Which forum/BB script to use?

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2003 1:38 pm (20 years, 11 months ago)

Ya, I'm voting for phpBB also. I've tried invision, and XMB, and to be honest I thought Invision was a little too complicated in the Admin panel, and I just plain disliked XMB Smile

I think phpBB 2.2 when it comes out is gonna be even better Smile

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

Invision Admin Panel is great, it can do so much more than phpbb's mega cut down admin Panel.

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

All in all, it depends on the site, we tried phpBB over at Freedom2Support, and wasn't satisfied with the results, to put it bluntly, it was ****, and would have needed a good few modifications to bring it up to what we would need, Invision done the job for us greatly.

Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2003 5:16 am (20 years, 11 months ago)

Another question:

Which board is the easiest to integrate so that a single login will work on the whole website and easy to have a userlevels or permissions based system.

WebHelper Joined: 01 Mar 2003 Posts: 69 Location: Texas

I picked phpBB after reviewing several options for two main reasons:

1. The active developer community at phpBB.com
2. The ease of coding my own mods

Yes, phpBB does have some missing features. But when you take these two options into account, it works great. Which would you rather have... a bloated piece of software that does too much? Or a functional piece of software that is well written, solid, and easy to modify? I would rather build up from a solid base than try to remove.

It has me a bit concerned, actually, about 2.2. I like 2.0.x, and am not really looking forward to the 2.2 release. I'm expecting a severe case of "creeping featuritus". But we'll see. Cool

Dave

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

drathbun wrote:

I picked phpBB after reviewing several options for two main reasons:

1. The active developer community at phpBB.com
2. The ease of coding my own mods

Yes, phpBB does have some missing features. But when you take these two options into account, it works great. Which would you rather have... a bloated piece of software that does too much? Or a functional piece of software that is well written, solid, and easy to modify? I would rather build up from a solid base than try to remove.

It has me a bit concerned, actually, about 2.2. I like 2.0.x, and am not really looking forward to the 2.2 release. I'm expecting a severe case of "creeping featuritus". But we'll see. Cool

Dave

It's down to personal opinion really, but it doesn't work for me, phpbb has less features, and is slower than Invision Board, and thats a fact.

WebHelper Joined: 01 Mar 2003 Posts: 69 Location: Texas

Justin wrote:

It's down to personal opinion really, but it doesn't work for me, phpbb has less features, and is slower than Invision Board, and thats a fact.

I didn't look at Invision, what would you say are the main features that it has that phpBB lacks? I'm just curious, no flames intended. Cool

How does searching work? Is it fast, even on large boards? How easy is it to customize? And - the important question - is it open source? Wink

Dave

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

I'm not going to answer your other questions Dave, since I don't use IBF, but what I can say is that it's distributed for free, but not under the GPL license. Basically you can't redistribute it, you can't remove the copyright unless you pay, etc...

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

Basically, for me, the Admin CP is **** in phpbb, nowhere near enough stuff there, there are no major features missing in phpbb that there are in IPB, but just little extras that are not in phpbb, which make my job, and running my boards easier.

For Example, I have the "Moderate All Posts" Option that I don't have in phpbb, I also have an option of turning the board offline (not sure if this is in phpbb) things can be done quicker in the admin CP, phpbb just does not do the job for me, it's a project done in peoples spare time, where as IPB is more serious, and is made by a proper business, hence why it looks more professional than phpbb.

Searching is pretty fast on large boards, but is being reworked again for the next version, and a google style search.

WebHelper Joined: 01 Mar 2003 Posts: 69 Location: Texas

Justin wrote:

Basically, for me, the Admin CP is **** in phpbb, nowhere near enough stuff there, there are no major features missing in phpbb that there are in IPB, but just little extras that are not in phpbb, which make my job, and running my boards easier.

It's interesting that most of the mods for phpBB seem to be on the user side; I guess folks just "put up with" the admin panel. There are a few mods, and it's actually very easy to do. On the other hand, I spend very little time in my admin panel, so I can see why folks don't bother.

Quote:

I also have an option of turning the board offline (not sure if this is in phpbb)

Yup, you can do that. I'm in the process of writing a backup script (perl) that will take the board offline, do the db backup, and set the board back online. It can be done simply by switching a flag (zero to one) in a configuration table. Or, of course, via the admin screen.

Quote:

Searching is pretty fast on large boards, but is being reworked again for the next version, and a google style search.

The big killer for phpBB searches is you can only search for words or combinations of words, not exact phrases. I'm working on modifying the search code to support phrase searching now. But the search algorithm, the way it has been implemented, is very fast. Essentially your post is indexed by word when you post it. Then when someone does a search, you do a unique (indexed) search by word, then an indexed cross-reference search by post, then merge the results based on ANY or ALL or whatever instructions you gave it. To add a phrase search would require a second pass through the search results, doing an actual text search on the posts that were returned.

Thanks for your feedback. I always appreciate hearing about other options. Wink

Dave

Junior WebHelper Joined: 30 May 2003 Posts: 21

Mercuryboard is great.

I'd say Invision, but I think it's getting TOO good..

Mercuryboard is just down to the basics, its really fast, and it is damned easy to skin.

The only thing is, really, really slow development...

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

http://forums.mercuryboard.com/ reminds me of openBB... Question