Suggestions for Forum Software

[JJames19119]

So the forums have made the switch to Simple Machines Forums, or SMF for short. The admin panel is a lot easier and nicer to deal with. As for things on the user end, we've lost a bit of functionality but that's nothing we, the staff, can't fix. The forums should not only run smoother too, but feel more stream lined and easier to access. We're still working out a few kinks and bugs from converting from phpBB3; if you find any, please report them to me ASAP.

On the subject of fixing functionality, since we're using SMF, themes and modifications are easier then ever to install. More over, we will need to install some to restore a little lost functionality, such as missing spoiler tags, which were very popular. I will work on that first and foremost, but the rest will be up to you guys to vote for and suggest, and you can use this thread to do it. Just go to the SMF customization website, copy down the URL to mods and themes you would like to see installed and I will get right to it. Do note that the current software version is 2.0.2 and we can only support mods and themes that support that exact version number or a number in that range. (Such as 2.0.x)

On another note, if you still need to access something from the original phpBB3 forums, you can find them here. I will be taking down the phpBB3 forums after a few months and all of it's content will be deleted; if you need something from there that wasn't carried over into the conversion to here, then please retrieve it now. In any case, I still have an SQL database back up of it on my hard drive safe and sound in case something from it absolutely needs to be pulled from it.

Thanks for sticking with us so far up until now. Hopefully with the advent of Stomp Arena, 72 can pick back up and be brought back to it's former glory.

Original post:
I'm going to keep this magically brief; I'm tired of phpBB. The off topic subforum is a good indication of my attitude towards it. The admin panel is overly convulted and complicated, the data storage is fat and unoptimized and and it's starting to clog my server up a bit, even with a general lack of high activity.

I'm posting this thread for you, the people, to start pitching ideas on what kind of forum software you'd like to see used in it's place. Of course, the biggest plus is having an auto-converter, as that ensures the transition to the new software is clean and seamless. This doesn't mean we will definitely change our software, if it's too much trouble I will likely keep it as it is, and more over, if all of you actually prefer the forum the way it is now as phpBB, then I will keep it this way and not speak another word of it.

As for my own suggestion, I'm a fan of SMF myself, as I've been using it for years after phpBB2 stopped existing. Many great themes and mods available for it too.

Since the forum is seeing activity again, I figured a change is in order and the first step in embracing that change is improving the forum itself. Please give me your suggestions on how to improve the forum, and this time, there are no strings attached. Go wild.

[MC Jimmy]

I'm game. Hopefully we can convert the SMWar skin for that.

[Tanuki]

SMF is pretty cool and a very good choice imo

[KingPepe]

...I was thinking of ZetaBoards but SMF looks a lot better to me so I say go with that.

[Kabukiguy]

im down for  SMF.

[Night]

I can dig switching to SMF.

[MasterLederhosen]

I don't have anything against switching to SMF either.

[JJames19119]

So the forums have made the switch to Simple Machines Forums, or SMF for short. The admin panel is a lot easier and nicer to deal with. As for things on the user end, we've lost a bit of functionality but that's nothing we, the staff, can't fix. The forums should not only run smoother too, but feel more stream lined and easier to access. We're still working out a few kinks and bugs from converting from phpBB3; if you find any, please report them to me ASAP.

On the subject of fixing functionality, since we're using SMF, themes and modifications are easier then ever to install. More over, we will need to install some to restore a little lost functionality, such as missing spoiler tags, which were very popular. I will work on that first and foremost, but the rest will be up to you guys to vote for and suggest, and you can use this thread to do it. Just go to the SMF customization website, copy down the URL to mods and themes you would like to see installed and I will get right to it. Do note that the current software version is 2.0.2 and we can only support mods and themes that support that exact version number or a number in that range. (Such as 2.0.x)

On another note, if you still need to access something from the original phpBB3 forums, you can find them here. I will be taking down the phpBB3 forums after a few months and all of it's content will be deleted; if you need something from there that wasn't carried over into the conversion to here, then please retrieve it now. In any case, I still have an SQL database back up of it on my hard drive safe and sound in case something from it absolutely needs to be pulled from it.

Thanks for sticking with us so far up until now. Hopefully with the advent of Stomp Arena, 72 can pick back up and be brought back to it's former glory.

[JM Dragon]

How about syntax hilighting?

http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=2925
(please don't time warp)

[JJames19119]

Code syntax highlighting has been installed. Along with it, I installed two different kinds of spoilers.

[inspoiler]4chan/something awful style inline spoilers that you merely hover over to see.[/inspoiler]

The other spoiler

And more proper spoilers that you can hide anything in, the same way it worked before on the phpBB forum. Set the title by appending '=' and then your title after the 'spoiler' in the opening tag.

I should also note to staff members that the days of member verification are done and over with; We have better ways of preventing spambots now and it's become rather clear that anyone good signing up will read the rules anyways and anyone bad won't read them even if they say otherwise. If things get out of hand suddenly then I'll take extra measures but since a long time has passed by now, I want to see how going about registration the old fashioned way will work out for us.

Also I fixed the time warping.

[Dave ‌Strider]

bueno, hoping for a less ugly skin soon

[Felix-The-Ghost]

The switch may or may have not broken links in signatures -- it's adding an additional 'http://' ?
I checked the UCP and the links look normal...

append

The following errors occurred when trying to save your profile:
The following BBC is not allowed within your signature: abbr, acronym, anchor, bdo, black, blue, code, flash, font, ftp, glow, green, html, hr, iurl, left, li, list, ltr, move, php, pre, red, right, rtl, shadow, size, table, td, time, tr, tt, u, white.

Edit: I think I found out, it truncated my last sig leaving broken tags and resulted an error message only related to BBcode.
Kinda sucks since most of those characters are tags themselves, and I've never abused the content of sigs.

Update:Shortened it so tags were complete, same error. Thought it was recognizing the "php" phrase in the link to a thread so I swapped it with Google as a test. Same error.

Why won't it let me change my sig? And what's with the http://http:// links?

Delete + repost so people will (maybe) read this >_>

Test


I was testing some things will I think you were fixing some things? I used to happen when I put in links, but I got it working after a few tries.

[JJames19119]

The extra http:// is probably a leftover from the conversion from phpBB (similar to all the backslashes in front of all the quotation marks and apostrophes)

As for the sig error, you seem to have fixed it yourself.

[Felix-The-Ghost]

It was weird cause on the board the links were appearing with two http:// but in the UCP there was only one each.
What was the character limit before? Is there a way to count only printed characters (not bbcode)

[JJames19119]

The limit is still the same and I don't intend on changing how it works quite honestly.