Proposed migration to xenForo

..it's like the vB move all over again. *shakes head*

Alright so it turns out that IPB is dropping bbcode altogether and going 100% html (and by html I mean wysiwyg, you won't get to actually edit html). This is something I've been trying to avoid for a while now, but after hundreds of lines of code I am not anywhere close to a fix in my eyes. Plus I really don't want to risk a conflict between my code and a future update breaking everyone's posts every time they hit the edit button, or risk accidentally dumping raw html into a post after clicking the quote button. I also really don't want to upgrade to IPB 4 because once I switch over to html entirely my migration options become very, very narrow, and I'm afraid that if I did ignore all the bbcode posters and go with IPB 4 that if they did something that necessitated a migration then I may be either locked in with them or things will be lost in transition.

xenForo is on the same level as IPB, is more lightweight, looks to be very customisable (so I can fill in the gaps like I did with the vB to IPB migration), and best of all it has no plans to switch away from bbcode anytime soon. I would have to rebuild all of the forum themes, but that was always going to need to happen with IPB 4 anyway. I should also point out that it uses a responsive layout, which means that it doesn't need some special template to show on an iphone.

Here's the site in question if it helps any:
https://xenforo.com/

Questions? Suggestions? Objections? Post 'em here.

 

When you say "migration", do you mean the website URL will suddenly take us to a different, presumably better forum type, with profiles and such intact, or would we all have to create a new account on this new website?

 

If you can find a way to migrate what we have over, do it. If not, archive this site and move over. Anything would be better than having two MCFs where the editor's ridiculously broken and just sprays BBCode and HTML everywhere randomly.

 

Oh nice, so we can make another switch to shiny new forum software? I quickly skimmed the xenForo community forums, and it really didn't look too much different from IPBoard. If you can successfully make the transition to xenForo resemble what we have now, I wouldn't be against it at all. Of course, you did a good job during the vB -> IPB switchover, so I'm not concerned.

When you say "migration", do you mean the website URL will suddenly take us to a different, presumably better forum type, with profiles and such intact, or would we all have to create a new account on this new website?

If it's anything like the IPBoard switchover (which is exactly what this sounds like), all of our accounts and the URL should remain intact.

 

I support this because I refuse to let this website be taken over with html. I've seen the new look, it's ugly. Please do this, please man.

 

I support this because I refuse to let this website be taken over with html. I've seen the new look, it's ugly. Please do this, please man.

quotehax every website is made of html
you cannot avoid it

 

I've frequented another forum that uses XenForo for a few months now, and I have to say that it works wonderfully overall. If it's for the future health of the forums as a whole, then by all means you should go for it.

I do have a question, though - would there be aspects of our IPBoard-based forums that couldn't carry over? I seem to remember there being a few minor complications in the previous move (which is probably to be expected with hosting moves like this), but to be more specific I'm selfishly wondering about the Gallery feature. My album is like 300+ images, and if moving them over isn't possible I should probably start backing them up now. o.o

From the sound of things, though, you can probably customize it enough to lessen complications, so I'm remaining optimistic that things will work out for now.

 

There is an IP Gallery to XF Media Gallery converter in addition to the IPB to XF converter.

All posts and whatnot will be carried across.

 

Awesome, I'm really glad to hear that! :3

 

If you can find a way to migrate what we have over, do it. If not, archive this site and move over. Anything would be better than having two MCFs where the editor's ridiculously broken and just sprays BBCode and HTML everywhere randomly.

This. I believe that if you can find a way to migrate what we currently have now in this forum over, then you should do it. Otherwise, you should archive this site and then move over. Anything would be better than having two MCFs where the post editor is ridiculously broken.

EDIT: Added some pointless paraphrasing so that Andwhy is happy.

 

sounds good

it looks basically the same as ip board (at least on a graphical level)

a question though: what was the vb -> ip move like? I don't think I've been around that long

 

Here's the full list of everything that carries over from IPB to XF:
User Groups
Custom User Fields
Users
Avatars
PMs
VMs (or "profile messages" for everyone who wasn't around in the VB days)
Forum Sections
Forum Section Permissions
Moderators (I assume this means section specific moderator assignments, which we don't really do)
Threads
Posts
Polls
Attachments
Reputation (we don't use this anyway)
Galleries

And here's the things that will need to be dealt with:
All themes would need to be rebuilt.
Post headers will need to be changed to the format we have now.
Age would need to be added to profile pages.
This forum's custom bbcode editor would need to be integrated.
Numerous settings would need to be changed back to what they are now.
The signature height warning will need to be added back in.
The dead topic message and double post auto merger will need to be looked into (no guarantees on these however).

 

"Age would need to be added to profile pages."

Does that mean we have to list our age?

 

"Age would need to be added to profile pages."

Does that mean we have to list our age?

Uh, no.

You know how on these boards for anyone whose date of birth is set their age is also shown (as in it is auto-calculated from their date of birth), on both the post header and their profile page? Well that isn't a thing that happens normally in IPB. IPB normally only shows the user's date of birth. That's one of the many custom additions to the site since the original vB to IPB migration. I am talking about having to reimplement that feature.

I'm essentially talking about manual reimplementation of features that already exist for that entire second list.

a question though: what was the vb -> ip move like? I don't think I've been around that long

Pretty much what happens is that I spend days on end preparing the themes, settings and custom functionality in advance of the migration. After this is finished I leave an announcement on the forums saying that the migration will happen on some weekend or other. I then turn off the forums on said weekend, back everything up, and try to transfer everything in one hit before the working week rolls around. After the forums are back online I then proceed to spend the next few weeks after that taking on innumerable requests for changes.

 

..it's like the vB move all over again. *shakes head*

Alright so it turns out that IPB is dropping bbcode altogether and going 100% html (and by html I mean wysiwyg, you won't get to actually edit html). This is something I've been trying to avoid for a while now, but after hundreds of lines of code I am not anywhere close to a fix in my eyes. Plus I really don't want to risk a conflict between my code and a future update breaking everyone's posts every time they hit the edit button, or risk accidentally dumping raw html into a post after clicking the quote button. I also really don't want to upgrade to IPB 4 because once I switch over to html entirely my migration options become very, very narrow, and I'm afraid that if I did ignore all the bbcode posters and go with IPB 4 that if they did something that necessitated a migration then I may be either locked in with them or things will be lost in transition.

xenForo is on the same level as IPB, is more lightweight, looks to be very customisable (so I can fill in the gaps like I did with the vB to IPB migration), and best of all it has no plans to switch away from bbcode anytime soon. I would have to rebuild all of the forum themes, but that was always going to need to happen with IPB 4 anyway. I should also point out that it uses a responsive layout, which means that it doesn't need some special template to show on an iphone.

Here's the site in question if it helps any:
https://xenforo.com/

Questions? Suggestions? Objections? Post 'em here.

I'm kind of wondering how much it costs you to buy these forum software packages...
Maybe you should have Noxid add stuff to phpBB, or something.

 

I think phpBB is not an option we are going to consider

 

I support this migration. Sounds like these imposed changes to IPBoard would really mess up our experience here, so I'm willing to support changing over to xenForo in order to avoid a frustrating mutilation of the bbcode of our posts.

 

Does this mean we won't be able to perform ebin HTML injections on the community feed? Or does xenForo have the same exploit?

 

Nah. XF would likely have new and completely different exploits for you to abuse.

 

Here's the full list of everything that carries over from IPB to XF:

Will it have an infraction system we can set up because that was a problem last time (amongst other things)