Differences between SMF 1.1 and SMF 1.0

SMF 1.1 is not that much different from SMF 1.0, but there are some key differences that you should take into consideration. The administration panel has been completely revamped for SMF 1.1, and you will find that things have moved around to reduce clutter and increase usability and user-friendliness. Do not worry, most of the changes are logical and actually make it easier to find yourself around the administration of your forum. In SMF 1.1, there is in fact a very big changelog of what has been improved, changed and what features have been added. You can view this changelog in the changelog.txt file included in all of the 1.1 download packages of SMF. But for saving some time, this document will cover some of the more vital changes that were made from SMF 1.0 to SMF 1.1.

New Features and Major Changes

Theme Management

• You can now edit every template file on any non-default theme. (SMF 1.0 only allowed you to edit index.template.php)
• While editing the stylesheet through the admin panel there is a box that contains your Theme and will update the css as soon as you type any changes to it. You can also view any page of your Forum just by browsing through the preview. It works just like a regular Forum in a small box.

Permission System Changes

The permission system in SMF 1.1 has been made a lot easier to manage.

• For instance, you can enable and disable the use of the DENY permission (Deny permission disallows a permission regardless of what group a Member is in, keeping note that a Member could be disallowed the permission to do something from one group but given the permission to do something in another group thus without a DENY permission they will still be able to do that permission).
• Also, some permissions from the permission management page (Admin -> Members -> Permissions) have been copied to other sections to allow editing of permissions for a section in that sections management page. For example, in SMF 1.0, the permission for a membergroup to view the calendar was listed only on the permission section, but in SMF 1.1, you can also control permissions for the calendar right from the calendar page. (Admin -> Forum -> Calendar).

Edit Features and Options Re-arranged

SMF 1.0 had 7 different categories sorting the settings for Edit Features and Options. (Basic Forum Features, Layout and Options, Avatars, Search, Attachments, Calendar and Karma) while SMF 1.1 has re-arranged so much that you will only find 3 categories. (Basic Forum Features, Layout and Options, and Karma). So what has happened to all of these categories of settings? Do not panic they are all still here. Search now has its own page in the admin panel (Forum -> Search). As does the Calendar (Forum -> Calendar). And also Attachments and Avatars also both combine to make their own page (Forum -> Attachments and Avatars)

Generate Reports

Generate Report is an administration feature introduced in SMF 1.1 that will give you reports on subjects you request with detailed information. You can generate reports on:

• Boards: "Reports showing the current settings and access levels for each of boards on your forum".
• Board Permissions "Generate reports showing permissions each membergroup has across the different boards in your forum."
• Membergroups: "Report showing the settings for each membergroup on your forum."
• Group Permissions: "Report on the permissions each membergroup has in the forum."
• Staff: "This report summarises all members who currently have positions of authority on the forum."

Personal Message labeling

SMF 1.1 has enhanced the Personal Message system with an added ability to create labels and apply labels to your personal messages. If there are personal messages that contain important information, you can create a label called "important" or something similar and apply the label to all your important personal messages. You can then click a link that leads you to a page displaying messages that you applied to that label. This is very handy for sorting personal messages.

New BBcode

 [nobbc][/nobbc] Will ignore bbcode formatting for text inside these tags

 [html][/html] Only admins can use this tag to parse html in their posts.

Message Icons

Message Icons can now be managed and deleted through the admin panel. Any message icon can also now be set to show in every board.

Search

• Search can now be disallowed with a per group basis.
• Added option to index messages using a fulltext index or a custom index
• You can now define search weights that are used to determine the relevancy of a search result

Wireless support

• The proper wireless protocol is automatically detected when using a wireless device to browse the forum
• Personal messages and recent topics are supported in the wireless protocol

Editing

• Extra option to quick edit a message in the topic display

Personal Message

• Added option to search Personal Messages

Internationalization

• Full support for UTF-8 (as of 1.1 final)

Package manager

• Improved (more intelligent) handling of packages

The New Default Theme "Core"

Packaged since RC2 of the 1.1 series, is a new default theme called Core. The original default theme, now called Babylon, is still included with SMF 1.1, along with the classic YaBBSE theme. Core was brought along for a number of reasons. One, the original default theme required a lot of buttons as images, making it much harder to translate individual themes. Core uses a clever 'tab' system, that takes text strings but places them in elegant tabs. A second reason is that the original default theme had a lot of people who simply disliked it. With Core, there is a fresh look to SMF, making it look more user friendly for the typical user. A lot of work has been put into Core so that backwards compatibility with older themes works well. You should experience no problems with running themes with the original Babylon templates or similar.

Changes

There are so many Theme changes that it would take a very long time to mention every one. You may consider checking out a file compare software, so you can simply spot what to add to each template and what to change. Most of it isn't that hard, it is just a lot of changes. Keep in mind, if a template file is missing from any Theme, the template file will be called from the SMF Default Theme, so generally there won't be much more than index.template.php that you will need to update. If you are using any downloaded Themes, you can be assured most Theme authors will update their Theme in due time. If the Theme author does not update their Theme, you can always give a shot at using a file compare program and updating it yourself!

Important added features to templates

• PersonalMessage.template.php (Formerly known as InstantMessage.template.php) contains many changes regarding the new PM label system).
• BoardIndex.template.php and MessageIndex.template.php contain a quick Theme change that adds ability to view unread messages of a particular Board or Child Board by clicking on the New Post indicator (on.gif and on2.gif).
• A lot of the template files used for the admin panel have changed as the admin panel has changed a lot.
• The link to personal messages has moved to a menu item on the forum Main menu called My Messages
• The memberlist link is now also a menu item on the forum Main menu called Members.

Admins settings that have been moved

SMF 1.1 features a fairly large overhaul of its admin panel since the original 1.0 admin panel was made. Settings have been moved, and new sections have been created to organize the data better. Here is an extended list of notable settings that have been moved along with the new sections of the admin panel. If you have been using SMF 1.0 for awhile and have just upgraded to SMF 1.1, you may find this helpful to learn yourself around the revised organization of the admin panel.

Basic Forum Features

• Remove nested quotes when posting (Posts and Topics)
• Embed Flash (Posts and Topics)
• Enable basic HTML (Posts and Topics -> Bulletin Board Code)
• Disabled BBCode (Posts and Topics -> Bulletin Board Code)
• Enable BBCode (Posts and Topics -> Bulletin Board Code)
• Max Characters allowed in posts (Posts and Topics)
• Warn of new replies when posting (Themes and Layout -> Reset Options)
• Seconds required between posts from the same IP (Posts and Topics)
• Courtesy Edit Wait Time (Posts and Topics)
• Enable Spell checking (Posts and Topics)
• Enable Compressed Output (Server Settings -> Feature Configuration)
• Use database driven sessions (Server Settings -> Feature Configuration)
• Allow browsers to go back to cached pages (Server Settings -> Feature Configuration)
• Seconds before unused session timeout (Server Settings -> Feature Configuration)
• Default login cookie length (Server Settings)
• Enable local storage of cookies (Server Settings)
• Enable subdomain independent cookies (Server Settings)
• Use META redirect instead of HTTP (removed?)
• Method of registration employed for new members (Registration -> Settings)
• Notify admin of new member (Registration -> Settings)
• Send welcome email to new members (Registration -> Settings)
• Optimize tables every how many days (Server Settings -> Feature Configuration)
• Max users online when optimizing (Server Settings -> Feature Configuration)
• Automatically fix broken tables (Server Settings -> Feature Configuration)
• Mail type / SMTP settings (Server Settings -> Feature Configuration)
• Enable XML/RSS news (News and newsletters -> Settings)
• Maximum post length (News and newsletters -> Settings)
• Enable recycling of deleted topics (Boards -> Settings)
• Board to use as recycling (Boards -> Settings)

Layout and Options

• Automatically Link Posted URLs (Posts and Topics -> Bulletin Board Code)
• Break up words with more letters than (Posts and Topics)
• Maximum topics to display in the message index (Posts and Topics -> Topic Settings)
• Maximum messages to display in a topic page (Posts and Topics -> Topic Settings)
• Posts to show on topic summary (Posts and Topics -> Topic Settings)
• Max number of replies in a topic to show "All" posts (Posts and Topics -> Topic Settings)
• Number of posts for a hot topic (Posts and Topics -> Topic Settings)
• Number of posts for a very hot topic (Posts and Topics -> Topic Settings)
• Enable Participation icons (Posts and Topics -> Topic Settings)
• Enable previous/next topic links (Posts and Topics -> Topic Settings)
• Search - moved to its own section
• "Attachments" and "Avatars" - Merged into separate "Attachments and Avatars" section; "Allow members to choose a remote avatar" and "Allow members to upload their own avatar" have been dropped in favor of permissions.

Link-by-link on the admin menu

• Edit Forum News (renamed to News and Newsletters)
• Manage Boards (renamed to Boards, now under Forum heading)
• Package Manager (renamed to Packages)
• Attachment Manager (renamed to Attachments, now under Forum heading)
• Edit Features and Options (renamed to Features and Options)
• Edit Server Settings (renamed to Server Settings)
• Current Theme's Settings (renamed to Current Theme)
• Theme and Layout Settings (renamed to Themes and Layout)
• Smileys and Smiley Sets (renamed to Smileys and Message Icons, now under Forum heading)
• Edit Censored Words (renamed to Censored Words and merged with Boards)
• Edit Registration Agreement (renamed to Registration Agreement and merged with Registration)
• Edit Membergroups (renamed to Membergroups, now under Configuration heading)
• Edit Permissions (renamed to Permissions, now under Members heading)
• Register New Member (renamed to Registration)
• View/Delete Members (renamed to View All Members and merged with Registration)
• Set Reserved Names (merged with Registration)
• Email your Members (renamed to Newsletters and merged with News and newsletters)
• Ban Members (renamed to Ban List)
• View Forum Error Log (renamed to Error Log)
• View Moderation Log (renamed to Moderation Log)