Staredit Network

Well, we're going to need testers and stuff for this, so I might as well tell you guys now.

Me and IP brought up a discussion about the changes to the programming that we're going to do. IP then said "You know, we're changing so much that we're most likely capable of making our own board from scrach".

At the time, he was semi-sarcastic. Then I told him that the idea wasn't so bad, and its worth an attempt. It saves money, we don't have to have the "Powered by Invision" thing at the bottom, we can get rid of most of the useless features that invision provides, give more flexibility to moderators, global mods etc over certain scripts. This also means, we're going to totally reprogram new versions of all the scripts found in SEN.

Yeah, it might take a while. But the site is falling apart in random places, and there are so many things that would be better if we customized to design it to be a map making site instead of a invision forum.

One of my biggest pet peves is our downloads database... it likes to rename files which I do not want any longer, plus there are thousands of unused mySQL tables and feilds that we are not using.

Plus the security of a ever so growing site, everyone has access to the source of invision. No one will have access to the source of SEN.

The integration of DLDB, Tutorials, Reviews, and whatever else would be amazing. Plus the scripts would be all made by us, so there would be simularities in the scripts unlike now, where it is all randomly put together.



Plus we'd get rid of some stupid things, which will make the site run faster, and add more security loopholes.

Anyways, I just want you all to keep in mind why we may not be bothering to program this SEN...

Oh yeah, we'll most likely give refunds to people who donated if they want. They donated for an invision licence, and if they aren't getting one then we'll ask if they want their money back.


Right now, I've finished the structure that the site will be based upon. Although nothing else is done, its still a lot accomplished in like 2 hours of programming.

If there is anything you can think of that I can do to help, name it. You can keep my donation to pay for the site, also.

Luck with this project, I already know what means reprogramming a big thing from scratch

If you need help with anything that I can do, just tell me it.

EDIT: Btw, it is spelled 'secret'

Wow, you two amaze me. Do you have a top secret test forum for this? Like you did when you updated the invision? If you do i would like to see it *wink wink*

And yeah, anything i can do to help i will. (as long as it doesn't require to much)
At least i'm honest

I'll give you a link for development in the future. Right now the link has absolutely nothing except the basis for which the entire site will be built upon. Its just a login script right now for testing global sessions and password hash checking - both of which work perfectly.

Are you going to have to recode or change all the existing mods? like the recent Karma system?

We're going to recode it so its better, remove the crap, and make it more like a customized map making site than an invision site with a bunch of mods.

The karma system was coded from scrach by me, I will only work to improve it, but the fundimentals will be the same. We'll also work in getting an admincp like system which will be higher in security and disallows anyone without authorization.

May I once again offer my meager coding skills? I think I'd function better as a bug fixer/aesthetic coder, because that's what I've generally done around here.

Since we're making an entire forum from the very beginnings, we will definately need bug testers and fixers. Sure moose, I'll take up upon your offer once the site is beginning to take shape.

I can test the new site without any problems. You know I don't have a Sc Cd so I pretty much don't have nothing to do except play Tetris(W00T I'm #2 at Tetris), and post and moderate the forums since I can't currently so anything in the DLDB.

All you have to do is tell me how things are supposed to work and then I start testing all the stuff.

Just don't trust me with .php stuff because I know I don't know squat about it and all I'll do is mess it up. But I am willing to learn a little soemthing though.

I hope I can make things easier for the DLDB admins by having each approval entry output with the title, author, and screenshot with the download link.

Completed: Login system. Includes a anti brute bot hacker system ("brute" means to continously login with passwords until one matches). After 5 unsecessful logins, it will then display the dynamically generated security image, as seen on most types of forums when you are attempting to register.

To say the least, programming EVERYTHING from the beginning is proving to be a challenge, expecially when I don't want it to be like invision at all.

Instead of act= we now have zone= and the code is a lot better sorted into global classes, such as:
$do is primary functions for everything, like sessions, cookies, getting $_GET and $_POST and so on...
$skin is for every and all skin things you can think of. Invision boards can only one skin file. My programming allows for you to load unlimited amounts of skin files which make new classes everytime.
$sql is where you run queries and fetch and whatever. It is so much less complex then what invision set up... they set it up for noobs. If you don't know SQL, you shouldn't be doing PHP then is what I say

I'm condensing everything into a handful of files with the necessities instead of having craploads of useless functions. For example, zone=login will contain login form, login validation, security image generation, lost password & user account, register, and register validation (when I have this working, I'll tell you guys to go register a new account at the secert link )

In invision, when it gives warning (like topic errors and so on), it brings you to an error page, and tells you to press back. Sometimes, you lose data. I made a system for SEN 5.0 (we'll call it 5.0 now!) that returns to the form with all your data intact, and reminds you at the top where you ed up so you can fix it.


The error handling is so much better too. Invision has it going through error('type' => '1', msg => 'langfilestring')
which it then takes then opens a langage file, grabs whatever, and slaps it on a page. Totally uncool. Mine just goes Error("You screwed up"), and it ouputs (if more than one error occurs, then it displays too).

ADDITION:
Oh yeah, uses WAY LESS fields and tables in mysql. Invision has, like 10 different tables dedicated to logs of different types. I plan to have one, global one (old logs will clear every 30 days maybe, or something).

The site is starting to take shape. Give it a try! (theres not much to do though)
http://www.staredit.net/new/
dont give out link or I'll eat you.

I like the temporary shitty warning notifier about the illegal characters in my name.

I'm planning on having that in a flashly little table when I progress. Right now, its just a shitty output

EDIT: Fixed the illegal characters thing (minor problem when it was checking the array of allowed characters). However, you will not be able to login. The databases for the new sen site and this one are seperate.

Could you make a test account where we can login? Just to test it a bit

I'm going to assume he'd want to put in actual things worth testing first.

Theres nothing worth testing... JUST the login part which took me a few days (to make all the global functions, security etc).

Things completed today:
> Cookies! We can now store and get member info within cookies and other information with 2 functions.
> With cookies done, you can also do the "remember me" thing (not implanted in login script).
> Invision backwards compatible passwords. No one will need to change their passwords, as they are already compatible with the new script. Hurray!
> Navigation. Its in with a simple function to expand it.
> Layout. Its now in.
> I have many things white listed...

Plan for the rest of the week, is to get registration, lost password/username, and "changed email address" working.

If you guys think that the current version of SEN will be ignored, think again. Isolated purity will be continuing to manage the current version of SEN with all its coding needs. He will jump into the new SEN when it seems realistic.

It is a lot of work, but im sure I can do it. I love do to bigass technical projects, and this is the biggest challenge yet.

Actually...
I thought about this in a serious matter at work (for a second time, I thought about this before I mentioned the possibility to you) and thought about how nice it would be and all the benefits...
Then I thought about how every mod and game wouldn't be compatiable and was like ugh...

But, I'm willing to join you in this seemingly preposterous project, if you wish...
You'd have to realize that I'm an organizational / perfectionist freak. For example, it annoys the living sh.it out of me that ibf_member_extra doesn't have the s at the end of member like ibf_members and ibf_members_converge.

So, here's my recommendations:
Change zone= into something else. I know you want make an impression that this is far from any other forum code, but zone just sounds queerish. What about a simple ?p= for page or something.
Keep member, session, and global variables seperate like invision has it... keep the names the same. There's no reason why we can't have a member array. $sql-> is good, I was thinking that would be an alright replacement at work.

This is only a worthwhile project if it contains zero invision code... otherwise, it'll just be a poser forum. I don't even want to use the old css... it'll be best to start over from scratch with that as well. I'm sure we can use puesdo classes to make the css more efficent as well.

Anyways, if you want to continue working on the session setup (array and handling) and login / security measures (the MOST important part), I'll start setting up a more advanced navigation system with the My Favorites drop down menu like someone suggested and dynamic menu placement and then move torward forum rendering... that is of course, if you wish it.

The complexity is overwhelming... just thinking about it .

You know, we'll (actually, you because you're the image man) need to make new smilies...
And everything.
We might as well as throw out every single thing we used to have and start with nothing, except perhaps the top menu and general layout idea.

So! My major concern again is organization. For example, the members table should be grouped as in, the karma column next to the minerals column next to the vesprene gas column... global configuartions next to global configurations and such...
And members should only contain the things used in a global fashion... For example, the member's profile information can be in a seperate table because it's only used when people look at the profile...
I'm sure you know.


Uh... I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this but avoid holes for the santy.E to exploit.
There's really no reason to load unlimited skins? Usually, you only need 1.

SO!!! Editor0z ~ If you want me to come aboard this project, we'll need to tell members our intentions and abandonment of the current forums (like... feedback should die as a forum practically) and give members the options to get their money back for the license.

Invision however, uses a bunch of useless functions. I'll need to keep updatesession because that one is important, but I'll see if I can split more off.

I'll change it into p= right away.

Up to this point, the only reason I've looked at invision code, is to grab the password handling to make it reverse compatible with mine.

The html pages and so on are normal things... everyone does em.

I'm not worrying about the CSS too much right now, but you're free to change it whenever you wish.

I've been trying to white list everything, its the best way to go. However, I have a hacker friend that will take a look at it.

Good idea. Noted for the future.

I love complex. I'm the type of guy who enjoys a challenge.

I'm well aware of this.

As in mine. You can see my organization already, can't you

Sometimes I have needed more than one, and it is annoying. The skin loaders are predefined, I'm not sure santy.E can do anything (nor do I really know what it does).

I've done my homework on most of the php related security issues already...

ADDITION:
We can do it right now, or when you think this project is more realistic.

I totally agree on the mysql thing... we don't need 50 different $DB-> functions, although, the do_insert and do_update is nice simply because of the array.

Organization? abuse table to members_abuse or something because it's member related .

This will bound to be an endless clash between pictures of perfection...

members table... there's nothing wrong with "name", invision doesn't own column naming... try not to make things different just to be different from invision, you'll end up making a confusing mess.
Avoid using sql keywords like "group" as column names to avoid potential problems.

Editor0z ~ One thing I don't understand is query caching.

The abuse table is actually more for guests...

And I didn't bother to use query caching.... its more trouble than its worth. By all means, you can give it a shot though.

What about this?
/skins/skin_1/css.css
/skins/skin_1/<templates>
/skins/skin_1/images/<forum icons and such>
/skins/skin_1/layout/<layout images>
and etc instead of placing skin images inside /images/ and keep that directory for universal images such as... clan icons.

Alright lets do that.