the modifications should not made by hacks - I think all suggestions of this thread should made as plugin or in the offical core of CB

You cannot do everything as plugins. Also, even if it is possible to submit patches to CB, the release schedule is very slow since CB neither follows the release early, release often principle of several other projects nor has a public version control system.

I wanted to distribute a couple of hacks and coded "CB Autohack Component". See www.joomlapolis.com/index.php?option=com_joomlaboard&Itemid=38&func=view&catid=24&id=50012#50012

This enables people to enjoy new features and bug fixes now rather than in a year.

Mikko

Currently these are included.

Bug fixes:
-Fix a field encoding issue when passing parameters to userlist plugins
-Change plugin id variable name from cid to pluginid to prevent conflicts at plugin backend pages
-Enable toolbar for plugin backend

Enhancements:
-Field plugins
-Mambots in CB

Just hacks:
-Remove normal search box in userlist

I completely agree with mikko's opinion and I'm very pleased to know of his core hack methods and the specific hacks made, for apart from the bug fixes I've made the same (and more) adjustments to CB that mikko has. It's a shame I only hear of his adjustments now because I definitly would like to know what his methods were for applying such modifitations and maybe we can improve each others developments. A closed discussen forum inside the "Need CB help, will pay"-area, which I'd like to call the CB advanced development area or cBAD for short (We need some catchy name just to be able to continue this discussion normally, any other suggestions?) would be a must have for intensive development or good project management.

I'd like to repeat that new CB versions will have to include a very detailled changelog with changed lines and their linenumbers so that every core hack (which I'd like to refer to as a patch from now on) can be updated to the new version easily.

It is relatively easy to update core hacks if you have a tool that can show differences in three files: The old original, the old hacked, and the new original. I use a tool called meld for this.

meld.sourceforge.net/

The autohacking tool is based on AEC code and will be released as free and open source software through my site as soon as I get rest of the hacks tested.

I started coding this thing yesterday, so you should not be ashamed

Mikko