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. Don't 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? Don't 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