Are You Ready?!?! 🎉
That’s right everyone. Mark your calendars, set your alarms and cancel your plans. QuickBox Pro v3 has an official launch date!
After nearly 3,000 commits, 104,480+ lines of code, and 487 days, the official launch of QuickBox Pro v3 is… almost here! There is so much to talk about in this last Developer Update for v3. Hope you enjoy!
QuickBox Pro v3
Launched! 🎉
After nearly 3,000 commits, 104,480+ lines of code, and 487 days, the official launch of QuickBox Pro v3 is here!
v3 Is A BIG DEAL
The delivery of v3 marks a massive milestone for QuickBox Pro development and paves the way for many more exciting features! With v3, there has been meticulous planning to ensure that the code-base is as future-proofed as it can be. The aim is to open it up, so to speak, to allow even more freedom within both the UI and CLI. Of course, we’ll talk about all these ideas another day.
Get v3 When Launched
During the time between now and launch, there will be a considerable amount of overhaul happening per the QuickBox.IO Knowledge Base. It will be divided into equal parts: v2 and v3. There will be a new section for installing and learning the basics of v3. v2 Knowledge Base will remain separated as many users will continue on v2 for extended periods of time. Keep in mind, there will still be updates posted for v2, but ONLY in the form of maintenance and emergency patches. ALL additional features will now be dedicated to the further developments of v3.
v3 will begin it's initial rollout for those with freshly installed servers running Debian 9, 10, or 11.
Another consideration is that v3 will begin it’s rollout for fresh installs only. This will ensure that everything is operating in tip-top shape.
After the launch of v3 (for freshly installed servers only), the real work will begin on completing the v2 to v3 upgrade/migration mechanisms. This conversion process is much more delicate than a new server install. We hope you’ll appreciate the time that it is taking to make sure the upgrade from v2 to v3 is seamless.
The “How to Install QuickBox Pro” Knowledge Base article will receive an update as well which will cover the new v3 installation process. Fresh v2 installation methods will be sunset and no longer supported. So in short, that ticker tocker thingy up there is important – keep an eye out.
History (or Herstory) Is A BIG DEAL Too
Before v3, there was the current iteration of v2. Before v2, you guessed it, there was a v1. Before we take our next giant leap into v3, I invite you to enjoy a brief history of QuickBox Pro.
QuickBox Pro launched
No going back now. Let's do this!
QuickBox Pro: v2
The initial launch of QuickBox Pro was about providing the login and database; the typical extra security buffers for users on QuickBox Pro. Whereas, v2 focused on adding better controls.
QuickBox Pro: v2.3
The new Dashboard design was also introduced with v2.3.
QuickBox Pro v3 Announced
Nevermind that article mentioned that v2.4.0 would be the final update in the v2 cycle. There have been 9 additional releases since. 😅
v3 Changes & What to Expect
In the last Developer Update, we discussed many of the larger developments in regards to the core of QuickBox Pro v3. Within this final update, we’ll discuss more of the use specific adjustments as well as discuss some details on the Dashboard enhancements.
Even though QuickBox Pro v3 has been completely rewritten starting from a blank notepad, the cost of learning has been kept to a minimum. Some things have changed, but with a little practice and use, you’ll undoubtedly see not only how simple it remains, but the potential it has to expand!
An Overview of v3 Commands
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Welcome back root!
For help check out our manual: qb -h
* QuickBox Pro Dashboard: https://server.domain/
* QuickBox Version: 3.0.0-beta.2478
* QuickBox Update: Update available, run "qb update quickbox" to update
check "qb news" for additional changelog info
* QuickBox News: You have unread messages, run "qb news" to read
* Ticket Support: https://quickbox.io/my-account/submit-ticket/
* Discord Support: https://discord.io/quickbox The new CLI MOTD. As seen on your server.
As discussed previously, the qb set of commands have changed from using hard coded positions, to now being more fluid with optional flags. For instance, with v2 you would have to run in an exact order:
qb install [software_name] [username]
This was a very unforgiving process as messing up the order, could result in a broken or half-baked software install. With v3, a much greater set of stability is introduced with optional parameters set as simple options within an array, and not set in a demanding order.
Let’s use Sonarr 4K as an example, where you would want to install the nightly branch, to have the latest upstream goodies. To do this, you can now:
qb install sonarr -u [username] -o 4k -o nightly
The added bonus to this arrangement? There is no difference if you were to use:
qb install sonarr -o nightly -u [username] -o 4k
It just works, as it should. To answer your question, yes, Sonarr and Sonarr 4k can now be used under the same user account. We’ll discuss more on the new software additions shortly 😉
-v flag to the end of your arguments.
Enhanced Help Courtesy
QuickBox Pro v3 now comes with better built-in help utilities. To get help on a specific software, you will now be able to simply run qb help [software_name]. Let’s use Jellyfin as an example:
❯ qb help jellyfin * Usage: qb [install|reinstall|remove|update] jellyfin -u [user] [-o beta] ------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ EXAMPLES NOTES ------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ qb install jellyfin -u user installs latest stable version of jellyfin for user qb install jellyfin -u user -o beta installs latest beta version of jellyfin for user qb reinstall jellyfin -u user reinstalls latest stable version of jellyfin for user qb reinstall jellyfin -u user -o beta reinstalls latest beta version of jellyfin for user qb remove jellyfin -u user removes jellyfin for user qb update jellyfin -u user updates jellyfin to latest stable version for user qb update jellyfin -u user -o beta updates jellyfin to latest beta version for user ------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------
For more reference to commands within the QuickBox Pro v3 ecosystem, you can type qb -h to open the qb help manual.
v3 Dashboard Overview
As far as the Dashboard goes, there have not been any significant visible changes. The main focus of v3 has been geared towards the refactoring of the entire code-base. This extends to performance and various optimizations, through both the front-end as well as the back-end.
Though the changes do not appear to be significant, the underlying framework now includes a wide range of critical improvements and added enhancements.
As we have discussed previously, we have dropped mysql support in favor of sqlite. As QuickBox does not perform an extensive amount of writes to the database, this was an obvious choice. Moving to sqlite ensures that resources on the server stay to a minimum. Not to mention, the database is contained in a single sqlite .db file, making the potential to migrate to a new server a much easier process in the future. Think actual backup/restore functionality within QuickBox. Remember though, we’re choosing to avoid feature creep, so this is planned.
UI Changes & Features
Better Session Cookies
Starting with the login screen on your server, you’ll notice there is now a “Remember Me” tick box. This feature was added to the Dashboard, as it was something that that had been requested for v2. May it never forget.
Improved User Account Pages
The user account pages have received a fair amount of work. With the previous work being done on the session cookies, it was a good time to fulfill a long lingering feature request. With v3, users can now upload their own avatars to the Dashboard.
Your users can now navigate to their account edit page to upload avatars. Currently the size limits are hard set at 2MB per avatar image. Anything more than that is rejected by the uploader. Who uses a wallpaper as their avatar anyways…🤦
“I just like to be my selfie!” ~ some internet person
Improved Changelog/Update Page
This page looked like 💩 and has been long overdue for an overhaul. My sincerest apologies. The current v2 presents a stream of spaghetti text that made the changelog hard to decipher. Believe it or not, v3 changes this due to its delivery becoming far more streamlined than that of v2. Coupling this with a new parsing system, the v3 changelogs are cleaner and easier to navigate between releases.
Rather than placing buttons for various tasks at the bottom of the page, they are now set for ease of use. To provide better information on v3, the reset and update buttons are now shown only when necessary.
Continuing in the spirit of better design and information, there are now current and latest labels set to the changelog release. This gives users a better opportunity to keep track of what has happened between version updates.
To clear the system response log on the Changelog and Update page, you can now click the red trash icon located in the top right corner of the widget.
Redesigned Registration Page
With several unnecessary options, the Registration page has been another target on the list of pages to overhaul. After receiving a few requests pertaining to providing more information on the operations performed, I am pleased to say that the confusion should now be cleared up. The Registration page now contains clear details on the specifics of various options.
Not only has the page itself been cleaned up, a new option for enabling welcome emails has been added. Until now, the emails would only be sent if the registration option to send an email for confirmation was selected. With the new option enabled, registration/welcome emails will be sent on all new signup actions.
Software Management Center
Have you ever tried to remember the name of that software you once used a couple of years ago, for that one thing? You can’t remember the name, but then you see the logo and remember. It’s a known fact that branding plays a critical role in user retention and recall.
The Software Management Center has been tweaked to contain the logos of various software (59 and counting!) that can be installed. The addition of logos add to a cleaner and more informative design. Not a massive change, but one that has been requested and granted all the same.
Improved User Admin Pages
There have been several tweaks to the User Admin set of pages. These tweaks aim to bring a more logical display of information, as well as cleanup various design issues.
The biggest adjustment to the User Admin pages, are to the User Edit pages themselves. The big, clunky table of installed software has been consolidated to a much more presentable modal. By clicking the “Software Installed” button, you can now see the software installed by the selected user. Additional data on the Info widget has been added. You now have a cleaner view of registration dates, login date/time, last logged in IP, the user status and current group.
A less cluttered design, a cleaner display of user info
Improved User Groups
This is one of the hotspots that had been planned to overhaul for quite some time. Custom Groups can now be created in QuickBox Pro v3.
Custom Groups!? Can I get a hallelujer!?!
You can select multiple software for adding to a group, by holding the ctrl key and left-click with your mouse.
Once you have added the preferred software, hit save and finish by adding the user to the group. Only software assigned to the group will be seen and accessible by the user in the grouping; adding more customization and control to user groups in v3.
Let’s see what Channing Testum has on the Dashboard:
Honourable Mentions
The stats widget, as seen on user admin pages and the system dashboard, has been retooled. Some new values in the widget are the display of the current OS/Distro and the option to clear the “Record Users Online” value shown.
v3 also brings a new landing page option. System Admin can now set “User Admin” as a landing page through the option on the General Settings page. This is helpful for those who are busy managing users, and need to access user management promptly upon entry. It’s important to note that if any values such as System Dashboard or User Admin are selected, additional users will be redirected to the Software Dashboard.
Newly Added Software & More
Even though the primary focus was to refactor the v3 core, a few new names were added to the lineup. These are among some of the bigger software requests that have been received, so why the hell not, eh?
- Airsonic : Airsonic-Advanced is a more modern implementation of the Airsonic fork with several key performance and feature enhancements. It adds and supersedes several features in Airsonic. Airsonic is a free, web-based media streamer, providing ubiquitous access to your music.
- Autobrr : Autobrr is a modern single binary replacement for the autodl-irssi+rutorrent plugin. Autobrr monitors IRC announce channels and torznab RSS feeds to get releases as soon as they are available, with good filtering, and regex support.
- Radarr 4K : It’s Radarr, but a separate controlled instance for all your favorite 4K content!
- Note the Dashboard does make the installation into separate packages, however, these are built through the same build package using our new flag array. The CLI equivalent to install would be as follows:
qb install radarr -u [user] -o 4k
- Note the Dashboard does make the installation into separate packages, however, these are built through the same build package using our new flag array. The CLI equivalent to install would be as follows:
- Sonarr 4K : It’s Sonarr, but a separate controlled instance for all your favorite 4K content!
- Note the Dashboard does make the installation into separate packages, however, these are built through the same build package using our new flag array. The CLI equivalent to install would be as follows:
qb install sonarr -u [user] -o 4k
- Note the Dashboard does make the installation into separate packages, however, these are built through the same build package using our new flag array. The CLI equivalent to install would be as follows:
- It was decided to provide both Emby and Jellyfin as multi-user installable software. This means that now, [userA] and [userB] can each have their own installation of Emby/Jellyfin. Worth mentioning, there are no longer blocks on installing one or the other, should one already be installed on the system. Keep in mind that your server specs play a critical role in running multiple software responsible for transcoding. In other words, know what you’re doing, as you could cripple your server during extensive transcodes handled by way of multiple installations.
- With Emby, Overseerr, and Plex, you can now have the subdomain setup with an SSL certificate in one swipe!
- To achieve this you can run, as an example:
qb install overseerr -u [user] -d some.overseerr.com
Keep in mind this will only work if you already have a valid DNS record set for the domain.
- To achieve this you can run, as an example:
- Of course, there are many additional enhancements, so it is advised to double check
qb help [software_name]to get an official list of commands for the various software.
Wrapping Up
So there you have it folks! There has been an incredible amount of effort to make QuickBox Pro the very best that it can be. Once launched, the work does not stop. There is still so much more in store and I am super duper stoked for this launch. 💖
