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Exploring The Possibility Of Moving To Different Forum Software

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Wowfunhappy
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Exploring The Possibility Of Moving To Different Forum Software

Post by Wowfunhappy »

I'm transferring this discussion over here because I didn't want to clog up the thread about the logo.
Wowfunhappy wrote:I know some people think we should switch to another forum system, such as SMF, and I'm open to the possibility if enough people want it. However, I really think it's a bad idea. I haven't seen any SMF forums that look nearly this nice, and while a base forum is simple to set up, adding features can be difficult. The Voxelus forum used SMF, and Adz had a lot of difficulty with conflicting and even broken plugins that couldn't even be uninstalled properly. Prior to Stratosphir, Atmosphir's forum was also based on SMF, and it had constant technical problems, such as the infamous Tuesday downtime. That's the reason why, for the launch of Stratosphir, Minor Studios decided to develop their own forum system, completely in-house.

I really like Xenforo a lot, it's not perfect but it's a lot better than the alternative systems out there. I really like this theme too—I did choose it, after all—but if someone can find another one, switching over wouldn't take too much work. I bought the current theme from [url]http://razorthemes.com;[/url] they make a lot of nice looking stuff. They're not free (I think this one cost ~$40), but I wouldn't mind spending a small amount of money.

Also, making small changes to the forum's appearance is easy—we made quite a few modifications to theme we're currently using. Any image—the buttons, the navigation bars, the icons—can be replaced with another image of the same size, really easily. All we need is an alternate image. So if there's something in particular you don't like the look of, feel free to try making a modified version. If there's an image you can't seem to save to your hard drive, post here and I'll give you a download link. Background colors and stuff should also be pretty easy to change.
Swords761 wrote:Screw SMF; can you look into MyPHP?
Wowfunhappy wrote:You mean phpbb right? I've actually always loved phpbb forums, but we never really considered using it for OMB. I'm not sure why.

Do you have any experience with it Swords? This is kind of dumb but their website is kind of daunting.

Edit: Okay, this doesn't actually look difficult at all. It's definitely a possibility.
PHPBB forums are super simplistic compared to what we have now. It's newer than SMF, but it was still created a loooong time ago, and it shows. That said, said simplicity isn't always bad.

Here's an example phpbb forum. There's a dropdown at the top with a bunch of different themes. Most of them are crappy. Can anyone find some nice ones? We can also customize them to an extent, of course, but we'll need a good base to work off of.

My preference is still Xenforo, as I think it feels much more modern and complete. That said, phpbb is extremely stable and well made software that I'm confident wouldn't result in any technical issues. If people want to switch, it's a perfectly viable alternative.
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Phantomboy
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Post by Phantomboy »

I still like Xenforo, although I'll be it from an entirely aesthetic and familiarity form. I like that Xenforo seems to be generally thinner and longer, rather than reaching the edges of the page. Furthermore, I am of course more familiar with the pages, and likely the moderation tools. That of course is a pretty silly reason to be against and sort of change, so I am very curious as to what peoples opinions on switch are - I am pretty open minded to it in general :P
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EyceKubes
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Post by EyceKubes »

I'm for sticking with the current forum software. Other alternatives do work yes, but in my honest opinion, I love how professional XenForo looks. SMF, PHPbb, and others don't look as appealing as this forum does. However, I do feel like we need to make some minor changes to the current theme. Alongside updating the logo, I feel like we should try and get the current design of the site closer to an Atmosphir feel. I personally really liked the blue and whiteish-grey theme.
I'm not experienced with Xenforo's theming area, but wouldn't it just be as simple as recoloring a few elements? Maybe not -that- simple... haha idk. I prefer to stay with XenForo though.

That's just my two cents.
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Swords761
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Post by Swords761 »

Lol whoops I was so tired last night why did I write MyPHP, obviously I meant phpbb.
Anyways, I have little to no experience with phpbb, but as I said elsewhere a few weeks ago in another topic that discussed this, it's free and widely supported with plugins and support. We're stuck on this piece of software essentially illegally, and it's not worth it unless there's some particular feature Xenforo has that would make tie-in to Atmosphir components or a website frontpage/blog amazing... but I'm sure phpbb has such features/plugins too.

If people really want to stay on Xenforo, we should pay for a renewal of the license- are people willing to chip-in?

Also, I'm not going to necessarily recommend this due to the needs of Atmosphir, but you should consider Enjin's website/forum offering for communities like this one.
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Wowfunhappy
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Post by Wowfunhappy »

Swords761 wrote:We're stuck on this piece of software essentially illegally
Not true. I found out last night why our license hasn't expired yet; it's because Xenforo extended everyone's license by 255 days as a thank you for sticking with them through some court proceedings.

When the license does expire, it shouldn't be a big deal. We'll still be allowed to keep using the forum, we just won't be able to install plugins. I think that's something we can deal with when the time comes. If we do need to renew the license, I should be able to do so for $40, which isn't too unreasonable, although I'd have to coordinate it with Turq since he's the one who bought the license originally.
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Swords761
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Post by Swords761 »

oic, well if we aren't in the need of plugins and people are comfortable being stuck like this, then it's all fine by me.
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tta
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Post by tta »

SMF is really cool forum software in terms of user functionality; idk about how difficult/easy it is to use from the admin's perspective. phpbb looks alright seeing as how customizable it is, but my vote goes for SMF simply because of my experience with it.
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bionicnacho
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Post by bionicnacho »

I personally just love XenForo. It's easy to use and it's one of the more appealing forum software out there.
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Wowfunhappy
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Post by Wowfunhappy »

EyceKubes wrote: I'm not experienced with Xenforo's theming area, but wouldn't it just be as simple as recoloring a few elements? Maybe not -that- simple... haha idk. I prefer to stay with XenForo though.

That's just my two cents.

As I said above, it shouldn't be too hard to change colors, and it's really easy to replace images.

If anyone wants to experiment with chrome/safari's inspect element to try recoloring stuff, feel free. Keep track of what you changed and post screenshots.
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EyceKubes
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Post by EyceKubes »

Wowfunhappy wrote:As I said above, it shouldn't be too hard to change colors, and it's really easy to replace images.

If anyone wants to experiment with chrome/safari's inspect element to try recoloring stuff, feel free. Keep track of what you changed and post screenshots.
Im on it! :)
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