Version 3 Release Notes

updated April 22nd, 2009

ASPPlayground.NET SQL Forum version 3 is built upon the extremely stable and fast foundation of the Advanced Edition. Many of the advanced features suggested by our clients are incorporated into this version, and many of the existing features are optimized to provide even better scalability and security. The previous version (2.x) has been proven to be able to serve more than 2000 concurrent users, take in more than 10,000 posts per day, and handle more than 20 million posts for the entire forum on a single web / SQL server. No other sub-300 ASP.NET based forum can provide this level of performance while offering such rich sets of features.

Version 3.4 Release Note

Version 3.4 is a major update to the software. The focuses of this update are to

  1. improve the User Experience by changing the way certain features are presented to make the software even easier to use by members, and
  2. improve the Server Performance by changing certain caching algorithm to reduce the memory footprint of the application by as much as 1/3, and
  3. improve Client Browser Compatibility by updating some HTML in the code and finally bringing full IE 8 compatibility to the software. jQuery is now incorporated into the software, and performs certain essential functions like UI animation and certain Ajax requests.
  4. improve the UI for the admin control panel for better readability

Click here to see the detailed feature additions, fixes, changes in this version...

Version 3.3 Release Note

Version 3.3 is a major update to the software. The focus of this release is to fix all reported bugs plus adding several essential features to make the administrative side of software more sophisticated.

There are also several design/behavioral changes to the software to make existing features more user friendly.

Notable Additions include:

  • Additional User to add recipients to the contact after sending PM
  • Announcement for Photo Galleries
  • Allow Temporary / Permanent Ban for Admins and Moderators on the User Interface (don't have to go to the Admin CP for such functions)
  • Allow Users to choose Custom Title in their profiles if allowed by admins

Click here to see the detailed feature additions, fixes, changes in this version...

Version 3.2 Release Note

This version is a major update to the software. The focus of this update is to address some issues with regards to browser display inconsistency and performance, plus making design/behavioral changes to the software to improve usability.

Notable Improvements Include

  • Allow Admins to search through custom registration fields in the Admin CP
  • Navigational Menu improvements in the Photo Gallery
  • Speed improvements in the Search page
  • Officially Supports Linq in the software
  • DHTML menu readability improvements

Click here to see the detailed feature additions, fixes, changes in this version...

Version 3.1.5 Release Note

Version 3.1.5 is a minor update to the software. The focus of this update is to fix as many reported bugs as possible plus making design/behavioral changes to the software to make existing features more user friendly.

Click here to see the detailed feature additions, fixes, changes in this version...

Version 3.1 Release Note

Version 3.1 is a major update to the software. There are several important additions to the software, namely:

  • Upload Progress Bar - informing user of upload progress in real time instead of users looking at a screen with no feedback
  • RSS Auto Discovery on the forum/message pages
  • Forum nows runs on ASP.NET 3.5 Exclusively (no longer supports 2.0)
  • Google Chrome, Opera and Safari WYSIWYG editor compatibility improvements

The other focuses of this update include:  fix as many reported bugs as possible plus making design/behavioral changes to the software to make existing features as user friendly as possible.

Click here to see the detailed feature additions, fixes, changes in this version...

Version 3.0.5 Release Note:

3.0.5 is a minor service release. The focus is to fix as many bugs as possible and to improve browser compatibility.

Click here to see the detailed feature additions, fixes, changes in this version...

Version 3.0.1 Release Note:

3.0.1 is a minor service release. The focus is to implement missing features that appeared in V2 into V3. Also, the focus is on fixing as many bugs as possible.

Click here to see the detailed feature additions, fixes, changes in this version...

Version 3 DEMO Online!

Test the new version here!

ASPPlayground.NET Version 3 is a totally rewritten version that is based on the ASP.NET 3.5 framework and the ASP.NET AJAX framework. This version supports .NET framework 3.5.

This new version of software has several new features and enhancements over the 2.x version:

  • New Theme & Skin feature allows user to change the entire user interface using the ASP.NET's Skin & Theme.
  • Template allows user to change the display of messages / forums / almost aspects of the display by customizing User Controls
  • AJAX enabled user action to improve user experience. Fewer full page reloads.
  • Reward point system & Mark as answer - user can assign certain points to a question to reward the best answer. Reward points can be given based on User Group Membership.
  • Community moderation - users can now flag messages as inappropriate and automatically remove them without moderator intervention. Auto-ban offenders for a set period of time.
  • Integrated Captcha to protect the system from spam attacks.
  • Forum Filter - users can now decide which forums to see on the user interface, preventing unimportant forums from cluttering the user interface.
  • Daily & Weekly Digest for forum and topic subscription. Users no longer have to receive new post notifications one-by-one.
  • Totally improved Search Engine- producing more relevant and updated results. No more time wasted on irrelevant and incomplete results.
  • Pinned message priority levels - moderators can now pin a message and assign different priority for different thread. Pinned posts are no longer "just a bunch of important messages".
  • Splitting / Joining threads - providing a means to join related topics into one or split an off-topic message into a new thread, greatly enhances the management of threads.
  • DHTML popup instead of regular popup which does not trigger popup blockers.
  • Totally revamped Photo Gallery interface w/ AJAX to improve usability. Users can see a list of thumbnails when viewing a photo.
  • DHTML menu to make the UI less cluttered. We focus on displaying the content, not the buttons / options in this version.
  • Moderator Permissions - grant different permissions for different moderators based on user group membership.
  • Custom PGDCode (forum message formatting code) allows admins to define PGDCode in the admin control panel without having to touch the source code.
  • User Group Membership Expiration - Allows you to define length of group membership. Ideal if you want users purchase membership in order to view the forum.
  • Expanded Group Based settings and permissions - allows even more powerful group based permission design.
  • Forum Management with Inheritance - making forum management a lot easier. Define setting and permission only once and sub forums automatically inherits parent's settings.
  • ASP.NET Default SQL Membership Provider integration (and the whole Membership Provider pattern in general). No coding / user importing & exporting required.
  • Uses Forms Authentication - easier integration with external membership system (in addition to the Default SQL Membership Provider).
  • Custom Stats with auto update - producing reports easily and periodically without user intervention.
  • Database based error logger - detect intrusion and captures the offender's IP. Allows owner to figure out what went wrong easily.
  • Asynchronous emailing - prevent CPU threads from blocking the web server request.
  • Integrated Spell Checker. We no longer reply on browser add-ons to support spell checking.
  • Medium Trust environment (shared hosting) and the new IIS 7 Integrated Pipeline mode support. Features are carefully designed to support the 2 popular server settings.
  • There is nothing you have to install on your Windows Server. Just upload and you are ready to go!
ASPPlayground.NET Version 3 is the combination of comprehensive features, extreme performance, rock solid stability, and unsurpassed security.
News Update
April 22, 2009 Version 3.4 Released!

Improved Memory Usage with 1/3 Reduction in memory footprint!

Full IE8 compatibility + cross browser compatibility improvements!

User Experience Improvements - Options & Preferences are now easier to locate in the User CP!


March 18, 2009 New Database Manager!

Feature updates to the Database Manager Bonus.

New: Save script to server + JQuery Integration.

Testimonials
ASP Playground provides excellent support of their software. The help files included are awesome. The forum is fast. It works into my page very well. Basically, it is a great place to start a web community. I've many forums and this is one of the better ones that you can purchase. Really like it! Great job guys.


Marc David, Discussbodybuilding.com

... and more


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