New Forum Software - Discussion

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
Status
Not open for further replies.
Originally posted by MesquiteMan

Fred,

Also, on your item 2...I can get almost all thread to print on one pdf file. The way to do it is click on thread tools and then show printable version. Then go to the bottom of the new page and click on "show 40 posts from this page on one page". Now print. That will take care of any thread that is 4 pages long or less. Most all of our threads are less than 4 pages so most will work just fine. Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Just tried that, wasn't aware of that trick! Went to a thread that had 12 pages of posts, did this trick and it reduced to 5 pages. Better, but still not as seamless as this forum.
Thanks for the tip though.

I wasn't trying to rubbish vBulletin, just pointing out that there are some nice features in the software being used for this forum as well.

The URL linking method in vBulletin is much nicer than what we have available here.
 
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
Fred,

The pic I posted above is hosted on the test forum, not off site. The way to do it is to click on "manage attachments" just like you normally do and upload the photo. Then click on the name of the photo that shows up as a link once uploaded. It will open in a new window. Now copy the URL and paste it in the thread body using the image button or IMG tags. Not quite as easy as here but it does indeed work without having to use offsite photo albums.
 
With the right code and the right styles, vB can do anything we can do here. If it doesn't do it out of the box, I'll get out my programmers crowbar and we'll force it. ;)
 
I have never paid attention what kind of software any forum uses. It either works happily, or it doesn't. I have noticed that recently IAP is very slow between 'clicks'. I compliment Jeff for staying on top of things and trying to keep this an efficient site. That said, I did take a look at my other most frequently visited forum, Family Woodworking. It is vBulletin. It does have some quirks that annoy me, like member search. The photo thumbnail thing isn't a big deal, IMHO.
 
One of the key features I truly LOVE about IAP as it is now is the ability to search the photo album by keyword. I can't tell you how many times I've used that when a potential customer wanted to see "something different". Search up a pen I've seen, or a wood I've seen and had them give real-time feedback.

Snitz has been the most user-friendly of all the forums I've read. But I understand outgrowing software and needing something more robust.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to help!
GK
 
Have you looked at SMF (http://www.simplemachines.org/)? It's one of the best forum software packages I have ever seen and from what I understand it is quite easy for administer. It also has a great search facility which is much better than most other forum packages.

However, whatever you decide on we'll just adapt and go forward. I do agree the photo album section is extremely critical and useful. I would hate to see it go to a simple archive and not be directly related to a particular user id.
 
Originally posted by drmcroberts

Have you looked at SMF (http://www.simplemachines.org/)? It's one of the best forum software packages I have ever seen and from what I understand it is quite easy for administer. It also has a great search facility which is much better than most other forum packages.

However, whatever you decide on we'll just adapt and go forward. I do agree the photo album section is extremely critical and useful. I would hate to see it go to a simple archive and not be directly related to a particular user id.
Click to expand...
Yes, I looked at SMF. It's a nice package, but lacks a number of things I'm looking for. It also lacks commercial support, which is nice because it's free, but not so nice because it depends on volunteers for continued development. Snitz development came to a screeching halt when one or two of the key developers moved on to other things.
 
I've had quite an experience with how forums work and don't lately. maybe because this topic has been in the back of my mind. I test site a bit and did notice it ran much faster. I also thought that I am really glad I just bought a new computer I don't think it would run nearly as well on my old one. my wife and children all have accounts on a site called myyearbook. it is a spin off of the myspace thing. want an experience with a really bad program for forums. I think they take the prize. there site cannot even keep an accurate count of new posts etc. the entire thing is set up like they wrote it with whatever ideas fell out of there heads for that day. there is no consistency from feature to feature, page to page. And the entire thing is loaded with glitches. It has given me a much greater appreciation for the effort put into this site.
 
Originally posted by jeff

Originally posted by drmcroberts

Have you looked at SMF (http://www.simplemachines.org/)? It's one of the best forum software packages I have ever seen and from what I understand it is quite easy for administer. It also has a great search facility which is much better than most other forum packages.

However, whatever you decide on we'll just adapt and go forward. I do agree the photo album section is extremely critical and useful. I would hate to see it go to a simple archive and not be directly related to a particular user id.
Click to expand...
Yes, I looked at SMF. It's a nice package, but lacks a number of things I'm looking for. It also lacks commercial support, which is nice because it's free, but not so nice because it depends on volunteers for continued development. Snitz development came to a screeching halt when one or two of the key developers moved on to other things.
Click to expand...

SMF is NOT the way to go! My forum was done with SMF and when my hosting company's server crashed and they lost my data I thought, no problem, I'll just restore from my backup. Well, it didn't work and I lost most of my data. I also don't know how well the migration would go. I think Jeff is on the right path. I am confident that he has researched and thought this out so the problems that we encounter will be minimal.
 
I suggest trying out phpBB. phpBB 3 is by far the best forum software I’ve ever used, it’s open-source so it’s free to download and use. It’s simple and doesn’t include all the “unneccessary†features you speak off. It’s minimal. Vanilla doesn’t even come close to competing with phpBB, so yeah - give it a try.

Just try it out on this host and see what it's worth : http://www.forumotion.com
 
Originally posted by Famig

I suggest trying out phpBB. phpBB 3 is by far the best forum software I’ve ever used, it’s open-source so it’s free to download and use. It’s simple and doesn’t include all the “unneccessary†features you speak off. It’s minimal. Vanilla doesn’t even come close to competing with phpBB, so yeah - give it a try.

Just try it out on this host and see what it's worth : http://www.forumotion.com
Click to expand...
You joined our site 5 minutes ago and you think you know what we need in forum software? You are a quick study! And it's not "Vanilla" it's "vBulletin" I am thinking that you may have some affiliation with that site... Are you a pen maker?
 
Originally posted by ctwxlvr

Any updates on when the software switch will happen?
Click to expand...
Earlier this week I was about 10 minutes from making a post saying it would be this weekend, then I got called to NY for a family medical emergency which is where I am now. So, I don't know for sure. I might try for the weekend of July 4, or the one after that.
 
"You joined our site 5 minutes ago and you think you know what we need in forum software?"

Independently from the post being a spam or not, and independently from than answer being harsh or not :) PHPBB is a very good package. I've used it alone or as part of a Nuke portal several time and I love it. I never had to handle such a large forum with it tho.

Being so close to forum change, vbulletin is probably already locked. Just keep PHPBB if any of you need to set a site up in the future. It's only drawback is to be a hacker magnet as it is one of the most prominent forums on Internet. You will have to make sure to keep it well patched and up to date, potentially with anti-hacking modules as well.

Anyway, good luck with the change. I know they are daunting. I'm looking forward to the upgraded site!
 
Just wanted to give a quick update on the #$%@ switch to the @!**#$ new forum software [:p] Yes, I'm frustrated!!

The issue is our photo archive. We have almost 20,000 photos and there is no canned, smooth easy way to move them to the new album software. I am down to just a few unhappy options.

- make people upload their stuff again.
- bulk upload the photos, which loses the description.
- write a piece of software to move the photos and descriptions.

That last option would cause a huge delay. I'm dealing with two different type of databases on two separate servers each of which runs a different scripting language. It's ugly. I've spent probably 50 hours screwing with this. Grrrr!

I am so anxious to get the forum moved that I am tempted to just make the basic switch taking members and all topics, and figure out the photos later. I'll keep working on it...

Thanks for your patience.
 
Jeff,

By all means you should have everyone upload their own photos. It is absolutely asinine for us to expect you to do all of the work. Besides, there are quite a few people who no longer participate and could not care less about having their pics up here. That would save some space on the new server. Also, some that do have albums may choose to not move all their stuff over to the new system. It would seem silly to do all this work to move everything over and then have folks go thorough and delete a bunch of the photos you moved.
 
Originally posted by MesquiteMan

Jeff,

By all means you should have everyone upload their own photos. It is absolutely asinine for us to expect you to do all of the work. Besides, there are quite a few people who no longer participate and could not care less about having their pics up here. That would save some space on the new server. Also, some that do have albums may choose to not move all their stuff over to the new system. It would seem silly to do all this work to move everything over and then have folks go thorough and delete a bunch of the photos you moved.
Click to expand...

DITTO!
 
Jeff., in my opinion I think we can upload our own phots. Been meaning to redo my photos and it will be a good reason to get going on it.
 
I appreciate all the help! There a couple of downsides to that, but we might have to live with them.

1. There are a lot of albums for members who no longer visit here. Their photos still get browsed for ideas. Those won't be replaced.

2. Some of you have pretty large photo albums. YoYoSpin has over 500 all with good descriptions and I hate to make Ed go through that again.

Let me think on this a little more...
 
Originally posted by ericw95

I would hate to lose Eagle's photos if we can preserve them.
Click to expand...
No photos will be lost. I'll be bringing all the underlying files over (all 5GB!) so that those which are referenced in posts will still show up. What will be missing is the browseable index.

I'll also keep the database tables which include the descriptions, etc., so eventually I'll figure out something to tie them together...
 
Originally posted by MLKWoodWorking

Jeff is there some place that the members of IAP can go too look at an end users manual on the new software?

Mike
Click to expand...
As is typical for forum packages, there really isn't an end user manual. I think they put their effort into making it as intuitive as possible rather than writing manuals. These are almost ubiquitous commodity packages, sort of like toasters. There is some context sensitive help available within the package, but most of it should be self-explanatory with a little poking around on the user's part.

I'll be setting up a how-to forum that we can all go to to help each other out.
 
Well Jeeze Jeff you are really wrecking your invincible status and changing it to human!! :D:D:D

Jeff not sure if this will help. But if possible I can delete my pictures from the album so you don't have to worry about transferring them . Then I can upload them again on the new forum.
 
Jeff - I will take responsibility for creating an album for Eagle as well as myself. No need for you to worry about such mundane stuff.
 
No need to delete anything! In fact if you do, you'll break any references to your album photos in posts. We'll work this out...
 
Jeff,

I think it's only fair for folks to upload their own photos. Perhaps you can recruit some help to replace the photos for folks that aren't active any more.

Having said that, if there were a straightforward way to export the names and descriptions, that would certainly make it easier to upload again.

-Barry
 
Originally posted by broitblat

Jeff,

I think it's only fair for folks to upload their own photos. Perhaps you can recruit some help to replace the photos for folks that aren't active any more.
Click to expand...

Barry; I think that is a good suggestion. Possibly Jeff could "export" a list of file references (names) and comments and several people could add them back in. The way to do this is to spread the load out to many rather than one. I also think some automated script could be generated via the standard SQL database commands to export and import data.

I would have to brush up on the SQL commands though.

I volunteer to help out with this.
 
I haven't done any SQL for a while, but I'll volunteer to help with the brute force/grunt work as long as it's not on too tight a schedule :)

-Barry
 
I was just thinking that there are a lot of pen pictures I would hate to see disappear because it would be too much work to reload them. Like yoyospin's, skiprat's, or lou's, or a bunch of others that are a regular source of ideas and inspiration. :(:(
 
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom