Web Wiz Forums Development Blog

This Topic is the development blog for Web Wiz Forums version 10, where you will find posts and screen shots of development work to the next version of Web Wiz Forums.

This was to be version 9.5, but as database changes have been made we need to stick to our policy of only changing the database schema for major version upgrades.

The main reason for the database changes is for a new Settings and Configuration Engine. This new engine will allow for us to include extra features and and configuration settings between minor releases without having to make changes to the database schema. This should also make life easier for Mod Builders being able to add new configuration settings without database schema changes.

The main focus of version 10 will be to the Admin Control Panel using the new Settings and Configuration Engine will allow us to add many new configuration options allowing Forum Admin's more options to setup their forums how they want them.

Version 10 will include a new HTTP XML API, which will allow developers to interact with Web Wiz Forums from; other websites, programming technologies such as PHP, ASP.NET, etc. and even desktop applications.

Development of version 10 is progressing quite well, and we are now testing out some of the new features on this forum.

Presently most of the new features are behind the scenes with improvements in both security, performance, and configurable options. With over 50 new configuration options so far added to the Admin Control Panel, below are just a few:-

• Page Encoding
• Enabling Detailed Error Messages
• Enabling advanced paging support for SQL Server 2005/2008 for improved performance
• Enabling the storing of session data in the database
• Cookie settings. Cookie Name, Domain, and Path settings
• Disable full registration form
• Number of failed logins before CAPTCHA is displayed
• Disable quick reply form
• Reverse Post Order
• Set minimum password and username lengths
• Disabling the editing of member profiles by moderators
• Disable Active Users and Number of users viewing forums
• More settings for Private Messages, and how to handle full PM boxes
• Configuration options for RSS Feeds
• Improved upload settings and support for uploads upto 2Gig

Version 10 will also have blogging built in with those groups with permission to, can create their own blogs.

There will also be a rating system for both Topics and Blogs.

The present ladder system working on post count will be replaced with multiple ladder systems working on a points system, allow the admin to configure how many points members get for things like New Topics, Replies, Blog Entries, etc.

Hopefully as development progresses we will be able to give you more details of the new added features.


Edited by -boRg- - 12 January 2008 at 6:27pm

The next alpha version of version 10 has now been uploaded to this site to test out some of the new features.

This includes many cosmetic changes such as option 'Today' date shown in bold, new unread Posts can also be shown in bold, and the Last Post section on the forums index page has been changed to make it easier to read Topic Subjects.

As well as these cosmetic changes the latest alpha build also includes a new Topic Rating system, allowing registered members to rate topics on a scale on 1 to 4. Each member is limited to one rating vote per topic, and Topics can also be listed in rating order.

We will be launching Web Wiz Forums version 9.50 tomorrow.

This new release will include Web Wiz CAPTCHA version 4 as well as some security updates, bug fixes, and some new features that were to be in version 10 but will now be released earlier in version 9.50.

The biggest change will be to the Free Express Edition which hopefully should make quite a few of those using the Express Edition very happy.

Further details will be available tomorrow when Web Wiz Forums version 9.50 will be released.