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Ninjaboard Announcements, growing team, new releases and a RocketTheme sponsorship

Ben Hornedo on 23 June, 2011

Ninjaboard heading for space

We have exciting news to share today, about what’s coming and what’s happening!

RocketTheme sponsors Ninjaboard development for the next year

This was announced during the JandBeyond 2011 event, you can read a good report on it here.
We are given resources to allow us to give Ninjaboard even more focus and development than we already do, with the end goal of making Ninjaboard a viable solution that can replace phpBB3 on the RocketTheme.com site.

In other words RT is sponsoring us to make Ninjaboard a real competitor to the big guns, and we are thrilled that they feel we can pull it off!

Ninjaboard Team Grows, Welcome John and Hook!

I’m super excited to announce two new ninjas on our team!
People that have posted in our forums are very likely to have run into these two guys as they’re two of the most active posters in our forums!
John will be helping us with support as he is now, but now on the team we’ll have a faster bugfixing response since our contact is more direct.
Hook will also help us with support, but since he’s an aspiring developer he’ll help us out on the development on Ninjaboard, making us progress even faster!

Read more about them here: http://ninjaforge.com/team

Ninjaboard 1.1 Enters RC

Last week we released 1.0.13, which were our final release on the 1.0 branch. We have now switched 1.1 into the production branch and it’s now in code freeze.
That means no new features are going in, only bugfixes and translations.
1.1 will also be the last release we do on Nooku Framework Alpha 2.


There are many new features in 1.1 to be excited about; here’s a few highlights:

  • Vanity SEF urls, as demonstrated here: http://ninjaforge.com/demo/ninjaboard/maelstrom/support
  • Built in Private Messaging, with a conversation based UI (no inbox/outbox).
  • SMF converter, the first converter that supports non-bridged installations.
  • New Quickpanel module, bundled with core package.
  • URL slugs supports transliterating UTF8 symbols, including Greek.

All these highlights were sponsored by JoomlaWorks, so we thank them for making it happen!

Ninjaboard 1.2 Development Begins

1.2 last week just got branched off 1.1 and is now in heavy development.
One of the major changes is that 1.2 will be using Nooku Framework Alpha 3 and take full advantage of it.
This means that we’ll have a powerful caching solution implemented which is expected to boost performance around 300% based on recent test results on Nooku Server components.
It also means we’ll implement a lot of hooks in Ninjaboard using the new Events API in Nooku, allowing you to modify every single aspect of Ninjaboard at runtime using plugins.

We’ll also support Joomla 1.6, and take advantage of Nooku Servers flex layouts and performance optimized CSS3.

Also, with the new toolbar package in Nooku, our refactored toolbars aren’t only easier to use and have a better layout, but they are much easier to extend via plugins, without hacking the component. Allowing developers (or even you yourself!) to extend Ninjaboard with new and custom features without any fear when upgrade time comes.

We have long list of features planned for 1.2, which we will get stuck into after a small refactor to lay the groundwork for some of the bigger features coming in this and future versions.

Your Response

  • Can't wait... Joomla really needs a worldclass forum tool... I wonder if this means the enormous rockettheme forum will migrate to ninjaboard. And the two mascots... very cute, who is the artist? Maybe I can get a cartoony guy too? ;-)

    Jason Hull
    OpenPotion Web Design
    Reply
  • Thank you for this great announcement, I had been following this beautiful smart forum for a while now.

    I just have two issues that I believe are instrumental to the user benefits point-view.

    1- The integration of Joomla Editore "i.e. JCE editor and others" I believe allowing such feature reduces the overall code as you will be using what is already available... but that cannot see the light unless you count for it. Honestly it is pointless to reinvent the wheel and make a forum component own editor as you are basing the component on Joomla! which already has the editors installed...

    2- I had read in one of the threads on the forum that you will make a plugin available to allow for JomSocial Profile integration. This small feature is important is enables avatars and user profile customization. Could you please make that bonus available, even it is paid!

    I wish you all the luck as you are doing the right thing in making native Joomla forums possible!

    Yours,
    RA
    Reply
  • The biggie for us is post previews with inline images so that you can see what the post looks like if you attach an image :)
    Reply
    • Post previews is definitely an area that could be improved. It isn't a high-priority at this point, but we'll get to it eventually.

      Thanks for the feedback :)
      Reply
  • I understand that the next beta of Akeeba Subsriptions is waiting for Ninjaboard to move to a newer version of Nooku ... is that version going to be Ninjaboard 1.2, then? If so, do you have an ETA for initial release of a 1.2 beta?

    The forum is beautiful and a pleasure to work with by the way - thank you. I installed it on a development site about a month ago, and am hoping to use it in conjunction with Akeeba Subscriptions.
    Reply
    • Hi Samw,

      The next beta of Akeeba Subscriptions is as far as I understand not even working fully on the latest Nooku FW Alpha 3, just like Ninjaboard 1.2.

      In any case, the first beta is expected 2 weeks after first alpha.
      It might take longer since we've promised to support Joomla 1.6 fully in this release, but we'll keep you informed if we get delayed.

      Glad you like it what you've seen so far :)
      Reply
      • Do you have any idea when that first 1.2 alpha might be ready? I realize 1.2 work is just starting, and understand if the answer is, in fact, simply 'no' (!). But appreciate any insight you can offer.

        Thanks again.
        Reply
        • There are too many variables (like how much work it is to integrate with Joomla! 1.6) to give you a good estimate atm.

          We'll blog again once we have the overview.
          Reply
  • Where, oh where is NB 1.2? I am sooooooo wanting to use NB but there is no J1.6 support and now we are at J1.7.

    I have a major project started in April that needs a forum. I held out waiting for NB to support J1.6 but now with the project launching at the end of August, there's still no sign of NB1.2.

    Should I continue to check NinjaForge daily (like I have done for the past 3 months) or just give up on the dream?

    Please put me out of my misery.... I'm begging you!
    Reply
  • yesss we are still waiting for ninjaboard that works with joomla 1.7.
    any newsss??
    Reply
  • Any update on this, when can we see the end result?
    Reply
  • I guess the developer took the sponsorship money and ran away, it happened to me a while ago I sponsor communicator project paid the amount, the developer dragged the project for few months and finally stopped responding to my inquires, contacted Paypal to get my money back but it was too late, I guess it is two bladed sword, developers complain they don’t get enough sponsorship/donation but when they do they don’t honor their word.
    Reply
    • I'm sorry you were cheated out of your money by the communicator project that you speak of. I've never heard of that project and it has nothing to do with us, so I'm not sure why you are bringing that up here.

      We have never complained about not getting enough sponsorship/donations (we've never asked for either of those) so I'm not sure why you are bringing that up here.

      If you feel we owe you something, then please do get in touch with us (contact page via the main menu or twitter or email me directly markATninjaforgeDOTcom).
      Reply

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