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Surprised by the migration from smf to phpbb3. Which forum is better technically, smf or phpbb3? I found phpbb3 slower on this site. someone here mentioned political reasons for the change. i just hope joomla, which is one of the top CMSs, is not a political body.
joejackson, i agree with you. i want to see good reasons for the change. almost everyone wants change, but we want to change something better. since we are working with open sources, we need to be open about everything. ordinary users of this forum like us only want to work with the best products (i am not saying phpbb3 is not the best, I just do not know). it would be better if joomla experts could focus on improving joomla 1.0.14/1.0.14/1.5.1 performance. Currently joomla is still at the slow end.

joejackson wrote:You've made some good valid points, but equally you have completely missed the point MMMedia .

The previous forum worked fine - this one does not.
This one should have been tested thoroughly before making the switch.

This forum works great. Already the work load on our moderators as well as server load is greatly reduced. Through your little tunnel vision view of what this forum is there are things that need improvement and some things that need attention. This has been acknowledged over and over again ad nauseum. We also have explained the situation with search. We are setting up a custom google search on the forums so that it is better than anything either phpBB OR smf had before. You, however don't seem to have the patience to wait a few days for google to properly index the new forum and get all settled.

Being that you seem to be new here based on post count and attitude, let me explain something to you that I have explained in another thread. When this forum was first launched on SMF ... the search was unusable. It never found anything, was incredibly slow, etc. It was months before we implemented an augmented search solution where the forum was indexed by sphyx and that search solution worked well. With google indexing things for this forum we stand to have a better solution than before.

joejackson wrote:
Yes there are many unanswered posts, but unfortunately searching them out is proving difficult while the search facility is not working correctly.

search.php?search_id=unanswered

How hard was that... It is literally a link that says "View unanswered posts" on the main forum board index page.

joejackson wrote:Looking at the bigger picture it is dangerous when we are witnessing so-called improvements being made that are not fully tested/functional because this same attitude and action will creep into other areas of Joomla development and then we enter a vicious circle of upgrades/changes not working and the forum being unable to cope as a support medium because answers to problems solved cannot be found.

It is always amusing to me to have people who are not involved in the project in any way talk about "the bigger picture". You clearly have no understanding of how things work either in development or in managing our websites. The Joomla! development team had nothing to do with this forum switch over... our S&I team did. And they did a fantastic job. Your belittling of that effort based on google re-indexing latency and a few small forum modifications that are in the works is laughable.

joejackson wrote:I don't wish to criticise anyone, but I'm keen that the problems associated with this forum change are recognised, rectified, and the lessons learned.

Demands the guy criticizing a team of volunteers that he doesn't help out with at all...

joejackson wrote:I'll say it again. I believe there are deeper issues involved and a hidden agenda is being played out before our very eyes.

Oh you are so right.... we sit around plotting and scheming ways to increase your frustration level so that it forces you to come complain about issues on the forum that so many people before you have asked about and been answered politely about. We also are in cahoots with an underground resistance group fighting the evil and oppressive wizard of oz. Don't blow our cover man... for the sake of the munchkins.

/me shakes head.

No I didn't miss the point. It isn't a political issue. To assume it is, and cry "conspiracy" theories is just horribly misinformed and totally uncalled for. Perhaps you need a tin foil hat to help you through this time of transition and growth. It may help you to feel better about things.

As has been stated before, this change was made to improve not only our project, but to also help and be a part of another great project. Community is key. Joomla! has made a great stride forward in fostering the cooperation between two great communities that help two very excellent projects be the best that they can be. If you do not wish to be a part of it, that is your choice.

goodman123 wrote:Surprised by the migration from smf to phpbb3. Which forum is better technically, smf or phpbb3? I found phpbb3 slower on this site. someone here mentioned political reasons for the change. i just hope joomla, which is one of the top CMSs, is not a political body.

There is an issue with how SMF licenses its software; as I understand it, it doesn't use the GNU license like Joomla!, and has some restrictions in it that make bridging to it and adapting the code "less open source". Something like that.

But that can't be the technical reason for the switch here because the forums are entirely separate and not a part of a Joomla! installation. I don't think anything prevented forum.joomla.org from keeping SMF on their site, unmodified and un-bridged, forever. But it may have been a reason from a philosophical standpoint, because Joomla! is committed to the open source movement. I would have preferred them to support Fireboard, which is what I'm using on all my Joomla installations now. The tight integration means I won't have a future problem with updates to forums breaking the bridge if I used phpBB2 or phpBB3.

They will rebuild the indexes at some point, and search will function again. They will sort through the problems and get them straightened out. In the interim, I'm suspending any "new" thing I do with Joomla! that I might have to find an answer for, and sticking with the tried and true plug ins I know (unless the author has his own forums). I think it will take 2 - 3 weeks for all the work to be done because this forum is massive, and there's a lot of work to be done.

fshgan, thanks for clarifying things out.

fshagan wrote:I would have preferred them to support Fireboard, which is what I'm using on all my Joomla installations now. The tight integration means I won't have a future problem with updates to forums breaking the bridge if I used phpBB2 or phpBB3.

I am sure that smf and phpbb have much better features than Fireboard. Fireboard is good for small websites. i doubt Fireboard is as scalable as smf/phpbb. Personally I believe that using different products (such as smf/phpbb for the forum, joomla for articles, drupal for digging etc) is more desirable for large websites (you could put each on a different machine).

louis.landry wrote:we sit around plotting and scheming

Aw, man! Can I join???
I always wanted to be part of a good conspiracy. Plus (and here's the clincher!), I can do the "raised eyebrow" thing just like Louis... and I'll bring my own tinfoil hat!
John Mc

jmc wrote:

louis.landry wrote:we sit around plotting and scheming

Aw, man! Can I join???
I always wanted to be part of a good conspiracy. Plus (and here's the clincher!), I can do the "raised eyebrow" thing just like Louis... and I'll bring my own tinfoil hat!
John Mc

Thats the point, you have joined.

diri wrote:Forgot to mention again that I watch phpBB since years and deny to set it up. Patching core is not the way to go when somebody wants a stable system.

I’m just curious why you believe you have to patch the core of phpBB3 to get a stable system? I’ve never had to do this with version 3 and have setup dozens of phpBB3 installations. (over 40)
It is true that the conversion seems to have had some problems and it will take some time to get everything configured correctly, but I can assure you that this is due to the conversion process and not the phpBB software.
For the slowness and search issues, this is quite unusual and I would presume they are working on getting these issues fixed.
My suggestion is to report what is not working and they will get it fixed.

To answer a few of the posts earlier in the topic. MODs are installed in various ways, from plug-and-play modules to modifying files to simply adding others.
phpBB3 features a Hooks system that allows software to fully integrate with phpBB3 without touching any bit of the core, such as RokBridge, which was one of the primary motivations for the creation of the Hooks system. RokBridge allows a perfect integration between Joomla! 1.5 and phpBB3

To sum it up, I am happy to see phpBB and Joomla! working together, both toward the common goal of the betterment of the community through fully Open Source Software under the GPL.

Impressive switch, congrats on that!

Reading all off the above posts I'm not quite sure if this is the right thread to post (minor) technical glitches in the new forum (but if there's a separate thread for this the mods know what to to ).

It's quite amazing that the old SMF links still work on this phpBB forum, it's great not to have the need to change all old links (*bows for the one who accomplished that*).
It's just a minor thing, but this doesn't work for user profiles. There are quite some (old smf) profile links on the joomla.org site (mostly on the Working Groups pages). I guess if you can get this done for old posts it might also be possible with the profiles .

I'm thinking of our new template forum... is this the final version? If so is it possible to ask for a lot of art designers around here a more professional and simple look?

I've split some off topic posts to here: viewtopic.php?f=428&t=266570

This thread should be for feedback on our forum.joomla.org migration and not for general integration questions. Please keep it on topic. Thanks

@newart: I don't think this is our final template. You should see some aesthetic changes in the future.

Yes, let first work all functions properly than think about templates. Where are my friends? Where are my friends and foes? >:( They just disappeared. They just disappeared. I think friends and foes lists are not migrated and I am left alone now on this forum without any friends...

Still talking about the change from SMF to PHPBB. The ongoing discussion is fun to read like all the others with controversial topics.

Lesson learned while reading:
Changes need time to accommodate for some sophisticated Joomla users.

The funny part People were complaining about things that could be fixed. They couldn't just wait.

I forgot...the people working here are volunteers!

Thanks!

ultimoAdios wrote:
The funny part People were complaining about things that could be fixed. They couldn't just wait.

I forgot...the people working here are volunteers!

Thanks!

That is how this community grew and that is how volunteers like it!!
If community doesn't complain they don't know where the problems are so for them it is like reporting bugs only.

Thanx Wendy for yr info, take into account that there are some colour problems in IE6, too.

Good choice
Some... er... cosmetic problems (not only in IE), but, well...
(And a few less-blurred smileys would be great too - maybe vectorize the current ones?)

Thank you to everyone who is working on this migration. It is great to be able to compare the SMF and phpBB boards. I use FireBoard and have been looking to migrate. As of today the search function still seems problematic. Twice I got a 'come back later' message and when I search for older posts using seach box in header the links from the old posts to the new board do not function.

Is there any news on when a forum will be integrated into joomla? I understand that there is a project going on to produce a fully compatible forum.

Frankd4, this board is a stand alone board, it is not integrated with the Joomla! side.
If you want to be able to integrate your Joomla! 1.5 installation with phpBB3, you can use Rokbridge.
See the Rokbridge RC3 Release topic for more information.

The new forum doesn't allow you to go back and edit the first post to say "problem solved"

Didn't notice this until now when someone PM'd me asking how to do it.

Rather critical given the learning curve going on and the fact that ppl will soon forget if they can't.

Good luck in implementing this

Thanks for the Rocbridge tip. I must say that I enjoyed the Tinfoil Hat posts. Mine keeps them from beaming Phil Collins songs into my brain. Timeeeeh!

yerg wrote:The new forum doesn't allow you to go back and edit the first post to say "problem solved"

Didn't notice this until now when someone PM'd me asking how to do it.

Rather critical given the learning curve going on and the fact that ppl will soon forget if they can't.

Good luck in implementing this

It does... just the edit timelimit is only set to a few hours.. I will look at adjusting that at a later stage.

No problems .. thanks for the speedy response

Takes some getting used to ... pretty smooth job given what's here <cheering>

I think the forum looks fantastic. Only wish I knew how to integrate it in my site just like it.

starmed wrote:I think the forum looks fantastic. Only wish I knew how to integrate it in my site just like it.

This is not integrated with joomla but a standalone installation of phpbb3. But now forum is working fine and soon we will have a stable migration from the previous one. We are enjoying new forum and it really is cool

It is impossible to view the last page (#5) of this thread, for replying I have to build the URL for doing so.

here is what written in the page when you click for displaying the last page:

"General Error
SQL ERROR [ mysql4 ]

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'u, phpbb_posts p WHERE p.poster_id = u.user_id' at line 2 [1064]

An SQL error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact the Board Administrator if this problem persists.
Please notify the board administrator or webmaster: [email protected]
"

This <censored> piece of forum even has stupid trivial SQL errors:

Clicking on page 5 of this thread spits out a SQL warning and that's it.

I really do not understand decision to use this software. It's known to be buggy and un-secure due to need of hacking core when one wants to extend it. Therefore it's something for script kiddies and gamblers.

It's taking a lot of energy out of community for having to much trouble with this forum. One can not find postings, can not read complete threads, font size is cruel and not changed, and so on.

Sorry, but:
Almost every other OS forum would have been better choice ...

brad wrote:It does... just the edit timelimit is only set to a few hours.. I will look at adjusting that at a later stage.

I'd reconsider that... I'm actually looking forward to be able to set the edit timelimit on my forum when I've converted to phpBB3; I've had users on one or two occasions completely wiping out their posts, because they wanted to wipe out their presence or something (don't understand why, it's not like my forum would attract any compromising statements). It's made some otherwise useful threads completely useless, others just barely decipherable.

I personally have never been a big fan of first post editing, I think it makes more sense if a topic is a chronological record.

diri wrote:This <censored> piece of forum even has stupid trivial SQL errors:

Which are due to a MOD installed and a bit of a misconfiguration issue. (if you look at the error, you would notice this. Brad also confirmed. )

diri wrote:I really do not understand decision to use this software. It's known to be buggy and un-secure due to need of hacking core when one wants to extend it. Therefore it's something for script kiddies and gamblers.

This is the second time I’ve asked this question, and I’ve still not received a reply from you:
What needs to be modified or hacked to get phpBB3 running stable?
I would also be curious to see this "known buggyness" of phpBB3?

diri wrote:It's taking a lot of energy out of community for having to much trouble with this forum. One can not find postings, can not read complete threads, font size is cruel and not changed, and so on.

Have you ever tried converting a board this large before?

I've converted two tables to INNODB and tried with Josh's help to fix up the ONLY mod we had installed

Things are looking better now.

phpbb3 is stable, and GREAT!


/me just ignores rude people.

brad wrote:I've converted two tables to INNODB and tried with Josh's help to fix up the ONLY mod we had installed

Things are looking better now.

phpbb3 is stable, and GREAT!

/me just ignores rude people.

Yeah, the rudeness is uncalled for. It looks like you guys are working through the problems, and you'll get them resolved.

If phpBB utilizes the same GNU license, is there any thought to a fork for a native Joomla! version of it to capture the features people want that aren't in Fireboard? The reason I ask is that integration issues always arise when two products on two separate development paths diverge. I suspect that's why this forum, the official Joomla support forum, is not integrated into Joomla ... it could hold up development and testing of new Joomla features on the home site! A forked phpBB that is entirely dependent on Joomla! would follow the development of J!, and not of the concerns of the phpBB community.