Recent Changes in AnyBoard

                    bottom of page (for earlier changes)

Version

7.4.1 (Feb 29, 2000)

** Optionally iconize the uploaded images using icon.anyboard.net

7.4.0.7 (Feb 25, 2000)

* Add more configurations to chat room (header, footer, separator, etc)
* Autolink URLs in the chatroom message
* Allow both admin and moderator to post at the same time

7.4.0.6 (Feb 20, 2000)

*Log posting failures

7.4.0.5 (Feb 19, 2000)

*More checking on file writing errors.

7.4.0.4 (Feb 16, 2000)

*Disallow modifying messages that are too old
*Major improvment on require login to read, it is now truly SECURE as Anyboard no longer
 redirects but send the page diretcly back to the browser.
*Add a limit on max number of matches returned from a search

7.4.0.3 (Feb 15, 2000)

*Add header and footer configuration for registration pages
*Add header and footer configuration for all other pages (shared)

7.4.0.2   (Feb 14, 2000)

*Able to select users to be managed by type and status.

7.4.0.1   (Feb 10, 2000)

*fix: add multiple upload boxes to the reply form

*Add separate parameter to control the default number of file-upload boxes in the post form,
 in addition to the maximum number.

*fix: disable submit on the change refresh time box on the chat page


7.4.0    (Feb 7, 2000)

** Upload multiple files on posting. 
   This is accessed by using the ?cmd=form&upldcnt=N command,
   where N is the number of ADDITIONAL files to upload, so setting N to 2 can
   allow 3 files to be uploaded at a time.
   Maxinum N is controled in the posting policy section of the configuration.

7.3.2.5 (Feb 6, 2000)

*Add delete archived messages function

7.3.2.4

*Vast improvement on the category index configuration

*Various minor changes

7.3.2.3

*Add a maximum presence ratio setting, yet another way to prevent spamming.
 The presence ratio is defined as the number of top level posts by a non-admin user
 in the newest 10 threads divided by 10.

*Add command to set all users to a given type

7.3.2.2

*Add nav bar to the search result page and where am i page

*Add Today's entry to the page drop down list

*Add option to inline search results

7.3.2.1

* various improvement on the messages during the forum creation process.

* added the split command to split the script itself to smaller files
  Usage: ?cmd=split
  This command, if successful, will break the script into many smaller files,
  the main script's size will be reduced to only the header section, all functions
  will be autoloaded from the small files.
  
  The startup time will be reduced by a large percentage after the split. 
  
7.3.2

* add additional attributes to the message links and related links, for
example one can set the attribute to "target=_newwin" to show related link
in a new window

* add option to truncate subject displayed for the message link to certain
length,  this is useful when displaying the message index page in a narrow
window (such as frame on the left)

* add the try group followups options, this is to try to group the followups whose
  parent topic is not available on the current index page.

7.3.1

* Improvement on the show user email function.

* Randomize message sequence number. Instead of using message numbers
sequentially, Anyboard now
  adds a random two digit number to the message id.

* minor change: when delete message in admin panel, disable show visit count
and force login for read option.

* changed the find and getlink function to make it able to return page with
messages inlined

* add the View All command to a message, this command will return a message
and all its followups in
  a single page.

7.3.0

**Major improvement on user access control.

  We have 3 user statuses: Disabled, Validated and Active. Only active user
can  post.

  We have four levels of user types, and the admin can change the user type.

  The following are the types:

  E: Full member: full access, by-pass moderation even if moderation is
enabled
  C: Moderated:     full access to forum info (events, chat, member
profile), posts need to be approved if moderation is enabled.
  B: Restricted:    can't access forum info, posts must be approved is
moderation is enabled.
  A: Observer:      can't post

*Admin can set a user's default type when a user is created or validated.
This way even if a user has gone through email validation, he may still have
restricted access until the admin changes his status.

*Start to use AutoSplitted modules. From our tests, by splitting the
modules we get speedier startup (almost 100% improvement). This is very
important for high-frequency functions such as visit counter. On
Anyboard.net, we compiled the whole script into a C program, the startup
time has been reduced by almost 75% (from 0.2 seconds to 0.05 seconds on a
single CPU machine).  However, the process of compiling the script is host
dependent and ISPs usually do not allow users to run compilers.

7.2.4

*add email recommendation of a page to a friend. Only URL is sent.

*add viewing of recommendations logs in admin panel (contains sender and
recipient email)

*Add search pattern box to the Configure function in admin panel. Due to the
large number of options in Anyboard, this is very useful for finding the
options we need to configure. For example, by checking the boxes for all
configuration sections and enter "color|font" into the search condition,
only the options which related to font or color will be displayed.

7.2.3

*add export/import user database function to the admin panel
 Usage: click on the export button, and then save the data to a text file.
To import, select a previously exported file and click the Import button.To
import a list of users, simply create a text file with one user name per
line. Anyboard will set the user's password to the same as the username.

*do not notify admin when a private message is posted

*fix a weird bug for certain version of IE5 under win98, for some reason the
style configuration won't work.
 IE5 submits junk data to the server. By removing a + in the normal HTML,
the problem fixed. A total mystery.

*fix some minor inconsistency among checking/modification of user
registrations.

7.2.2

*add posting stats to user profile

*allow admin to edit user registration info

*re-organized the admin panel

*optionally allow moderator to manage surveys

7.2.1

*made chat more configurable (refresh time. manual reload)

*add reload button to nav bar

*add filtered words setting

*add reply command link at the end of the message

*add reload button to nav bar

7.2.0


** Add Links Submission
   Admin and users can submit links

*  Removed Overview link on overview page

7.1.1

* Add an integrated interface to the functions, make Anyboard more
group-oriented.

* In the notification email, set the Reply-To field to the poster's email
address


** Add Events
  Anyboard can be used to add/modify/delete events,
  Users can sign up events.

7.0.1

* changed the html code for the GO button to eliminate the extra vertical
space below
  nav bar.

* When HTML tags are allowed in posting, user can optionally turn it off by
checking a box,
  this is useful when user wants to show HTML source code.

* Relax the requirement that only registered users can receive private
messages,
  this is now optional setting.

7.0.0

*** Major new feature

    Integrated chat room

    To access the chat room via the ?cmd=gochat link.
    Existing users of Anyboard need to create the chat/ directory (as the
    same level as the posts/ directory).

6.9.7.0

*Add style sheet configuration to the style section, by modifying the
 CSS section, one can control the overall html look& feel at one place.

* Improved the sinfo command to provide more detailed explanation.

* Added option to show private messages only on delete page
  and option to exclude private messages on archive page.

* Indicate a message is a private one on delete page

6.9.6.6

*made the width of post form configurable
*made the header for search results page configurable
*wrap certain areas with <DIV CLASS="classname">
*some other very minor improvements on the html

6.9.6.5

*Revised the translation scheme.
*Made the font for followup count configurable
*Made the separator configuration more manageable
*Add a tag after followups count
*Show if there is a link inside message

6.9.6.4

* Show total number of followups for a top level post (instead number of
immediate replies)
* Add the optional taint checking ($abmain::do_untaint)
* fix: font setting lost in message body when edited

6.9.6.3

* Not link the rate to the rate page when not show rate link on main page is
checked
* Display simple rate form right inside message
* Add another vote count for hiding low rate messages, originally this was
the same
  count for showing rates.

6.9.6.2

* add delete survey function
* add reset survey function
* made error message form background configurable
* use maxlength to limit subject and name field
* fix: reconfigure a moderated forum cause inproper regen of main page

6.9.6.1
* Add delete button to the "Approve" message page, so unwanted messages can
be
  conveniently deleted without going to the "Delete" page.
* Option to not moderate private messages even if moderation is enabled
* fix: overview button in private forum when user name contains space

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^########### Anyboard now has over 300 configuration parameters
##########

6.9.6
** major improvement on delete/edit messages directly from main index page
   a) now subject can be modified
   b) admin can delete message from main page regardless of message age,
      admin can delete all followups of a message
   c) a different color can be used to indicate a message has been modified
   d) Message size is also updated
   e) changed layout of the user delete/edit form

* Show current rating and rating indicators on rate form.
* Option to not show rate message link on main index page
* Regen board regularly (every 6 minutes) when rating and read count
changes,
  previously, rating and read counter changes are reflected only when
  a new post is added or board is reconfigured.
* Add a configurable rating offset (so a rate of 4.8 will show up as 5
stars)

6.9.5.1
* Search message changed to case insensitive
* Add admin to user database automatically.
* enhanced the rating function
  a) setable rating range
  b) change rating form layout
  c) add rate button inside message

6.9.5
* A lot of improvement on the survey functions
  a) more configurable
  b) generate index page of all polls
* Option to allow only registered user to rate post
* More survey function improvements and function to view
  details of the vote (see who voted for what)

6.9.4
* major feature** Add integrated survey function, this allows Anyboard to do
survey and take advantage of the access control functions of Anyboard such
as require user to login in before vote, etc.

  To add a poll, following this procedure

  1) login to the admin panel, look for "Add/modify" survey function.
  2) Enter an id for the survey (no spaces) and click the "Add/modify"
button, for example, survey0.
  3) Enter the settings for the survey, for the questions part, enter each
question
     in its own line, in the format of index=question. For example:
     q1=OK
     q2=Fine
     q3=No good

     Note, the survey results are stored with the index (q1, q2, q3), so be
careful to
     always map the index to the correct question whe you modify an ongoing
survey.

  4) Submit the form, Anyboard will generate a javascript survey0.js under
the polls/ directory.
     If you are using a previous version of Anyboard, you would need to
manually create the polls/ directory
     for a board first.
  5) To add the poll to your page, you can
     a) Copy and paste the html code for the poll to a page, or
     b) Add the following Javascript to your page
        <script src="http://domain/board_dir/polls/survey_id.js"></script>

  6) The result is in the javascript {survey_id}_res.js and
{survey_id}_res.html

6.9.3
* made the nav bar more configurable
* add Archive link text to label config
* made the column attributes in column justified mode complete configurable
(color background width...)
* add link to Archive to nav bar by default
* made the separator between name and date etc configurable
* option to collapse the multiple REs
* optionally allow admin/moderator to modify user's message
* allow admin/moderator to delete message from main index page

6.9.2.1
* fix: bug in archive function introduced in 6.9.1
* better handling of login and registration, now Anyboard will automatically
redirect user to intended page after user  login/register.
*fix: revert function reference call to 5.003 syntax, the 5.004 syntax
caused syntax error in 5.003

6.9.2
* fix: number of private message displayed on the post confirmation page
 * created the scripts for generating anyboard in other languages.

6.9.1
* Now Anyboard assumes that multiple patterns separated by spaces in search
condition means the AND of the patterns.
  For example to search articles which contain both DOG and CAT, simply
enter  DOG CAT  in the search condition.

* More understandable handling of redirect/mailback on posting replies.
Instead of redirecting directly to the related URL, Anyboard presents the
post confirmation page telling users what is happening and then
  redirects the user, and/or inform the user when an email is sent back.

6.9.0.1
* configure: made the font of the date in message body configurable
* remove the javascript to pop up a small window when reconfigure,
  as it sometimes cause confusing.
* many other small changes

6.9.0
* Many additional features:
  Labels: uploaded file label
  Configure: # of rows in the message box on post form
  Posting policy:
  a) can allow admin to upload file, add links/images even if users can't
  b) can choose not to display link url and uploaded file, can disallow
direct
     access to uplaoded file (chmod 600)
  c) can allow overwrite of uploaded file
  b) can fix replying subject
  c) allow negative ratings

*** Major feature:
    1) can redirect a replying user to the related link url in the original
post
    2) can mail back replying user the file attachment in the original post
    3) can enabled the above functions for all users or for admin only

    See what we are trying to achieve?
    AnyBoard can now be used for
    a) file download control
    b) autoresponder
    c) general mailback tool

6.8.5
* Add preview main page with cofiguration template in admin panel
  This allows admin to see what a configuration look like first
  Plan to add preview of other pages, such as post form, confirmation and
message pages.
* Add option to remember user login

6.8.4.1
* do not show users' email address when notification is sent to registered
users
* made the width of navigation bar inside message body configurable
* regen the message link files for older pages and overview page if
configuration has changed

6.8.4
* allow registered user to choose to be added to the email notification
list,
  this way anyboard can act as a mailing list (kind of), posts on the board
  are also delivered to users by email, and the users have the option to
receive
  or not receive the messages in mail.
* made background of navigation bar on archive page configurable

6.8.3
** major overhaul of the delete/archive function, do not delete unless
archive is successful,
  in case of exceptions (such as disk quota exceeded, or program exceeded
CPU allowance during
  archiving of massive amount of threads), this would prevent loss of data.
* add admin function to re-validate and error correct the main index and
archive index
* do not url encode the greeting message sent in validation email.
* new option: do not use list item in threaded messages

6.8.2
* show selection list to jump to any page number (support both javascript
and non javascript)
* show smilieys in configuration form
* fix: reconfigure with individual section in builtin configuration changes
all sections

6.8.1
* made the layout of navigation bar configuarble
* can link TAG in front of a sub topic directly to top of the thread
* show number of private messages when user login and after posting a
message

6.8.0
*** major feature: mailback a message when user posts a message
    can mail back a greeting message
    include the posted message
    attach a file on the server
    and check if email address is in a mail list.

The next: make the post form so configurable, that it can be any form, such
as a product order form.
This way, people can order anyboard through anyboard, and get the software
mailed back.... ha!

6.7.9

* made the posting confirmation page configurable, added an additional
configure section for  it.
* made general error messages configurable
*separate Presentation cfg to Colors and Presentation
*add config for bgcolors of the form entry fields (affects login, find,
config forms)

6.7.8
* add email to the Set User Password command in the admin panel, this allow
admin to
  CREATE/set user's password and email address. When email validation is
required,
  an email address must be entered if a new user is to be added by this
command.

* remove the dependency between force registration and enable registration.
Previously,
  force registration implies enable registration (meaning user can register
themselves),
  now this correlation is removed. This allows a board to have enforced
authentication,
  while the registration of user is controlled by admin using the Set User
Password command
  in the admin panel.

* add option to allow user to request lost password. When this is enabled, a
registered user
  can request anyboard to email back a new password, the user must enter
both the correct
  login id and the email address in user's profile.

6.7.7
* add link to Current page (the top level page one just visited). For
example, suppose
  one is reading a message listed on page 2, this link brings the user back
to page 2,
  works only with JavaScript1.1 capable browser.
* made width of jump link area configurable
* minor changes

6.7.6
* add date range and search pattern when viewing login logs
* updated the installation instructions, explain the sinfo command
* add option to strip html tags in the post
  (this is different from not allowing html tags, in that case, < is
replaced by &lt;)
* add option to strip html tags in the notification email
* made separator between subject and author name configurable
* add 4 optional moods
* made the bg on the msg navigation bar (the one inside a message
configurable)
* use readdir instead of glob to glob files
* changed the default look a bit
* add configurable header to the where am I page

6.7.5
* allow adding border (with configurable width, color, padding) around
message links
* allow adding border (with configurable width, color, padding) around
navigation bar
* allow set width of the inner border (0 or any size)
* allow use http authentication only
* add a border around configuration forms

6.7.4
*allow list threads in reverse order (oldest on top)
*allow list replies in reverse order (oldest on top)
#comment: the above options are independent of each other, so there
#are 4 combinations

*separate presentation config to two sections: style and presentation.

6.7.3
*allow set time zone offset (+/- # hours) for each forum
*allow reconfigure with individual sections of a template
*allow saving forum configuration to template from admin panel
*add message of the day to admin panel (for anyboard.net)

6.7.2
*allow limiting upload file size from admin panel (use the smallest one of
the
 global $max_upload_file_size and per board setting)
*show upload file size limit on post form
*add optional enforcing http server authentication in forum control cfg
*make column width in column justified format configurable
*add file upload function to admin panel (to make admin for silver version
happier)

6.7.1
*more code reorganization, ready for compiling into C program
*allow delete private messages even if deletion is disabled for the main
forum
*allow disallow deleting posts that are too old
*fix search reveals private message bug
*allow only a setable set of file extensions when upload
*made it to pass -T checking

6.7.0
**can now list new messages since last visit. thru the /?cmd=find command
 or leave starting day empty when search for messages.
**support even one more kind of message display format: column justified
 subject, name, date.
**can now use user defined indentation spacers intead of just unordered list
for
 display followup links.
*more mod_perl improvements

6.6.1
*preview of several config sections
*added rules config directly in admin panel, override rules file
*code reorganization
*improvement on catgeory generation, handle layout inheritance
*add my forum link to nav bar

6.6.0
*allow admin to create registered user thru set password command
**allow use .override files in master cfg dir and forum dir to override
forum config
 this allow easy centralized control of forum options
**mod_perl enhancement: now can be preloaded into server to conserv memory
**auto generation of board categories (platinum+ only), for use at
anyboard.net
*rewrote/reduce part of the file name config code, allow easier extension
*allow admin to set the Logo link on nav bar thru admin panel
 (Gold only, remove logo on non-gold version may cause board to malfunction)

*add additional banner section to forum presentation, this allow easy
 centralized control of banners on all forums by using .override

6.5.2.1
*fix file upload in mod_perl mode, move init to BEGIN block for mod_perl
*add block by hostname pattern, such as junksite\.com

6.5.2
*allow setting alternative password directory in Name & File configuration
 this allows  multiple groups of forums, each group share its own passwords.

*allow showing six kinds of moods with a message

6.5.1
*add option to delete (or not) attachment files when auto delete

******major feature: allow private discussion between two users (GOLD only)

6.5.0
*made font attribute of message counter on nav bar configurable
*remove edit message link on post confirmation page if edit message is not
enabled
*allow hiding of posts that below certain rating after certain number of
votes,
 this make peer moderating possible. The undisplayed message is not deleted.

6.2.5
*add function for user to retrieve other user's registration info,
email will not be shown is displaying email is disable in the board.
*fixed the single quote problem in registration info
*added logs for user logins, "view login record" button extended to view
both admin logins
 and user logins. New format for login records.

6.2.4
Improved handling of detecting urls in message body
Catch invalid regular expressions when search message
Add confirmation checkbox when reconfigure the forum
Add function to undo last configuration
Add netbula support forum configuration to sample

6.2.3.2
minor changes
allow choose of date range when regen the board, for a busy board, this
could
shorten the time for regen, on some servers, the system limit the duration a
CGI
program can run.

6.2.3.1
Remove space in uploaded filename
changed the link format for reading a message
consistent handling of "where am I" in archive page

6.2.3
button to select all messages when delete/archive, convenient tool for
busy boards.
Added pattern to filter out unwanted email addresses on registration, such
as @junkmail.com
Now ip address can be used in the selection criteria when delete by subject

6.2.2
Command to display to the full thread showing relative position of current
message. (Where am I?)

6.2.1
Optionally add jump links to parent message and top message
at the end of the message body

6.2.0
Make it mod_perl compatible, mod_perl compiles the script once,
major performance gain for mod_perl enabled servers.
This feature is available only for Gold users

6.1.4
*add function to send email to all forum members from admin panel

6.1.3
*made show modification time optional(see presentation config)
*add function for admin to set password for user

6.1.2
*add test email function in admin screen, this allows admin to see if
 email works, even if he has silver version only.
*add back link on info pages
*don't pop window when user register

fix: add uploads/ to zip file when backup
fix: bug in using forum specific smtp server

6.1.1
set license key on forum creation
modify license key from admin page
set binmode on STDIN for win32

6.1.0
*Able to limit number of posts and uploads per 24 hours, respectively
*Able to specify registration date range when list users/emails

6.0.2
Added list email command to the admin screen, this allows admin to easily
send email to all registered users.


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