POP Forums v8: Release details

Yes, it does exist. After talking about it for nearly four years, I feel like it's something almost ready for release into the wild. I want to share some of my plans here, and will keep you updated in the near future on where the bits are.

First, the licensing plan. POP Forums has always been something I built for me first, and selling it or giving it to others was a secondary goal. This creates two important conditions. The first is that it has to meet my own standards, so I hope that the quality of the app is high. The second is that if I sell it, and only a dozen people ever buy it, that's still found money. So for that reason, v8 will require a license to use, but you'll get to see everything. In fact, you'll be able to download the code up front, pick it apart, try it out and see if it's right for you. If you like it, you'll pay for the license, and that will be that. If it's not for you, I hope you'll evaluate other products and find one that meets your needs.

Second, the first beta will not quite be feature complete. There are three features, or rather, two features and one major refactoring, that will come between the first and second betas. The second beta will be it, as far as features go. I'll do my best to integrate any feedback into the code prior to that release.

What's left before the first public beta? Well, it needs to be cleaned up a little in terms of CSS. I'd like to try and get the documentation comments all rolled together too so those who love to mess with the class library have something to see.

Obviously, this is the first place to look for further information, but I look forward to sharing this with you. I haven't set a timeline, but I'm hoping to get it out in the next few weeks, if not sooner. We've been running the app on PointBuzz now for several months with virtually no issues (the UI is tweaked a bit to match that site).

Stay tuned!