Just to let people know

[TheHolo.Net]

I have set up another revision of our board in a testing area on the new server on our new host so that I can test out vBulletin version 3.x. The most recent release of vBulletin. If I am able to convert our styles over and carry over some of our more useful hacks, like database based Mark Read system, Quickedit, and Quickquote, I may upgrade our forums to that version. But the process is definately going to take a great deal of time and work.

Once I get a little closer to complete I'll share the test forums URL with the main board staff (you folks).

[Navaria Tarkin]

sweet! Hope it works out... and don't work too hard :D

[TheHolo.Net]

The worst part besides the hacks will be converting the styles. All of them will have to be redone from scratch. >_<

[Darth Viscera]

YOWCH

[TheHolo.Net]

Yeah, there is a lot besides just rebuilding the styles to do too.

Here is the test forum with many of the new vB3 special features turned off, mainly because I don't much care for them or think they are uneccessarily server load intensive.

http://sw-fans.net/testforum/forum/index.php?

Here are the directory level access password details:

Username: swfans
Password: ourtest

This is not a forum account, but a username and password for even accessing the test forums.

About all I have done is cleaned out all the old styles, and re-set all the forums that had images as forum names, and some other misc forum set up type things.

I also set up a login on the logout page. Other than that there isn't squat done on the administrative end really.

I need to make myself a to-do list, but I am afraid of how long it would be, and one thing I want to look into first is possibly finding a thread imort system that will allow me to just import threads and posts directly from this forum into that one, so if we do decide to go live with the new version, the transition will be mega easy and we can just close this forum and set it up as an old post archive. If that is possible I'll need to check on licensing and find out if a closed forum archive is acceptable as a second operational forum.

All I know licensing wise is that a test forum is permissable as long as it is not open to the general public. So, don't give out the test forum URL to anyone unless they are a Full SWFans mod or administrator and have access to this forum. I have already blocked webspiders from crawling it.

[Morgan Evanar]

It loads very quickly.

[Darth Viscera]

are there any cool new features in vB3 which we'll end up using? will there be a noticeable difference at swfans after the upgrade?

[TheHolo.Net]

There are a number of new features already enabled. Your current account info will allow you to login over there now.

One of the notable features that comes to mind right now, it hover thread previews. But, it doesn't work on threads that already existed pre-upgrade. And new threads made at the forum will show a small pop-up preview if you hovor over their title. Another feature that is fairly obvious is the ability to colapse categories on the main forum index by using the small double arrows at the right end of a category strip.

There are many other features, some of which aren't quite so obvious and some of which I haven't yet set up entirely.

As for an upgrade, its not even a certainty at this point that we will be switching, but we shall see.

[Morgan Evanar]

Slightly off topic, but any word from the VB guys about an archive forum?

Edit: http://phpbb.com/downloads.php#converters hrmn. Archive board in PHPBB?

[TheHolo.Net]

None yet, but I'll look into our options.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Well it worked for about two minutes and now it's promting for a password to load the pages. But the preview text was very cool. :)

[TheHolo.Net]

After reading through licensing details, I have learned that I needed to password protect the test forums.

I have done so:

Username: swfans
Password: ourtest

And no to use vB as an archive we would have to purchase another license ($160).

I'l leary of converting an archive to one of the free BB solutions as our DB is quite large and security issues on free bulletin boards concern me.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

ah ha, makes sense :)

btw, I can see into ALL of the locked forums on this test site. :o *runs away from GJO's admin forum*

[TheHolo.Net]

Its probably due to being a site moderator. The permission system on private forums is a little different, which reminds me of an important hack I need to code. One that displays private forums as highlighted in the access mask list.

[TheHolo.Net]

The more I explore the new code and options in the new version of vB, the more and more I am thinking that an upgrade to that version isn't going to happen.

About the only options I really like are the colapsable categories and the ability to add multiple attachments in a single post. But, the coding for the forums is so vastly different that if we were to upgrade, I would have to totally re-write every line of code for the dotnet comic, every hack I wrote to integrate the gallery software, and even every line of code for our character database. And that is besides the fact that the new vB version uses cookies for marking forums read, which I despise, and modifying the DB mark read hack to work with that software would probably take me mothns to get working correctly.

For now I'll keep my eyes on the vB hack forums and see if some of the things I need/want are done for me, but as it stands I don't see us upgrading to that version. There are a few things on the server side which do seem better load wise, but I really don't see a significant enough difference to be a deal breaker in my decision not to upgrade, for features or for server side optimization weighed against work needed to make our environment close enough to what it is now.

[Morgan Evanar]

Makes sense to me.

[TheHolo.Net]

And seeing the site here on the new server for the last few days, it does appear to be running much better now. I have only seen server load numbers run high when I know I am doing something to cause it. The host even setup MySQL as I requested on this server (as suggested by the vB MySQL tech dude) :)

[Morgan Evanar]

Whenever I'm in the mod CP I get asked for a name and password.

The regular one.

[TheHolo.Net]

Originally posted by Morgan Evanar
Whenever I'm in the mod CP I get asked for a name and password.

The regular one. That is most likely a cookie issue. I had some cookie conflicts the first few days of running the testboard and you probably have an old cookie from it conflicting with your modCP cookies here. Clean out your sw-fans cookies and try again.

[Morgan Evanar]

Its not. I just dumped my cookies three times, restarting my browser each time. It also does it on Moz 1.6, which I wasn't logged in on.

[TheHolo.Net]

The modCP loads right up with no prompts for me while I am logged into the adminCP. I'll check with one of my mod accounts in a sec. Cookies are really the only thing it could be because no code has changed in the modCP, and MySQL settings have nothing to do with modCP login.

EDIT: Okay, I see it now. Its prompting me for the testforum directory level access for some strange reason. I am investigating.

[TheHolo.Net]

It only seems to do it to me when I use the swforums.net domain, but I didn't check the IP URL. I wonder if the parked domain swforums.net is some kind of conflict.....

[TheHolo.Net]

Okay. For now I have decided to go ahead and remove the testforum all together, along with the password protection on the directory. No need for it to be there since I've made up my mind regarding upgrading anyhow.

[TheHolo.Net]

Okay, I did a fresh install of all three products (newest releases) and it is located here:

http://www.sw-fans.net/testforum/vbtest/base/board/index.php?

Directory level access PW and Uname are:

uname: swfans
PW: ourtest

Things seem to be running okay, but there are no hacks and very little integration work done at this point. I just read a post over at the PhotoPost Developer board that the main coder is making it so vB style integration will soon be nearly seemeless (but I don't believe him because even his fresh install scripts are shit), but I will probably upgrade to the newest version of PhotoPost on the test site when that happens.

If you want to register an account feel free. I'll even make you guys admins there (post at the test board and ask for admin access) so you can check out all the confusing options among the three different control panels. If I do make you an admin I do ask that you please document any settings that you do change so that I know whats up. :)

I would really recommend that for now you just use the http://www.sw-fans.net Domain name for the test forums at this time, since I have the URL hardcoded into PhotoPost in a few places because the software author is a fucktard and I don't have the time or energy to try and fix his screwups.

Oh, I also believe I fixed the modCP problems we were having before. I didn't use any of the same basic directory names this time, and it appears that was the problem that caused the conflict last time.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I can't register, because the Registration Image (that you have to quote the text from) doesn't show.

[Morgan Evanar]

Same

[TheHolo.Net]

Okay, image verification is turned off.

[TheHolo.Net]

I discovered what the problem was. I have put in a request with the host to install GD support, which is typically installed on most Unix Web servers. >_<

[TheHolo.Net]

Hehe, I just read at the vB.com forums that the developers are planning on improving the "Mark Read" feature and may make it DB based. Its on their "to-do" list. To me this is a big plus in the right direction. :)

[Morgan Evanar]

That would be really, really k-rad. How does the current system work?

[TheHolo.Net]

Its cookie based only - Not good for people who access from multiple PCs. We have a hack installed here that makes ours DB based.

[TheHolo.Net]

Originally posted by SWFans.Net
I discovered what the problem was. I have put in a request with the host to install GD support, which is typically installed on most Unix Web servers. >_< The host has re-compild PHP with GD support, so its all good now. :)

[TheHolo.Net]

The newest beta of vbPortal (beta 2) works more seemlessly style wise with vB 3.0.1.

I am still waiting on the newest build of PhotoPost to see what style changes are going to be made to it. For now I have made the PhotoPost style match fairly closely with the default vB color scheme.

Soon I will make a few new styles on the test board available so that others can fiddle and fool around with them without causing any harm to the base style.