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Upcoming site changes

Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 1:26 am
by Moto
Unfortunately, I can not give you an exact time line. Time is not on my side for the foreseeable future, but I've been looking into porting this board onto a mybb installation.

We have been using the phpbb platform since 2009 we have gone through many updates and the mods to the forum. Some of them are very obvious and some of them are entirely on the back end. phpbb does have a major update coming, but I don't know if I am willing to wait for it. The new phpbb release does not appear to have any major updates for mobile devices. (Most forum software are missing good mobile support)

mybb looks to offer a similar look and feel for the users and seems to be coded a little better for modification. Unfortunately, it is not entirely open source and the community is much smaller. (like .1)

I'll have to do a test run sometime to see how everything converts. I'll probably set it up on its own domain name and have people hear do some basic testing for me. Once we think it will work we will temporarily disable this site so that I can pull all of the most recent posts and move everything. The separate domain name setup will help me figure out how long it will take and what bugs we will be expecting.

I'll try to build/modify a layout similar to the one we are using.

As far as the mobile layout issue... I think it's something simple, but I was stumped. For some reason it does not appear to be calling the graphics from the proper location. I tried to reinstall the mod, but it just broke the site to the point that it wouldn't load. phpbb is really bad about modifications if you don't have the code exactly correct.

I'm completely open to input on this matter. I'm not in a huge rush to try to move from something that has been working for 5 years with minimal interruption.

Reason for the change. phpbb is a great forum software but in 5 years of development it is difficult to see any changes to the system and layout. Everything else has come a long way in the same time span.

I will likely be experimenting with other forum software to see if anything would better suit our needs.

I would sort of like to get the site back in order so it will run another 5 years with minimal interruption. The current plat form has too many mods and code changes to go though another upgrade. At a minimum we will be on a fresh phpbb install.

I know most of you are on other forums. Do you have any preferences or thoughts on the subject?

Re: Upcoming site changes

Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 6:16 am
by murcod
Most of the forums I've been on are phpbb and seem very user friendly at this end? One is VBulletin http://www.suzuki-forums.com/forum-index.php (which isn't one of my favourites, but is most likely just how they've customised it?)

Here's an example of a mybb forum (for anyone like me who hasn't noticed one before): http://community.mybb.com/index.php

I guess it's often a case of what you get used to. ;)

PS: thanks for all the behind the scenes work. :)

Re: Upcoming site changes

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 2:23 am
by ~tc~
F mobile versions, just use Tapatalk

Re: Upcoming site changes

Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 9:14 am
by bootymac
Whatever you do, can we edit old posts? It helps with technical resources that need updating

Re: Upcoming site changes

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2014 6:01 am
by Moto
- We will be keeping hostgator as our host for now. I looked into several alternatives and didn't really find anything better in terms of reliability.

- We will upgrade the forum to phpbb 3.1 when it is released.

- As far as I know right now you will be able to make changes to old posts without a problem. If you are ever unable to do so just let me know and I can make changes accordingly.

The forum is probably on the back burner until phpbb 3.1 gets released.

I was also tasked with putting together an employee website for my new employer so I have been putting most of my time into that.

Re: Upcoming site changes

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2014 7:24 am
by Moto
Got in the grove and I think I managed to get everything updated and working again. Now we wait for 3.1

Re: Upcoming site changes

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2014 8:38 am
by bootymac
Good stuff! Thanks for everything :D