|
28. November 2011
We have been very busy during the last few weeks. Now I would like to share with you what we accomplished.
MediaPortal 1 Migration to GIT
The migration to GIT and GitHub took us way longer than expected, due to the countless modifications to our build environment. There are many providers which offer Git services. The reason why we chose GitHub is that they offer incredible speed, a commenting system and pull requests (which will be used to submit patches).
The speed of Github and how branches are handled in Git allows us to work much faster and more efficiently.
Furthermore we are automatically cloning our repository to Sourceforge. So you can also grab the code from there.
For the last two weeks we have been working productively with Git, and this is a really big benefit for the Team and the project.
Code Patches
Where and how to get the source code is documented in our Wiki under GitHub We are also creating a guide about how to submit patches now that we moved to GitHub.
The Patch Submission documentation is still a work in progress, but it should give you a first impression. Once we switch to our new forum software, there will be changes related to the new procedure in the forum.
Read more about the forum software switch a bit further down.
MediaPortal 1.2.2
We are currently preparing MediaPortal 1.2.2 which will bring many fixes for our 1.2. version. Development is nearly finished. Soon we will start the internal testing of release builds to make sure you get the best possible quality.
MediaPortal 1.3.0
With Git it is now very easy and fast to work with multiple branches. The 1.3.0 Release will be the first version where we make excessive extensive use of branches during the development, to bring our workflow to an entirely new level. Releases will no longer be delayed because of half working code that hit the repository too early. Only tested and approved branches will now merge with the master.
Big change in Forums
We are preparing a massive change for our forums.
Over the last years, we were using vBulletin as forum software. It served us well, but since version 4 we and many other websites are no longer happy with the route the development of vBulletin is taking.
We have been testing another forum software called XenForo, for about a year now. It is developed by a small team, lead by Kier Darby who is a former developer of vBulletin, and was responsible for the development of its most successful versions.
Benefits
For the Team, the switch to XenForo means that administration and moderation becomes a lot easier. Even more important is what it will mean for the connection of the Team and the community. XenForo throws away a lot of the baggage other forum software has carried around for years. It delivers smart and elegant new approaches for common tasks when using a forum.
I will post a few small guides during the next weeks to show you the cool new features XenForo brings to the table and the benefits it will offer us all.
Transition
As you can imagine, changing forum software is a huge task to undertake since we need to customize:
- the bridge that allows you to use the same username to login on our website (in Joomla), forum and wiki.
- many of our own forum modifications that add features for users (like user forms used for system specificiatons)
- seamless integration into our homepage design
After the switch, the forum will be fully usable, delivering a lot of great new features that come with XenForo. However, a few features will not be available until later. We will be working on getting any missing features back during the weeks to follow. We will provide more detail about those features in the news when we switch the forums to XenForo.
As part of the forum switch, we will also change the forum structure to make it easier, especially for new users, to find the right place to post their questions, or search for an answer.
How you can help
The switch of the forum software is also a good point for us to update our servers. So we would like to ask for your support. Every donation, no matter how small, will help to cover the license and server costs of this update.
{jfusion_discuss 103063}
News & Blogs