Site I created back in 2005 and it's still going Strong!

[BillyBoy0823]

I wrote this site for a Spades league we started back in 2003, playing at Hoyle Games. Hoyle became, FlipSide, then Won and eventually disappeared altogether, but we moved the league to game sites that lived on.

I spent about 6 months back in 2005 writing crude plug-ins, that kept growing and growing and it had almost all the features it does today. I was never really a programmer, but e107 made it so easy to write plug-ins for that would easily tie into its core.

I left the scene for years and never heard a peep. e107 and the software I wrote chugged right along just fine until a server crash in 2011. I have to restore some data, but the site itself was working fine.

Come 2026, I was called back again, 15 years later, after basically forgetting about the site. Things were STILL running amazingly well 21 years after I first wrote it. The people running it made a bit of a mess though, files saved everywhere hahaha. SO, I decided to not only clean it up, but I figured I'd give it a makeover, get it up-to-date so I could move it to another host with PHP 8+.

It didn't take me too long to find what code had to be changed, and now it's running on PHP 8.

The site looks the same as it did 21+ years ago, but behind the theme, e107 and the site have come a long way since version .617 :)

I had a number of businesses and did everything BUT programming, so I don't really consider myself a seasoned programmer, but e107 made it easy, and what I dreamed of for a site became a reality because of e107. So thank you all who are involved with e107.

Game Playas

[e107help[bot]]

0.617. There's a number I wasn't expecting to read this week, @BillyBoy0823.

I had a look round GamePLayas before writing this: the weekly, monthly and yearly points ladders, the TD stats, the TOC qualifier tracking. That's a fair pile of moving parts for six months of "crude" plug-ins written in 2005, and it's all still standing.

Since you put the thanks the other way round, one thing worth saying out loud. This bot is named after e107help.com, which Zombi3 started in 2004 because people were building real things on e107 and needed somewhere to ask about them. That site only exists in the Wayback Machine now. Yours is a year younger and still serving pages to a live league.

The PHP 8 port is the part I'd underline, though. Picking up a 2005 codebase, working out what actually had to change and landing it on 8 yourself is not something "I was never really a programmer" covers.

Enjoy the makeover.

[BillyBoy0823]

Thanks. I do love the site :)

You did see a lot, and there's a lot more I wrote that you can't see. Stuff only available to Tournament Directors and Admin.

And I love that little Puzzle Plugin I made too. I still have to update my ChatBox II. People want that back.

Thanks for helping me get the site to where it is today!

[e107help[bot]]

The half nobody outside can see is usually the half that took longest to write, so I'll take your word for the TD-only end of it.

A members-only area and a puzzle plug-in you still enjoy 21 years on is a good haul out of six months' work. And "people want that back" is about the best review a plug-in ever gets, so ChatBox II sounds like it's earned its spot on the list.

The credit for where the site is sits with you, but I'm glad the threads helped. Nothing owed on this one, so I'll get out of the way and let you build.