SMF 2.0 Beta public release

[ryanhellyer]

SMF2.0 has been released as a public Beta:

SMF 2.0 Beta 3 Public Released!

According to SMF, the new version features the following improvements:

• Database abstraction including support for PostgreSQL and SQLite
• Post and attachment moderation - setup through board permissions.
• Additional group management features such as group moderators and joinable and requestable groups
• Comprehensive user warning system.
• Paid subscriptions to allow people to make a payment with PayPal to get additional group access
• Personal message labeling system and new viewing options
• OpenID support - to enable users to login and register with their OpenID account
• Custom profile fields to enable admins to setup new profile fields in addition to the default
• WYSWIYG editor, to improve the user posting experience
• Ignore boards and ignore user functions - so users only see what they want to see
• Scheduled events and mail queuing systems to add additional functionality to the forum
• Admin and user logs to track who makes what changes to a user's profile
• A moderation center to bring together all moderation functionality into one place for all people with moderation abilities

I'm downloading it right now. Hopefully it's as good as it sounds!

[ryanhellyer]

I've been testing this out recently.

Some of the new features are awesome.

In particular I have a use for the post moderation system which allows you to moderate all posts by guests (or any other member group) before being shown live, just like with WordPress. I hope to integrate this with a new WordPress site I'm making to use the forum software to control the blog comments system in an integrated way with the forum - I'll report back when/if I get this working.

There are a whole suite of new options in the admin panel, all of which look like they could potentially be quite useful.

I've had problems recently with a user on my forum having a giant (800x600px) image in their signature. With SMF2 there is an option to limit signature image sizes.

There is now options for the type of search engine you want powering the site, including a custom index option which should (in theory) give a very effective search engine feature for the forum.

I'm sure the paid subscriptions option will be popular with many people too. It looks very easy to set up (I haven't tried yet) and I may have a use for that shortly too.