SFML community forums
General => SFML website => Topic started by: Laurent on August 28, 2010, 12:43:21 am
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Hi
I've finally decided to replace this good (?) old phpBB2 with a more recent forum.
I was thinking about using SMF (Simple Machines Forum), but I don't know it very well. Maybe some of you can give me more feedback about it? The thing I'm most worried about, is the fact that SMF 1 seems to be pretty old and SMF 2 is not officially released yet; however there are usable release candidates (current is RC3, RC4 is supposed to be released soon).
Note that I tried it on my computer, and it successfully installed and imported the phpBB2 database with no error in just a few clicks :)
Of course, you can also tell me that phpBB3 and SMF are both bad, and that I should rather use some other forum :)
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Until it offer light file hosting (images, sources, ...) with quota for each account and more text format option, anything will do the job. :]
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I've used SMF 2 RC3 on a small server that I use, and have had no problems so far. I like really like it, although I admit I haven't used it extensively.
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I've finally decided to replace this good (?) old phpBB2 with a more recent forum.
May I ask why? In my opinion, the current phpBB is quite useful and not really lacking of important features. Also, I like if it's not too fancy and overloaded.
Or do problems rather arise from development/configuration side?
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The main problems of phpBB2:
- I get tons of robots/spams that I have to remove manually
- it doesn't apply the maximum image size in avatar/signature, I have to moderate it manually too
- activating rewrite rules to get nice URLs is nearly impossible, and...
- ... installing plug-ins in general is nearly impossible
- it's heavy for the database (for which I have to pay!)
- it's old and ugly, but this is more a personal opinion ;)
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Just curious, why not phpBB3? Seems like the logical step up from phpBB2. Though I personally don't mind either way as long as the contents are preserved. I also have very little experience with SMF. Its just when phpBB3 is highly popular and stable, but SMF is in a state where your choice is "outdated" or "beta", seems like phpBB3 would make more sense.
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I am happy you decided to change the forum. I don't know anything about this stuff, so I can't help. I just wanted to give my support :-)
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phpBB 3 looks good but it doesn't solve all the problems that phpBB 2 has, especially the plug-ins stuff and the database usage. I don't know much more about it, but I have the feeling that phpBB has become a huge thing that is too limited, and I think that more recent / lighter forums can perform much better.
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Maybe you can have a look at punBB. I used it once and it was a light and simple forum engine. But I'm not sure that it could solve your problems, I don't remember its features exactly.
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I say just pick one, put it up, and give it a shot. It won't take more than an hour to set it up fully. If you like it, then good. If not, try another. :)
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I don't think it is possible to know everything about a forum in one hour, it probably requires a couple of weeks/months, and many users, to find potential drawbacks.
Anyway, most forums have a demo on their websites, so I can test them in even less than one hour ;)
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Certainly, the current board software (althought functional) is lacking important features, specially when it comes to security. It'd be a good idea to install a new software and migrate the DB, not only for users sake, but, as you said, to save you from doing boring-repetitive tasks.
Someone previously said that fancyness is not the main virtue and I agree with that. A fast, functional, intuitive one is preferred and then it's great if it offers options to customize etc
Having tried many cms and forum softwares I sum up to the ones recommending SMF. At first you'll find configuration options a bit overwhelming, as if you were managing a commercial product like vbulletin, but at the end you're provided with much more power.
On the other hand, PHPBB3 can be configured steadily as it doesn't have even half of smf's options. I also think smf is more efficient consulting the DB.
Said that I'd conclude that SMF is the best open source solution, specially for the long run. Maybe wait for the stable 2.0 branch? That's what I'm doing, I think :)
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Thanks for your feedback :)
Maybe wait for the stable 2.0 branch?
From what I've seen, SMF 2 has been in development for a long time and the first public release may happen in a long time.
Maybe you have more detailed information about the development status?
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Anyway, most forums have a demo on their websites, so I can test them in even less than one hour ;)
Sorry, that is what I meant. Get it set up and running within an hour. What I was trying to say was that if you use a forum system that you end up not liking, its not that big of a deal since its not like it takes long to set it up.
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Unfortunately, SMF does not set release dates for updates, as it relies in many factors. However, I think we'll see an RC4 very soon, as the bug list is being made smaller every further day:
http://dev.simplemachines.org/mantis/view_all_bug_page.php
There you can see what is pending to do for the next release, which is the most similar to a roadmap that you'll find on smf foundation.
Questions about release dates for the stable 2.0 branch have been made in a few trheads on smf official forums, you can google them pretty fast, but as I said, no developer has unveiled any relevant info.
Anyway it's very easy to update the soft from the cpanel, so it is not as risky to use at this time as it was.
If you haven't tried the soft I reccomend you to install it in another DB and hack around with it, then you'll if it suits your needs. Online demos are good for this also, but I find them messed up many times :roll:
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I'm using SMF for some years and I really like it. I find it simple to configure and to plug in packages.
I can't really compare it with other systems because I never used other than SMF. But for what I've seen and by knowing of friends having some problems with phpBB, I got thinking that SMF was really the right choice.
If you're about to change then I support the decision of going with SMF.
I still use the version 1.1.x (currently 1.1.11) with TinyPortal v0.9.8 - yeah well a bit of fancy doesn't hurt that much, but if people really care about keeping it simple and flat just use a flat theme with few adds.
I subscribe Balder, install it in another DB and play a bit with it :wink:
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I've been using PHPBB2 for a long time and migrated my forums to PHPBB3 quite some time ago and I quite like it. In my opinion, it is very usable, nicely customizable, has a lot of cool addons and good community support. I especially like the advanced captchas. I haven't had a single spam bot with them.
I can't comment on SMF. I am a frequent user of PunBB forums though and they are quite fast as well. I can't comment on them from an administrative point of view.
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I've been using PHPBB2 for a long time and migrated my forums to PHPBB3 quite some time ago and I quite like it. In my opinion, it is very usable, nicely customizable, has a lot of cool addons and good community support. I especially like the advanced captchas. I haven't had a single spam bot with them.
"nicely customizable" -> from my own experience, installing a new add-on is tedious. You have to apply the modifications manually in all the files; I think other forums let you install add-ons automatically in a single click.
And what about database usage?
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There is a popular one clickable installer for PHPBB3 addons called "MODX" but I prefer installing addons manually since I would want to review all modifications to my forums. Addons have huge security implications.
What do you mean by database usage? According to phpmyadmin, it uses 62 tables and the posts table containing 5000 posts currently comes down to less than 4MiB. My database backups compress to around 5MiB (with all tables and extra stuff).
I'm using MySQL 5.
I don't really have much to complain about in PHPBB3 personally but as I said I also don't have much to compare it with.
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What do you mean by database usage?
I mean: is it high or low compared to other forums. But I already have your answer
I also don't have much to compare it with
:)
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Just saw this thread. We're using SMF for the German SFML forum at forum.sfml-dev.de. Works pretty well and fast. However, you won't find a general forum software that's implemented well enough to say: "Wow, clean code and database design." ;)
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I use SMF2 for my personal site. It's pretty good (SMF1 was a bit lacking in features, and required complex add-ons to make it an effective forum. SMF2 is a major improvement) and has been stable for me. There's already a nice number of add-ons (or whetever they call them) available for it, too.
I wouldn't switch from phpBB, though. It may not have been the greatest choice, but it hasn't exactly done you wrong either. The pains aren't worth the gains.
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Maybe you can have a look at punBB. I used it once and it was a light and simple forum engine. But I'm not sure that it could solve your problems, I don't remember its features exactly.
Better yet, FluxBB (http://fluxbb.org/).
It doesnt have any of the features you want, but its got loads of mods that fix that problem.
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I'm a big fan of PunBB/FluxBB as an end user. It's simple and beautiful, it looks much more serious than PHPBB in my opinion.
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I feel people will throw stones at me for this, but what about registering a free forum at freeforums.org? Don't have to bother databases, don't have to pay for it, etc. Also, you will be in full control of the forum. It uses phpbb3.
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Hi. Just wanted to say that the final realease of SMF 2.0 is already out, and I have personal experience in a community using it, as a moderator, and it is very good in UI and functionalities, but is bad i code. If you want to change is source code, you may get a bit confuse (or worst.) However, it has a huge plugins database. :)
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Just wanted to say that the final realease of SMF 2.0 is already out
Ah! This is a very good news. I hope that database converters are now working, and that support for sharing a common users database between two forums is better.
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I hope that database converters are now working, and that support for sharing a common users database between two forums is better.
Ah, my question was : what about existing threads, I've my answer.
Feel free to change, but I like when it's simple and clear