Forum 4.4.4 is mostly bug fixes. As they came in, I tried to fix them when I found some free time. The list of changes:
FOR-5358 - Forum Does Not Use Correct Mode When Editing Post
FOR-6488 - Search - Invalid Date Bug
FOR-6489 - Thread Move: Email Not Sending - Bug
FOR-6490 - Uninstall - Remove Remaining Items
FOR-6491 - Thread Split: Email Not Sending - Bug
FOR-6492 - Default Cache Time = -1 -
FOR-6518 - Notification not working for Single Thread Subscriptions
FOR-6537 - CSS Issue - Case Sensitive Naming
FOR-6557 - Need "My Settings" Profile Option - Disable My Post Notifications
FOR-6559 - Trusted Users See Moderation Screen, Email Sends to Mods
FOR-6561 - Enable/Disable Website Address in Forum Profile/Posts
FOR-6569 - Forum: User can post to locked thread
FOR-6571 - Forum: Mark Threads Read Issue
FOR-6572 - Forum: Manage Forum Users Issue
FOR-6573 - Forum: Manage Forums Issue
FOR-6583 - Member List: Private Messaging Issue
FOR-6585 - Corrected "Unmoderated" localization issue in forum permissions grid.
FOR-6586 - New Thread After Subscribing to Thread in Single Forum View
FOR-6598 - Unmoderated Users/Roles Not Respected
FOR-6606 - Threads View - Various Thread Filtering
FOR-6607 - Last Activity Thread Filter Option Shown to Unauthenticated Users
FOR-6611 - Post View - Unauthenticated PageSize Error
FOR-6613 - Re-Work Forum/Group Manager & Add Ajax Support
FOR-6614 - Remove Group Edit, Replace In ForumManage Page - via Ajax
FOR-6615 - Create Re-usable Admin Control Panel
FOR-6616 - Remove BadWord Edit, Replace in Manage Words
FOR-6617 - Filter Words Management - Add Ajax Support
FOR-6618 - Email Template Manager - Add Ajax Support (Disabled due to FCK Editor issues)
FOR-6619 - Forum Admin Areas - Replace Section Head w/ Tabstrip Type Interface
FOR-6620 - Admin User Manager - Ajax Support
FOR-6621 - Threadpage in URL & User Posts Per Page Clash
FOR-6622 - Threads Per Page & Various Links
FOR-6623 - User Settings - Add Ajax Support
FOR-6624 - Member List - Add Ajax Support
FOR-6628 - Threas View - Threads Per Page #'s Off Per Item
FOR-6629 - Thread View - Post Pages Count
FOR-6632 - User Settings: Ability to Enable Per Post Notify Default
FOR-6633 - Added ability to disable Self Post Notifications
FOR-6640 - Forum Module - Adjust Localized Moderation Message
FOR-6690 - Inbox - Add Ajax Handling
FOR-6691 - Added Ajax Paging Control
FOR-6692 - Added PM Post view Ajax paging support.
FOR-6694 - Post Delete - Add Ajax Support
FOR-6695 - Report Post - Add Ajax Support
FOR-6698 - Added validation for image avatar size inputs to only accept integers.
FOR-6699 - Only perform avatar resizing if the uploaded image is larger than either w or h limits.
FOR-6705 - Localized word "Page" in threads.vb.
FOR-6706 - Refactored ForumConfig class. Also did more null checks to avoid object reference issues.
FOR-6707 - Reviewed and corrected all admin input data to ensure data is valid.
FOR-6759 - Added proper support to handle deleted/unregistered users.
FOR-6796 - Corrected issue with user lookup in search area to avoid errors.
FOR-6852 - Fixed duplicate columns in Forum_GetAll sproc.
FOR-6910 - Corrected Add/Edit post not first checking to make sure user is logged in properly (logic ordering bug).
FOR-6911 - Corrected problem in RenderThread where attempting to retrieve a post colleciton item without first checking if the colleciton is empty.
FOR-6912 - Corrected caching errors (not paying attention to host settings).
The list above corrects every bug that was reported thus far and made it to Gemini (I keep track of the forums here, so almost all of the bugs reported in the forums made it into Gemini). There is nothing that was posted into Gemini which was not corrected for this version. The above list does also include very minor feature enhancements so I figured I would take a couple minutes to blog about some of those.
The administrative areas of the module got a bit of a re-organization. Ajax support was added and things were broken into tabbed interfaces to avoid putting too many options in front of the forum administrator at once. This, combined with the admin navigation control panel which is seen on all administrative areas should help the daunting task of forum administration be a more simplified and efficient one. An example of the General Settings screen of the forum administrative area can be seen below.
Also while making the administrative changes, I remembered what a pain it was to try and manage the forums and forum groups on this site, www.dotnetnuke.com. The problem was there were too many clicks to edit a group or move them up and down in order. The same issues applied for the management of the actual forums contained in the groups. To make things easier, the group manage screen was removed and all group management is now done inline. The forum management still requires an additional click, but changing the sort order can be done inline just like with the groups. This, combined with Ajax integration, has greatly increased the time it takes to manage forums and forum groups. An example of a group being edited can be seen in the screenshot below.
The memberlist was another area that seemed fitting for Ajax integration. After starting this, I realized my previous paging control was not going to cut it. Therefore, I created an Ajax paging control that can be used throughout the entire module. This paging control no longer requires redirection and querystring parameters, thus avoiding postbacks when Ajax for your installation is on. Unfortunately, because of the nature of forums and the need for direct links and search engine indexing, this ajax pager will not be able to be integrated in the typical views of the module. The searching for members was also simplified, just type in your search text and select an option from the drop down list. An example of the Member List can be seen below.
That's about it for this version. The release after this one will not come out until after the DNN 5 release and will require DNN 5 or greater. At this time, I have no idea when that will happen. Considering most of this version was bug fixes and very few enhancements, almost all administrative related, I don't think there will be a pressing need to release a point follow up release for 4.4.4. We haven't ironed out the roadmap for the Forum 5 version but I think I am going to move away from add features and look into re-working the entire user interface.