Currently I'm using phpBB to run one of my websites, but I am heavily considering switching to SMF and have several questions.
1. I notice there's a 1.1 RC3, is it worth to go straight to this and skip 1.0.8? And if I do, will it be easy to upgrade to the final release?
2. Is SMF easy to upgrade after my installation's been modded?
3. Currently, I have a mod on my phpBB forums that prevents visitors using annonymous proxies from registering. I've had problems with IP-banned users returning under proxies to cause trouble. Is there a built-in feature or modification that can do something similar? This one is the most important question of all to me, as it has been a serious problem in the past.
1. I strongly recommend 1.1 Rc3. Fully stable (you can find almost no bug, unless you dig through advanced techniques.). Has much more features, much easier admin interface, more community support, more mods, more themes... It will be easiest to upgrade to final.
2. Unless you manually modify SMF, you can just uninstall current mods, upgrade your forum, install the mods again.
3. You can give us the phpBB mod, so we can see the IP numbers and help you ban them in chunks.
If you convert, you will never look back. You will be sorry for the time you've spent using phpBB.
2. That's the thing. I have several custom mods on my current forums that I wrote myself. I'm going to have to re-write them for SMF, but I don't want to have to re-write them for every upgrade after that. With phpBB I haven't had to because I use their "Code Changes" download to update, rather than just replacing files.
3. The mod doesn't check the visitor IP against a list of IPs. It actually checks that IP itself for an open proxy. It slows down the initial loading of the registration page to do it, but it works well.
Edit: I also want to note that using phpBB for the original site wasn't my desicion. ;) I didn't become the administrator until later on.
Samutz,
In terms of point 2 I would recommend that you roll your custom changes into a package. SMF installs mods using packages which can be simply installed using the package manager and are effectively just a list of changes (Search/Replace etc). If you put all your custom changes in one file whenever there is an update you simply reinstall the package.
Note that SMF does actually release it's patches in a package format - much like phpBB - so small upgrades shouldn't affect mods etc. However, large upgrades (For example 1.0.8 to 1.1 Final) involve a reupload of the files and hence reinstallation of all mods (The changes are too great for a simple "patch"). Note that also we don't release patches for development versions (Which 1.1 RC3 is).
Also note that in general themes continue to work after upgrades - it's really modding the core files themselves which we're talking about here.
I just made the switch at the end of last month. I have a small board, there was only about 5000 posts when I switched, so it was pretty painless. (I was running IntegraMod, if you're familiar. Basically it's phpBB with every single mod shovelled into it. Sounds great at first, but becomes limiting after awhile...)
I would recommend going to RC3. In the three weeks I've been running SMF, I've gone from 1.0.7 to RC2 to RC3. Updates are easy to install, but I probably should have went straight to RC2 rather than starting at 1.0.7 (those were the most current versions at the time.)
The community here is great too. Had a problem with my Quick Reply box not quoting, and after Orstio went to my site, gave me a solution in no time. HarzeM also helped me out when I wanted to edit his DilberMC theme.
Go now...make the switch!
So no solution to the proxy thing?
Or am I just gonna have to try to make my own?
I really don't want this to be one of those things where I end up waiting to do it when I need it the most (eg. when someone's spamming my forums).
Ok, you can still give me that phpBB mod and I'll try to make a new mod for SMF that does the same thing.
There is always a solution, especially if you are using SMF :)
How do you detect that they are using a proxy?
Lainaus käyttäjältä: HarzeM - elokuu 29, 2006, 03:52:50 AP
Ok, you can still give me that phpBB mod and I'll try to make a new mod for SMF that does the same thing.
There is always a solution, especially if you are using SMF :)
http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=248252
It does some extra stuff such as auto-banning proxies that attempt to register and a feature that lets you scan an IP from the admin cp. But as long as it keeps proxies out, I don't care tooo much about the extra features.
Lainaus käyttäjältä: Ben_S - elokuu 29, 2006, 07:20:39 AP
How do you detect that they are using a proxy?
All I can tell you is a php script. I've never gotten into the networking side of php to learn how something like this works (IPs, ports, protocols, etc).
Thanks for the help guys.