vBDownloads v1.4.0 Beta 1 (vBulletin 4.x) Released!

Fillip H.

Staff member
Owner
Developer
Customer
Hey all,

After 2 weeks of heavy development, we're finally ready to release our first Beta version of the upcoming new release, v1.4.0 Beta 1. This download is available immediately to our Pro customers running vBulletin 4.x - a Lite version and a vBulletin 3.8 version will be released in the upcoming weeks.

This version has been completely rewritten from the ground up to provide a more scalable product, as well as some exciting look & feel changes that we will be giving you a brief tour of below.

The major change in this version is the replacement of the old uploader with a brand new fully AJAX'd jQuery UI based uploader! This uploader has advanced features such as measuring network speed, ETAs and of course, progress bars. It should also be way more reliable than the Flash uploader, as well as working better for mobile users.
We're excited to hear your feedback, but it's hard to hide how excited we are at being able to bring you something like this - I personally had no idea this kind of uploader was even possible back when we discussed vBDownloads v1.0.0 internally in our team!

Additionally, this release provides an overhaul to the Widgets - they now display on all pages, and change their contents based on what category you're browsing.

Speaking of the Category Browser, it has also been given a facelift: Categories in the list now look more like the Forum List you see natively in vBulletin.

Last but by no means least of the notable changes is the fact that the comments on a download now mimic the look of the vBulletin Blog and our own [DBTech] DragonByte Gallery by Dylan.


Please note that vBDownloads v1.4 is currently a beta - as this is a complete re-write rather than a simple feature update please be aware there may be slightly more bugs than usual. You should however find all of the existing bugs are now gone and that the product is quicker and more feature packed now, as well as allowing us to more easily add new features and fix bugs as reported by you guys.


If you like the product you can show your support by nominating it for mod of the month here: vBDownloads v1 (vB4) - vBulletin.org Forum or here: vBDownloads v1 (vB3) - vBulletin.org Forum, and also please rate it to help cancel out the users who 1 star our mods.


Complete Change Log

Home Page
  • Feature: The Search engine has been improved to now also allow you to search by description
  • Feature: The Sidebar widgets now display on all vBDownloads pages
  • Change: The Category list has been improved to more closely resemble the Forum list in vBulletin
  • Change: The Recent Files, Top Downloads and Highest Rated widgets now change based on what category you're browsing
  • Fix: The Search engine should now correctly limit the results based on your input

Favourites
  • Change: The Favourites list now uses the same templates to display its results as the Search Results, leading to a more consistent experience

Category Browser
  • Feature: The navbar now displays the full breadcrumb path back to the home page, traversing parent categories
  • Feature: The Search engine now follows you around as you browse categories, in case you give up trying to find what you're looking for manually
  • Change: The Child Categories list has been improved to more closely resemble the Forum list in vBulletin
  • Change: The File list now uses the same templates to display its results as the Search Results, leading to a more consistent experience
  • Change: The download's thumbnail is now generated via a new and more intelligent method that chooses a screenshot if available, and if not, the first image in the list of files

File Browser
  • Feature: The navbar now displays the full breadcrumb path back to the home page, traversing parent categories
  • Feature: File deletion is now fully AJAX'd
  • Feature: Adding a comment now loads a new page with the full editor
  • Change: The comments "postbit" now more closely resembles the vB Blog "postbit" (also found in our [DBTech] DragonByte Gallery modification by Dylan)
  • Change: The "More From This User" now uses the same style as the file title for consistency
  • Change: The download's thumbnail is now generated via a new and more intelligent method that chooses a screenshot if available, and if not, the first image in the list of files
  • Change: (Pro) Downloading a zip of all included files now correctly increments the total downloads counter (one for each file included in the .zip)
  • Change: (Pro) Downloading a zip of all included files now measures the uncompressed file sizes against the user's daily usage limits
  • Fix: The download counter should now work correctly in all cases
  • Fix: (Pro) Entering a download's password should no longer rarely send the user into a never-ending redirect loop
  • Fix: (Pro) Refreshing the page while the user is waiting for the download delay no longer restarts the countdown unless they refresh again.

Upload
  • Feature: A new, shiny uploader based on BlueImp's jQuery File Uploader has replaced the old uploader.
    This uploader has advanced features such as measuring network speed, ETAs and of course, progress bars.
    Fully AJAX'd and powered by jQuery UI, this uploader also lets you manage your existing files, deleting them with a single click.
    You are also able to abort a currently in-progress upload without reloading the whole page.
    Any existing themes made for jQuery UI will also work to style this uploader - more themes will be selectable in the future.
  • Change: The "Category", "Mirrors", "Private Users" (Pro) and "Password Protection (Pro) input areas now use the same UI style for consistency
  • Change: The "Password Protection" (Pro) input area no longer requires you to re-enter your password every time you modify the download
  • Change: The "Extension Information" table has been brought inside the main content area, and is now placed underneath the file management area

AdminCP: System Information
  • Feature: Storage Space Usage - the ability to see the total amount of space taken up by all your files combined
  • Feature: Monthly Storage Space Usage - the ability to see the total amount of space taken up by files uploaded in the current month
  • Feature: Bandwidth Usage - the ability to see the total amount of bandwidth taken up by users downloading your files (since v1.4.0 was installed)
  • Feature: Monthly Bandwidth Usage - the ability to see the total amount of bandwidth taken up by users downloading your files in the current month (since v1.4.0 was installed)

AdminCP: Extensions
  • Fix: Fixed a bug with the MIME type field being too small to store the correct MIME type for certain file extensions

AdminCP: Modules
  • Change: Removed this entire area, converted into Usergroup Permissions for maximum compatibility with vBulletin & mods that alter usergroup permissions such as [DBTech] vBShop

AdminCP: Import Utility
  • Change: Removed a slew of unnecessary steps
  • Fix: No longer shows an empty header if you have no importable products

General / Other
  • Change: The entire code base has been rewritten from scratch to allow us to more easily add new features and fix bugs


Screenshots




Thank you for your continued support :)

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