Requests for different forum layout (ATTN: Adrian)

[SpectralDragon]

PHPBB is a nice layout and much faster than this type of forum. however it is too risky trying to change over to another forum with a database this large. (out of curiousity how large is the database Adrian? In terms of actual MB size of course.)

[Passive Observer]

quote:Originally posted by SpectralDragon

PHPBB is a nice layout and much faster than this type of forum. however it is too risky trying to change over to another forum with a database this large.

If the forum was backed up, and a conversion tool is used to move the usernames and posts to a new format (that doesn't do anything to change the snitz forum) I think it may work.  I posted the link on my first message.    

[SpectralDragon]

quote:Originally posted by runlola




I think you will have to make a hefty donation.






$$cha-ching$$

PHP forums=FREE[] Or are you talking about all the problems the server would run into?

[Passive Observer]

Maybe talking about people not wanting to take the time to transfer the information over to a new format, unless they had the *cough* money incentive to do it.  Hopefully changing the forum layout gets some support, although not to many people see it here buried in the bottom forum. [}:)]

[Grigori]

Just curious ... but are you looking for some additional features or just a formatting change? I run a couple of phpBB boards and they are nice but pretty much all of the features can be found in this snitz board. If it's just the look then that's just some html editing. The phpBB is a fair amount faster but it also uses more storage space ... anyhow I think this place is plenty fast enough []

[Nagual]

quote:Maybe talking about people not wanting to take the time to transfer the information over to a new format, unless they had the *cough* money incentive to do it.

Lets remind some people that Adrian must have a fulltime job and a family to take care of...  He already did a lot of work on this forum!

No offense but, sounds almost like: "Hey, I'm new here, and this forum looks old, slow and ugly; who wants the admin to take on his free time to switch to my favorite forum...?"

[Passive Observer]

quote:Originally posted by Nagual
Lets remind some people that Adrian must have a fulltime job and a family to take care of...  He already did a lot of work on this forum!

No offense but, sounds almost like: "Hey, I'm new here, and this forum looks old, slow and ugly; who wants the admin to take on his free time to switch to my favorite forum...?"

That wasn't my intention to sound snobby, and I see how you could interpret what I write that way.  I very much appreciate all that he has put into this forum.  I am suggesting an update on this forum, so it runs faster and is a bit more appealing, all for the benefit of its members.  I made this thread to see who thinks that is a good idea.       I never had the intention of having the admin do it, but rather make it a joint-effort by members of the forum.  I would be willing to donate my time and effort for this, but, as you stated, I'm new here,  and since I don't have the "credibility" of being a long term board member, I might seem out of place.  That is why I posted this message, to see if anyone else feels that this board could benefit from an upgrade, which, apparently, some do.

[Nagual]

I understand your point of view, but it's not as easy as finding a few people willing to help...  Adrian just cannot give people access to his server and let them play with his html sources and SQL tables.

Also, what I like in a forum is not "quantity" (of shinny pictures and cool pulldown menus); it's "quality" (of the people/information you find in the posts)...  

[Adrian]

Greetings everyone,

Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

The code that runs the Astral Pulse is way beyond the basic Snitz forums, in fact I think there is about four times as much code involved to facilite all of the libraries, avatars, private messaging and all of the other advanced features that we have here. I am not aware of any other forums system that can even provide all of these facilities. There are many hundreds of thousands of complex code involved.

The fact is; this was the system that I originally selected for its functionality, and it would be very dificult to move to an alternative system without losing most of the data. We could probably move the basic forums, but there would be no Avatars etc.. Another major problem would be the passwords which are heavily encrypted and could not be migrated. That means that the members would be migrated with no passwords.

So all in all moving to an alternative system is not practical, and I have no reason to want to do that anyway, the current system provided everything we need.

Thanks again.

With best regards,

Adrian.

[kiauma]

Actually, this is one of the faster boards I frequent.  Perhaps more than the board itself it is a slow network switch somewhere that is causing your troubles?

I do have a couple of suggestions though.  []

First, I would like to see some type of fix for the Mozilla issue.  Yes, I realize it is prolly Mozilla's fault, but it seems there are enough Mozilla users out there, and they are finding new security threats in IE all the time, that it could be worth it to make a script that queries the type of browser at log-on and does things a little differently for Mozilla.   Just a suggestion.  []

Also, one nit-picky thing is that I often run the mouse over the menus on the way to the "Active Topics" link, which then makes the menu drop down.  Perhaps a little space between the menu bar and the link, or another location for it?

Thanks for your consideration - and I love this board!  [^]

[Passive Observer]

I guess if the admin doesn't want to change the board, it ain't gonna.  Thanks anyway.  []

[ImmuredSoul]

I like everything that way it is. If you go to accessiblities (tired and don't feel like spelling it right at this moment) you can change the site yourself, but I didn't like the way everything was turning out, so I changed it back. It loads plenty fast, though, at least for me, but, then again, I'm a naturally slow person []

[Adrian]

Greetings everyone,

On the subject of speed you have to keep in mind that this is not like loading a straight HTML page as on a normal Website.

Each page, hundreds of thousands of them, contains many lines of complex code which it not only has to execute, but also has to dynamically generate the page from a very large database.

At the foot of every page you will find the time it took t generate that page, this one is 0.7 seconds for example, everything else is down to your Internet connection speed.

With best regards,

Adrian.

[Passive Observer]

I was mainly referring to the aesthetics.  The forum speed is fine as is.

[Sygmoral]

I have also earlier suggested to move to another forum, but I very much understand the reason why Adrian would not like to do that. He already told us why, and I think it mostly comes down to this: it would be a hell lot of work.

However, the statement "this forum is working fine as it is" is not really correct. Many Firefox/Mozilla users get the 100% height problem (a large white space at the top of every page) and many Internet Explorer users get the problem that the links from inside the topic-view don't work (including 'edit', 'quote' etc) - all those links direct to the Forum Index.

Also, the size of the database is, in my opinion, not really a problem. The migration-code simply needs to be perfect, whether it would be for a small or large database - a large migration simply takes longer to complete using the same code.


phpBB 2.2 seems to me the best choice to move to, however it does not exist yet []. phpBB 2.0.x is the current stable version, and they are working hard on the next version, which will be 2.2, and which will really be great. Therefore I would suggest to wait until phpBB 2.2 is released, and then see what can be done.

If any version of phpBB is chosen to migrate to, I will help as much as I can; I know phpBB. I am also certain that a migration with no loss whatsoever is possible - it will just take much time to address all things.

But as I said I would recommend waiting until phpBB 2.2 comes out, whatever is to be decided. Although it has no release date, it is expected to come out somewhere to the end of this year.

Sygmoral

[Passive Observer]

I made this thread in order to see who would like or dislike getting this forum "remodeled" with a different interface.  This forum is a great place and I think it could benefit from a facelift.  I do bear in mind that it may be too hard or time consuming to change to another forum format, and understand if people do not want it changed.

I have done a little research, and found what look to be some more "appealing" forums.  

I found forum software known as vbulletin (www.vbulletin.com) that looks nice.  It does cost some money though.  

As a more realistic (and free) alternative, there's phpbb (www.phpbb.com) that looks nice as well.  There also are instructions on converting to the forum formats:
http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=111471&highlight=snitz

I'd like to know how many other forum members support or dislike this proposal, and other ideas pertaining to a "forum upgrade", too.

Thanks again.