crimsonfire Posted September 26, 2016 Share Posted September 26, 2016 OK so I said I'd do this for Nick quite a while ago but I'm shit at life so it's only being done now. Fuck off. Putting my findings in a thread so everyone can have a nose and provide feedback. I started out with some assumptions: Must be able to replicate most of the current features of IPB e.g. reputation, custom user titles, chatbox etc. Must be relatively easy to setup and maintain. Must be extensible with plugins and shit. Bitches love plugins. Be reliable (which rules out anything in beta) ??? Profit The most promising candidate I've found so far is myBB. I opted for open source stuff as I know IPBs support has been lacking. This stuff has become so user friendly that I don't think paying for anything other than web hosting and the accompanying support is necessary. Once the forum software is installed on the server and running smoothly then I don't see any need for tech support to intervene unless it's for backups, downtime or major issues. Anyway here's the link: https://mybb.com/ Also Flarum which is in beta but looks pretty slick: http://flarum.org/ There's also phpBB which is kinda basic if I'm being honest. However, it is very moddable if we want to go down that route: http://www.try-phpbb.com/31x/ In terms of preserving as much of the original forum as possible I'm not certain that's going to be possible. If the softwares becoming unreliable then I can only imagine it's either a teardown job or stick with what we've got. Migrating user info shouldn't be problem but post counts and other stuff that's close to peoples hearts will likely vanish. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alive she cried Posted September 26, 2016 Share Posted September 26, 2016 but post counts and other stuff that's close to peoples hearts will likely vanish. Kudos on the work put in man, but that sounds awfully drastic. Nick I'm not sure what kind of headaches you're dealing with at the moment, and obviously you're the one left shovelling the shit, so if it's become untenable then obviously I and I'm sure the handful of remaining Hondonians will support your decision, but Jesus it would be an awful shame to lose over a decade of history. Wait I just reread your post. Is it just post counts, or posts as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keth Posted September 26, 2016 Share Posted September 26, 2016 (edited) Theres a way to archive too right? Id be ok with losing stuff if we have a way to at least go back and read our old posts. Edited September 27, 2016 by Axels Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Hakujin Posted September 27, 2016 Share Posted September 27, 2016 OK so I said I'd do this for Nick quite a while ago but I'm shit at life so . . . post counts and other stuff that's close to peoples hearts will likely vanish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crimsonfire Posted September 27, 2016 Author Share Posted September 27, 2016 I found a pretty badass feature of myBB that imports IPB data automatically. It supports versions 3 and 4 I believe. I'll get a test instance running and muck around to see what's possible. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dag Posted September 28, 2016 Share Posted September 28, 2016 Cool. Thanks for looking into this, Crimson. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alive she cried Posted September 28, 2016 Share Posted September 28, 2016 Necessity is the mother of invention once again. +1 man, your efforts are appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The NZA Posted September 28, 2016 Share Posted September 28, 2016 cheers shane, much obliged - and yeah, you've got most of it, the signatures once per page is big for me, but we can work on that stuff i'm sure. and i've no doubt there's software to ease the transition without loss of post data/etc, what i'd prolly end up doing (after you've fooled with it a bit) is use our site to setup a dummy one, then try copying it all over to see what gets messed up in the transition, how stable it is etc Kudos on the work put in man, but that sounds awfully drastic. Nick I'm not sure what kind of headaches you're dealing with at the moment, and obviously you're the one left shovelling the shit, so if it's become untenable then obviously I and I'm sure the handful of remaining Hondonians will support your decision, but Jesus it would be an awful shame to lose over a decade of history. Wait I just reread your post. Is it just post counts, or posts as well? it basically goes like this: - we started out on ikonboard or something that i don't even know if it's still around - around 2000/2001 i wanna say, yahve followed one tech from that site to the creation of invisionboard, which we currently use. we were early adopters back when the software was promised to be free. - i took over & they grandfathered our old deal for a while, even by the mid to late aughts when they were kinda squeezing us out (only giving 1 GB of space), as they clearly wanted to move onto commercial sites by then - we bailed a few years back when they decided to change their TOS to force updates after a certain period of time, claiming that older versions of their software could be vulnerable to hacks & thereby endanger others on said server. they also asked me to take down the shoutbox & disable users' ability to use HTML for these reasons, none of which i found acceptable. - when we left, the software was no longer free - but they agreed to a one-time fee of something (i forget but i think it was like $150 or so?) for a lifetime license. we did a fundrasier for it & as always, ya'll came through. - we migrated to a site that was lousy with downtime and lost our data when i said i was leaving. - we're with another one that's not bad, but their tech support knows nothing of our setup. this keeps me worried that we could again lose data one day, even with the manual backups i keep now. - we can no longer update IPB cause i found out recently - surprise! - they don't honor that lifetime license anymore, and want a subscription fee. so yeah, we're stable for now but virtually any upgrade i'd want is gonna cost us up front, and then our server (who i get a deal with by paying a year up front as well) could very well not be super useful if said update bricks us. ive been trying to make this place more automated & self-sufficient, as i'm not always gonna be around and would very much like to have others with the keys to keep it running, once it's stable - so you can see where all this is unnerving. enter shane, with our possible options. seriously, thanks man, i really do appreciate any help here i can get. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alive she cried Posted September 28, 2016 Share Posted September 28, 2016 Okay yeah, I can see how our current position has you nervous. I suppose the real difficulty is finding somewhere stable and will stay stable (which is kind of hard to predict, like with IPB back in the day.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crimsonfire Posted October 19, 2016 Author Share Posted October 19, 2016 So I got this up and running finally... http://www.testing.shanekitt.com/mybb/ Take a nose around and see what you think. Try to do as much as possible. Create multiple user accounts, create threads, post images etc. Keep it somewhat SFW as I'm not sure what my webhosts rules are on that sort of thing. I have admin credentials for you, Nick. Let me know where I should send them. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The NZA Posted October 19, 2016 Share Posted October 19, 2016 Awesome! signed up, will dick about with this soon...much obliged, man. and PM me the details whenever you can! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benz Posted October 21, 2016 Share Posted October 21, 2016 (edited) <?php echo test, a post written in PHP. Hmmm... ?> Edited October 21, 2016 by Benz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crimsonfire Posted October 25, 2016 Author Share Posted October 25, 2016 (edited) So any thoughts? I've downloaded that merge system (it isn't bundled with the main forum software) that supports imports from IPB but I think the version that Hondos runs isn't supported. It's open source though so I'm sure the community has the answer to this problem somewhere. Edit: Derp... Apparently Hondos runs v3.2 of IPB if that wee line of text in the footer is to be believed. Nick, can you confirm this? If so the merge system should work. Can you send me whatever IPB exports so we can test this out? Edited October 25, 2016 by crimsonfire Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alive she cried Posted October 25, 2016 Share Posted October 25, 2016 I've had a gander and so far I've successfully: Made a profile. Made a post. Quoted a post. Started a thread. Posted an image. Posted an animated gif. Embedded a video. No issues so far other than the images not auto-resizing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Hakujin Posted October 26, 2016 Share Posted October 26, 2016 "Closed for maintenance." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The NZA Posted October 26, 2016 Share Posted October 26, 2016 apologies, crim - you're doing us a solid here, and i've been shitty about testing things out/using that logon, current post at work has me away from PC's at the moment. Apparently Hondos runs v3.2 of IPB if that wee line of text in the footer is to be believed. Nick, can you confirm this? If so the merge system should work. Can you send me whatever IPB exports so we can test this out? yes, it's IPB 3.2.3 specifically; as far as exports - i'd need to know exactly what it's looking for! i imagine postdata, but bear in mind when i'm running backups, it's a raw FTP dump of the site's folders every month, the last backup had exactly 439MB (41,715 Files, 2,777 Folders) in said forum folder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crimsonfire Posted October 30, 2016 Author Share Posted October 30, 2016 I looked at the docs for the Merge script and it assumes you have the myBB software and the source forum installed on the same server with access to the same database. During the merge process it asks for the database server info and pulls everything in itself. Pretty nifty. According to the forums there are hiccups sometimes where it doesn't quite pull everything in but by and large it works without any major issues. There's quite a few threads on their support forum of people migrating from IPB 3. The only issue seems to be recreating the user profiles after they're copied across but they seem to have fixed this with an update since. They've a fairly helpful and active community with a ton of dudes creating plugins and skins too. Looks promising. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The NZA Posted November 21, 2016 Share Posted November 21, 2016 ..damn, when i finally get around to fucking with em, they're down for maintenance. that's what i get! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alive she cried Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 (edited) This is back up right now. I don't know if Shane is still in a position to continue this, but if so can others try it out? Edited February 15, 2017 by alive she cried Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keth Posted February 16, 2017 Share Posted February 16, 2017 (edited) Test posted and made a poll thread. I already like it solely for the gif avatar option being available. Edited February 16, 2017 by Axels Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alive she cried Posted February 16, 2017 Share Posted February 16, 2017 Yeah, gif avatars are sorely missed. My annual Santa Spidey doesn't look anywhere near as good as it used to. I have voted in your poll and also added a gif avatar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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