Your Feedback Requested - XenForo

[Rogue Valley]

Red,

I'm in the habit of manually hand-formatting most of my posts. vB uses BBCode.

What language does X/F use for formatting? Is there a page explaining the syntax? Is there a page listing the accepted tags?

 

[JANFU]

Keerist, three years and I haven’t figured out all the whistles and bells here.........

You could be covered

Ref preferences/alerts and what some entail/user tips??

If it comes with a how to for dummies, pls sign me up

My friend also asked for a copy

 

[Tangmo]

Go for it.

VIPT to me:

XF includes hiding sigs almost all of which are spastic eyesore litter that if stacked in a pile would burden a junkyard dog;
Photos & Videos are enhanced to access & present
Enhanced color schemes to include dark which I use as I can given my eyes have always been sensitive to light
I have 20 posts per page and the XF default is identical so that's cool too
My concern however is that stuff gets lost in the transfer despite all assurances by the tekkies.


Also, anytime I'm logged on at dawn and evening too pages and forums become consistently unavailable; the tab itself will disconnect from DP to a Retry page that stays that way no matter what. Yes Backup will slow things and yes dawn and dusk are often busy times especially, yet I can't help but see the vB per se as central to the predicable dual snafu I get on any given day.

Many of us prefer the squared avatar rather than the circle yet it's like coffee in a cup or coffee in a mug. Lotta mugs here anyway ha.

After working through initial bugs XF should be great so thx for driving this and seeking input and thx to fellow inputters plus their output.

 

[Slyfox696]

I've seen one forum transition from vBulletin to XenForo and their transition seemed decent enough. I actually stopped posting there around the same time, so I didn't use it much (and the forum's membership basically died immediately after, though NOT because of the transition).

With that said, for reasons partly related to the below, I'd say it would probably be a good idea. vBulletin seemingly has no plans to move to a version 6 and version 5 is pretty widely criticized. I love vBulletin forums and have posted on them for a decade and a half now, but at some point safety/security has to be taken into consideration.

My biggest piece of advice would be to see if most of the vBulletin mods you are currently using have a sister component in XenForo (if not built in standard). I think if you can mostly replicate the mods, I suspect most people will have little problems with a forum transition.

If it's not broke, do not fix it

The problem is that vBulletin 4 is essentially broken at this point. vBulletin 5 was a substantial rewrite of the software and the mod/hook implementation was made more difficult and 4.2.5 is the last version of 4 and is no longer being supported. This means that any version of PHP (on which vBulletin is written) of 7.2 or higher could throw errors.

I dunno. I like having the option of changing the format colors, as I tend to go with LateNight (at the bottom).

That is just a forum skin. The administrators could add new skins as time goes on.

Is there any risk the forum contents could be lost with the change?

Not if backups are done first. If proper care is taken, only a short period of time might be lost and that's only if the admins do not first close the forum before they convert the database.

Would members post count and join date remain intact?

I've seen a forum migration from vBulletin to XenForo and it is possible to keep post counts and join dates.

Red,

I'm in the habit of manually hand-formatting most of my posts. vB uses BBCode.

What language does X/F use for formatting? Is there a page explaining the syntax? Is there a page listing the accepted tags?

XenForo has BBCode capability.

 

[Old 'N Chill]

I left out about the polls, the poll creator must check the option to let people change their vote, if they don't do that, you still can't change your vote. The couple of polls I posted with that software, I let people change if they wanted to, seems like the right thing to me.

 

[Old 'N Chill]

Not sure what is an upgrade over what is present, look and feel? Maybe some points on how we gain?

I know sometimes when I'm visiting here, for some reason the site gets bogged down and locks up on me. I get errors like server is busy, try later or try again. It can happen when I first try to come here, or in the middle of a post, or even when trying to give someone a Like. I think this won't happen with Xenforo, even at the busiest times with the most members posting or guests visiting and reading. Being an election year, I think this site will be jammed with activity, especially closer to November, so Xenforo may be the way to go to keep the site up and running. Just my opinion from using both vBulletin and XF.

 

[Mr Person]

It seems easy enough.

The confirmation email thing screwed up the first time. Gave me an "oops, there's an error". Worked the second time I clicked on one of the links to confirm, in another resent confirmation email.

 

[Tangmo]

I left out about the polls, the poll creator must check the option to let people change their vote, if they don't do that, you still can't change your vote. The couple of polls I posted with that software, I let people change if they wanted to, seems like the right thing to me.

Agreed and there needs to be only one vote change permitted per poster per poll.

Allow for the muck up of making the initial vote mistake but that's it, no more vote changes.

Some flexibility is needed and good yet let's not become Florida.

 

[Mr Person]

One thing I'm not seeing is an upload image from computer option. I was able to use "copy image location" for something I'd upload it here and send it in a "conversation", but either there isn't an upload option or I'm just being dense.

EDIT: Ok, when I sent a "start conversation" thing to lurch to try out the features, the "add image" only had the URL option.

But now in a thread, I see both the upload and the URL options in the box. I'm 100% sure I did not miss it in the conversation, since the exact same box opened....it only had the URL option.

 

[Slyfox696]

One thing I'm not seeing is an upload image from computer option. I was able to use "copy image location" for something I'd upload it here and send it in a "conversation", but either there isn't an upload option or I'm just being dense.

That may be by design. It's actually not recommend to have your forum allow users to upload images. It increases the file size of data on the server, it can be a security issue, and, probably most importantly, if someone uploads a copyrighted image and the copyright holder complains, the forum could be held accountable.

Forum administrators really should not allow their users to upload images to the forum servers, for the forum's sake.

 

[Mr Person]

So, about the ability to upload an image from computer. Edited screenshots (I don't want you seeing my name in the top right of my screen, etc).

1. "Conversation" w/ another. Only URL option available:



(Note: the black box is because I wanted to test sending him an image, and I used something I had posted in the Basement to mock someone. So I deleted it from the image. That would've been a pretty stupid infraction).



2. Thread post. Both URL and upload available:

 

[Mr Person]

That may be by design. It's actually not recommend to have your forum allow users to upload images. It increases the file size of data on the server, it can be a security issue, and, probably most importantly, if someone uploads a copyrighted image and the copyright holder complains, the forum could be held accountable.

Forum administrators really should not allow their users to upload images to the forum servers, for the forum's sake.

They allow it here. :shrug:

I understand what you're saying, but it's their decision. I figure if they allow it here it's probably by choice, but I'm not exactly an IT guy so... either way, I'm sure they'll disable it entirely if they don't want it.

 

[Mr Person]

Other update: I don't know if this is just a function of programming or what, but I went to the Basement on the test site. I found that word censor evasion works the same way as it does on this basement (ie, type a bad word. Highlight a letter in the core part of the bad word and make it either another color, or even just assign it to be black).. I assumed that like here, something would be set up to automatically convert the word to asterixes if you didn't do this. It didn't.

I'll test this upstairs on the test site...


Update: there does not appear to be an active word censor over there. You can simply type "****" and it won't be asterixes like it will be in this thread.

 

[Rogue Valley]

It is my understanding that your DP post count and likes can be exported to X/F

Will data transfer from DP also apply to all of one's DP threads, posts, infractions, and the like?

In other words, will a user be "whole" again after the transfer from DP to X/F?

 

[Lutherf]

The biggest problem I have with the new software is that no matter how many times I hit "draft" nobody shows up with a beer.

 

[vesper]

It is obvious the "Admin" is looking for something new. Meh, regardless of what they decide we will be stuck with or move on.

 

[Mr Person]

It is my understanding that your DP post count and likes can be exported to X/F

Will data transfer from DP also apply to all of one's DP threads, posts, infractions, and the like?

In other words, will a user be "whole" again after the transfer from DP to X/F?

They can take your life, but they cannot take your likes!

 

[Slyfox696]

They allow it here. :shrug:

And they are using 5 year old software here. :shrug:

I understand what you're saying, but it's their decision.

Yes, but my point was that, when you were reporting that you couldn't see a way to do it, that perhaps the XenForo software had it turned off by default, since that is a smarter way to do it.

You have to understand my post was in response to your post before you edited it.

I figure if they allow it here it's probably by choice

It is. There's a vBulletin setting. I would assume a XenForo setting as well.

either way, I'm sure they'll disable it entirely if they don't want it.

As you said, it is their forum, but it would be my recommendation, as someone who both works in IT and has been an administrator of vBulletin software for over a decade, to turn it off. But, to each their own, and it is their decision.

It is my understanding that your DP post count and likes can be exported to X/F

Will data transfer from DP also apply to all of one's DP threads, posts, infractions, and the like?

In other words, will a user be "whole" again after the transfer from DP to X/F?

I'd be surprised if "Likes" transfer over by default, since the Like system is an addon to the forum. Threads/posts should migrate. Just doing a little research (and emphasis on little), it appears Infractions might be able to migrate over, but it also might be more trouble than it is worth.

Do keep an mind, however, I am not speaking on behalf of the DP team, just trying to be helpful.

 

[Chomsky]

XenForo has BBCode capability.

That's a great feature to have.

My biggest concern would be with an intact migration, which I think is possible with DP due to our admins having reasonable technical proficiency. But I've seen far too many sites screw migration up, borking the DB.

 

[mike2810]

a woodturning forum (WoodTurner Pro) I visit uses Xenforo. It works well. Has some easy tools for moderators to use.

 

[Slyfox696]

That's a great feature to have.

My biggest concern would be with an intact migration, which I think is possible with DP due to our admins having reasonable technical proficiency. But I've seen far too many sites screw migration up, borking the DB.

I would sincerely hope backups of both the database and forum software would be taken before any migration attempted. I would assume forum software is already backed up, since the software itself rarely changes. I would also assume a forum this size has regular automatic backups.

A safe path to migration would be to create a directory inside the current web folder for XenForo, install XenForo and then import an exported database. Once everything is imported into XenForo, you would then take the necessary steps to make the XenForo files/directory the web root (however it is decided to do).

In other words, reasonable and basic steps should prevent a corrupted database. Those sites who screwed up their migration were probably rushing to get the job done and not taking the proper precautions OR they didn't test their database backup before migrating and when they tried to re-import their database, it had errors and they were screwed.

 

[Tangmo]

The biggest problem I have with the new software is that no matter how many times I hit "draft" nobody shows up with a beer.

This is getting serious...

 

[JANFU]

I would sincerely hope backups of both the database and forum software would be taken before any migration attempted. I would assume forum software is already backed up, since the software itself rarely changes. I would also assume a forum this size has regular automatic backups.

A safe path to migration would be to create a directory inside the current web folder for XenForo, install XenForo and then import an exported database. Once everything is imported into XenForo, you would then take the necessary steps to make the XenForo files/directory the web root (however it is decided to do).

In other words, reasonable and basic steps should prevent a corrupted database. Those sites who screwed up their migration were probably rushing to get the job done and not taking the proper precautions OR they didn't test their database backup before migrating and when they tried to re-import their database, it had errors and they were screwed.

Forum(s) should be offline for this?
If it makes the migration with fewer issues, no problems here

 

[JANFU]

Polls - Great

Change vote easily

Add questions, as info does change- easy

And I tested deleting a question on the poll- could not be done

Images- videos from other than YouTube, easy as hell, same with images

All I see are positives

Big question is always, transferring data

Next, with more alert functions and such, members should be reminded to update- amend this

So a dummies guide for ones like myself is suggested, a quick FAQ's???

Lastly, will this result in added costs to transfer, and are donations needed to cover this singular charge

If so, perhaps amending the donation pages to include donated for upgrade and leave the dollar value open

A buck is a buck

 

[Slyfox696]

Forum(s) should be offline for this?
If it makes the migration with fewer issues, no problems here

If the forums are left open, then any posts/threads/users/etc. that are created after the database is exported will be lost. Every post you make creates another entry into the database. In order to migrate the forum, that database has to be imported into the XenForo software. If the vBulletin forum is left open, then any posts in between the time the database was downloaded, imported into XenForo and when XenForo goes live, will be lost.

So, long answer short, most forums will close the forum when the transition is happening, in order to make sure no posts or users are lost. Again, I want to be clear I am NOT speaking on behalf of the forums, just my own knowledge/experience, but I would expect a minimum downtime of several hours. I would presume they would do a test migration in the background first, to see what challenges might arise, but it wouldn't surprise me for the forums to be closed for at least an hour under best of circumstances.

Lastly, will this result in added costs to transfer, and are donations needed to cover this singular charge

The only inherent costs would be the purchasing of the XenForo software (which starts at $160 and goes up depending on other services purchased). That's not to say they wouldn't have other costs (for example, if they wanted add-ons or wanted someone to migrate/install for them).

But the only absolutely necessary cost will likely be the forum license.