The office of Ideal Science will be closed for the holidays Monday December 25, 2006 until Tuesday January 2, 2007.  I would like to wish everyone a wonderful New Years and you will hear from me again on the 2nd.  You can look forward to another Beta release of Ideal BB.Net and expanded moderating services.  Eat, drink, and be merry!

3.1.6 beta 2 is under way with a big bug fix to the pagers which mysteriously stopped working after doing the .NET 2.0 upgrade.  I didn’t notice that they stopped appearing on the pages until I started working on beta 2.  The bug is related to a change in event processing from the 1.1 to 2.0 platforms.   I fixed the bug and they are working again, but I can’t release the fix until I release beta 2.

I added a new feature that lists active topics based on the number of replies (similar to the feature in Ideal BB the ASP product.)  It caches 100 of the most active posts per board and lets you browse through them to see which content is most popular based on replies.  There is an “Active Posts” link right next to the “New Posts” link.

I’m done hashing out the features for a rating system but I haven’t begun to implement it yet.  I think I’m going to release 3.1.6 beta 2 first so that users can get a stable .NET 2.0 build of our product and then start to tackle the rating system for beta 3.   I want to use the new Microsoft AJAX libraries that ship with .NET 2.0 so I’m going to need to take some time out to learn how to use them before adding this feature.  (How can you have ratings without using AJAX?)

A full week after Ideal Science released Ideal BB.Net Version 3.1.6 Beta 1 for download, I wanted to follow up with our customers and hear your thoughts on the newest version as well as Ideal Science in general.  What features would you like to see in the near future?  Could the Ideal Science website be easier to navigate?  Is technical support provided in a timely and effective manor?  All replies are welcome as we look forward to continuing all efforts improve Ideal BB.Net and make your business better.  See you on Monday.

Ideal Science is pleased to announce Ideal BB.Net Version 3.1.6 Beta 1 is now available to download at the online store today, December 1, 2006! At Ideal Science, we pride ourselves in providing our customers with the highest performance forum software available on the market while continuing to meet customer needs. In constantly improving Ideal BB.NET, I feel these new features and fixes will contribute to the success of your business.

New Features:

• Upgraded to .Net 2.0 Framework. Incremented the major version number to 3.x.x.x. series and since we were on 2.1.5.0 before the upgrade we are now on 3.1.6.0 for the next version.
• Added the ability to upload your own avatars via the edit profile page. Custom avatars are store for each user so that users do not see other user’s avatars. You can pick custom avatars already uploaded via the avatar selector. Only images with .jpg, .jpeg, or .gif are supported.
• Added a sample project for grabbing the last 5 most recent posts by consuming the RSS feed on the new posts page.
• Added list uploaded avatars view to the admin section so that admin’s and moderators can easily remove uploaded avatars that don’t meet the board’s terms of service. Resetting an avatar replaces and deletes the uploaded avatars with the default avatar. (Which can be set in the admin section.)
• Registration link is now hidden on login page when using active directory.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug in topic_getTopicsPaged that caused a syntax error when paging topics.
• Fixed a bug that caused AD to not work correctly for new users when anonymous access was disabled.
• Fixed bug with RTE (Rich Text Editor) where firefox browsers would lose formatting after clicking submit.
• Fixed small CSS issue with login box error messages in firefox.
• Fixed bug that caused links to get messed up after editing a post with a link in it.
• Fixed bug that would cause the quick reply to create multiple posts.

I hope you find these upgrades valuable as we have eagerly anticipated this launch to better serve a company’s individual needs.  Upgrades are a feature of the yearly maintenance package which also allows for continued technical support.  When a company purchases Ideal BB.Net forum software, a year of support and maintenance is included.  Each subsequent year, maintenance will be 20% of the original license fee.  These maintenance renewals can be made over the phone at 512-401-9811×200.  We look forward to continuing all efforts to make your business better.