down and a time were the forum software hasn't advanced to much. I prepous you take the opion to start from scratch.
You now under-stand how to develop a forum software solution and design to meet users needs. The new backend will work to your advantage in the end so its something to consider.

I say re-design, re-think nbbs. This was a great start, but you can do more and make a stronger software solution now.
I also say this because there are alot of files back end and its really anoying to do stuff. A new aproch could introduce a more improved system.

Last edit by trinest on May 2, 2008, 4:03 am

---

( Trinest.Com )

Trinest, thanks for your input.
I agree that, despite nBBS being written more cleanly than a lot of other forums software out there -who shall remain unnamed but you know who you are, you who apparently decided to completely ignore object oriented development. Wait, where was I? Long sentence.
Ah, yes. nBBS, cleanly written, etc. Well, despite this fact, I now feel, looking back, that some choices that were made, even if they made sense at the time, should be done away with because they are becoming liabilities more than sane building stones.
An ideal solution might be to keep all the existing modules but rewrite the skeleton and progressively upgrade the modules. At least, nBBS was written cleanly enough that it is easy to re-shuffle these modules around a different framework.

Mia: of course, whatever our final decision, the current version of nBBS will remain 100% operational and we will release maintenance releases if major issues are discovered.
And, if we decide to start fresh, we will, of course, release a tool allowing you to upgrade to the new version, should you wish to.

---

chris wrote:

70 views, 2 votes? Are you kidding me?

Lolz, Sorry, been reading this huge post like 4 times before voting too...

Finaly, I've voted for the first option...

I really like this software, because it is fast, easy to customize it, etc..., but newer software alsoo can be... Btw, computers, internet connections and servers alsoo get faster all the time...

I think you have to advance in future, going over to nextBBS2

Greetz.

---

You can do it if you really want it... - - - see my testforum (0.5.3)

If we start afresh can we have a nicer name? or a kick ass code name?

---

( Trinest.Com )

".... Mia: of course, whatever our final decision, the current version of nBBS will remain 100% operational and we will release maintenance releases if major issues are discovered. And, if we decide to start fresh, we will, of course, release a tool allowing you to upgrade to the new version, should you wish to."

Gracias Chris, and thanks again for all your efforts

---