AK108's Projects

June 15th, 2006
From time to time, I'll update this spot and put my latest project here.

Well, 6 months have passed since my last update. I've done a bit since my last update:

• Optimized YaBB module usage, so YaBB 2.2 should be faster than before
• Added features to YaBB 2.2 including an email template editor
• Actually made a website for FKP with updates!

There's more, but I can't tell about all the things yet. ;)

Here's a quick rundown of my current projects:
Flying Kirby Pub: the community I run
YaBB Developer: I recently became a YaBB programmer
I'm a mod author and the programmer of modfilegen, which both deal with BoardMod.

I'm the main admin, webmaster, and programmer for the Flying Kirby Pub. If you don't know about the FKP, check out the history page. I've written several custom modifications for FKP, including the karma system (counts days active of a user), more profile options, and the website coding tool (which was used to make this page). These projects are very unlikely to see use outside of FKP due to the lack of time to make them work 100%.

While searching for a free, remotely hosted bulletin board for FKP in late 2003, I found YaBB. While it wasn't remotely hosted, it had the look and feel that the FKP members were used to. Once I went into the community, I found it had more then just a look and feel that I liked. It was open-source, had a nice feature set, and ran on some free hosts. Ever since September of 2003, when FKP started using YaBB, I have found it a great board to use.

The real strength of YaBB is the modding community, BoardMod. Many forum types have the concept of add-ons, usually in the form of find-and-replace instructions in a text file. BoardMod takes this a step further, providing an automated tool to handle modfiles. Even though YaBB has a decent amount of features built in, BoardMod allows forum admins to add features and change how existing features work. Anyone can become a mod author and help write modifications. It's a welcoming community that provides much of YaBB's strength.

In September 2005, I became a Junior Developer for YaBB. Currently, I fix bugs reported by users and testers. So far, I've helped with getting rid of bugs for the YaBB 2.1 release. As of 2006, I was promoted to a full developer, and I'm working hard on YaBB 2.2. I've been involved with tons of bugs, as well as an email template editor, recent RSS topics, and general optimization.

I've written a few mods that are released on BoardMod. They're all compatible with 2.1 and 2.0 (except where noted):

• Password Conversion 1.2
• Board Index User Cache 1.4 for YaBB 2.1 only
• Set Template In URL
• Board Templates 1.3
• YaBB 2 Backup Beta 2

With the exception of the Board Templates mod, all of them are installed on FKP.

Note: I'm currently on a break from writing mods due to FKP and YaBB coding.

This is a tool I released for use on BoardMod. The purpose is simple: give it a stock version of YaBB and a modded version, and it'll make you a modfile that can be installed with BoardMod. My original use was to convert my forum to YaBB 2 beta versions and keep my custom mods easy to install without making the modfile myself. While it wasn't ready in time for me converting to the betas early, it can be used to help mod authors find all of their changes they made in a mod. It also could be used to help a forum admin upgrade easier: If you're using a modded YaBB 2.0 board, you can get the changes by comparing to a stock 2.0 and try to install that mod on 2.1.

It uses diff to do the actual comparison, so it should run out of the box on Linux, *BSD, and Mac OS X (or anything else that has diff and Perl). It also has its own incomplete difference engine which doesn't work in all cases. Like most of my programming, forum upgrades to FKP helps test it. (I don't actually write my mods on BoardMod using this, but it is helpful for making sure I didn't forget any code).

Unfourtantly, my modfilegen topic was purged from BoardMod. However, I just uploaded modfilegen 1.2 here. Rename it to a .pl file and run it with -? for help options. Win32 users will need to get diff for Win32 (link one, link two) and put it in your path environmental variable. If anyone is interested in seeing future updates to it, or if you'd like support, please contact me on BoardMod, FKP, or YaBB.