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[Armok]

I rely don't like the idea, out of fear that something may e lost in the process and out of nostalgia.
Se this thread.

[I3erent]

Moving the posts would be critical, think of all the stories we would lose by freezing this board and starting fresh.  Im all for the upgrade if the threads can be moved, If you need pm'z then freeze this as a reference for yourself toadster.  
But please dont move our boards if we cant import threads.

[Janus]

I'm all for upgrading to a better forum, whether or not you can manage to migrate over the user info and posts.

I'm actually quite partial to SMF, but even phpBB would be better. That preference is no doubt partly because I have a lot of experience working with SMF (including creating mods and themes) for the past couple of years and somewhat limited experience working with phpBB2 before that. I have only slight knowledge of the changes in phpBB3, but I still feel that SMF is superior.

Actually, I just got through upgrading a large SMF forum, its custom theme, and all of its mods to the latest (actually quite stable) SMF 2.0 public beta release: http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php
The above forum was originally phpBB2 a bit over 2 years ago and was successfully migrated to SMF with all data intact.

Since you'll need to upgrade from UBB classic to phpBB2 then on to phpBB3, I figure you might as well go with SMF as the final target instead.

Anyway, like Dasleah I'd also like to offer my services for free in getting things migrated over and/or getting a new SMF or phpBB forum set up. I'm experienced with PHP, MySQL, and various other web technologies and I'd be willing to devote a fair bit of time to it.

[Toady One]

I have very little time invested in phpBB, so I'm open to either one.  I'd need to know specifically what's better about SMF, and anything SMF lacks that phpBB has, if I'm going to switch, since I've already got a phpBB up (and it's annoying to ftp everything over manually).

The conversion just seems sort of bleak at this point.  There were various problems with the convertor that came up in those two threads (as in, it seemed difficult to get it to work/display errors came up in converted posts, though people that had trouble are more likely to post, of course), and since I've got weird ghost threads and who knows whatever else, it's quite likely it'll hiccup for me as well.  The convertor also requires me to run some rebuild stats types stuff on the UBB prior to movement which I haven't ever used until now, since the UBB has proven itself buggy enough in the past that I'm afraid of what might happen to the data.  And as I posted in Armok's thread, it's not easy for me to backup this forum or set up a separate server to run experiments on.

That said, I could probably get a user/email/password list set up myself, after FTPing thousands of files over and writing something to process them into a single list.  I don't know anything about MySQL though, so I have no idea how to get that into the new board, and that wouldn't convert the threads.

[Janus]

OK then. Just to begin up here, it is certainly subjective whether SMF or phpBB is better and they have much the same general capabilities as each other.

I personally feel that SMF is better. Here is my biased comparison:
SMF has been stronger on the security front in the past, with few security vulnerabilities found. phpBB2 had a rather poor security record, though to their credit they appear to have done much much better with phpBB3 which is supposed to be nearly a complete rewrite. They may well be comparable when it comes to security now, but I prefer to trust the people with the better track record (the SMF team in this case).
The administration panel in SMF is easier to work with while also being more versatile, though this is very much subjective. I'm sure somebody somewhere out there likes the phpBB admin panel better.
Installing and removing various mods is very simple in SMF's powerful Package Manager, which intelligently handles all of the details. For reference, the core way that it works is by a "open this file for modification, find this exact text, and then replace/add this other text to that spot" system that is able to reverse any such changes if you want to uninstall the mod, and can show you a list of all changes it will make along with pointing out problems (no code match found, or such) in the instance that any problems exist. There's no real comparison in phpBB itself; from what I recall there is a mod for phpBB which has somewhat similar core functionality, but it is a mod itself rather than a core feature of the forum and is nowhere near as advanced from what I remember of it. I have done a bit of modding of phpBB2 in the past along with a lot of SMF modding, and from that standpoint SMF is vastly preferable.
Installing minor updates/patches for the SMF software (i.e. SMF 1.1.4 -> SMF 1.1.5) itself is likewise simple. You can just go into the Package Manager and click a link to have it install the update as a mod, making changes to the source files as needed. Installing updates for phpBB (from my experience) generally requires uploading the changed files and overwriting the old ones, potentially along with any modifications you might have made to those files. This issue ties with the way mods are handled in both forum systems, with SMF updates obviously being much more mod-friendly.
The user permission system in SMF is better. Again though, this one is a bit subjective.
The template/theme system for SMF is more powerful and flexible, where the template system for phpBB is generally simpler for regular users with no knowledge of PHP to actually edit templates. So, a tradeoff there; you could indeed say that phpBB wins on that front if you're actually interested in making your own theme and just have basic HTML knowledge. On the other hand, it is generally a lot easier to install prepackaged themes in SMF than in phpBB.
The default smileys for SMF are pretty crappy, to be honest, where the default smileys for phpBB are rather decent. It's easy to install new ones though, even ones copied over from phpBB.
SMF is better designed to integrate other software, if you're interested in that sort of thing.
From my standpoint as a PHP programmer who has dug around through the source files of SMF and phpBB2, SMF's code structure seems quite a bit better, with phpBB2 being pretty kludgy. On the other hand, I haven't really checked into the source files for phpBB3. Since it was mostly rewritten, it's very likely that they have stuck to better programming standards this time around.
SMF is a little bit faster, but the difference is rather small and subjective to specific setups, mods and themes used, and so forth.
If you need help, the SMF team and community seem to be a lot more open and friendly than with phpBB. Subjective, of course.
SMF can generate RSS/ATOM newsfeeds.
SMF has a built in spell checker.
SMF has a calendar system, if you're interested in that. It can show user birthdays and "events" posted by whoever is given the privileges to do so.
If you go with the latest SMF 2.0 public beta (which is actually quite stable at this point), there is a really nice WYSIWYG posting window available.

That's my take after thinking about it a bit, but I am certainly biased towards SMF. A fan-boy if you will.
In the end though, both are good forum systems and both are free.

Again, if you don't mind help with trying to get the main stuff migrated from your current forum software, I'm freely offering my assistance. I've worked on similar projects in the past. I can also offer server space for you to run experiments on, though it would obviously be a different setup than yours and therefore things might work differently between the two.
Of course, if you want to do it yourself in order to retain complete control of the process, I'll understand.

[Toady One]

So something like that?  I can't really tell the difference at this point, but my server is spilling over with various forums now, anyway.

I'll start up a thread in a bit in DF Announcements to get some more feedback.  I'm not sure who's actually reading this one.

[Janus]

quote:Originally posted by Toady One:
<STRONG>So something like that?  I can't really tell the difference at this point, but my server is spilling over with various forums now, anyway.</STRONG>

Yep, that's it. The two forum systems (SMF and phpBB) do indeed share a lot of functionality and layout in common. They quite often lift good ideas off of each other as they update, so it's not too much of a surprise.  

Based on brief reading I've done, I'm assuming your current forum version UBB 6.04 doesn't have the ability to export the data from the control panel? In that case, you'd need to first upgrade to UBB.Classic which has the option to export data, no matter whether you end up going with SMF or with phpBB. I found reference to this support document talking about the upgrage: http://www.ubbcentral.com/support/docs/ubbclassic/UBB6_upgrade_within_6.html

[ May 22, 2008: Message edited by: Janus ]

[Toady One]

What context are we in here?  Using the convertor that was mentioned up the thread, or something else?  I was under the impression the convertor worked directly with UBB 6.x, although I have no idea.  I also have no idea how to upgrade to UBB.Classic, since the company has renamed itself and my control panel 404s when I ask it to do anything along those lines.  UBB.Classic is no longer sold or supported as of 2006, according to wikipedia.

But yeah, my forum does not have an export feature.  There's the convertor, which I mentioned a few posts ago as a sort of scary option, or members at least might be able to be salvaged manually.  It would involve taking the thousands of separate cgi files and writing something to convert them into a usable format, whatever that may be.  I don't know anything about MySQL or what would/could be used.  Threads are worse and doing them manually would essentially involve writing the convertor again, I guess.

[ May 22, 2008: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Keldor]

Really, so long as our posts can be transferred over, I don't think many of us would greatly mind simply registering new accounts.  This would cause some headaches with succession game threads where the author typically edits the topmost post with lists of people's turns, but even this wouldn't be so bad, since we could just start a second thread to continue on, and simply put a link back to the original.

[Toady One]

If your posts can be transferred over, accounts should be easy.  The threads are a mess on this board, and I think it will be difficult to transfer them.

[Janus]

quote:Originally posted by Toady One:
<STRONG>What context are we in here?  Using the convertor that was mentioned up the thread, or something else?  I was under the impression the convertor worked directly with UBB 6.x, although I have no idea.  I also have no idea how to upgrade to UBB.Classic, since the company has renamed itself and my control panel 404s when I ask it to do anything along those lines.  UBB.Classic is no longer sold or supported as of 2006, according to wikipedia.

But yeah, my forum does not have an export feature.  There's the convertor, which I mentioned a few posts ago as a sort of scary option, or members at least might be able to be salvaged manually.  It would involve taking the thousands of separate cgi files and writing something to convert them into a usable format, whatever that may be.  I don't know anything about MySQL or what would/could be used.  Threads are worse and doing them manually would essentially involve writing the convertor again, I guess.

[ May 22, 2008: Message edited by: Toady One ]</STRONG>

Ah, quite right. On looking at that particular UBB->phpBB converter I see that it indeed does not require the data to be exported. My mistake.
If the converter doesn't work properly for you right off the bat, I feel fairly confident that I could play with it a bit to make it work and get around any errors it might encounter. Whether or not it ends up working, it shouldn't do anything which could mess up the current forums since it only reads the data from UBB and then stores the converted data elsewhere for the new forum.

MySQL is pretty easy to use once you learn the basics, the same as any other SQL database system (they all seem to share like 90-95% of the same commands and functionality). A MySQL database can indeed be accessed and modified through PHP the same way as a forum system does so. Forums store their database connection info in a simple settings file on the server, so as long as you have FTP access you can get that database connection info and use it to connect with another script.

[Armok]

I don't like the idea in general, the only positive thing I care abaut whit all this is that it would be easier to backup, but if it fulfils these 4 I might at least not be horrified by it:

1) Don't even RISK damaging ANY of the info on this old board.
2) leave the old board up.
3) transfer ALL the treads, even the ancient ones in various nonsense and the old Armok sub forum.
4)Make something so that from a thread in this forum you can easel find the equivalent in the new one, maybe add something that goes to the search page of the new one and search by some ID number or something, I dunno.

And once you get the new board, backup it often, preferably via internet to another continent so it survives if the city the server is in gets nuked.

This forum means more to me than is healthy, it's the closes I have ever come to "having a life".

[martinuzz]

Well, for that last matter..
I cannot imagine the community really changing by moving to another forum.
It's just another name. Reminds me of some wise old words: "That what we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
I think you'd find yourself just as at home as at the new site very soon.
I promise, there'll be enough blood sacrifices there as well.
It's not like you have to pack all your belongings and move, it's just a few clicks away.
But I do share your fondness of the content of this forum and I agree that all means should be exploited to preserve it.

[Toady One]

I just tried out the converter, and it mostly worked out after I made some changes to the php files following the first several pages of the convertor thread.  There are some issues though.  Even though you can't use HTML when you type a message in here, it saves the message with some HTML, which will then show up in the converted posts (things like paragraphs and line breaks).  Also, I had to close the phpBB2 because when it converted the members, it left their emails showing under the email buttons, and I couldn't find an option in the admin panel to hide/disable them, so I won't be able to do further testing until that's handled.  When it creates the new profiles, perhaps it could set any "hide my email" flag to yes by default, but I don't know how to do that.  Of all the members, I think only 2 failed to convert because they had things like "{" in their displayed names.  UBB has the display/login name distinction, and I made sure to change the converter so that it uses the display name only.  I think the email is the only remaining privacy issues here.  I converted 1000 posts and verified that they worked (other than the html issue I described).  Finishing the process would have taken another half hour or so I guess, so assuming these few issues are sorted out, it looks like everything will go through.  I can only assumed php2 -> whoever is straightforward, or straightforwarder anyway.

[ May 22, 2008: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Armok]

Ok, I think I might be able to cope whit this if you get old links to work to, maybe not even a button or anything automated but just a huge text at the top of these forums (there is some style sheat file or something I asume whit *banner* "Post New Topic  Post A Reply my profile | register | search | faq | forum home ") saying they have been moved and exact instructions on how to find a specific old thread on the new forum.