Guest ComputerBob Posted March 24, 2003 Share Posted March 24, 2003 I used phpBB2 forum software for the past 15 months. I was pretty happy with it, though it didn't have as many features as I would have liked. Out of curiosity, I first tried Invision Power Board early last fall, but at that time, it didn't have all of the specific features that I liked in phpBB2, and the phpBB2--->Invision converter only did about 3/4 of the job it needed to do to completely and correctly convert my users, passwords, posts, smileys, avatars, etc.So, I kept using phpBB2 forum software, but I saved a link to Invision Power Board in my Favorites folder, and I waited to see if/when it improved.Then a recent issue of your newsletter said that you were considering phpBB2 and Invision forums, among others, so you and I corresponded a few times about the differences between them. I expressed concern that IPB might have TOO MANY features, which would make it more difficult to adminster than phpBB2 forums. When I read that you had chosen IPB as the software for Scotsnewsletter's forums, I took a new look at IPB.WOW, Invision Power Board has REALLY improved since I looked at it early last fall! It now has all of the most important features that I liked in phpBB2, plus MANY, MANY more, and it runs faster than my old phpBB2 forums! This past weekend, it took me less than an hour to install Invision Power Board software and switch my phpBB2 forums to default-style IPB forums, with no conversion problems. Unfortunately, it took me almost 30 additional hours to learn how to tweak it to make it look almost exactly like my old phpBB2 forums and the rest of my site. I'm sure that most people would be perfectly happy with the default IPB forums, and wouldn't need to spend 30 hours making them look different, like I did.http://www.computerbob.com/forums/Anyway, to me, it was well worth the time and trouble to switch. Invision Power Board's long, long list of features had looked a bit daunting to me at first, but now that I've been using IPB for a few days, I've used most of the features, and I feel pretty comfortable with them. No offence to phpBB2 software, because it really is good software, but now I really can't imagine going back to phpBB2 with its shorter feature list.Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arena2045 Posted March 25, 2003 Share Posted March 25, 2003 Hey ComputerBob,I was a hardcore UBB.c user and fan, until Scot started testing various different BB's.I was lucky enough that my host just started offering mySQL options, right before Scot made the decision to pick IPB. By having access to my own IPB I was able to help Scot make the great decision of which to choose…I've since switched from UBB.c to IPB also, mainly because of Scot, setting up and testing various BB software programs!By the way, great work on customizing the look of your forum page. I believe those extra 30 hours were put to good use.Have you considered changing the topic buttons on the main page? You know the ones that have "IPB" in them? If so I made some different colored sets as replacements... You can check out my post right here to view and download:http://www.scotsnewsletter.com/forums/inde...t=ST&f=9&t=6&s= Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ComputerBob Posted March 25, 2003 Share Posted March 25, 2003 Hi Arena2045,Thanks so much for your kind words about my forums, and for your great looking topic buttons. I just installed your sapphire topic buttons on my forums, and I think they look perfect. http://www.computerbob.com/forums/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arena2045 Posted March 25, 2003 Share Posted March 25, 2003 Hey ComputerBob!I'm also using the Sapphire (arrow 1) set that I made, at my IPB. I think the sets that I posted are great replacements for the standard topic buttons.I'm glad that you like them and find them useful.Sorry about not including any documentation on how to install. I haven't gotten around to it, but I think anyone who can install and admin a IPB should be able to figure out how to correctly implement them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ComputerBob Posted March 25, 2003 Share Posted March 25, 2003 I think you're right about not really needing documentation for your topic buttons. If you wanted to include some docs, I think all you'd need would be:1. Explain that your topic buttons just need to be copied over the IPB default buttons of the same names.2. Tell them that the path to those buttons is forumfolder/style_images/skin number/where they substitute their forum folder information and their skin number information (which is 1 by default). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havnblast Posted March 25, 2003 Share Posted March 25, 2003 ComputerBobAre you aware of the mods and skins for IPB? Lots of great mods are available check out IPB ResourcesI run a portal and Shop mod on my Forum of IPB and like you I started with IPB when it first came out, but I stuck with it and have just kept updating it. I knew the board would be successful cause the creator was the creator of Ikonboard and that is a great board too, but many hosting companies will not allow that paticular board. Every update it has just keeps improving it. I pushed for Scott to go with IPB too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ComputerBob Posted March 25, 2003 Share Posted March 25, 2003 Hi havnblast,Thanks for the info! Your portal page looks really nice. Did you do that yourself, or was a preconfigured portal modification?I've been following the ibresource.com site for several months, because I knew that I would want to add certain features to my IPB forums if I ever switched to IPB. In fact, my new IPB forums are already running 3 mods from ibresource.com: The Guest Voting mod, the Last Topics mod, and the Avatar Size Fix mod. Yesterday, I tried installing the Poll Expires mod, but it resulted in error messages -- possibly from a conflict between that mod and the Guest Voting mod. I'm hoping that the Poll Expires mod's author can figure out the problem so that I can continue to allow guests to vote in my polls AND have polls that automatically expire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted March 25, 2003 Share Posted March 25, 2003 The IBForums look great Bob Added your forums to my list of forums to visit frequently Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havnblast Posted March 25, 2003 Share Posted March 25, 2003 Thanks for the comments and the portal is iBF Portal v3.2 I did the customizing of looks myself and yes it does take a bit of time to customize - I like what you have done with yours and the time one puts into it is worth it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted March 25, 2003 Share Posted March 25, 2003 That's another great forum havnblast!Geesh! I was just counting them up and I have added 4 new forums to my fast ballooning list of forums to frequent since I came to Scot's Newsletter forums:Scot's, Arena's, ComputerBob's, and now havnblast's.And I thought I was busy before....by the time I join all of these, I will be up all night AND all day just posting :)Gonna have to put a rein on it eventually I guess Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scot Posted March 26, 2003 Share Posted March 26, 2003 LilBambi, just so long as you login here first. ComputerBob, glad to help in some small way to prompt you to try IPB again. I know that yours was one of the ones I checked out when I was considering this one. I liked phpBB2 quite a bit too, but IPB definitely won me over. Actually, several folks somewhere in this forum made excellent arguments in posts that swayed me. Good luck with your new forum! Hope you're enjoying it as much as I am.-- Scot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ComputerBob Posted March 26, 2003 Share Posted March 26, 2003 Hi Scot,Yes, I'm really enjoying my new IPB forums. I keep discovering more and more of IPB's little "conveniences" that make it fun to use and easy to administer. Thanks, again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted March 26, 2003 Share Posted March 26, 2003 LilBambi, just so long as you login here first. -- ScotYou got it Scot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeafBug Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 Hi,I really like IPB too. However I don't like some things. On the top of my list is private messages. I want to be able to remove all items related to it. The email address should be the only thing there. In fact I think it should also belong in the profile page where you also define your ICQ, AIM, MSN messager names. I have looked all over on the IPB forum to find a way to kill it. I can't. I don't think I should be paying for users virtual directories and store their mail on my server. If they want to send a message to a user they should click on the link that will open their mail software and go from there. Otherwise I am still looking at other forums. Yes, they have a lot of features but you can't control them all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havnblast Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 Thanks LilBambi for the comments on the forum. I really enjoy forums and help with another forum too so I know what it is like to jump around from forum to forum. It' great to watch a forum turn into a community and the amount of information you can learn from other's experiences is priceless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ComputerBob Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 DeafBug, I understand your concern about letting your users use the IPB private messaging system. You're right -- there's no automatic way to "hide" all traces of it. I think the only way to "hide" it would be to edit your forum skin to remove all of its links and references, but you can disable the PM system pretty easily. Once you do that, anyone who tries to use it will be shown a message that tells them that that feature is not available to them.To disable the PM system, go to your Admin screen and choose Users and Groups. Within that, choose Manage User Groups. Choose Edit Group next to a user group that you don't want to use the PM system (i.e. you could choose to let admins use it, while members cannot). Scroll down to the question, Can use PM system? and choose No. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 I really like this Forum software. I had looked into many of them before I started using phpBB.I like this one at least as much as phpBB. Lots of great features. Personally, I think there are no perfect forums, as there are so many unique needs and expectations.It is nice to know that there are several to choose from and that they all have their strong suits.I think issues with Private Messaging (PM) are relatively small in the overall scheme of things. It is a great feature that lends itself to creating a more 'live' feel to a forum board, as long as it is not abused.It is generally used for those times when you want/need to talk to a particular person about something specific and you see they are on the board at that moment.PM mailboxes can be limited in size so you don't have to eat too much disk space (per user). Of course that's relative ... if you have 20,000 members, it could certainly add up. Just my two cents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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