DennisTT.Net

Ever since MyBB had a facility to create database backups, we have had questions on why there wasn’t a similar facility to import backups.  The following reasons were taken into account while designing this feature:
1) Security: Reason: If a user somehow managed to get into an administrative account with the correct permissions, they could potentially revert your forum to an earlier state, or run arbitrary SQL queries on your database. The Alternative: The use of an externally-installed database administration application reduces the chances that a malicious user can perform these actions on your database through MyBB.
2) Focus: Reason: We are developing a bulletin board system. We are focused on bringing you the features that will help run your bulletin board. Although database backup and restore are important tools, they are not used on a day-to-day basis in your forum’s administration. The backup function has more frequent use than the restore anyway. Our development resources are limited and we do not have the capacity to develop a fully-featured database administration program into the bulletin board software. The Alternative: Third-party database administration programs are specifically developed for the purpose of managing your database. Their features are more robust than what we can provide. Just like how we concentrate on BBS features, their development teams concentrate on what their product is: database administration.
3) Weight: Reason: In order to keep the MyBB package a reasonable size, we have to be conscious of what features are implemented. It is a waste of both physical and human resources to have a large package (clunky to install and update) with a steep learning curve (difficulty of usage). The Alternative: Dedicated database administration solutions have the ability to incorporate more useful administrative features because that is their focus.
4) Reliability: Reason: In the hypothetical case where an import facility is indeed incorporated into MyBB, the requirement of using it is a working version of MyBB. Let’s say you just upgraded to MyBB 1.4, but you do not like it. Your database backup is 30MB. You start restoring it via the MyBB 1.4 Admin CP, but the restore times out part way. Your database is now half MyBB 1.2.x and half MyBB 1.4.x and neither version will operate correctly. You will need to resort to a third-party database administration program anyway to complete the process of reverting. A doctor can’t heal himself if he is unconscious. The Alternative: A third-party database administration program does not depend on anything you are operating on. Even if an operation times out, this does not affect the program, you will be able to use the same program to correct the problem.

I hope this sheds some light on the rationale behind not including a database import feature.

We released MyBB 1.4 to the masses this weekend.  I wouldn’t say it’s “overdue” but it’s about time we had this release out the door.  We still haven’t managed to get the “self-fix” module working for MyBB to fix itself, so as usual support threads are pouring into the MyBB Community Forums.  Unfortunately I was caught up in school and work to do as much development as I wanted to for 1.4, but the other developers did a great job recoding the entire Admin CP, and all the other things.

Hope you enjoy MyBB 1.4.

Followers of the MyBB Community Forums will have noted that my presence on the forums has been limited in the past two weeks. Readers of my blog will also note that I haven’t posted here in a very very very long time, and since I am on vacation I have a bit of time to leave a note here :).

Where am I? Hint: I am plotting evil strategies for MyBB to take over the world with Peter. (Just kidding, but I am relatively near where Peter’s studying)

When? Now!

Who? Me!

Why? Err…to have fun?

What am I doing? Visiting family, doing normal vacation stuff.

Unfortunately I don’t have a steady internet connection over here. This vacation coupled with my study in the past few months means I haven’t been able to work on MyBB much. But fortunately Chris, Tikitiki, Justin and the other staff have been working hard on maintaining the MyBB 1.2.x series and also developing 1.4.0 (I can’t wait to see all the features they have added in the past 20 days; too bad I can’t show you everything we’ve got so far, but some of the major new features have been blogged already ). After the 20th I’ll be back at home and I’ll be working on MyBB once again, but I need to get up to speed to what the team’s been doing for the past few months since so much has changed in MyBB since the 1.2.x series. I’m happy to see that many suggestions from the community (and also some of mine yay!) have been implemented already. This reinforces one of our goals which is to make the software something that the community wants to use, not just for our own benefit.

Anyway that’s all from here.  My next blog post will probably from home sweet home

All administrators of MyBB probably know of the MyBB License one way or another. However, it has come to my attention that there are some people who just can’t get their head around one statement in the license. It happens to be this one:

The MyBB Group has several copyright notices and “powered by” lines embedded within the product. You must not remove, alter or hinder the visibility of any of these statements (including but not limited to the copyright notice at the top of files and the copyright/powered by lines found in publicly visible “templates”).

Is the text too difficult to understand? Personally I think we have made this as clear and as inambiguous as possible. Would you not agree? To me, it is quite easy to understand from this quotation that I am not allowed to remove any copyright notice and “powered by” statements which have been already written into the files distributed in the MyBB package. I don’t see any other way of interpreting it.

Is the license too difficult to find? The license is distributed in the Documentation folder of the full MyBB package. It is also displayed when the forum is installed. By installing a forum, the administrator has to at least see one, if not both instances where the license is displayed during the installation of a forum.

Are you that ashamed of running MyBB? I have seen MyBB forums changing the “powered by” line to other software such as vBulletin. I mean, if you like vBulletin, or IPB, or the other software that much, why not use that instead? Why mask MyBB as another software? Is there something wrong with using MyBB? If so, I’d suggest you voice your feedback on the MyBB Community Forums. We respect all feedback, and we take in your suggestions when we’re developing the next version of MyBB. We want to make MyBB something that you and your users want to use. This isn’t just for our own benefit.

I spent an hour tonight surfing the web looking for violators, and with a simple web search, I was able to find around 40 within the time I spent. And that was only for one search. I’m sure there are hundreds of forums out there who have removed the MyBB copyright and/or “powered by” lines.

To the MyBB forum owners who have removed the copyright and/or “powered by” lines, it isn’t a matter of if your forum will be found, it’s when. We enforce our License to the fullest extent possible, including legal action if required. How would it feel if you spent hours working on something to have it taken by another person who claims it is theirs? Not too happy I’d assume. We aren’t either.

Support us, and we will support you. It’s only two lines with links to the official MyBB homepage at the bottom of your forum. Is that too much to ask really?

If you really despise the copyright lines that much, please consider purchasing the privilege of removing the copyright on one board with a small payment to Chris Boulton. Please contact him for more details about this.

PS: Thanks to everybody (the majority of MyBB administrators) who is adhering to the License and thus supporting us

Although this feature may not be used by many, it is now possible to give usergroups permissions in the Admin CP (only if the usergroup has “Can Access Admin CP” permission).

When you edit the permissions, the permissions listed are the same as the ones found in the existing individual user admin permissions.

How do these affect my admins, you ask? Well now let’s say you want your moderators to access the Admin CP to moderate posts and attachments, but you don’t want to set the individual yes/no permissions for all 20 of them. Now you can set the usergroup permissions to all ‘no’ except for the Moderate Posts/Threads/Attachments permission, and all the users in that usergroup will have those permissions.

Basically, if a user’s individual admin permissions are set, those will be used. If they are not set, then if the user’s usergroup has admin permission set, those will be used. In turn, if they are not set, then the user will use the default admin permissions.

Hopefully it’s not confusing for everyone.