Invision Board 3.0 Discussion

[Keven Fox]

Have you already selected a testing team?

If you have and still need more later please let me know.

Otherwise I'll wait until this arrives in public beta, but would prefer to offer input.

[Axel Wers]

I would like to join testing team if it could be possible :)

[Energizer]

Have they addressed the question about if people who are perpetual/lifetime license holders will be able to upgrade to 3.0 without any problems?

Do they have a reason why they doubt the IPS to his word and the Lifetime license Treaties met?

[Immort]

Well they said fourth quarter or "possibly sooner" so I doubt it will be the end of the year before betas. but who nows.

As far as perpetuals/lifetimes, if those aren't honored I definitely am going to be beyond mad. It would mean they were a scam if they aren't honored still becuase buying yearly/standard ones wouldn't have added up to the price of those yet at all for me. You can't just tell people something includes lifetime upgrades and then randomly change it. Even if there were some loophole they would get a ton of negative press over something like that.

Hear hear.
Ive been a customer for many years, and Im very happy with IPB and never had a problem with them "changing terms" when versions of the forum changed (I was here in the 1.00s versions!). I was rather pissed that the perpetual license didnt exist anymore at the time of buying the gallery, though... but yeah... I assume that if they said it was "perpetual" for the forums we purchased, thats what it is!! :)




About IPB itself, i think right now everything looks awesome, however, id like to see integration between Gallery and Board. When people post a new image/create a new album/make a comment in the gallery, itd be cool to see that in the "Today's active topics". :) ...and thats my only suggestion, really. :cool:

[Charles]

If you have a perpetual or lifetime license then you have a perpetual or lifetime license :) That means you'll get 3.0 when it's out.

[Lindsey_]

This must be our christmas present :D

Can't wait for it :D

[bfarber]

Some notes regarding comments

1) Firstly, if you have feature suggestions, please post those in a separate topic. :) It gets difficult to find out individual feature suggestions in a 10+ page topic when they're scattered throughout. Just a friendly request for our sanity (our = developers)

2) We have not selected any external beta testing teams yet. We will do so when the time is ready.

3) Regarding performance, that is a major focal point as well. We will post more about resources specifically in a future blog post.

[Jaggi]

just something else to ask, is the licensing going to stay the same for ipb 3.0? i should think so but just wanna make 100% sure.

[Keven Fox]

Thanks Brandon, for that information.

[Tarun]

If you have a perpetual or lifetime license then you have a perpetual or lifetime license :) That means you'll get 3.0 when it's out.

Thank you for addressing that question Charles. You've put my mind and I'm sure many others at ease.

IP.Board is, and always has been my favorite. :)

[therock247uk]

/me will glady test it out. :)

[skysober]

So far I have not heard if IPB 3.0 is going to finally have true multiple attachments (not one at a time uploads - which is a SINGLE attachment no matter what excuses are given,) and focus on those attachments as photos and vidoes.

I, like many others, chose to not upgrade to even the latest upgrades, simply because I grew weary of the mods no longer working, the skins no longer working (and yes I have read in this how they claimed skins were backwards compatible... but most custom 2.0 did not work for 2.1 nor 2.1 for 2.2, and so on...) But with a lot of paid programming assistance we finally got rid of all the ajax calls and quick edit that fails on older versions of browsers and got our 2.1 skin to work on 2.2 in the comfortable style that our thousands of members are used to.

I hear how some say mods are a bad thing... like a caveman viewing fire for the first time... without mods, IPB is simply a glorified BBS. I have used IPB since 1.0 and upgraded faithfully up until I was told that IPB is actually working to STOP/KILL mods, that in my opinion bring IPB almost up to the level of its competition, (both commercial AND freeware.) The excuse that it 'breaks' their software, slows it down, or you don't really need that mod, can be more than a bit irritating. If I wanted the present out of the box simple, I could have users call each other and snailmail the attachments as a hardcopy... IPB is suppose to be about being a community sofware, with interaction and sharing, and focus on that will have to someday return to this, else even less will upgrade. I, like others, feel that IPB gets their money out of a certain group of customers... then instead of improving and adding to what they have, they ignore those customers and make all new, hoping to snag a new group of customers. Even a child with a lemonaid stand knows if a customer wants sugar in their drink, they add the option for them to put it in there. They don't say, "no sugar, it is bad for you". Repeat customers bring a lot more revenue, then the hope of a new one...

I am curious, since 3.0 is stated it will only work on php5 and new skins, and mods will not work, how many will be upgrading due to this. Of course there is no reason they could not use both php4 and php5, and if a person is on 4, it simply not use the 'extra' features that may be offered by using 5, yet that would be too simple and would not cut out potential upgraders. Even microsoft in its power glory knew to add backwards compatibility in order to keep customers.

I will definately look at and test the new version when it comes out. I will of course not use it on any of the main sites I host or tech on, as this is not an 'upgrade', but something 'new', because as it is we finally have true multiple attachments and true video capabilities on our present sites with 2.2...
...but for a new site that does not have hundred of thousands of previous posts, it might be interesting to see how it might work.

Obviously I would not be a good a beta tester - lol, I would be too honest, and not allow IPB try to convince me that something that thousands of members demand, is not a vaild reason to upgrade it as a part of their software. Or when ajax or some fancy feature a few use fails, just ignore it, and tell my members they should upgrade their browsers to .. I mean it is their fault they are using what is comfortable for them, right? lol If they don't like the way IPB is set up, they can always go to any number of diffferent site that uses a forum software that is compatible for the member to use and interact with. That won't help me or my businesses as I loose them, but hey, if I want to keep members and customers, I have to petition at IPB, just like they do at me, to get the upgrades they want, not just what I 'think' they should have...

[henke37]

You don't seem to quite understand why they chose php 5 as a minimum. You can't just gracefully degrade php 5 code with exceptions, proper objects and so on.
And you have completely misunderstood their stand on modifications, they are not trying to prevent those from being made, they are trying to make it easier. Look, they even host a directory of modifications!
Yes, there will be an incompatibility, but this is due to cleaning stuff up. It's the same thing as for actionscript 3 vs actionscript 2. They made a new api to work with, so stuff needed rewrites, but they also gained loads of neat stuff that previously was impossible.

[Josh]

So far I have not heard if IPB 3.0 is going to finally have true multiple attachments (not one at a time uploads - which is a SINGLE attachment no matter what excuses are given,) and focus on those attachments as photos and vidoes.

We haven't talked about the attachment system in IPB 3 yet, but we will have more information on that later.

I hear how some say mods are a bad thing... like a caveman viewing fire for the first time... without mods, IPB is simply a glorified BBS. I have used IPB since 1.0 and upgraded faithfully up until I was told that IPB is actually working to STOP/KILL mods, that in my opinion bring IPB almost up to the level of its competition, (both commercial AND freeware.) The excuse that it 'breaks' their software, slows it down, or you don't really need that mod, can be more than a bit irritating. If I wanted the present out of the box simple, I could have users call each other and snailmail the attachments as a hardcopy... IPB is suppose to be about being a community sofware, with interaction and sharing, and focus on that will have to someday return to this, else even less will upgrade. I, like others, feel that IPB gets their money out of a certain group of customers... then instead of improving and adding to what they have, they ignore those customers and make all new, hoping to snag a new group of customers. Even a child with a lemonaid stand knows if a customer wants sugar in their drink, they add the option for them to put it in there. They don't say, "no sugar, it is bad for you". Repeat customers bring a lot more revenue, then the hope of a new one...

We definitely value modifications and are working hard to be support both modifications and the authors who are creating them. We're adopting popular mods, like Shoutbox to provide those mods additional resources and help improve them. We've updated our resource site to highlight some great mods and make it easier to find new mods, you can read about those changes here. With IPB we're creating a system that is even more mod friendly and less prone to break mods on upgrades, and we've talked a bit about how that will work. Making IPB 3 easier to mod is one of our primary goals.

I am curious, since 3.0 is stated it will only work on php5 and new skins, and mods will not work, how many will be upgrading due to this. Of course there is no reason they could not use both php4 and php5, and if a person is on 4, it simply not use the 'extra' features that may be offered by using 5, yet that would be too simple and would not cut out potential upgraders. Even microsoft in its power glory knew to add backwards compatibility in order to keep customers.

Unfortunately it is not that simple, it isn't possible to gracefully degrade the code to work on PHP 4. If it were as simple as turning off features, we would certainly do that.

I will definately look at and test the new version when it comes out. I will of course not use it on any of the main sites I host or tech on, as this is not an 'upgrade', but something 'new'...

I think that when you actually have a chance to try out the new software, you will agree that is an upgrade over IPB2.

Obviously I would not be a good a beta tester - lol, I would be too honest, and not allow IPB try to convince me that something that thousands of members demand, is not a vaild reason to upgrade it as a part of their software. Or when ajax or some fancy feature a few use fails, just ignore it, and tell my members they should upgrade their browsers to .. I mean it is their fault they are using what is comfortable for them, right? lol If they don't like the way IPB is set up, they can always go to any number of diffferent site that uses a forum software that is compatible for the member to use and interact with. That won't help me or my businesses as I loose them, but hey, if I want to keep members and customers, I have to petition at IPB, just like they do at me, to get the upgrades they want, not just what I 'think' they should have...

We welcome all feedback, there's no such thing as too honest. We try hard to incorporate as many of our customers ideas as possible, but at the end of the day we only have time for a certain number of features. We have to try and implement the features that will benefit the widest range of our customers in the amount of time that we have to develop this version.

So I hope that you will give IPB3 a chance, we're really excited about it and hope that all of our customers are too. :)

[bfarber]

Josh is so much better at PR than I am, you could say. :P

So far I have not heard if IPB 3.0 is going to finally have true multiple attachments (not one at a time uploads - which is a SINGLE attachment no matter what excuses are given,) and focus on those attachments as photos and vidoes.

I, like many others, chose to not upgrade to even the latest upgrades, simply because I grew weary of the mods no longer working, the skins no longer working (and yes I have read in this how they claimed skins were backwards compatible... but most custom 2.0 did not work for 2.1 nor 2.1 for 2.2, and so on...) But with a lot of paid programming assistance we finally got rid of all the ajax calls and quick edit that fails on older versions of browsers and got our 2.1 skin to work on 2.2 in the comfortable style that our thousands of members are used to.

You don't seem to really have an appreciate for the "how" things work aspect of the software. Upgrading from 2.0.0 to 2.0.1 to 2.0.2 largely requires no skin changes, and skins can work across all of these point releases. HOWEVER, upgrading from 2.0 to 2.1 is an entirely new version. That's like expecting Microsoft (in your example) to be able to guarantee an application written for Windows 98 will work on Windows 2000. They can't, and don't. Instead, they provide tools and backwards-compatible APIs (just as we did, with the LEGACY_MODE constant, but that's a developer thing ;) ) so that the application authors can update their work.

Similarly, it is up to skin authors and mod authors to update their work. We can only do so much out of the box.

And seriously....how many times are you going to bring up your "omgz multiple attachments" thing. :lol: I'm fully aware you absolutely hate our attachment system.

I hear how some say mods are a bad thing... like a caveman viewing fire for the first time... without mods, IPB is simply a glorified BBS.

Uh, I'd venture to say that's EXACTLY what IPB is - a BBS. :blink: Perhaps I'm missing your argument here.

I have used IPB since 1.0 and upgraded faithfully up until I was told that IPB is actually working to STOP/KILL mods, that in my opinion bring IPB almost up to the level of its competition, (both commercial AND freeware.) The excuse that it 'breaks' their software, slows it down, or you don't really need that mod, can be more than a bit irritating. If I wanted the present out of the box simple, I could have users call each other and snailmail the attachments as a hardcopy... IPB is suppose to be about being a community sofware, with interaction and sharing, and focus on that will have to someday return to this, else even less will upgrade. I, like others, feel that IPB gets their money out of a certain group of customers... then instead of improving and adding to what they have, they ignore those customers and make all new, hoping to snag a new group of customers. Even a child with a lemonaid stand knows if a customer wants sugar in their drink, they add the option for them to put it in there. They don't say, "no sugar, it is bad for you". Repeat customers bring a lot more revenue, then the hope of a new one...

You are entirely focused on one feature that YOU want (and have logged in repeatedly as different users to "prove" how many different users want it). We've added dozens upon dozens upon dozens of features that our customers have requested. We never spend time building in featuers to simply snag new groups - we build features that enhance our software. Take a look at our Blog and the features announced for IPB3. I can provide direct topic links for the majority of those blog posts where our users have quite clearly requested said functionality.

Please stop being so hard on us because of one feature you want, that has *relatively* (I'm not saying "none") little backing. Additionally, we've never stated it won't be included. Perhaps you will be pleasantly surprised when 3.0 is released.

And further, we absolutely love our modification community. I came from our mod community, remember? So did Josh as I recall. We do NOT attempt to break or stop mods. You heard wrong.

I am curious, since 3.0 is stated it will only work on php5 and new skins, and mods will not work, how many will be upgrading due to this. Of course there is no reason they could not use both php4 and php5, and if a person is on 4, it simply not use the 'extra' features that may be offered by using 5, yet that would be too simple and would not cut out potential upgraders. Even microsoft in its power glory knew to add backwards compatibility in order to keep customers.

I will definately look at and test the new version when it comes out. I will of course not use it on any of the main sites I host or tech on, as this is not an 'upgrade', but something 'new', because as it is we finally have true multiple attachments and true video capabilities on our present sites with 2.2...

...but for a new site that does not have hundred of thousands of previous posts, it might be interesting to see how it might work.

Firstly, the php5 issue has been addressed. PHP4 is something like 8 years old, and PHP5 is about 3 years old now. PHP doesn't even support PHP4 anymore. It's like saying we should support Windows98 backwards-compatible while developing for Vista. Sometimes you just have to move forward and there is no way to make the software backwards compatible.

Did you see we'll have a built in media-tag option in the bbcode manager for IPB3? And let's not get on with the multiple attachments yet again. As said previously, wait and see.

Obviously I would not be a good a beta tester - lol, I would be too honest, and not allow IPB try to convince me that something that thousands of members demand, is not a vaild reason to upgrade it as a part of their software. Or when ajax or some fancy feature a few use fails, just ignore it, and tell my members they should upgrade their browsers to .. I mean it is their fault they are using what is comfortable for them, right? lol If they don't like the way IPB is set up, they can always go to any number of diffferent site that uses a forum software that is compatible for the member to use and interact with. That won't help me or my businesses as I loose them, but hey, if I want to keep members and customers, I have to petition at IPB, just like they do at me, to get the upgrades they want, not just what I 'think' they should have...

1) Honesty is always appreciated, as long as it is polite in nature. ;)
2) Show me these "1000's". I've seen maybe 10 people request multiple attachments since 2.1 was released 3-4 years ago. You and your 2 other aliases being 3 of those 10 people.
3) I'm afraid we will require you to have at least IE6 for IPB3, and some features may not work the same way in IE6 as they would in IE7. Again, I'm sorry, but we can't develop our software for technology available in 1990. It's 2008 - we have to move forward at some point.
4) Our skin guidelines require that all functionality of the software still work, even if javascript is disabled. While it may work differently, every option should still be achievable in some fashion.

[FrostedPopTart]

Josh is so much better at PR than I am, you could say. :P

Maybe that's why you come off as a pessimist and a harsh person to me? (same with a couple certain IPS Resources people on here :unsure: ) I don't mean to be rude when I post sometimes, you know how I am - we talked about it via PM / email.

You don't seem to really have an appreciate for the "how" things work aspect of the software. Upgrading from 2.0.0 to 2.0.1 to 2.0.2 largely requires no skin changes, and skins can work across all of these point releases. HOWEVER, upgrading from 2.0 to 2.1 is an entirely new version. That's like expecting Microsoft (in your example) to be able to guarantee an application written for Windows 98 will work on Windows 2000. They can't, and don't. Instead, they provide tools and backwards-compatible APIs (just as we did, with the LEGACY_MODE constant, but that's a developer thing ;) ) so that the application authors can update their work.

Similarly, it is up to skin authors and mod authors to update their work. We can only do so much out of the box.

And seriously....how many times are you going to bring up your "omgz multiple attachments" thing. :lol: I'm fully aware you absolutely hate our attachment system.

I remember the 1.3 to 2.0 conversion. That was a mess. So was the 2.1 to 2.2 conversion, where the HTML logic changed in the skins. Fortunately I rarely skin my boards, I'm much more a modder than a skinner (I suck balls (sorry for the language) at graphics; but my coding skills are far superior.

Uh, I'd venture to say that's EXACTLY what IPB is - a BBS. :blink: Perhaps I'm missing your argument here.

I agree 100% with Brandon here.

You are entirely focused on one feature that YOU want (and have logged in repeatedly as different users to "prove" how many different users want it). We've added dozens upon dozens upon dozens of features that our customers have requested. We never spend time building in featuers to simply snag new groups - we build features that enhance our software. Take a look at our Blog and the features announced for IPB3. I can provide direct topic links for the majority of those blog posts where our users have quite clearly requested said functionality.

Please stop being so hard on us because of one feature you want, that has *relatively* (I'm not saying "none") little backing. Additionally, we've never stated it won't be included. Perhaps you will be pleasantly surprised when 3.0 is released.

And further, we absolutely love our modification community. I came from our mod community, remember? So did Josh as I recall. We do NOT attempt to break or stop mods. You heard wrong.

See above.

Firstly, the php5 issue has been addressed. PHP4 is something like 8 years old, and PHP5 is about 3 years old now. PHP doesn't even support PHP4 anymore. It's like saying we should support Windows98 backwards-compatible while developing for Vista. Sometimes you just have to move forward and there is no way to make the software backwards compatible.

Did you see we'll have a built in media-tag option in the bbcode manager for IPB3? And let's not get on with the multiple attachments yet again. As said previously, wait and see.

This is true. Why support PHP4 when the last update to it was made in early January (and that was the VERY LAST one)? It's like asking IPS to support IE5.0 when it's not been updated in eons upon eons. It won't happen.

1) Honesty is always appreciated, as long as it is polite in nature. ;)

2) Show me these "1000's". I've seen maybe 10 people request multiple attachments since 2.1 was released 3-4 years ago. You and your 2 other aliases being 3 of those 10 people.

3) I'm afraid we will require you to have at least IE6 for IPB3, and some features may not work the same way in IE6 as they would in IE7. Again, I'm sorry, but we can't develop our software for technology available in 1990. It's 2008 - we have to move forward at some point.

4) Our skin guidelines require that all functionality of the software still work, even if javascript is disabled. While it may work differently, every option should still be achievable in some fashion.

Add me to the list of people wanting multiple attachments. Although I have other features that I want more than that *cough* mass manage forums *cough* , the multiple attachments one would sure make things easier come IPB 3.0 launch time. :)

[krocheck]

Dude ... people ... take a chill pill and go to your corners. :lol:

1) I certainly can understand frustrations over upgrades on boards with mods ... I've been there. I used to heavily mod my board and I DID spend hours, days on end to get the code modded and published to a live server. There are a lot of great and useful mods out there, and as time has gone on I've seen the need for mods decreasing because more of those features have been built-in by IPS. Is there a need ... there will always be a need. There will ALWAYS be some feature that someone needs that isn't available by default.

Having said that, using the advances in PHP5 and newer coding techniques, the hope is that ALL mods (large components down to simple code changes) can be accomplished by dropping PHP files from the mod authors into folders ... rather than having to make manual code edits. The new hooks system, as I understand it, will largely accomplish this AND make upgrades from there on less painful.

2) We have heard about these compatibility issues and desires for backwards compatibility for years now with every version. Here's the deal, if the systems and platforms you expect this software to work with are no longer supported and/or developed by their creator ... you cannot EXPECT a software to build in backwards compatibility for those legacy systems. You sacrifice too much in terms of money, resources, time, and features. If a web host does not have PHP5 available, then request it or find a new host - there's plenty of them, see my sig ;).

On the other side of it, if you have software that requires PHP4 and cannot work on PHP5 then you need to go to that software's creator and request them to update it for PHP5. If it is no longer supported then you might want to find replacement software because vulnerabilities in PHP4 (probably the software too) will surface and make your site susceptible to attacks.

Browsers is a whole different can of worms. I do agree that a certain amount of backwards compatibility needs to be built-in, but it could be done using backwards-compatible skins that drop features that legacy browsers can't handle. What ever happened to Lo-Fi .. oh wait, it is still there ... let's develop posting functionality into there and call it a day. :) No? Ok, all joking aside ... in theory the new skinning/templating engine could make such a task easier to accomplish, but may require JS files to be split up a little more to separate essentials from 'fancy features'.

3) Please keep a positive tone. Feature selection is tricky game because you need to pick the right balance of the most requested features, important features, and bugs all placed in some sort of time-frame and budget. If Brandon or others say something is not feasible currently because other features are more requested ... don't take it personally. This is a business, and while they must cater to all their clients, it must be done such that it benefits as much of the client population as possible.

I agree that having multiple-upload capabilities would be a great addition. My software guys have done it for 2.3 ... don't ask me what they did, because I don't micromanage them or monitor their code. I know our uploads box has 5 browse boxes and our users adore it. But you don't see me posting left and right about it ... I weighed in the appropriate topic and that's it. Don't pester our developers ... the more they have to come and respond to threads like this the less time they are developing ... AND I WANT THEM DEVELOPING.

Thanks,
Keith

[FrostedPopTart]

Dude ... people ... take a chill pill and go to your corners. :lol:

1) I certainly can understand frustrations over upgrades on boards with mods ... I've been there. I used to heavily mod my board and I DID spend hours, days on end to get the code modded and published to a live server. There are a lot of great and useful mods out there, and as time has gone on I've seen the need for mods decreasing because more of those features have been built-in by IPS. Is there a need ... there will always be a need. There will ALWAYS be some feature that someone needs that isn't available by default.

Having said that, using the advances in PHP5 and newer coding techniques, the hope is that ALL mods (large components down to simple code changes) can be accomplished by dropping PHP files from the mod authors into folders ... rather than having to make manual code edits. The new hooks system, as I understand it, will largely accomplish this AND make upgrades from there on less painful.

2) We have heard about these compatibility issues and desires for backwards compatibility for years now with every version. Here's the deal, if the systems and platforms you expect this software to work with are no longer supported and/or developed by their creator ... you cannot EXPECT a software to build in backwards compatibility for those legacy systems. You sacrifice too much in terms of money, resources, time, and features. If a web host does not have PHP5 available, then request it or find a new host - there's plenty of them, see my sig ;).

On the other side of it, if you have software that requires PHP4 and cannot work on PHP5 then you need to go to that software's creator and request them to update it for PHP5. If it is no longer supported then you might want to find replacement software because vulnerabilities in PHP4 (probably the software too) will surface and make your site susceptible to attacks.

Browsers is a whole different can of worms. I do agree that a certain amount of backwards compatibility needs to be built-in, but it could be done using backwards-compatible skins that drop features that legacy browsers can't handle. What ever happened to Lo-Fi .. oh wait, it is still there ... let's develop posting functionality into there and call it a day. :) No? Ok, all joking aside ... in theory the new skinning/templating engine could make such a task easier to accomplish, but may require JS files to be split up a little more to separate essentials from 'fancy features'.

3) Please keep a positive tone. Feature selection is tricky game because you need to pick the right balance of the most requested features, important features, and bugs all placed in some sort of time-frame and budget. If Brandon or others say something is not feasible currently because other features are more requested ... don't take it personally. This is a business, and while they must cater to all their clients, it must be done such that it benefits as much of the client population as possible.

I agree that having multiple-upload capabilities would be a great addition. My software guys have done it for 2.3 ... don't ask me what they did, because I don't micromanage them or monitor their code. I know our uploads box has 5 browse boxes and our users adore it. But you don't see me posting left and right about it ... I weighed in the appropriate topic and that's it. Don't pester our developers ... the more they have to come and respond to threads like this the less time they are developing ... AND I WANT THEM DEVELOPING.

You can always post the code here you know... (w00t) :ph34r: o:) :whistle:

[backdream]

[b]Dull boring techie stuff[/b]

For those of you actually interested in the code aspects of the new system, we've completely rewritten the bbcode parser from the ground up. Firstly, sections should go back to the proper way of calling pre_db_parse before storing content in the database, and pre_display_parse before actually displaying it. This will ensure that bbcode can be correctly unparsed when a user edits their content.

A major change to how the formatted text is handled: it isn't! We don't do any bbcode parsing on save, storing (nearly) exactly what you submitted into the database. Instead we format the bbcode at the time of displaying the content. This means we don't have to "unparse" previously parsed bbcode, nearly eliminating any bugs in attempting to do so.

Before, you are saying store the parsed BBcode in database to display it faster, But in 3.0, you move back to old way, why?

[Jaggi]

alot has changed in php5 including some advance and very fast string functions allowing them to get rid of preg_match/replace and make parsing on the fly alot more faster than was previously possible.

[bfarber]

alot has changed in php5 including some advance and very fast string functions allowing them to get rid of preg_match/replace and make parsing on the fly alot more faster than was previously possible.

Yes and no. Much of this isn't new in php5 (for instance, strpos has always been there), however php5 does add case-insensitive string matching (i.e. " But, yes the underlying reason is that we completely rewrote how the bbcode parser works so it is much more efficient now.

" and "[CODE]" can both be matched), which helps. :)

[joelle]

I am not sure if you folks would like it but I think that attachments und IP.Gallery should somehow be united. :)

[iampui]

i like invision board.

[Stallyon]

Really love how IP.Board 3.0 is coming along. Hope it will be at least in early BETA stages by the time my new site is released after Xmas 2008. I know you always discourage running a live site with beta, but I'm proficient enough to keep myself out of trouble, and if things go too bad, well that's just my problem. ;) Running live betas is not something I recommend though, because at times there's no upgrade path, and unless you know enough to do it manually, then you're stuck.

[Velvet Elvis]

I'd like to see full support for small screen sizes. Making Lo-Fi fully functional would be perfectly adequate. Using browser detection or whatever to make smartphones and the like default to low-fi would be awesome. With the success of the EeePC and spread of web-able phones it's pretty obvious that the future of the web is going to be smaller viewports, not larger.

Designing to support handheld devices would likely also greatly increase accessibility for blind users, likely giving IPB a competitive advantage in government and education sectors were best possible accessibility is mandated by law.

Actually, make this a feature request for 4.0. It should definitely be a long-term goal though, IMHO.

What I'd really appreciate would be a commitment to provide security support for 2.3.x for six months to a year in order to give people plenty of time to get mods upgraded.