PHPBB3 - Major Upgrade to Forum Has to Happen Soon

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Berlie
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PHPBB3 - Major Upgrade to Forum Has to Happen Soon

Post by Berlie » Fri Oct 05, 2007 8:47 am

I was notified by our webhost that they will be upgrading to PHP 5. PHP is the program code that the forum script (PHPBB2) is written in.

Unfortunately PHP 5 breaks a lot of code that was written for PHP 4. The PHPBB2 forum script is one of the ones that doesn't work well in PHP 5.

PHPBB has been working on a new version of the forum software for some time (PHPBB3) which does work in PHP 5. They have a "Final Release Candidate" available that people are using successfully but it probably still has some bugs to work out.

However with the webhost moving to PHP 5 in November it looks like I will need to go ahead and upgrade the forums to the new version even though there may still be a few problems with it.

This is a MAJOR upgrade to the forums. The look and feel will change and all of the modifications I made to it over the years will be lost. The good news is that the new forum comes with all lot of features by default that I had to modify the forum by hand to achieve before.

It will also be a lot easier to keep the new forum script up to date and to also add any new features to it in the future.

Right now if I want to add a "Mod" (modification) I would have to manually go into the code and change it line by line. When an upgrade came out I would have to wipe all of the previous mods, install the upgrade then manually go in and readd All of the previous mods manually line by line to the upgraded code. IT WAS A PAIN IN THE....

The new forum script removes all of that headache completely.

So good news and bad..

Bad news is I have to actually upgrade to the new forum which will probably be a pain and we will have to deal with a completely new forum and look.

Good news is this forum is a lot more user friendly on the admin end and has a lot of new features.

I do not know when this will all be happening except it needs to be done before the beginning of November which is when we get "upgraded" to PHP 5. I will probably install the new forum script in a separate directory on the site to play around with and learn then move the current forum's data to it. I am assuming that there is some conversion method available to move over all of the current members and posts to the new forum.. there better be!
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Berlie
Behind the Curtain
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Location: Georgia, USA

Post by Berlie » Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:09 am

For those that are interested here is the feature list for the new version of the forum (phpBB3):

http://area51.phpbb.com/docs/features.html

and a look at the forum itself (with their default template):

http://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/
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twisting the throttle
as I lean into the curve
bug SPLAT on my face
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heinzs
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Post by heinzs » Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:48 am

Good. That should also enhance our security.

:thumbsup:
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Berlie
Behind the Curtain
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Post by Berlie » Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:59 am

In further reading it looks like they decided to NOT implement the easy modification ability. So any modifications (Mods) i want to add still need to be done the hard way. However hopefully the need for modificatios won't be as great as there are a lot of new features by default on the forum that needed a mod added before to achieve.
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Image
twisting the throttle
as I lean into the curve
bug SPLAT on my face
--------------------------------------------------
My Poetry Posts | My Poetry Vault | Self-Pub.net

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heinzs
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Post by heinzs » Fri Oct 05, 2007 4:20 pm

Typical...


:roll:
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An' it harm none, do what ye will. Blessed Be.
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Berlie
Behind the Curtain
Posts: 797
Joined: Mon Dec 17, 2001 12:01 am
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Location: Georgia, USA

Post by Berlie » Sun Oct 07, 2007 10:59 pm

I've installed the new forum as a test in a different directory and have been working on it and testing all weekend with some help from some of our moderators. It looks good so far, quite a few changes to get use to but all for the better I think.

Unless I spot a major issue in the next day or so I will be switching over the forums to the new forum script sometime this week.

That will require me to lock the forums down while I am doing the switch which should be about 15 minutes or so.

I will keep you posted and give warning ahead of time.
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Image
twisting the throttle
as I lean into the curve
bug SPLAT on my face
--------------------------------------------------
My Poetry Posts | My Poetry Vault | Self-Pub.net

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