Gester, since you don't deal with the software day to day, let me fill you in on it.
Ted, the guy who wrote the software, makes it a point to help out *anyone* who has a problem with installation, corrupted files, etc. Since UBB has 55,000 users right now (including the freeware version), that means that his time is rather limited. Its a great personal touch, and it's one of the reasons why UBB is so popular.
Combine that with the fact that he's busy working on the Enterprise version of the UBB, and then trying to make improvements to the current UBB versions, and you can see why it's taking a while to update.
Now, let's look at BladeForums.com. We've got over 60,000 posts. We're on version 5.38. Since 5.38 came out, there have been updates to it: 5.38a, b, c, and d. All of which still have problems, none of which are worth taking 3 hours out of my time to upgrade the forums.
We've been selected to be part of the Beta Team for 5.39, but right now there is a serious problem with the beta, and I don't want to risk installing it and losing the information here right now. Once the major problem is fixed, I'll install it, and we'll see what happens. Suppossedly, the search bug is fixed in here.
Anyhow, here's something else to consider. Every time I upgrade, I have to update all of the threads, reindex the forums, and generally do a lot of stuff in the background that you don't see. It's not as simple as plugging in the software and having it ready to go. There's file conversion, etc. All in all, it's VERY cpu intensive, and it's something that I have to monitor because if something breaks right in the middle, I have to figure out what went wrong, which can lead to a day or two of outages. On top of that, I don't want to deal with Data loss either, so that's not a fun prospect either, so I'm extra cautious.
So, you'll excuse me if I choose to sit and wait before wasting a minimum of 3 hours of my time, burning up the server CPU needlessly, on an upgrade that I know doesn't work, just on the off chance that the search may be fixed. You can do without the search, but you'd be pretty upset if the forums went down because I rushed into something just because there might be a chance the maybe the search was fixed.
Combine that with the fact that we don't have instaneous bug fixes. Usually 3 or 4 bugs are squashed in each release, because if he made a new release for ever single bug, boy howdy that would be a waste of resources.
As for switching software platforms, if you find something better that's going to convert the 60,000 posts we have here, without data loss, you let me know. I haven't found anything remotely as good as UBB, especially when you tie in the customer support and the continuous upgrading of features.
5.39 is looking promising indeed, with all sorts of nice little pretties, including multiple moderators, custom styles for ever forum and some other little niceties.
So, again, be patient. Rest assured that I want everything working much more than you do, because, quite frankly, I'm very lazy, and I don't want to deal with answering all of the "Why isn't the search working?" posts, which, as you may have noticed, have predominated the Tech support forum as of late.
Also, keep in mind that I also monitor the main UBB site daily, to keep abreast of the latest news and concerns, and to see whether or not something has come up that will make everyone happy. We are not the only site out there using UBB. We are also not the only site who's search feature is disabled. So, if Ted already has 5000 paying customers yammering for the search (and some other back office issues) to be taken care of, do you really think that it's appropriate for all of the members of a website take it upon themselves to email him their displeasure as well? I'd think that was rather rude if it was me.
After all, it's not like you are *paying* to use this site, right? So, cut it some slack and calm down, good things come to those who wait.
Spark
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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com
Insert witty quip here
[This message has been edited by Spark (edited 21 August 1999).]
[This message has been edited by Spark (edited 21 August 1999).]
