Simple Machines Community Forum

Archived Boards and Threads... => Archived Boards => SMF Feedback and Discussion => Topic started by: adicrst on December 13, 2007, 07:22:45 PM

Poll
Question: Chose your option
Option 1: Only smf votes: 47
Option 2: Only phpbb votes: 4
Option 3: smf is better votes: 68
Option 4: phpbb3 is better votes: 25
Option 5: smf much catch up with phpbb3 votes: 21
Title: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: adicrst on December 13, 2007, 07:22:45 PM
Well, phpbb3 was just released (after freaking 3 years of breaging ) and i looked at it and liked what i've seen. If it would have been released 3 years ago, i would use it right now, but after discovering smf i'm NOT going back.

I tested the new forum and at the fist look, i'm quite impresed to tell you the truth. Alot of options and things that a few months ago u could only dream at. Judging impartial now,  i think smf should hurry with the release of smf 2 and it should have atlest as much things to control users as phpbb3.

If utested phpbb3, tell us what u think and what uexpect from smf 2
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: nick09 on December 13, 2007, 07:29:10 PM
i know a second beta for charter members is coming.

but it has too many bugs at the moment to be released period.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: vbgamer45 on December 13, 2007, 08:29:53 PM
SMF 2.0 rocks and SMF 1.1.4 still has many features that phpbb3 does not have such as the package manager, quick reply, spell check, ssi,calendar and a lot of other stuff.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: shadow82x on December 13, 2007, 08:46:02 PM
after using smf2.0 there is no threat of phpbb3 at all. I tested phpbb3 on my server alongside with smf2.0 and smf runs A LOT faster. phpbb is still missing quick reply, edit ect. They made there package more bloated than ever, imho.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: !Hachi! on December 13, 2007, 09:48:03 PM
SMF ===> Simple ,Elegant,free,safe
               plus its dead easy to use....just superb piece of software.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Fiery on December 13, 2007, 11:54:03 PM
Now Now, just remember we are all friends.  There is nothing wrong with competition.  Some people just like some software options better then others.

:D

Though I admit I am pretty fond of SMF  8)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: karlbenson on December 14, 2007, 12:06:37 AM
Second topic of this nature in one evening, I'll try to be a bit more elegant and careful in what I say this time. ;)

Whenever deciding on any forum software try them all out to give careful consideration
Don't rely solely on the information given on the official websites/forums (Possibility of bias/selective editing)
Do some thorough research (google is your friend)
Consider important factors, not just features
- Trust/Reputation (Good/bad/newcomer)
- Security (find expert reviews, discussion of prevalency of exploits, which do 'experts' recommend)
- Features (+ expansion of features via plugins/mods/hacks)
Always make an INformed decision

Also remember the permanency of your decision.  Usually there are conversion scripts, is there one available to another software, is one going to be available soon?

My own opinion/recommendation for whats its worth having used a variety and not out of loyalty to any particular forum software.
[free] SMF
[paid] Vbulletin
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: klumy on December 14, 2007, 07:16:25 AM
Quote from: adicrst on December 13, 2007, 07:22:45 PM
Well, phpbb3 was just released (after freaking 3 years of breaging ) and i looked at it and liked what i've seen. If it would have been released 3 years ago, i would use it right now, but after discovering smf i'm NOT going back.

I tested the new forum and at the fist look, i'm quite impresed to tell you the truth. Alot of options and things that a few months ago u could only dream at. Judging impartial now,  i think smf should hurry with the release of smf 2 and it should have atlest as much things to control users as phpbb3.

If utested phpbb3, tell us what u think and what uexpect from smf 2

to give an opinion SMF 2 Final should be released first, so we can compare both products on the same release level.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Dragooon on December 14, 2007, 07:22:34 AM
SMF 2 will be released when it has to and when it will be stable. Developers don't want to hurry and give out a bugged software.

"Its ready when its ready".
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on December 14, 2007, 08:15:16 AM
I tested the beta, but not this one. Though id like to say the beta was so confusing and muddled up I couldn't do crap with it. I literally had to read the manual, and then I still didn't get it and had to watch some flash thing someone made...though after doing that about 6 times I could do it by myself. It was too fiddly. I don't think ill be testing the gold version, though a phpBB forum I'm on will be upgrading, so I'll get to see it from a "users" perspective ;)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: klumy on December 14, 2007, 09:19:05 AM
on the first look phpBB 3.0 is a huge step forward.:

+ I especially like the good layout for their user control panel and their clean search interface.
- I still miss the option to define the number of topics shich could be displayed on a page in phpBB 3.0
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: adicrst on December 14, 2007, 09:37:09 AM
Quote from: pmp6nl on December 13, 2007, 11:54:03 PM
Now Now, just remember we are all friends.

Quote from: adicrst on December 13, 2007, 07:22:45 PM
Well, phpbb3 was just released (after freaking 3 years of breaging ) and i looked at it and liked what i've seen. If it would have been released 3 years ago, i would use it right now, but after discovering smf i'm NOT going back.

like i said, i like smf and just because i made this topic doesnt mean i have to like phpbb. But we have to judge equally every software. I've seen some options that smf curently doesnt even have them:

- full control over signatures (h,w,length,URL allowed or not, etc)
- managing groups better then smf

What i didnt liked in the past was that after i got a database of 50 mb, i converted for smf and it had 3 mb, and optimizing if very useful for large boards so from this point of view smf is way better.

What i didn't liked at the new phpbb was the large amount of details you have to specify but i guess that smf's group administration compensates that 2
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Grudge on December 14, 2007, 09:49:04 AM
As I said in the other topic I think phpBB3 is a huge step forward over phpBB2, and certainly highlights a number of areas where SMF needs to improve (Particularly in terms of the quality of the output HTML code). My only critisism is that I'm not convinced that they have made the best decisions with their feature set. There seem to be a number of features that are getting very close to being "bloat" whilst they still lack other features which people have come to expect in their forum software, and when I looked at it last (Some 9 months ago) the admin centre was getting very confusing with stuff appearing in many places.

Personally I think it's hard for anyone to say which is better out of phpBB3 and SMF as they both have comparative strengths and weaknesses which will vary dependant on the admin's requirement. I also don't think it's reasonable to say "SMF 2.0 will do this" as, frankly, SMF 2.0 isn't out yet - and might not be for another year or two (You never know - a disaster could happen).

In conclusion I'm delighted to hear that phpBB3 is now out and available. I think for too long there's been a lack of serious free competition for SMF (punBB and myBB are the only other boards worth considering IMHO but they both go for different markets) - with most of the competition coming from vB (or to a much lesser extent IPB). phpBB3 was desperately needed by everyone to keep pushing the "freeware" community forward and bring some more innovation back into the market. Hopefully this healthy competition keeps the free software community evolving which in turn gives every admin out there better choice and more functionality for free.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: kangkenyot on December 14, 2007, 09:59:01 AM
Quote from: karlbenson on December 14, 2007, 12:06:37 AM
My own opinion/recommendation for whats its worth having used a variety and not out of loyalty to any particular forum software.
[free] SMF
[paid] Vbulletin

Totally agree based on my experience trying one by one every forum's software available on the net.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on December 14, 2007, 12:03:06 PM
i agree with grudge....but if you say it might take years again i might not survive the second heart attack :P
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Gary on December 14, 2007, 12:39:25 PM
HOMER: But I'm out of the woods now right, I mean, whatever doesnt kill me can only make me stronger.
DR. HIBBERT: Oh no, quite the opposite. Its made you weak as a kitten. Look. <Slaps>
HOMER: Hey, come on, quit it!
DR. HIBBERT: Coochy coochy coo!
HOMER: Stop. Please stop.
DR. HIBBERT: Oh you swing like a girl! Come on now! <rubs Homers head>
HOMER: Please have mercy.
DR. HIBBERT: Got your nose! <laugh>
HOMER: Not Funny
DR. HIBBERT: How about this little bee! Bzzzzzz. <presses Homer's stomach>


:P
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: uberjon on December 14, 2007, 12:55:22 PM
Quote from: hassan on December 13, 2007, 09:48:03 PM
SMF ===> Simple ,Elegant,free,safe
               plus its dead easy to use....just superb piece of software.

i have to agree on the "dead easy to use" part. but i wonder if i should also be offended. (i tried many times to install phpbb2 back in the day. with no luck....
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: H on December 14, 2007, 01:35:42 PM
I gotta wonder who voted:

Quotesmf much catch up with phpbb3

SMF has a lot more useful features than phpbb3 IMO. Some things (like post moderation) are being tested and will be released to the public soon (see: Introducing SMF 2.0 (http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=163438.0)) and any other minor features should be available here as mods.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on December 14, 2007, 05:16:44 PM
actually...i love the phpBB moderation system...you can put single users on post approval or an entire group. it came in handy. and you can set passworded boards and heaps of stuff. it was so awesome to do that...it just took for friggin ever LOL
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: adicrst on December 14, 2007, 07:18:54 PM
I think a good board also means to have alot of default options rather then infusing or moding it
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: shadow82x on December 14, 2007, 07:19:40 PM
Quote from: adicrst on December 14, 2007, 07:18:54 PM
I think a good board also means to have alot of default options rather then infusing or moding it
Not exactly why would you want a bloated forum software? It simply adds more forum load time.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: adicrst on December 14, 2007, 07:22:56 PM
because if something is there by default it wont affect the forum every time you have to upgrade. Mods can mess with your database and months later after giving up on them you still find trace in the DB structure
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on December 14, 2007, 07:23:29 PM
Quote from: adicrst on December 14, 2007, 07:18:54 PM
I think a good board also means to have alot of default options rather then infusing or moding it

YEAH!!
+100000000000000000000000000000000000000
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: nick09 on December 14, 2007, 07:38:09 PM
besides there is over 1000 mods on the SMF website.

it is too much work, too much time, ETC!

if SMF were to do that it would mean SMF 2.0 will be delayed year by year.

constantly updating with the new mods being released and being updated.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Ben_S on December 14, 2007, 07:39:23 PM
Quote from: adicrst on December 14, 2007, 07:22:56 PM
because if something is there by default it wont affect the forum every time you have to upgrade. Mods can mess with your database and months later after giving up on them you still find trace in the DB structure

Best install the quick reply mod then ;)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on December 14, 2007, 08:02:34 PM
not every mod lol

perhaps those that actually should be there, or would benefit the forums.

and then something to help us with the others (like the ability to make custom profile fields, main menu buttons and stuff in the admin center) or just leave them out and we pick and choose ourselves :D
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: metallica48423 on December 14, 2007, 09:45:19 PM
... i accidentally voted for 'smf must catch up' option

Anyone aruing if i edit the poll and enable the ability to change votes (i can't touch the votes themselves this is not an SMF option) but really don't want my vote for being that LOL
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Highway of Life on December 14, 2007, 10:40:49 PM
BlackMage: haha!! though it sounds like with the release of 2.0, SMF will catch up. ;)  & :P
Two great products.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on December 15, 2007, 12:15:23 AM
Quote from: BlackMage on December 14, 2007, 09:45:19 PM
... i accidentally voted for 'smf must catch up' option

Anyone aruing if i edit the poll and enable the ability to change votes (i can't touch the votes themselves this is not an SMF option) but really don't want my vote for being that LOL

accidentally on purpose?
SPRUNG!!

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!

*bolts*
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Lsg_1 on December 15, 2007, 07:40:25 AM
I much prefer SMF
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Sverre on December 16, 2007, 04:03:48 PM
I can never see myself using phpBB again, but I welcome their new release, because if Bloc & Co. hadn't already realized the urgency of a semantical default theme, it should be clear as day now :)

Quote from: Grudge on December 14, 2007, 09:49:04 AMMy only critisism is that I'm not convinced that they have made the best decisions with their feature set. There seem to be a number of features that are getting very close to being "bloat"

Somehow, this statement would be a lot more assuring and comforting to me if a feature such as Birthday Greeting hadn't already been confirmed for 2.0 :-X Although the check to see if a feature is enabled/disabled doesn't have much of an impact on performance on its own, it certainly isn't negligible as the number of deactivated features grow... Even more important than the millisecond(s) of extra loading time, at least in my opinion, is the seemingly overlooked aspect of administrative overhead caused by unused features though. Just look at all the settings and permissions related to Karma in the ACP.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Grudge on December 16, 2007, 06:48:49 PM
Sverre,

Agreed that feature choice is most certainly a balance that's sometimes difficult to get right. The birthday email is a good example though - it's disabled by default and doesn't have any overhead at all when not enabled (It's a scheduled task hence it only gets run if it comes to the top of the pile which it never will if it's disabled).

One thing I'm really pleased with in 2.0 is the "Core Features" switches. These enable the admin to turn on and off who sets of functionality like Post Moderation, Karma, Custom Profile fields, Calendar etc and hide all of the admin interfaces for these things if off - specifically to "unclutter" the admin area for things not used on a board.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Sverre on December 18, 2007, 08:45:11 AM
Quote from: Grudge on December 16, 2007, 06:48:49 PM
One thing I'm really pleased with in 2.0 is the "Core Features" switches. These enable the admin to turn on and off who sets of functionality like Post Moderation, Karma, Custom Profile fields, Calendar etc and hide all of the admin interfaces for these things if off - specifically to "unclutter" the admin area for things not used on a board.

That sounds very promising, and I'm really looking forward to see its effect in the ACP! Although this might remove/limit one of my main concerns regarding the rapidly increasing number of default features, I still think I'd prefer that peripheral features such as the aforementioned Birthday Greeting was left (read developed specifically) to promote and highlight the Package Manager instead of coming bundled with the default installation. Mozilla's aggressive marketing of extended functionality through mods/extension has certainly not had a negative impact on Firefox' popularity - rather on the contrary - and this is coming from an Opera "fan boy" :P

If the improved Package Manager in 2.0 is promoted properly, you could very well see a major benefit from this similarity with Firefox. For this to be possible though, the average SMF admin needs to become more aware of and confident in the Package Manager. In my opinion, there is no better way to achieve this than through a series of high-profile officially released and supported mods - if the feature is popular enough to have been considered as a default feature, that's even better. This way, a user who's previously been hesitant and reserved about using third party mods would be able to install mods without any doubt about future support and compatibility. These official mods could also serve as a guide line for proper coding and integration of mods, as well as being an excellent opportunity for the SMF developers to showcase the possibilities and flexibility of the software.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: redone on December 18, 2007, 11:02:42 AM
It's good news that phpBB continues to work on releases and develop new feature sets for users. I agree with Grudge that this forces alternative providers such as Simplemachines to drive that bit further to deliver what users want from a forum.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: karlbenson on December 18, 2007, 11:06:58 AM
Indeed the feature sets are constantly developing and expanding.

Exponetial growth of the project base will eventually lead to bloat.
I wouldn't mind seeing implemented features reevaluated to see whether they should continue to remain implemented as a core feature or whether it would be better as a modification.

(especially with the improvements to be made in smf 2.0)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: christicehurst on December 21, 2007, 07:28:10 AM
I think it's important for forum software to push each other in terms of development and growth. So that it doesn't become lazy and boring.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: DivineMessage on December 21, 2007, 07:37:15 AM
I just think phpbb looks non professional (no offense to those who like it).
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Dannii on December 21, 2007, 09:22:10 AM
SMF must catch up, though really only in the area of theming.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Augh on December 21, 2007, 02:07:29 PM
I had smf-forum installed about a year ago, then db crashed during version update and I didn't get much help for that, so I chanced to phpbb3. Man what a mistake that was...

Jesus what rules they have at phpbb community forums. Ridiculous rules and police state control over their board. Insane modification control/install-methods...I'm NEVER going to install phpbb3 again. In finland we say: "vittu mitä paskaa". And that is not a compliment :P

Just waiting Jay to finish that phpbb3 to smf converter and it's goodbye to phpbb for ever.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on December 21, 2007, 05:05:41 PM
Quote from: DivineMessage on December 21, 2007, 07:37:15 AM
I just think phpbb looks non professional (no offense to those who like it).

agreed.


in truth, i organised someone set up a board for me on their server. its almost exact to the beta, except it has a few tiny tweaks. the admin panel is still a mess, hard to navigate, and the permissions are SO HARD to work out -they are gonna have a field day to teach that to noobs...forums need to be noob friendly because noobs will try to run them...and with their systems they are gonna need a nice thick manual, and tolerant support teams

and speaking of support, i spent 2 years with phpBB...in that time, and the 4 months ive spent here, i can honestly say this;
support for mods, and ANYTHING here is SO MUCH BETTER.
the support team is SO MUCH nicer.
and the community actually wants to help.
phpBB may be better known, but their reputation compared to SMF is better kept in the closet.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: metallica48423 on December 21, 2007, 06:04:51 PM
i doubt smf will be coming out of any closets anytime soon. lol
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on December 21, 2007, 06:24:10 PM
lol

good, the skeletons may get lonely ;)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: RatedZ on December 22, 2007, 10:32:03 AM
I think the phpBB controls are a lot easier to use than what the SMF's controls are.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Augh on December 22, 2007, 12:12:56 PM
you mean permission management or what? Because that permission management in phpbb...well I got nothing good to say about it.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: shadow82x on December 22, 2007, 12:33:07 PM
Quote from: Augh on December 22, 2007, 12:12:56 PM
you mean permission management or what? Because that permission management in phpbb...well I got nothing good to say about it.
Yeah the permissions are pretty nasty on phpbb3 for the most part.

Quote from: RatedZ on December 22, 2007, 10:32:03 AM
I think the phpBB controls are a lot easier to use than what the SMF's controls are.
Controls? What do you mean by that... I can see how it can be easier with there redone profile system but not the admin panel.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Dannii on December 22, 2007, 09:44:05 PM
QuoteI think the phpBB controls are a lot easier to use than what the SMF's controls are.
Yes please do explain what you find hard to do in SMF and what makes it easier in phpBB, so that we can change it in further releases.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: motumbo on December 24, 2007, 03:10:13 PM
Quote from: shadow82x on December 14, 2007, 07:19:40 PM
Quote from: adicrst on December 14, 2007, 07:18:54 PM
I think a good board also means to have alot of default options rather then infusing or moding it
Not exactly why would you want a bloated forum software? It simply adds more forum load time.

A simple if-then statement to check to see whether or not a feature is enabled is not going to slow down anything to any degree anyone would notice.

If the feature is not enabled, the relevant code won't run.

More features = more mass appeal.  More mass appeal means more users and more contributors and more people hanging out in the forum answering questions that others might have.

There's tons of stuff I would never use.  But all said, I would rather have them in the default installation but not enabled than not have them at all.

Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: adicrst on December 26, 2007, 06:04:38 PM
Quote from: motumbo on December 24, 2007, 03:10:13 PM
But all said, I would rather have them in the default installation but not enabled than not have them at all.

that's what i think
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: SpilltheBeans on December 27, 2007, 11:26:25 AM
The best thing about phpBB is that it's GPL. Because it's open source, a really good php programmer was able to make a far superior forum from phpBB called Categories Hierarchy (http://ptifo.clanmckeen.com/).
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: karlbenson on December 27, 2007, 12:23:31 PM
^ I've gone through the entire documentation for Categories Hierarchy. 53page pdf.

I fail to see what it has that smf can't do with local permissions.

In fact, if anything, smf a more efficient admin interface for it.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: motumbo on December 27, 2007, 05:04:41 PM
Quote from: Dannii on December 22, 2007, 09:44:05 PM
Yes please do explain what you find hard to do in SMF and what makes it easier in phpBB, so that we can change it in further releases.

It is difficult for me to find certain things in the SMF admin panel.  Sometimes what I'm looking for is in the "posts" section.  Or it could be in "current theme".  The place you think something should be often is where it isn't.  There's room for improvement.  As far as the phpBB admin panel, I've found that I can find stuff pretty much where I expect it to be.  The phpBB3 admin panel is a little more intuitive.

I recently installed phpBB3 final and I must say that it is nice.  I'm not sure at this time if I'm going to add another forum because one of my sites gets very little traffic (and I'm not converting my existing SMF forum).  However, in all honesty, if I do decide to add a forum it's most likely going to be phpBB3.  It's fast and the HTML is nice and clean--divs and CSS--no ugly tables and rows.  Plus, it's got captcha for guest posting plus a whole lot more nice features.





Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on December 27, 2007, 10:58:50 PM
Quote from: hassan on December 13, 2007, 09:48:03 PM
SMF ===> Simple ,Elegant,free,safe
               plus its dead easy to use....just superb piece of software.

After being a phpBB 2.0.X user, I just can't get used to phpBB Gold, way too complicated for nothing (the ACP can drive you nuts, especially the permission system).

I switched to SMF a couple of weeks ago and so far, so good.

Cheers,
Gene
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: shadow82x on December 28, 2007, 01:24:39 AM
After a few speed tests I cant possibly say phpbb is faster in any way.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Dannii on December 28, 2007, 02:20:25 AM
QuoteIt is difficult for me to find certain things in the SMF admin panel.  Sometimes what I'm looking for is in the "posts" section.  Or it could be in "current theme".  The place you think something should be often is where it isn't.  There's room for improvement.  As far as the phpBB admin panel, I've found that I can find stuff pretty much where I expect it to be.  The phpBB3 admin panel is a little more intuitive.
Any specific sections?
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: christicehurst on December 28, 2007, 11:03:47 PM
I would say at times it's hard to deal with Permissions and you spend a while just doing a couple things on it.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: elfishtroll on December 28, 2007, 11:41:47 PM
Quote from: motumbo on December 27, 2007, 05:04:41 PM
Quote from: Dannii on December 22, 2007, 09:44:05 PM
Yes please do explain what you find hard to do in SMF and what makes it easier in phpBB, so that we can change it in further releases.

It is difficult for me to find certain things in the SMF admin panel.  Sometimes what I\'m looking for is in the \"posts\" section.  Or it could be in \"current theme\".  The place you think something should be often is where it isn\'t.  There\'s room for improvement.  As far as the phpBB admin panel, I\'ve found that I can find stuff pretty much where I expect it to be.  The phpBB3 admin panel is a little more intuitive.

I recently installed phpBB3 final and I must say that it is nice.  I\'m not sure at this time if I\'m going to add another forum because one of my sites gets very little traffic (and I\'m not converting my existing SMF forum).  However, in all honesty, if I do decide to add a forum it\'s most likely going to be phpBB3.  It\'s fast and the HTML is nice and clean--divs and CSS--no ugly tables and rows.  Plus, it\'s got captcha for guest posting plus a whole lot more nice features.






^^ Oh God Yes!

The admin CP organisation...wow... it all works when you find it, but wow..what a search!
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: shadow82x on December 29, 2007, 12:50:28 AM
I know what he means...

Like Forum title in server settings

Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: adicrst on December 29, 2007, 03:31:24 AM
maybe the new version of smf will re-arange the options in ACP
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Dannii on December 29, 2007, 03:48:01 AM
2.0 probably won't as it's basically feature frozen, but for the version after I definitely hope so. However to change the admin CP (for the better) we really need to know what the current problems are. Specific problems. If you can think of specific settings that weren't where you expected, or that did something you didn't expect, please write about them here. But if all that people post is "the admin CP is confusing" how will the team know what to fix? :)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: adicrst on December 29, 2007, 04:32:24 AM
well in this case we should make a topic "admin cp feature" and post there, so they wont have to browse trough all this posts
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Dannii on December 29, 2007, 06:07:40 AM
They won't read it, but I will, and I'm working on collecting posts like this. (http://wiki.eldacar.com/docs/smf-theme-opinions)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: arod on December 31, 2007, 11:02:40 AM
Quote from: BlackMage on December 14, 2007, 09:45:19 PM
... i accidentally voted for 'smf must catch up' option

Anyone aruing if i edit the poll and enable the ability to change votes (i can't touch the votes themselves this is not an SMF option) but really don't want my vote for being that LOL
actually, this is (at least a little bit) funny.
phpbb3 does allow users to change their vote. (controlled by poll author)
so, by making a mistake in the voting and encountering the "can't change vote" wall, you must have realized that your vote was, after all, correct...
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: metallica48423 on December 31, 2007, 11:10:12 AM
smf has it too.

Its a poll option (allow users to change their vote).  The poll author didn't select it

regardless, i don't think it really matters what i voted :P
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: elfishtroll on December 31, 2007, 02:02:21 PM
Quote from: Dannii on December 29, 2007, 06:07:40 AMThey won\'t read it, but I will, and I\'m working on collecting posts like this. (http://wiki.eldacar.com/docs/smf-theme-opinions)
LMAO you better collect them fast!This thread dropped from 6 pages to 4! lol
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: 青山 素子 on December 31, 2007, 02:47:14 PM
Quote from: elfishtroll on December 31, 2007, 02:02:21 PM
Quote from: Dannii on December 29, 2007, 06:07:40 AMThey won\'t read it, but I will, and I\'m working on collecting posts like this. (http://wiki.eldacar.com/docs/smf-theme-opinions)
LMAO you better collect them fast!This thread dropped from 6 pages to 4! lol

That would be because your tangent got split to a new topic (http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=213993) by one of the team.

Now, shall we go back on topic before this is locked?
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: elfishtroll on December 31, 2007, 03:28:32 PM
umm.. yes... Strangely, there wastnt an entry or post indicating the split.So I hereby retract my earlier insinuation, and suggest instead, a feature that places a notation in the tail of the thread indicating the thread was split?< :P ducks and runs back under a bridge>
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: redone on December 31, 2007, 03:59:34 PM
Notation or not you were given an explanation regarding why the post was split. It's hard to imagine posting for example over at phpBB about its features vs SMF.

Your bound to get at the very least at bias perspective from many users. I have always found with boards I helped friends with who ran phpBB that many basic features included within phpBB you had to install a modification or hack to achieve this.

That's my own personal view and not that of the Simplemachines team. I wish them well on the release and like Grudge said its good news for everyone no matter which software you prefer or run.

;)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: 青山 素子 on December 31, 2007, 04:34:11 PM
Quote from: elfishtroll on December 31, 2007, 03:28:32 PM
umm.. yes... Strangely, there wastnt an entry or post indicating the split.So I hereby retract my earlier insinuation, and suggest instead, a feature that places a notation in the tail of the thread indicating the thread was split?< :P ducks and runs back under a bridge>

That sounds like a great idea for a mod. If you are interested, please post a topic in the mod requests board.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: metallica48423 on December 31, 2007, 05:29:49 PM
sorry i didnt post here about the split. i did mention it in the other thread though. i was in the meeting at the time so i kinda got busy  :p
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: arod on December 31, 2007, 05:49:31 PM
    :-[
    some disclosure:
    i am a phpbb user. i did install smf and played with it in my "sandbox", but haven't decided to move.
    twisi, both smf and phpbb has several meaningful advantages:
    phpbb advantages (or, smf shortcomings...)

    • first and foremost, the license. this issue pretty much overshadows everything else. it's not that i am absolutely oppose using something with a strange license, but i am not going to if there is a decent product using GPL. in this case, there are numerous decent forums using GPL. this issue is not just cosmetics: for instance, smf 2.0 beta exists for some 5 months now, and is still unavailable to mere mortals. phpbb had (most of) their code available throughout the development process.
    • the template system. smf "templating" is somewhat of a mess
    • 2 clean, 100% xhtml compliant styles (personally, i also think they look better than smf's default style, but this is entirely subjective). thing is, if default/built-in themes are not 100% compliant, you can't ask it of 3rd party style designers, so amf ends up being non-standard
    • i don't want to begin counting small stuff, like moderation queue, custom profile fields, user warning system, custom bbcode, post drafts  etc. everything (or almost everything) here can be added as a package in smf, and nothing is critical

    phpbb main disadvantages:

    • significant parts of the code are still messy. i wish i could say it is all phpbb2 legacy, but unfortunately some of it is new code.
    • the most glaring omission is a decent package manager. they say they are working on one, but, unlike the main branch, this development is hidden, and could not be trusted until it exposed.
    • phpbb team's attitude leaves a lot to be desired. this is true both on their site and in the way they deal with user's requests. (a nice example is their stubborn refusal to even consider quick-reply)
    • this one is not clear yet, but it seems that smf is faster on mySQL. otoh, phpbb can use many other dbms backends, so this item can appear on both sides. also, i am not aware of any serious speed comparison, so this may not even be true...
    • again, i don't count small stuff, such as  quick-reply, calendar, more elaborated bbcode etc.


    bottom line: though each system has it's cons and pros, and there is no clear winner, for me, personally, the license is a deal-breaker for smf.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on December 31, 2007, 07:30:52 PM
where is the unsubscribe topic button?!
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Spaceman-Spiff on December 31, 2007, 08:06:39 PM
Quote from: arod on December 31, 2007, 05:49:31 PM

  • first and foremost, the license. this issue pretty much overshadows everything else. it's not that i am absolutely oppose using something with a strange license, but i am not going to if there is a decent product using GPL. in this case, there are numerous decent forums using GPL. this issue is not just cosmetics: for instance, smf 2.0 beta exists for some 5 months now, and is still unavailable to mere mortals. phpbb had (most of) their code available throughout the development process.

There are plenty of Open-Source Licenses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Open_source_licenses) out there that aren't GPL. Mainly, one way or another, were created because they were not satisfied with GPL. I believe the SMF license was created before GPL v3 was released, and GPL v2 had poor protection on web scripts. That time the dev team considered other licenses, such as Affero (who has better coverage on web-scripts), but finally decided on a new license instead for better protection.

In a way, SMF is still a free software (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html), just more restrictive on redistribution rules.

Why do you care so much that everything must be GPL. Even GPL has its weaknesses. Just no one ever exploited phpBB enough yet in the past so they would care to switch license...
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: 青山 素子 on December 31, 2007, 08:13:55 PM
Quote from: Alundra on December 31, 2007, 07:30:52 PM
where is the unsubscribe topic button?!

If it is e-mail alerts, try the "notify" link at the bottom of the page right under the last post.


Quote from: arod on December 31, 2007, 05:49:31 PM
first and foremost, the license. this issue pretty much overshadows everything else. it's not that i am absolutely oppose using something with a strange license, but i am not going to if there is a decent product using GPL. in this case, there are numerous decent forums using GPL. this issue is not just cosmetics: for instance, smf 2.0 beta exists for some 5 months now, and is still unavailable to mere mortals. phpbb had (most of) their code available throughout the development process.

Hope you don't mind the reformatting of your lists to something a bit easier to respond to.

There are actually a few items in here, but I'll try and address them all. SMF's license is actually fairly close to the QPL (an OSI-approved license). The only difference is that we don't allow redistribution of any kind (the QPL allows unmodified redistribution).

As for the betas being unavailable, there is quite a good reason for that. Although our early code is usually very stable, it has good potential for some big bugs. We release to a small group first so that we can get some outside testing in with a much easier to manage group. It would be total insanity if everyone was able to use the beta release. Take a look in our support forums and see all the duplicate issues posted on. Imagine big beta bugs being posted about 20 or more times a day. As it is, we advise our charter members to not run the early betas on production systems and to make backups. Some still don't listen to that and have no way to back out when they hit a big bug.

Pre-release code for SMF 2.0 is planned, once we get the major bugs quashed. This usually happens in the RC stage. That is the way it always has been since SMF started.

I will also note that you can do closed testing with GPL software, but you need a bit more organization and formality to set it up so it doesn't count as distribution (and thus anyone can get a copy from a tester).


Quote from: arod on December 31, 2007, 05:49:31 PM
the template system. smf "templating" is somewhat of a mess

2 clean, 100% xhtml compliant styles (personally, i also think they look better than smf's default style, but this is entirely subjective). thing is, if default/built-in themes are not 100% compliant, you can't ask it of 3rd party style designers, so amf ends up being non-standard

SMF templating can be a mess, yes. It is very flexible and thus can become very complicated. We have recognized this issue and there are ongoing projects to see what we can do to help.

As for SMF not being compliant to XHTML, it is. Go validate a new install and it will pass as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. What you are thinking of is "semantic markup", a push to move presentation in CSS. There is no standard for this, it is just a style.

We do recognize the time has come for better markup, particularly as browsers that properly support CSS have become popular and workarounds have been developed for the one major one that doesn't. Changing the whole system takes time and pushing something out that is half-done isn't our style. We hope to have a default theme that will be fully-CSS driven where appropriate (tables will still be used where there is tabular data - the proper use for them) when 2.0 is out, but it is a lot of work to do.


Quote from: arod on December 31, 2007, 05:49:31 PM
i don't want to begin counting small stuff, like moderation queue, custom profile fields, user warning system, custom bbcode, post drafts&nbsp; etc. everything (or almost everything) here can be added as a package in smf, and nothing is critical

Moderation queue, custom profile fields, and user warning will all be part of the 2.0 release. I believe custom bbcode might be as well (I haven't looked to be sure). Most of those features can be added to SMF 1.1 as you stated.


Quote from: arod on December 31, 2007, 05:49:31 PM
bottom line: though each system has it's cons and pros, and there is no clear winner, for me, personally, the license is a deal-breaker for smf.

Look closer at our license, it really isn't that bad. The only things you can't do that you could under the GPL is distribute SMF yourself, distribute modified versions of SMF, and remove the visible copyright notice (under the GPL you must still leave in the notices in the code).

As I said above, private testing is allowed under the GPL (as long as you can make it not equate to the legal definition of distribution). Having a private development repository is also allowed. The only source you need to provide is that for the versions you distribute. That most projects have an open repository doesn't make it a requirement.

Anyway, I might have missed something, but I believe those are the major differences. If you find those to be unconscionable, then you are entitled to that opinion, but I will respectfully disagree with it.


Quote from: Spaceman-Spiff on December 31, 2007, 08:06:39 PM
Why do you care so much that everything must be GPL. Even GPL has its weaknesses. Just no one ever exploited phpBB enough yet in the past so they would care to switch license...

Funny story. The predecessor to SMF, YaBB SE, was under the GPL. A project called Supermod came along and lifted the YaBB SE code. With it, they added tons of modifications created for that system (a copyright mess in itself). This often created buggy, unsecure, code (not that YaBB SE was perfect, it had problems too). The problem came in that people often thought Supermod was YaBB SE. As a result, it gave the project a lot of undeserved negative attention. This is one of many reasons for the current license being the way it is.

As for switching licenses, unless phpBB requires copyright assignment for code that goes into their product, every person who has a line of code in that product would need to agree to a license switch for it to happen. This is one of the primary reasons many projects (including those managed by the FSF) require assignment.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on December 31, 2007, 08:21:50 PM
no it just pops up in my "unread messages" thingie...lol
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on December 31, 2007, 08:29:02 PM
Quote from: Alundra on December 31, 2007, 08:21:50 PM
no it just pops up in my "unread messages" thingie...lol

LOL! Must be a glitch, I get the same from a thread to which I unsubscribed to 4 or 5 months ago...

Happy New Year!
Gene
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Orstio on December 31, 2007, 08:37:47 PM
Quote from: Spaceman-Spiff on December 31, 2007, 08:06:39 PMI believe the SMF license was created before GPL v3 was released, and GPL v2 had poor protection on web scripts.

For the record, GPL v3 doesn't really offer any more protection for the script creator than GPL v2 did.  The major change from GPL v2 to v3 is that if the GPL is in conflict with local law (like  it is in Australia and New Zealand for example), the GPL overrides the local law.  The GPL guarantees the script creator a "no warranty" license, but that is not in accordance with laws in some parts of the world.  GPL v2 took no stance on that, and GPL v3 does.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: 青山 素子 on December 31, 2007, 08:54:46 PM
Quote from: gemigene on December 31, 2007, 08:29:02 PM
Quote from: Alundra on December 31, 2007, 08:21:50 PM
no it just pops up in my "unread messages" thingie...lol

LOL! Must be a glitch, I get the same from a thread to which I unsubscribed to 4 or 5 months ago...

Unread posts shows all posts to which one posted in which haven't been read yet. As of right now, there is no way to remove topics you aren't interested in from this list.


Quote from: Orstio on December 31, 2007, 08:37:47 PM
For the record, GPL v3 doesn't really offer any more protection for the script creator than GPL v2 did.  The major change from GPL v2 to v3 is that if the GPL is in conflict with local law (like  it is in Australia and New Zealand for example), the GPL overrides the local law.  The GPL guarantees the script creator a "no warranty" license, but that is not in accordance with laws in some parts of the world.  GPL v2 took no stance on that, and GPL v3 does.

Indeed. The only thing the GPL really cares about protecting is the code so others can use it. The biggest thing in GPL v3 is dealing with "TIVOisation" where the hardware locks you out of changing the GPL code on it because of DRM. It also deals with patents a bit more explicitly. It doesn't protect the original author, it just makes sure that once the code is out there, it can't be taken away.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Sverre on December 31, 2007, 09:02:02 PM
Quote from: Motoko-chan on December 31, 2007, 08:13:55 PM
Pre-release code for SMF 2.0 is planned, once we get the major bugs quashed. This usually happens in the RC stage. That is the way it always has been since SMF started.

I'm pretty sure both the 1.0 and 1.1 branches had public beta(s) :P
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on December 31, 2007, 10:16:06 PM
Quote from: Motoko-chan on December 31, 2007, 08:54:46 PM
Quote from: gemigene on December 31, 2007, 08:29:02 PM
Quote from: Alundra on December 31, 2007, 08:21:50 PM
no it just pops up in my "unread messages" thingie...lol

LOL! Must be a glitch, I get the same from a thread to which I unsubscribed to 4 or 5 months ago...

Unread posts shows all posts to which one posted in which haven't been read yet. As of right now, there is no way to remove topics you aren't interested in from this list.

/me wonders if phpBB3 has it :P
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: arod on January 01, 2008, 12:22:02 PM
Quote from: Spaceman-Spiff on December 31, 2007, 08:06:39 PMThere are plenty of Open-Source Licenses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Open_source_licenses) out there that aren't GPL. Mainly, one way or another, were created because they were not satisfied with GPL. I believe the SMF license was created before GPL v3 was released, and GPL v2 had poor protection on web scripts. That time the dev team considered other licenses, such as Affero (who has better coverage on web-scripts), but finally decided on a new license instead for better protection.

In a way, SMF is still a free software (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html), just more restrictive on redistribution rules.

Why do you care so much that everything must be GPL. Even GPL has its weaknesses. Just no one ever exploited phpBB enough yet in the past so they would care to switch license...
i absolutely do not want to begin a flame war or a "mine is bigger than yours" discussion, but please let me add a few words regarding the license:
true, there are many "open source" licenses.
i wouldn't mind at all if smf was released under apache license, bsd license, one of perl licenses (i believe perl and perl scripts are usually released with dual-license). there may be other well-known OS licenses i forgot. there is nothing especially sacred in GPL, except it's being the first and best known OS license.
however, i would not like it if every project would come with its own unique license. ianal, and don't wish to become one.
moreover, a license that prohibits re-distribution of the code in its original or modified form can not, under any reasonable sense of the word, be considered "Open Source" license.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Grudge on January 01, 2008, 01:10:43 PM
The original definition of open source (As per the literal meaning) was that the source code for software was available to users "In the clear" so to speak. Open source has been more commonly associated with the OSI and specifically the GPL license which defines a specific set of criteria in addition to the literal meaning of the word. I don't think it's unreasonable of us to state that SMF is an open source product, we allow users to freely use the software, modify it for themselves, and release patches to enable others to modify it as they wish (i.e. mods) - it's actually entirely inkeeping with what open source originally meant. I agree however that it would not be correct for us to state that we have a GPL/OSI compatible license as that is not the case as we do not allow redistribution without prior consent - particularly of derived works.

I agree that it's irritating that lots of software is released under varying proprietary licenses. Unfortunately as it currently stands I'm not aware of any license freely available that bridges the gap between fully commercial licenses and those on the other side like GPL. I'm sure that Simple Machines aren't the only group out there who believe in the open source principle but wish to protect themselves and their users from "branches" of their product - something that continues to be the main sticking point for SMF not being GPL (I don't believe various forks of SMF would benefit either ourselves or our users).

The other thing I'd love to find a way of writing into a license is somehow guaranteeing the availability of the software in the event that the organisation behind it ceases to be. Whilst SMF continues to be actively developed (And I see no reason why that would ever stop) things are fine - but in the unlikely event that Simple Machines were to wind up there is no mechanism within the license to allow someone else to take up the software. Short of making some extremely complex wording such as "If there is no release of the software within xxx months the clause disallowing redistribution will cease to have effect" which I doubt holds any legal weight I have no idea how we could do such a thing.

At the end of the day I've never seem the big issue with what license something is released under as long as it is free. The fact is that unlike some software types it's a sinch to migrate to another forum software if you really want. If we were to stop developing SMF tomorrow people could easily convert to phpBB, vB, IPB etc. Similarly if phpBB stopped developing tomorrow I suspect most users would convert to a "proper" forum packages out there rather than pick one of the "forked" phpBB software which, from my experience - and only in general, tend to tarnish phpBB's reputation rather than improve it as they are often "phpBB on acid" and hence buggy, unsecure and lead to users unfairly associating them with phpBB.

Anyway, clearly this is not very much related to phpBB as per the topic starter.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on January 01, 2008, 04:19:56 PM
Quote from: Alundra on December 31, 2007, 10:16:06 PM
Quote from: Motoko-chan on December 31, 2007, 08:54:46 PM
Quote from: gemigene on December 31, 2007, 08:29:02 PM
Quote from: Alundra on December 31, 2007, 08:21:50 PM
no it just pops up in my "unread messages" thingie...lol

Wish I could tell you, never got past the permissions system, designed for people who studied Quantum Physics.

I know that version 2.0.22 didn't have that glitch.

Cheers,
Gene


LOL! Must be a glitch, I get the same from a thread to which I unsubscribed to 4 or 5 months ago...

Unread posts shows all posts to which one posted in which haven't been read yet. As of right now, there is no way to remove topics you aren't interested in from this list.

/me wonders if phpBB3 has it :P
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: arod on January 01, 2008, 05:05:08 PM
Quote from: Motoko-chan on December 31, 2007, 08:13:55 PM
SMF templating can be a mess, yes. It is very flexible and thus can become very complicated. We have recognized this issue and there are ongoing projects to see what we can do to help.

As for SMF not being compliant to XHTML, it is. Go validate a new install and it will pass as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. What you are thinking of is "semantic markup", a push to move presentation in CSS. There is no standard for this, it is just a style.
again, i don't want to be a pita, but please allow me a small comment:
smf "templating" system, as per the most common use of the word is no templating at all.
the objective of a templating system, (e.g. SMARTY) is to create a complete separation (or, at least, as complete as possible while still making sense) between the visual/appearance (aka "html") side, and the code.
smf "templates" are large pieces of php code. the only thing that makes them "templates" is the fact that most of this code is meant to generate html.
this, by most common use of the word, is not a "template system". i hope that with the next version, smf's templating system will be what's most people call a templating system.
(btw: if smf used gpl for it's license, i would have strongly recommend to take smarty "as is" and implant it as a part of smf. if you could do that, you would have leapfrogged phpbb, which took parts of smarty and parts of other projects, and mangled them into something significantly inferior to smarty, though still superior to what smf uses.)

as to compliance: my bad. the source of my mistake is that this page (  http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?action=post;board=33.0 ) does not validate, so i assumed it's the forum software. i was wrong. from what i can see, the forum itself validates perfectly. please accept my apology for this wrong accusation.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Grudge on January 01, 2008, 05:25:47 PM
The template system in SMF is one of those things which I've often thought about how to improve and it's difficult to find a better system. The great thing about the SMF system is it's fast (Native PHP) and extremely flexible (As you're not constrained by another layer). I've used Smarty only briefly but didn't really think it's suitable - it's certainly not something we'd incorporate into the code - if we went in another direction with templates we'd write it ourselves to ensure it's optimised for SMF (Using a library is great for standalone websites but when you're making a product you can't afford to use something which more than likely has considerable superflorous features).

In my view if we do reengineer the template system in the future (And it certainly wouldn't make it in 2.0 as it's a huge task) we'd go for an XML based system, using HTML tags for display and dedicated xml tags for PHP constructs (<smf:for>, <smf:if> etc). We'd then compile these XML templates into PHP and cache them to ensure they run as fast as possible. Such a system would probably allow for both XML and traditional PHP type templates - although how we dealt with mods would be a challenge.

arod, I can assure you that we think and discuss about these things all the time as a team - the real challenge is knowing what to prioritise to ensuse we incorporate those elements that will benefit the majority of users the most.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on January 01, 2008, 05:40:27 PM
I agree with the above but please keep in mind that some forum admins may want to "minimize" info (messenger services, website info, certain options, etc.) for boards of a very sensitive nature (drug dependency, mental illnesses, the handicapped, private institutional forums, etc.), phpBB 2.0.22 was quite accommodating in that respect, all you had to do was comment out the fields in the appropriate templates.

Cheers,
Gene
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Grudge on January 01, 2008, 05:54:36 PM
SMF 2.0 offers an admin interface for disabling ICQ, MSN, YIM, AOL, Location, Gender, Website and Posts - although this acts across the whole board (Not just no post display). You can of course also comment out the field in the templates if you wish but we thought an admin setting was a nice thing to have.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on January 01, 2008, 06:11:27 PM
Fantastic, can't wait for it to be released to the general public.

BTW, I'm putting together a new forum called "The Forum Software Discussion Board" for novice, intermediate and experienced forum software users alike to review and openly discuss the worthiness as well as the flaws of forum software packages in the hopes that this Forum will guide users to their software package of choice.

I'm using SMF for this community.

Cheers,
Gene
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on January 01, 2008, 06:22:13 PM
Quote from: Grudge on January 01, 2008, 05:54:36 PM
SMF 2.0 offers an admin interface for disabling ICQ, MSN, YIM, AOL, Location, Gender, Website and Posts - although this acts across the whole board (Not just no post display). You can of course also comment out the field in the templates if you wish but we thought an admin setting was a nice thing to have.

thats for sure

(i just deleted it from the templates lol)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Rudolf on January 01, 2008, 06:34:43 PM
Quote from: arod on January 01, 2008, 05:05:08 PM
again, i don't want to be a pita, but please allow me a small comment:
smf "templating" system, as per the most common use of the word is no templating at all.
the objective of a templating system, (e.g. SMARTY) is to create a complete separation (or, at least, as complete as possible while still making sense) between the visual/appearance (aka "html") side, and the code.
smf "templates" are large pieces of php code. the only thing that makes them "templates" is the fact that most of this code is meant to generate html.
this, by most common use of the word, is not a "template system". i hope that with the next version, smf's templating system will be what's most people call a templating system.
(btw: if smf used gpl for it's license, i would have strongly recommend to take smarty "as is" and implant it as a part of smf. if you could do that, you would have leapfrogged phpbb, which took parts of smarty and parts of other projects, and mangled them into something significantly inferior to smarty, though still superior to what smf uses.)
For me the definition of the templating system is not this. A templating system is meant to be a thing to help separate the business logic from the presentation logic.
Smarty in no way does that. (people who use it could do it, but I haven't found such people yet) Smarty basically creates a simplified programming language to create HTML. Smarty has control structures, variables, functions (in the way of transformations) and whatnot. Smarty is meant to generate HTML pages just like PHP does.
In fact all Smarty does is to translate your Smarty(pants) code into native PHP code.
I've said many times before, and I'll reiterate. If someone can't understand some basic information about PHP, like the echo command, concatenating strings, what variables are, how to use them, they will not be able to understand Smarty either.
Believe me, I have direct contact with Smarty and people who use it. I am forced to interact with dozens of people (webmasters) using Smarty since years, and they still don't have a clue of what they are doing.

For what it worths, the templating system in SMF is one of the things that shouldn't be touched. There are always small tweaks to apply to make it more flexible, but mostly trivial changes that don't affect the structure.
I don't see what would be to gain from replacing loadTemplate('Profile'); with $Smarty->display('Profile.tpl');


Let's talk when you understood the difference between business logic and presentation logic.

Rant over.
And don't get me started.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: elfishtroll on January 01, 2008, 10:28:58 PM
@Rudolf, thanks for saying so succinctly about Smarty what I^ve been swearing at me whole life!
@grudge
Quote from: Grudge on January 01, 2008, 01:10:43 PMThe original definition of open source (As per the literal meaning) was that the source code for software was available to users ~In the clear~ so to speak. Open source has been more commonly associated with the OSI and specifically the GPL license which defines a specific set of criteria in addition to the literal meaning of the word. I don^t think it^s unreasonable of us to state that SMF is an open source product, we allow users to freely use the software, modify it for themselves, and release patches to enable others to modify it as they wish (i.e. mods) - it^s actually entirely inkeeping with what open source originally meant.  I agree however that it would not be correct for us to state that we have a GPL/OSI compatible license  as that is not the case as we do not allow redistribution without prior consent  - particularly of derived works.  I agree that it^s irritating that lots of software is released under varying proprietary licenses.  Unfortunately as it currently stands I^m not aware of any license freely available that bridges  the gap between fully commercial licenses and those on the other side like GPL.  I^m sure that Simple Machines aren^t the only group out there who believe in the open source principle  but wish to protect themselves and their users from ~branches~ of their product -  something that continues to be the main sticking point for SMF not being GPL  (I don^t believe various forks of SMF would benefit either ourselves or our users).  *The other thing I^d love to find a way of writing into a license is somehow guaranteeing the availability of the software  in the event that the organisation behind it ceases to be. * Whilst SMF continues to be actively developed (And I see no reason why that would ever stop)  things are fine - but in the unlikely event that Simple Machines were to wind up  there is no mechanism within the license to allow someone else to take up the software.   Short of making some extremely complex wording such as ~If there is no release of the software  within xxx months the clause disallowing redistribution will cease to have effect~  which I doubt holds any legal weight I have no idea how we could do such a thing.  At the end of the day I^ve never seem the big issue with what license something is released under as long as it is free.  The fact is that unlike some software types it^s a sinch to migrate to another forum software if you really want.   If we were to stop developing SMF tomorrow people could easily convert to phpBB, vB, IPB etc.  Similarly if phpBB stopped developing tomorrow I suspect most users would convert to a ~proper~  forum packages out there rather than pick one of the ~forked~ phpBB software which, from my experience -  and only in general, tend to tarnish phpBB^s reputation rather than improve it as they are often ~phpBB on acid~  and hence buggy, unsecure and lead to users unfairly associating them with phpBB. * Anyway, clearly this is not very much related to phpBB as per the topic starter.

*Actually Grudge, I disagree with you, I feel your comments are VERY MUCH ON TOPIC!  There are many things that go into a purchasing decision (and I say purchase, for although both products are ostensibly free, there is a TCO  (total cost of Ownership) that wil exist for both, regardless.) I also dont feel that your license ^expiration^ clause is particularly onerous, complex nor impossible.  The SMF license protects SMF rights as an ongoing software development concern. The ~Ongoing development project~ can be defined by ~x # of updates releases per calendar year~   obviously, if people have ^bought^ SMF and the company goes away, then there should be a provision to allow them to take over where SMF left off. The real reason to NOT have a clause like you describe would be the idea of Simple Machine Forums being superseded some time in the future (as SMF superseded YABBSE) with a pay or otherwise commercial version built on the knowledge base (if not the codebase) of previous SMF development.In that case, the org would need to be able to transition ALL of the previous SMF base and wouldnt want it to remain behind with a splinter group.Personally, that wouldnt bother me in the slightest, I^ve compared SMF against VB and IPB in quite a few situations where COST IS NO OBJECT (@programmers: cost was an inherited class :P) and chose SMF each time. Some of those choices were not mine alone but part of a team via a decision matrix drawn up by people unfamiliar with forum software in general.the biggest part I have a problem with though is [quo*te]1) A**t the end of the day I^ve never seem the big issue with what license something is released under as long as it is free. 2) The fact is that unlike some software types its a cinch to migrate to another forum software if you really want.


The problem with 1) is... what is ~free~ and ~freedom~?Would you like a 52 inch flat screen tv, but the license stipulated that the ONLY use to which it could be put was watching  single 10 second loop of some video?The affero license indicates if you deploy a covered app on a website, EVERYONE who connects to your website app, is entitled to a copy of the code INCLUDING ANY MODS you^ve made. THAT would preclude me from using it, not just the disclosure issues of releasing code, but the *administrative overhead* of dealing with source code requests.It^s also not a CINCH by any means to convert forums of any reasonable size and/or user base. You see, the issues you face then aren^t just  code or mapping of field type to field type, but raw physical issues of a huge unwieldy database, different log in and posting behaviors, user interface, DIFFERENT SEMANTICS (you say ~DELETE POST~ I say ~expire text~.. when you ~delete~ it^s gone for good, my similarly named action only hides it, and so on)

Again, I see your perspective as a programmer, not as an end-user or site admin and I understand it.Respectively though, after um...~trolling~ this forum for over two years, I strongly believe that some *^cross disciplinary training* ^is DEFINITELY needed - staffers HAVE to walk in someone else^s shoes/wear other hats/roles for a while to better appreciate the issues the other party faces.
In that, I am convinced that the MOTM was not only useful, but ESSENTIAL no matter the cost as the benefits will be great.In fact, I predict a MAJOR SHIFT for SMF in 2008 as the cross-pollination bears fruit!  :

I think that SMF in the future will evolve to have TWO main extension mechanisms.  The existing source code delta based modification manager, and a plugin based type of code integration.like wordpress or joomla etc





(note: There\\\'s a big bug in the parser that TOTALLY MANGLES a post, inserting spurious BBC code etc, if the post has that escape/back quote character! (the one under the tilde ~ on most keyboards!)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Dannii on January 01, 2008, 11:05:57 PM
QuoteIn my view if we do reengineer the template system in the future (And it certainly wouldn't make it in 2.0 as it's a huge task) we'd go for an XML based system, using HTML tags for display and dedicated xml tags for PHP constructs (<smf:for>, <smf:if> etc). We'd then compile these XML templates into PHP and cache them to ensure they run as fast as possible. Such a system would probably allow for both XML and traditional PHP type templates - although how we dealt with mods would be a challenge.
Sounds great :)

elfishtroll, fix your quote please.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Ben_S on January 02, 2008, 04:34:06 AM
Quote from: Grudge on January 01, 2008, 05:25:47 PM
I've used Smarty only briefly but didn't really think it's suitable - it's certainly not something we'd incorporate into the code

Smarty is horribly complex (well not really) more so that simple php echo statements as SMF currently uses. I think most of the time people see a bit of php and automatically assume it must be hard. ::)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: motumbo on February 05, 2008, 09:18:03 PM
Quote from: Grudge on January 01, 2008, 01:10:43 PMI agree however that it would not be correct for us to state that we have a GPL/OSI compatible license as that is not the case as we do not allow redistribution without prior consent - particularly of derived works.

What is SMF afraid of?  :-\

I'll have to think about that one for...oh, about 1/10th a second.  I think:  SMF is afraid of losing control of the forum because they know that if they changed the licensing structure that someone would create an offshoot of SMF.

It's all about control.  Even if that control means that SMF continues to fall behind the competition.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: karlbenson on February 05, 2008, 09:27:31 PM
Control can work both ways.  Off-shoots/forking of projects can work both ways aswell.
IMO the GPL is overrated.

I still think SMF is comparable to vBulletin who I would describe as the 'market leader'.

I don't think PHPBB3 comes close to 1.1.x nevermind 2.0.
PHPBB3 has always been good at design, but bad at security. Although from the exploit sites I peruse, PHPBB3 has had fewer exploits than previous releases.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Bigguy on February 05, 2008, 09:30:36 PM
I really DON'T think we are falling behind anyone to tell you the truth. phpbb has always been a mess in my opinion and as for the rest; I think they are way over priced for what you get. SMF is the only way to go.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: motumbo on February 05, 2008, 09:37:35 PM
I can understand you people's loyalty to SMF.  However, denying the fact that phpBB3 is nice isn't going to get you anywhere.  It is nice.  Very nice.

I will agree that phpBB2 was a mess.  That's why I chose SMF.  :)

I'll have to look into phpBB3's alleged security vulnerabilities.  phpBB2 was full of holes.  A couple of time I visited phpBB2 forums that got hacked.  From a webmaster's perspective, that has to be a terrible violation.  I would probably feel the same as if my house were burglarized. 

SMF does have a good record on security.  There is no denying that.



Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Bigguy on February 05, 2008, 09:41:39 PM
I like the template of the new phpbb3 but other than that I say it is still a mess and not nearly as easy to use or modify code in as SMF.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Gary on February 05, 2008, 09:41:54 PM
Quote from: motumbo on February 05, 2008, 09:37:35 PM
However, denying the fact that phpBB3 is nice isn't going to get you anywhere.  It is nice.  Very nice.

Nor is denying the fact that phpBB 3 to some people can be horrible going to get you anywhere. It's all a matter of opinion.

And at the moment, I remain unopinionated as I've not properly had a chance to use it yet.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: motumbo on February 05, 2008, 10:15:38 PM
Quote from: Bigguy on February 05, 2008, 09:41:39 PM
I like the template of the new phpbb3 but other than that I say it is still a mess and not nearly as easy to use or modify code in as SMF.

You must be joking.

The phpBB3 code is beautiful.  The code is broken up to do small, discrete things.  SMF, by comparison, has everything including the kitchen sink in the same function.  And sometimes, you'll have essentially duplicate code in multiple places. 


// Show the board index!
function BoardIndex()
{
global $txt, $scripturl, $db_prefix, $ID_MEMBER, $user_info, $sourcedir;
global $modSettings, $context, $settings;

// For wireless, we use the Wireless template...
if (WIRELESS)
$context['sub_template'] = WIRELESS_PROTOCOL . '_boardindex';
else
loadTemplate('BoardIndex');

// Remember the most recent topic for optimizing the recent posts feature.
$most_recent_topic = array(
'timestamp' => 0,
'ref' => null
);

// Find all boards and categories, as well as related information.  This will be sorted by the natural order of boards and categories, which we control.
$result_boards = db_query("
SELECT
c.name AS catName, c.ID_CAT, b.ID_BOARD, b.name AS boardName, b.description,
b.numPosts, b.numTopics, b.ID_PARENT, IFNULL(m.posterTime, 0) AS posterTime,
IFNULL(mem.memberName, m.posterName) AS posterName, m.subject, m.ID_TOPIC,
IFNULL(mem.realName, m.posterName) AS realName," . ($user_info['is_guest'] ? "
1 AS isRead, 0 AS new_from" : "
(IFNULL(lb.ID_MSG, 0) >= b.ID_MSG_UPDATED) AS isRead, IFNULL(lb.ID_MSG, -1) + 1 AS new_from,
c.canCollapse, IFNULL(cc.ID_MEMBER, 0) AS isCollapsed") . ",
IFNULL(mem.ID_MEMBER, 0) AS ID_MEMBER, m.ID_MSG,
IFNULL(mods_mem.ID_MEMBER, 0) AS ID_MODERATOR, mods_mem.realName AS modRealName
FROM {$db_prefix}boards AS b
LEFT JOIN {$db_prefix}categories AS c ON (c.ID_CAT = b.ID_CAT)
LEFT JOIN {$db_prefix}messages AS m ON (m.ID_MSG = b.ID_LAST_MSG)
LEFT JOIN {$db_prefix}members AS mem ON (mem.ID_MEMBER = m.ID_MEMBER)" . (!$user_info['is_guest'] ? "
LEFT JOIN {$db_prefix}log_boards AS lb ON (lb.ID_BOARD = b.ID_BOARD AND lb.ID_MEMBER = $ID_MEMBER)
LEFT JOIN {$db_prefix}collapsed_categories AS cc ON (cc.ID_CAT = c.ID_CAT AND cc.ID_MEMBER = $ID_MEMBER)" : '') . "
LEFT JOIN {$db_prefix}moderators AS mods ON (mods.ID_BOARD = b.ID_BOARD)
LEFT JOIN {$db_prefix}members AS mods_mem ON (mods_mem.ID_MEMBER = mods.ID_MEMBER)
WHERE $user_info[query_see_board]" . (empty($modSettings['countChildPosts']) ? "
AND b.childLevel <= 1" : ''), __FILE__, __LINE__);

// Run through the categories and boards....
$context['categories'] = array();
while ($row_board = mysql_fetch_assoc($result_boards))
{
// Haven't set this category yet.
if (empty($context['categories'][$row_board['ID_CAT']]))
{
$context['categories'][$row_board['ID_CAT']] = array(
'id' => $row_board['ID_CAT'],
'name' => $row_board['catName'],
'is_collapsed' => isset($row_board['canCollapse']) && $row_board['canCollapse'] == 1 && $row_board['isCollapsed'] > 0,
'can_collapse' => isset($row_board['canCollapse']) && $row_board['canCollapse'] == 1,
'collapse_href' => isset($row_board['canCollapse']) ? $scripturl . '?action=collapse;c=' . $row_board['ID_CAT'] . ';sa=' . ($row_board['isCollapsed'] > 0 ? 'expand' : 'collapse;') . '#' . $row_board['ID_CAT'] : '',
'collapse_image' => isset($row_board['canCollapse']) ? '<img src="' . $settings['images_url'] . '/' . ($row_board['isCollapsed'] > 0 ? 'expand.gif" alt="+"' : 'collapse.gif" alt="-"') . ' border="0" />' : '',
'href' => $scripturl . '#' . $row_board['ID_CAT'],
'boards' => array(),
'new' => false
);
$context['categories'][$row_board['ID_CAT']]['link'] = '<a name="' . $row_board['ID_CAT'] . '" href="' . (isset($row_board['canCollapse']) ? $context['categories'][$row_board['ID_CAT']]['collapse_href'] : $context['categories'][$row_board['ID_CAT']]['href']) . '">' . $row_board['catName'] . '</a>';
}

// If this board has new posts in it (and isn't the recycle bin!) then the category is new.
if (empty($modSettings['recycle_enable']) || $modSettings['recycle_board'] != $row_board['ID_BOARD'])
$context['categories'][$row_board['ID_CAT']]['new'] |= empty($row_board['isRead']) && $row_board['posterName'] != '';

// Collapsed category - don't do any of this.
if ($context['categories'][$row_board['ID_CAT']]['is_collapsed'])
continue;

// Let's save some typing.  Climbing the array might be slower, anyhow.
$this_category = &$context['categories'][$row_board['ID_CAT']]['boards'];

// This is a parent board.
if (empty($row_board['ID_PARENT']))
{
// Is this a new board, or just another moderator?
if (!isset($this_category[$row_board['ID_BOARD']]))
{
// Not a child.
$isChild = false;

$this_category[$row_board['ID_BOARD']] = array(
'new' => empty($row_board['isRead']),
'id' => $row_board['ID_BOARD'],
'name' => $row_board['boardName'],
'description' => $row_board['description'],
'moderators' => array(),
'link_moderators' => array(),
'children' => array(),
'link_children' => array(),
'children_new' => false,
'topics' => $row_board['numTopics'],
'posts' => $row_board['numPosts'],
'href' => $scripturl . '?board=' . $row_board['ID_BOARD'] . '.0',
'link' => '<a href="' . $scripturl . '?board=' . $row_board['ID_BOARD'] . '.0">' . $row_board['boardName'] . '</a>'
);
}
if (!empty($row_board['ID_MODERATOR']))
{
$this_category[$row_board['ID_BOARD']]['moderators'][$row_board['ID_MODERATOR']] = array(
'id' => $row_board['ID_MODERATOR'],
'name' => $row_board['modRealName'],
'href' => $scripturl . '?action=profile;u=' . $row_board['ID_MODERATOR'],
'link' => '<a href="' . $scripturl . '?action=profile;u=' . $row_board['ID_MODERATOR'] . '" title="' . $txt[62] . '">' . $row_board['modRealName'] . '</a>'
);
$this_category[$row_board['ID_BOARD']]['link_moderators'][] = '<a href="' . $scripturl . '?action=profile;u=' . $row_board['ID_MODERATOR'] . '" title="' . $txt[62] . '">' . $row_board['modRealName'] . '</a>';
}
}
// Found a child board.... make sure we've found its parent and the child hasn't been set already.
elseif (isset($this_category[$row_board['ID_PARENT']]['children']) && !isset($this_category[$row_board['ID_PARENT']]['children'][$row_board['ID_BOARD']]))
{
// A valid child!
$isChild = true;

$this_category[$row_board['ID_PARENT']]['children'][$row_board['ID_BOARD']] = array(
'id' => $row_board['ID_BOARD'],
'name' => $row_board['boardName'],
'description' => $row_board['description'],
'new' => empty($row_board['isRead']) && $row_board['posterName'] != '',
'topics' => $row_board['numTopics'],
'posts' => $row_board['numPosts'],
'href' => $scripturl . '?board=' . $row_board['ID_BOARD'] . '.0',
'link' => '<a href="' . $scripturl . '?board=' . $row_board['ID_BOARD'] . '.0">' . $row_board['boardName'] . '</a>'
);

// Counting child board posts is... slow :/.
if (!empty($modSettings['countChildPosts']))
{
$this_category[$row_board['ID_PARENT']]['posts'] += $row_board['numPosts'];
$this_category[$row_board['ID_PARENT']]['topics'] += $row_board['numTopics'];
}

// Does this board contain new boards?
$this_category[$row_board['ID_PARENT']]['children_new'] |= empty($row_board['isRead']);

// This is easier to use in many cases for the theme....
$this_category[$row_board['ID_PARENT']]['link_children'][] = &$this_category[$row_board['ID_PARENT']]['children'][$row_board['ID_BOARD']]['link'];
}
// Child of a child... just add it on...
elseif (!empty($modSettings['countChildPosts']))
{
if (!isset($parent_map))
$parent_map = array();

if (!isset($parent_map[$row_board['ID_PARENT']]))
foreach ($this_category as $id => $board)
{
if (!isset($board['children'][$row_board['ID_PARENT']]))
continue;

$parent_map[$row_board['ID_PARENT']] = array(&$this_category[$id], &$this_category[$id]['children'][$row_board['ID_PARENT']]);
$parent_map[$row_board['ID_BOARD']] = array(&$this_category[$id], &$this_category[$id]['children'][$row_board['ID_PARENT']]);

break;
}

if (isset($parent_map[$row_board['ID_PARENT']]))
{
$parent_map[$row_board['ID_PARENT']][0]['posts'] += $row_board['numPosts'];
$parent_map[$row_board['ID_PARENT']][0]['topics'] += $row_board['numTopics'];
$parent_map[$row_board['ID_PARENT']][1]['posts'] += $row_board['numPosts'];
$parent_map[$row_board['ID_PARENT']][1]['topics'] += $row_board['numTopics'];

continue;
}

continue;
}
// Found a child of a child - skip.
else
continue;

// Prepare the subject, and make sure it's not too long.
censorText($row_board['subject']);
$row_board['short_subject'] = shorten_subject($row_board['subject'], 24);
$this_last_post = array(
'id' => $row_board['ID_MSG'],
'time' => $row_board['posterTime'] > 0 ? timeformat($row_board['posterTime']) : $txt[470],
'timestamp' => forum_time(true, $row_board['posterTime']),
'subject' => $row_board['short_subject'],
'member' => array(
'id' => $row_board['ID_MEMBER'],
'username' => $row_board['posterName'] != '' ? $row_board['posterName'] : $txt[470],
'name' => $row_board['realName'],
'href' => $row_board['posterName'] != '' && !empty($row_board['ID_MEMBER']) ? $scripturl . '?action=profile;u=' . $row_board['ID_MEMBER'] : '',
'link' => $row_board['posterName'] != '' ? (!empty($row_board['ID_MEMBER']) ? '<a href="' . $scripturl . '?action=profile;u=' . $row_board['ID_MEMBER'] . '">' . $row_board['realName'] . '</a>' : $row_board['realName']) : $txt[470],
),
'start' => 'msg' . $row_board['new_from'],
'topic' => $row_board['ID_TOPIC']
);

// Provide the href and link.
if ($row_board['subject'] != '')
{
$this_last_post['href'] = $scripturl . '?topic=' . $row_board['ID_TOPIC'] . '.msg' . ($user_info['is_guest'] ? $modSettings['maxMsgID'] : $row_board['new_from']) . (empty($row_board['isRead']) ? ';boardseen' : '') . '#new';
$this_last_post['link'] = '<a href="' . $this_last_post['href'] . '" title="' . $row_board['subject'] . '">' . $row_board['short_subject'] . '</a>';
}
else
{
$this_last_post['href'] = '';
$this_last_post['link'] = $txt[470];
}

// Set the last post in the parent board.
if (empty($row_board['ID_PARENT']) || ($isChild && !empty($row_board['posterTime']) && $this_category[$row_board['ID_PARENT']]['last_post']['timestamp'] < forum_time(true, $row_board['posterTime'])))
$this_category[$isChild ? $row_board['ID_PARENT'] : $row_board['ID_BOARD']]['last_post'] = $this_last_post;
// Just in the child...?
if ($isChild)
{
$this_category[$row_board['ID_PARENT']]['children'][$row_board['ID_BOARD']]['last_post'] = $this_last_post;

// If there are no posts in this board, it really can't be new...
$this_category[$row_board['ID_PARENT']]['children'][$row_board['ID_BOARD']]['new'] &= $row_board['posterName'] != '';
}
// No last post for this board?  It's not new then, is it..?
elseif ($row_board['posterName'] == '')
$this_category[$row_board['ID_BOARD']]['new'] = false;

// Determine a global most recent topic.
if (!empty($row_board['posterTime']) && forum_time(true, $row_board['posterTime']) > $most_recent_topic['timestamp'])
$most_recent_topic = array(
'timestamp' => forum_time(true, $row_board['posterTime']),
'ref' => &$this_category[$isChild ? $row_board['ID_PARENT'] : $row_board['ID_BOARD']]['last_post'],
);
}
mysql_free_result($result_boards);

// Load the users online right now.
$result = db_query("
SELECT
lo.ID_MEMBER, lo.logTime, mem.realName, mem.memberName, mem.showOnline,
mg.onlineColor, mg.ID_GROUP, mg.groupName
FROM {$db_prefix}log_online AS lo
LEFT JOIN {$db_prefix}members AS mem ON (mem.ID_MEMBER = lo.ID_MEMBER)
LEFT JOIN {$db_prefix}membergroups AS mg ON (mg.ID_GROUP = IF(mem.ID_GROUP = 0, mem.ID_POST_GROUP, mem.ID_GROUP))", __FILE__, __LINE__);

$context['users_online'] = array();
$context['list_users_online'] = array();
$context['online_groups'] = array();
$context['num_guests'] = 0;
$context['num_buddies'] = 0;
$context['num_users_hidden'] = 0;

$context['show_buddies'] = !empty($user_info['buddies']);

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{
if (empty($row['realName']))
{
$context['num_guests']++;
continue;
}
elseif (empty($row['showOnline']) && !allowedTo('moderate_forum'))
{
$context['num_users_hidden']++;
continue;
}

// Some basic color coding...
if (!empty($row['onlineColor']))
$link = '<a href="' . $scripturl . '?action=profile;u=' . $row['ID_MEMBER'] . '" style="color: ' . $row['onlineColor'] . ';">' . $row['realName'] . '</a>';
else
$link = '<a href="' . $scripturl . '?action=profile;u=' . $row['ID_MEMBER'] . '">' . $row['realName'] . '</a>';

$is_buddy = in_array($row['ID_MEMBER'], $user_info['buddies']);
if ($is_buddy)
{
$context['num_buddies']++;
$link = '<b>' . $link . '</b>';
}

$context['users_online'][$row['logTime'] . $row['memberName']] = array(
'id' => $row['ID_MEMBER'],
'username' => $row['memberName'],
'name' => $row['realName'],
'group' => $row['ID_GROUP'],
'href' => $scripturl . '?action=profile;u=' . $row['ID_MEMBER'],
'link' => $link,
'is_buddy' => $is_buddy,
'hidden' => empty($row['showOnline']),
);

$context['list_users_online'][$row['logTime'] . $row['memberName']] = empty($row['showOnline']) ? '<i>' . $link . '</i>' : $link;

if (!isset($context['online_groups'][$row['ID_GROUP']]))
$context['online_groups'][$row['ID_GROUP']] = array(
'id' => $row['ID_GROUP'],
'name' => $row['groupName'],
'color' => $row['onlineColor']
);
}
mysql_free_result($result);

krsort($context['users_online']);
krsort($context['list_users_online']);
ksort($context['online_groups']);

$context['num_users_online'] = count($context['users_online']) + $context['num_users_hidden'];

// Track most online statistics?
if (!empty($modSettings['trackStats']))
{
// Determine the most users online - both all time and per day.
$total_users = $context['num_guests'] + $context['num_users_online'];

// More members on now than ever were?  Update it!
if (!isset($modSettings['mostOnline']) || $total_users >= $modSettings['mostOnline'])
updateSettings(array('mostOnline' => $total_users, 'mostDate' => time()));

$date = strftime('%Y-%m-%d', forum_time(false));

// One or more stats are not up-to-date?
if (!isset($modSettings['mostOnlineUpdated']) || $modSettings['mostOnlineUpdated'] != $date)
{
$request = db_query("
SELECT mostOn
FROM {$db_prefix}log_activity
WHERE date = '$date'
LIMIT 1", __FILE__, __LINE__);

// The log_activity hasn't got an entry for today?
if (mysql_num_rows($request) == 0)
{
db_query("
INSERT IGNORE INTO {$db_prefix}log_activity
(date, mostOn)
VALUES ('$date', $total_users)", __FILE__, __LINE__);
}
// There's an entry in log_activity on today...
else
{
list ($modSettings['mostOnlineToday']) = mysql_fetch_row($request);

if ($total_users > $modSettings['mostOnlineToday'])
trackStats(array('mostOn' => $total_users));

$total_users = max($total_users, $modSettings['mostOnlineToday']);
}
mysql_free_result($request);

updateSettings(array('mostOnlineUpdated' => $date, 'mostOnlineToday' => $total_users));
}
// Highest number of users online today?
elseif ($total_users > $modSettings['mostOnlineToday'])
{
trackStats(array('mostOn' => $total_users));
updateSettings(array('mostOnlineUpdated' => $date, 'mostOnlineToday' => $total_users));
}
}

// Set the latest member.
$context['latest_member'] = &$context['common_stats']['latest_member'];

// Load the most recent post?
if ((!empty($settings['number_recent_posts']) && $settings['number_recent_posts'] == 1) || $settings['show_sp1_info'])
$context['latest_post'] = $most_recent_topic['ref'];

if (!empty($settings['number_recent_posts']) && $settings['number_recent_posts'] > 1)
{
require_once($sourcedir . '/Recent.php');

if (($context['latest_posts'] = cache_get_data('boardindex-latest_posts:' . md5($user_info['query_see_board'] . $user_info['language']), 180)) == null)
{
$context['latest_posts'] = getLastPosts($settings['number_recent_posts']);
cache_put_data('boardindex-latest_posts:' . md5($user_info['query_see_board'] . $user_info['language']), $context['latest_posts'], 180);
}

// We have to clean up the cached data a bit.
foreach ($context['latest_posts'] as $k => $post)
{
$context['latest_posts'][$k]['time'] = timeformat($post['raw_timestamp']);
$context['latest_posts'][$k]['timestamp'] = forum_time(true, $post['raw_timestamp']);
}
}

$settings['display_recent_bar'] = !empty($settings['number_recent_posts']) ? $settings['number_recent_posts'] : 0;
$settings['show_member_bar'] &= allowedTo('view_mlist');
$context['show_stats'] = allowedTo('view_stats') && !empty($modSettings['trackStats']);
$context['show_member_list'] = allowedTo('view_mlist');
$context['show_who'] = allowedTo('who_view') && !empty($modSettings['who_enabled']);

// Set some permission related settings.
$context['show_login_bar'] = $user_info['is_guest'] && !empty($modSettings['enableVBStyleLogin']);
$context['show_calendar'] = allowedTo('calendar_view') && !empty($modSettings['cal_enabled']);

// Load the calendar?
if ($context['show_calendar'])
$context['show_calendar'] = calendarDoIndex();

$context['page_title'] = $txt[18];
}


Is that pretty code?
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Bigguy on February 05, 2008, 10:20:00 PM
Looks like it has changed A BIT since I last tried to modify code on a phpbb forum. I still stand by what I said though. As far as I am concerned (for me anyway) SMF is a lot easier.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on February 05, 2008, 10:28:52 PM
Wow that's sexy code :D
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: SleePy on February 05, 2008, 10:45:01 PM
I got to say I like the way phpbb3 has done some of their code. its in nice small sections so you can very easily disable something. I don't like classes or oop so its not my favorite style of what they have done.
The look is ok, I wouldn't of chosen it personally but it is very clean and doesn't us tables in the wrong places. They have taken some steps to hopefully be better at security, that is good considering their past I see them attempting to change what people see wrong with phpbb. Though I can only say they will have issues as long as they use gpl and allow other developers to take their work and mod the hell out of it.

But for in it all, I say they have done a good job and have sparked interest in other projects for the features they have at the  moment thats others don't have. Because of this I know people will request features for smf to have that phpbb has and thats cool :)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 06, 2008, 04:57:09 PM
Quotephpbb team's attitude leaves a lot to be desired. this is true both on their site and in the way they deal with user's requests. (a nice example is their stubborn refusal to even consider quick-reply)

Their attitude does stink, just take a look at the number of threads which have been locked due to criticism.

This kind of attitude will push a lot of newbies and non-techies into trying out other forum software.

Also has the worse permission system I've ever seen, way too complex for nothing.

Gene
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on February 06, 2008, 05:03:02 PM
Quote from: gemigene on February 06, 2008, 04:57:09 PM
Quotephpbb team's attitude leaves a lot to be desired. this is true both on their site and in the way they deal with user's requests. (a nice example is their stubborn refusal to even consider quick-reply)

Their attitude does stink, just take a look at the number of threads which have been locked due to criticism.

This kind of attitude will push a lot of newbies and non-techies into trying out other forum software.

Also has the worse permission system I've ever seen, way too complex for nothing.

Gene


I agree on all fronts. I was with them for ages...YEARS...and my forum looked like the default and I felt I could never ask for help. I've been with SMF for 6 months and my forum looks like it could be a new version, it's highly customised, and I feel safe to ask for help (or ask stupid questions lol)....However, their code IS sexy lol
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 07, 2008, 04:28:52 PM
Quote from: Alundra on February 06, 2008, 05:03:02 PM
I agree on all fronts. I was with them for ages...YEARS...and my forum looked like the default and I felt I could never ask for help. I've been with SMF for 6 months and my forum looks like it could be a new version, it's highly customised, and I feel safe to ask for help (or ask stupid questions lol)....However, their code IS sexy lol


I was with them for years also and could Mod the heck out of ver. 2.0.22 and when Ver. 3 final was released, I was quite confused for they've changed just about everything. Many a times did I post my questions on their forum but to no avail, except for the odd "search is your friend" type of answer.

Thing is, I searched before asking any of my questions and usually ended-up with 50 pages of posts which didn't reveal any solutions. When I started a thread about the lack of help (and the number of 0 answer posts on their forum), the thread was locked and I was issued a "warning" by a Moderator who is probably a big fan of Adolf Hitler. I PM'd this Nazi to explain how I (and probably hundreds of other users) felt about the lack of help, I was issued a second warning with the following: "arguing with a Moderator is prohibited and consider this as another warning". Darn it, who was arguing? I was only trying to find some kind of justification.

I've been running quite a few forums (especially on psychological issues) with at least 2 Moderators on each and we had a rule, no 0 answer post.

The hell with phpBB and I hope that more people will move on to other forum software.

Sorry, peed-off...
Gene
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: 青山 素子 on February 07, 2008, 04:44:39 PM
If we didn't before, we just hit Godwin's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law).

Also, gemigene, please try and keep the comparisons in check with the level they are worth. I'm sure the moderator wasn't near as bad as a dedicated member of the Nazi Party. At least, I wouldn't think they normally would plan genocide against an entire religion. Maybe considerations about kicking an animal, but mass genocide? That's the realm of the Magnificent Bastard (http://www.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagnificentBastard).  :P

BTW, welcome to SMF. Please don't take us too seriously.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Ricky. on February 07, 2008, 04:47:11 PM
Well... I started with phpBB :P ..
Was for long with phpBB in start, there if some member knows solution to your problem then it is OK but if no member knows answer then you are on your own because mods / developer are lil stuburn there :P ..

Also, its been years and years.. phpBB3 is actually trying to overcome all mistakes they did last and one of the outcome is nice coding.
However .. it makes it little slow (very slow in terms of development) ..

On other side.. SMF is fast.. its works :P .. sometimes being fast .. makes code little messy.. but can do clean later on .. thinking the best efficient way to implement jobs !!
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on February 07, 2008, 06:03:14 PM
Quote from: gemigene on February 07, 2008, 04:28:52 PM
Quote from: Alundra on February 06, 2008, 05:03:02 PM
I agree on all fronts. I was with them for ages...YEARS...and my forum looked like the default and I felt I could never ask for help. I've been with SMF for 6 months and my forum looks like it could be a new version, it's highly customised, and I feel safe to ask for help (or ask stupid questions lol)....However, their code IS sexy lol


I was with them for years also and could Mod the heck out of ver. 2.0.22 and when Ver. 3 final was released, I was quite confused for they've changed just about everything. Many a times did I post my questions on their forum but to no avail, except for the odd "search is your friend" type of answer.

Thing is, I searched before asking any of my questions and usually ended-up with 50 pages of posts which didn't reveal any solutions. When I started a thread about the lack of help (and the number of 0 answer posts on their forum), the thread was locked and I was issued a "warning" by a Moderator who is probably a big fan of Adolf Hitler. I PM'd this Nazi to explain how I (and probably hundreds of other users) felt about the lack of help, I was issued a second warning with the following: "arguing with a Moderator is prohibited and consider this as another warning". Darn it, who was arguing? I was only trying to find some kind of justification.

I've been running quite a few forums (especially on psychological issues) with at least 2 Moderators on each and we had a rule, no 0 answer post.

The hell with phpBB and I hope that more people will move on to other forum software.

Sorry, peed-off...
Gene


I'm afraid of that with 2.0...It's so new...I don't know if I will be able to figure it all out...I mean, I've looked at the 1.1.3 and 1.1.4 files...I know what to expect, but these are foreign..
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 07, 2008, 06:15:51 PM
Quote from: Motoko-chan on February 07, 2008, 04:44:39 PM
If we didn't before, we just hit Godwin's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law).

Also, gemigene, please try and keep the comparisons in check with the level they are worth. I'm sure the moderator wasn't near as bad as a dedicated member of the Nazi Party.

Hmm, how's this for a reason for closing a thread:

QuoteWe welcome constructive criticism, but only if you are willing to change your initial opinion as well.

Does that mean users may criticize just as long as you also agree that your criticism is wrong???

QuoteBTW, welcome to SMF. Please don't take us too seriously.

LOL! Thanks. I also believe in not taking things too seriously but really get annoyed when someone pulls something like the above example on me...

Cheers,
Gene
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 07, 2008, 06:23:27 PM
Quote from: Alundra on February 07, 2008, 06:03:14 PM
I'm afraid of that with 2.0...It's so new...I don't know if I will be able to figure it all out...I mean, I've looked at the 1.1.3 and 1.1.4 files...I know what to expect, but these are foreign..

I don't think you should worry too much Alundra, I'm sure you'll find a lot of help here. Out of over 20 questions I've asked on this forum (when I made the transition from phpBB to SMF), only 1 was left unanswered so far.

Gene
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 07, 2008, 06:40:36 PM
Quote from: Ricky. on February 07, 2008, 04:47:11 PM
Was for long with phpBB in start, there if some member knows solution to your problem then it is OK but if no member knows answer then you are on your own because mods / developer are lil stuburn there :P ..

Agreed, even though I've had a few (not many) good answers from one Moderator.

Quote
On other side.. SMF is fast.. its works :P .. sometimes being fast .. makes code little messy.. but can do clean later on .. thinking the best efficient way to implement jobs !!

The code is a little messy but works like a charm. Can't wait for the new version to be released.

Cheers,
Gene
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on February 07, 2008, 07:46:05 PM
Quote from: gemigene on February 07, 2008, 06:23:27 PM
Quote from: Alundra on February 07, 2008, 06:03:14 PM
I'm afraid of that with 2.0...It's so new...I don't know if I will be able to figure it all out...I mean, I've looked at the 1.1.3 and 1.1.4 files...I know what to expect, but these are foreign..

I don't think you should worry too much Alundra, I'm sure you'll find a lot of help here. Out of over 20 questions I've asked on this forum (when I made the transition from phpBB to SMF), only 1 was left unanswered so far.

Gene


That's not exactly what I'm worried about.

I have had this forum for 6 months ish, and it still takes me 5 minutes to find things in the admin panel, and sometimes I still have to ask/search  :-[. lol I find it funny, but still...I just don't adjust to change well, so it may take me a while :(

Also, the current mod creators....are they going to update/upgrade their mods? Or run away?
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 07, 2008, 07:58:02 PM
Quote from: Alundra on February 07, 2008, 07:46:05 PM

That's not exactly what I'm worried about.

I have had this forum for 6 months ish, and it still takes me 5 minutes to find things in the admin panel, and sometimes I still have to ask/search  :-[. lol I find it funny, but still...I just don't adjust to change well, so it may take me a while :(

Just as long as they didn't make it as complex as the new phpBB version, cripes, you almost have to study Quantum Physics just to get around permissions. LOL!

QuoteAlso, the current mod creators....are they going to update/upgrade their mods? Or run away?

Remains to be seen...

Cheers,
Gene
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on February 07, 2008, 08:14:01 PM
I'm thinking most will run...there ARE, however, a few dedicated ones.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: metallica48423 on February 07, 2008, 10:44:20 PM
QuoteI have had this forum for 6 months ish, and it still takes me 5 minutes to find things in the admin panel, and sometimes I still have to ask/search  :-[.

You'll love being able to search for a setting then :P
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 07, 2008, 10:53:54 PM
Quote from: BlackMage on February 07, 2008, 10:44:20 PM
QuoteI have had this forum for 6 months ish, and it still takes me 5 minutes to find things in the admin panel, and sometimes I still have to ask/search  :-[.

You'll love being able to search for a setting then :P

LOL! On SMF 2? Can't wait to see that. Mind you, can't be worse than phpBB 3's permission system.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 07, 2008, 10:56:06 PM
Quote from: Alundra on February 07, 2008, 08:14:01 PM
I'm thinking most will run...there ARE, however, a few dedicated ones.

Yup, and according to what I read on the forum, seems that some are already incorporated in Ver. 2

We'll have to wait and see...
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Gary on February 07, 2008, 10:58:07 PM
Some mods have been updated to work with 2.0 and so far only one theme. ;P
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 07, 2008, 11:02:29 PM
Quote from: Gazmanafc on February 07, 2008, 10:58:07 PM
Some mods have been updated to work with 2.0 and so far only one theme. ;P

I stuck with the default theme, mods are easier to apply to it and my members like the looks of it.

What the heck, if it ain't broke... LOL!
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Dannii on February 08, 2008, 03:36:44 AM
Well, the default theme is broken...
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on February 08, 2008, 08:18:27 AM
Default theme../me shakes her head
I'm so anti default, you wont find much that is on my forum....which is why the whole "no mods" issue with 2.0 is annoying...Not much has been updated yet :(

Besides...The Default theme is kinda old now :P
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Ðyєgσv on February 08, 2008, 09:48:16 AM
I tried phpbb3 yesterday and at the beginning I thought it was amazing, with all its features. However, I got to look at the ACP and then deleted it immediately. That's horrible!!! So cluttered and complicated! But the worst was the permission system... it took me like an hour to make a subforum accessible... definitely SMF is better :)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Bigguy on February 08, 2008, 10:44:46 AM
Yep the ACP is another thing that I didn't like. I agree completely with what you say Ðyєgσv
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on February 08, 2008, 12:00:53 PM
Quote from: Ðyєgσv on February 08, 2008, 09:48:16 AM
I tried phpbb3 yesterday and at the beginning I thought it was amazing, with all its features. However, I got to look at the ACP and then deleted it immediately. That's horrible!!! So cluttered and complicated! But the worst was the permission system... it took me like an hour to make a subforum accessible... definitely SMF is better :)

I was exactly the same, it took me HOURS to configure the damn thing. I hated it, I had to ask for help and wait more time (eventually I figured it out myself) for support...

Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: shadow82x on February 08, 2008, 03:40:16 PM
Don't always believe what they say. :)

On their homepage...

QuoteLike its predecessors, phpBB™ 3.0 "Olympus" has an easy to use administration panel and a user friendly installation process

Definitely not a user friendly admin panel.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: JayBachatero on February 08, 2008, 03:52:44 PM
I actually like the style of phpBB3 ACP and UCP.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: shadow82x on February 08, 2008, 03:58:53 PM
Quote from: JayBachatero on February 08, 2008, 03:52:44 PM
I actually like the style of phpBB3 ACP and UCP.
The style is fine but the layout is not. Theres settings everywhere and duplicate links in several sections.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 08, 2008, 04:08:37 PM
Quote from: Ðyєgσv on February 08, 2008, 09:48:16 AM
I tried phpbb3 yesterday and at the beginning I thought it was amazing, with all its features. However, I got to look at the ACP and then deleted it immediately. That's horrible!!! So cluttered and complicated! But the worst was the permission system... it took me like an hour to make a subforum accessible... definitely SMF is better :)

Same here, still have it up on my server and every time I get frustrated with SMF, I load up phpBB3, go to the ACP and look at the multitude of complicated settings. I then go back to SMF and thank my lucky star for such a wonderful package. ROFLOL!

Cheers,
Gene
8)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 08, 2008, 04:15:35 PM
QuoteWe welcome constructive criticism, but only if you are willing to change your initial opinion as well.

What do you folks think of this phpBB's moderator comment?

Gene
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: shadow82x on February 08, 2008, 04:16:56 PM
Quote from: gemigene on February 08, 2008, 04:15:35 PM
QuoteWe welcome constructive criticism, but only if you are willing to change your initial opinion as well.

What do you folks think of this phpBB's moderator comment?

Gene

That seems very typical of phpbb to be quite honest. Part of a good forum software is having a kind and respectful community. :)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: babjusi on February 08, 2008, 04:20:38 PM
Quote from: gemigene on February 08, 2008, 04:15:35 PM
QuoteWe welcome constructive criticism, but only if you are willing to change your initial opinion as well.

What do you folks think of this phpBB's moderator comment?

Gene


Personally I think absolutely nothing. But I think that you must have some personal beef with phpbb or the staff there. If so, go and resolve it in private or whatever. It is not so nice if you bash another forum software like this in public. We got that you are unhappy with phpbb but there are some ethics involved. It would be the same if smf 2.0 came out and the phpbb fans would bash it or talk ill about us as well. So, give it a rest
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Bigguy on February 08, 2008, 04:32:15 PM
I don't really see a lot of bashing going on here. I do see a discussion going on however about phpbb and there ACP.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: babjusi on February 08, 2008, 04:37:18 PM
Quote from: Bigguy on February 08, 2008, 04:32:15 PM
I don't really see a lot of bashing going on here. I do see a discussion going on however about phpbb and there ACP.

Did you read the message that I quoted? It didn''t say anything about any discussion about phpbb and their ACP, did it? Anyway, I just stated my opinion, that was all
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Bigguy on February 08, 2008, 04:48:22 PM
Where not going to get into a discussion about this now. You stated your opinion just as everyone else has. Let's try not to be so critical. :) For as long back as I can remember phpbb's attitude toward's support has been less than desirable; that's probably why he asked that question. Everyone knows that as well.

We should try to stay on topic though you are right about that. This thread started out being about features in phpbb3 and what we thought about it. So we will get back on topic now.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Jade Elizabeth on February 08, 2008, 05:30:47 PM
Quote from: babjusi on February 08, 2008, 04:20:38 PM
Quote from: gemigene on February 08, 2008, 04:15:35 PM
QuoteWe welcome constructive criticism, but only if you are willing to change your initial opinion as well.

What do you folks think of this phpBB's moderator comment?

Gene


Personally I think absolutely nothing. But I think that you must have some personal beef with phpbb or the staff there. If so, go and resolve it in private or whatever. It is not so nice if you bash another forum software like this in public. We got that you are unhappy with phpbb but there are some ethics involved. It would be the same if smf 2.0 came out and the phpbb fans would bash it or talk ill about us as well. So, give it a rest

Well I think it was wrong. I believe to make a good product, or service, you have to listen to the users of it. I do that on my own forum, I don't tell people off if they say they hate the forum (though it's never happened) or if they say they hate my website (that's happened a few times, but only once since I redesigned it lol). If people say stuff to me I get right on it, or I at least look at it. If there is an error I jump on it, if there is a problem, I jump on it, If someone has a question someone WILL answer it (If I don't beat them to it ;)).
And that's why my forum loves me. Because I WANT them to be happy, and I strive at it. To me, phpBB does NOT want the users to be happy, and it does NOT strive to make them happy, and that is why they aren't.

SMF, they STRIVE to make people happy, to offer support, to do everything the users want. What they choose to do or not doesn't matter, they LISTEN and they don't fob anyone off. THAT is why SMF users are happy.

The cold hard fact of the matter is there are TWO free forum software packages (phpBB and SMF) talked about in this thread. A fair amount of the users on SMF moved from phpBB because they were unhappy with either the software or the treatment they got from the staff. and guess what? NOW [on SMF] THEY'RE HAPPY!
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 08, 2008, 05:41:34 PM
Quote from: Bigguy on February 08, 2008, 04:48:22 PM
Where not going to get into a discussion about this now. You stated your opinion just as everyone else has. Let's try not to be so critical. :) For as long back as I can remember phpbb's attitude toward's support has been less than desirable; that's probably why he asked that question. Everyone knows that as well.

Thanks, big guy.

QuoteWe should try to stay on topic though you are right about that. This thread started out being about features in phpbb3 and what we thought about it. So we will get back on topic now.

Good enough, the ACP stinks compared to SMF's... As I mentioned before, a lot of Newbies will probably get discouraged by the complexity of it and move on to something else.

Cheers,
Gene
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 08, 2008, 05:51:39 PM
Quote from: Alundra on February 08, 2008, 05:30:47 PM
Well I think it was wrong. I believe to make a good product, or service, you have to listen to the users of it.

I sure agree on that one.

QuoteSMF, they STRIVE to make people happy, to offer support, to do everything the users want. What they choose to do or not doesn't matter, they LISTEN and they don't fob anyone off. THAT is why SMF users are happy.

Another excellent point.

QuoteThe cold hard fact of the matter is there are TWO free forum software packages (phpBB and SMF) talked about in this thread. A fair amount of the users on SMF moved from phpBB because they were unhappy with either the software or the treatment they got from the staff. and guess what? NOW [on SMF] THEY'RE HAPPY!

Personally, I know 7 users and 4 Mod authors who switched. There's also quite a few that decided to hang on to 2.0.22 till phpBB decides not to support it anymore then probably move on also.

What the heck, SMF will be picking up quite a few "strays".

Gene
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Grudge on February 09, 2008, 07:04:29 AM
RE:
Quote
We welcome constructive criticism, but only if you are willing to change your initial opinion as well.

To be fair I think all they are saying is they are happy for you to criticise the software but you need to be willing to have an open and honest debate with them. i.e. if you want all text to be red, and they want all text to be black because it's better for accessibility, then you should be willing to hear their arguments.

As for their ACP, I find it incrediable confusing but I do like the look of it and modularity of it. When I used it I did find it confusing that things are seemingly repeated and in random places at times.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Oldiesmann on February 09, 2008, 10:54:34 AM
The repeated settings is one of my major concerns about the phpBB3 admin center as well. That will just confuse users.

My other major concerns were the extremely complicated (and confusing) permissions system, and the fact that you can disable the "System" module (this is the module containing the functionality to enable/disable other admin modules...).
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: clhenry on February 09, 2008, 02:29:25 PM
QuoteWell I think it was wrong. I believe to make a good product, or service, you have to listen to the users of it.
Odd, There has been quite a few rude comments made to members here that i read. I don't know how many post i have read where someone asked how to do something, and the answer was "you don't need that" or go read the FAQ. You know sometimes FAQ doesn't help much and you look elsewhere.

QuoteA fair amount of the users on SMF moved from phpBB because they were unhappy with either the software or the treatment they got from the staff. and guess what? NOW [on SMF] THEY'RE HAPPY!

That is also working the other way now also. There was a huge thread here on smf about not being search friendly. "Can't find it now". And how to make it better. Instead of help or answers from the mods, all people got was , "You don't need it", "Don't know why its like that, but its not changing" "why do you want google and other engines to pick up topics"
The answer is quite simply. Smaller and new forums have to get out there, and that is one of the best ways.
I know a number of people looking at phpbb for that reason alone.

Smf is great, and i still love it. But problems being associated with phpbb are the same problems with smf. Sometimes we have to look in our own back yard before pointing fingers at your neighbor.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 09, 2008, 02:47:23 PM
QuoteThe answer is quite simply. Smaller and new forums have to get out there, and that is one of the best ways

It isn't as if there were no competition out there, take a peek here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_forum_software_%28PHP%29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_forum_software_%28PHP%29)

I really love SMF for a full-featured forum but when I need to put together something fast and reliable but with a limited number of functions (no PM, uploadable avatars, etc.), I go for UseBB.

Gene
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Bigguy on February 09, 2008, 03:57:18 PM
I never seen that chart before, really cool. :)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 09, 2008, 04:57:50 PM
Quote from: Bigguy on February 09, 2008, 03:57:18 PM
I never seen that chart before, really cool. :)

When I got frustrated over phpBB3, I think I must have tried 10 packages out of that list, what a riot that was...

Cheers,
Gene
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: arod on February 24, 2008, 03:03:21 PM
with your permission, i would like to return to the discussion of license.
if you are not interested, please skip my posts... :(
Quote from: Grudge on January 01, 2008, 01:10:43 PM
The original definition of open source (As per the literal meaning) was that the source code for software was available to users "In the clear" so to speak.
i do not believe this statement is correct.
when the ibm pc first came to the market (back in 1981. few of us gray folks still remember...), the code for the BIOS was "in the clear": the complete source code for the BIOS (in 8086 assembly language, beautifully commented) was published as part of the technical manuals, which were available for purchase from ibm publication.
(btw: this created a problem for the people who wanted to create clones - how to reproduce a functional version of the bios, aka "reverse engineer" it,  without opening themselves to litigation for copyright infringement).
no one would seriously argue that the original ibm pc bios was "open software" or "open source".
and on that note, being written in php, both vbulleting and ipb have their code "in the clear", so to speak. this does not make them open source, and neither smf meet the widely accepted definition for open source.
the usual definition of "open source" contains some pieces that are definitely not part of smf license:
-- the ability to use/adapt any part of the code,
-- the ability to freely re-distribute the original code as well as any modified version (sometime called "derivative work") of it
-- and yes, the ability to "fork out". forking out of a project can sometime have negative consequences, but, imo, the right way for a project to protect itself from undesirable forks is not by way of a restrictive license, but rather by insuring that it remains the best fork of all.

the above clauses (so long as one keeps the copyright notice, and sometimes the license notice as well) are pretty much an inseparable part of any true "open source" license. without them it may be free as in "free beer", but not free as in "free speech", as rms is fond of saying.
if the smf project would find a way to change their license to an open source one (does not have to be gpl), i would seriously consider it. as it is, i remain with open source.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: daenney on February 24, 2008, 03:16:37 PM
Well I tried out SMF and phpbb3 side by side for two days now and phpbb3 drove me insane.

Though I like the new themes a lot, both the default board and Admin CP, the Admin CP itself is a total disaster.
I couldn't find the most standard of things among forum settings, I got so frustrated I actually went for a mountainbike ride for an hour to get rid of it.
The other mind blowingly frustrating thing is that there is still no freaking automated way to install a Mod. You have to download it, unzip and then view or an xml, txt, php file or whatever in your browser with the install instructions of where to upload and how to activate a mod... why, in the name of god's a** does it have to be so difficult?
Though the day to day tasks of managing users and groups are easy done once you get the hang of it just configuring forum options, setting forum rights depending on membergroups or even the most mundane of tasks seem to be excruciatingly difficult to achieve.

So, yeah, I'm back on SMF (never left, just decided to try out an alternative) and I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.
Another advantage of SMF I found, it integrates much more easy with other software. Getting DokuWiki to authenticate against SMF was a breeze whereas to do that with phpbb3 I had to go edit DokuWiki core files and break some other functionality such as ACL's.

/me gives SMF a big hug

hope the JFusion plugin enabled user syncing soon, then I'll really be a happy bunny

Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: gemigene on February 24, 2008, 04:34:10 PM
QuoteWell I tried out SMF and phpbb3 side by side for two days now and phpbb3 drove me insane.

If you ask politely, they'll send you Valium to get through their maze of inane ACP settings.

Quoteeven the most mundane of tasks seem to be excruciatingly difficult to achieve.

Well, look at it this way, it'll be their downfall. Most "Newbie" webmasters will move on to something simpler and logical to work with.

Another SMF fan,
Gene

p.s. just for the heck of it, I searched for permissions on their board (in ver. 3 section only) and got:
"Search found 7505 matches: permissions"
I guess I wasn't the only one with problems trying to set them up.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Nick Newman on March 03, 2008, 07:50:05 PM
lol
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: wookey on March 05, 2008, 06:16:31 AM
Quote from: uberjon on December 14, 2007, 12:55:22 PM

i have to agree on the "dead easy to use" part. but i wonder if i should also be offended. (i tried many times to install phpbb2 back in the day. with no luck....


'aptitude install phpbb2' did the trick for me (on Debian). Utterly trivial. Sadly I can't do that for SMF (due to the licence). This is currently an overwhelming advantage for phpbb2 in my book. I guess you were installing from a tarball, or on a Windows box or something, whichI'm sure does make life a lot harder.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: 青山 素子 on March 05, 2008, 11:21:08 AM
Quote from: wookey on March 05, 2008, 06:16:31 AM
'aptitude install phpbb2' did the trick for me (on Debian). Utterly trivial. Sadly I can't do that for SMF (due to the licence). This is currently an overwhelming advantage for phpbb2 in my book. I guess you were installing from a tarball, or on a Windows box or something, whichI'm sure does make life a lot harder.

Troll much? At least have an understanding of what SMF is before shooting off your mouth.

SMF is web software. It isn't a binary, nor is it any kind of compiled software. There is absolutely no reason to use apt to install it.

I suppose for those who just use defaults without thinking (asking to be hacked), it might be dead easy, but if you have changed your web root, you might run into some problems. I dunno, I never got the point of packaging web applications in this manner because it seemed pointless.

SMF, being PHP software, will work on Windows if you so desire. It is primarily tested on Linux / UNIX, however. It's really simple to install, too. You extract the archive to a directory and then load the install.php file in a browser (called through your web server, not locally).

It's that easy. No having to muck with apt, no having to worry that the repo maintainer will update the software quickly because of a huge security bug was announced and you are on the stable branch. If not, you'd have to update manually anyway, and that just broke your reason for using apt to install a web application.

Even if you do use phpBB, please do yourself a favor and not use apt.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: wookey on March 05, 2008, 03:18:56 PM
No, I don't troll much.

I was really just replying to the previous guy who said phpBB2 was really hard to install. I found it trivial to install because of apt and Debian packaging practices. That's not trolling. OK, the licence comment was a bit barbed, but also true :-) Yes, I agree that the packaging system does not always fit as well with Web software as with more conventional binaries which fit in the usual paths. It generally works very well until you have virtual servers, when things can get a bit fiddly, although some web-interfaced packages still work just fine like this (e.g. mailman, cvsweb), others less so (lurker).
 
And yes, it often less-than ideal if you need the latest-and-greatest. But having said that, I'm afraid I disagree with your conclusion that you shouldn't use apt for installing web/forum software. I run a lot of Debian servers, most of them stable and I try very hard indeed not to have any non-packaged software on them, web or otherwise, because the overall advantages of package management and automatic security updates far outweigh the fact the the software might not be paerticularly up to date. The danger of ending up with old unmaintained copies of web software lying about the machine providing security holes if you attempt to manage them manually, is significant - I've been bitten by old copies of PHP web software installed on a box, and not getting security updates, before.

Clearly if being bang up to date is more important to you then your approach will suit better, but you need to be damn careful to monitor what you've got installed where.  For me forum software is just one of a couple of thousand packages on each of about 20 boxes, for you it is probably really important stuff, so you can manage it manually.

It is true that I am relying on the package maintaners and security team to make security updates in a timely fashion, but I know for a fact that they will do a better job than I would. Equally, I rely on them to set the defaults to something adeqately secure, because I cannot be an expert in everything. Are there security issues you are aware of with the Debian packaging of phpBB2?
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: 青山 素子 on March 05, 2008, 05:24:25 PM
Quote from: wookey on March 05, 2008, 03:18:56 PM
Are there security issues you are aware of with the Debian packaging of phpBB2?

I haven't looked, but I'm not really a Debian user (I normally use Slackware). My concern is more general given that distribution's tendency to keep old software versions around long after they should be retired. (I was helping someone with AMaViSd-new who was running Debian Unstable. It turned out that unstable had a three year old version of the package in it with some big usability bugs that had long been fixed upstream. That basically kept me from bothering with it for my own stuff.)
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: SneakyWho_am_i on May 24, 2008, 07:31:02 PM
I'm using Ubuntu at the moment. I had been a fan of Mandrake and Red Hat, etc, etc.... Anyway yeah apt-get... You can install a bunch of web scripts with it. Some of them even work! I wouldn't recommend it. The ones I've tried (trac, mantis, bugzilla... Mostly stuff like that) was all new enough,  just that sometimes it clean doesn't work. They really do hack stuff to bits before they stick it in the repository.
Mantis is a good example. apt-get install mantis ... On my system, apt couldn't set up the database for it. I tried about a hundred times, lol.
Yeah, most web stuff I try to install from the repositories just doesn't work. Granted it's probably the way I've set things up, and I'm talkign abotu trying it on a test system first (whci h has backports/proposed/etc enabled)....

Much, much easier to just download the package, dump it in your webroot somewhere, and set it up yourself.

How this ties back to this thread at all?
QuoteSadly I can't do that for SMF (due to the licence). This is currently an overwhelming advantage for phpbb2 in my book
I love being able to install things with apt, but as far as I'm concerned, web scripts are not one of those things so in my book, the two coem out even.

Further back into the topic, I set up phpbb2 (2, I think) using Fantastico. It was easy of course (you know fantastico) but....
To be honest I don't even remember it having an admin panel. it was nice, but smf was nicer. I didn't know php then so I didn't try looking at the code, php jsut felt more solid to me than what phpbb did. In my first week as a webmaster, no idea what I was doing, SMF looked like the way to go.

Back off topic slightly, I bridged SMF to Joomla!, and then to Mambo.
Now I mostly jsut run it by itself. It's easier to just install the bits you want as packages in SMF - SMF is a CMS in and of itself ;)


...

So although I don't know what phpbb has goign for it, SMF rocks my socks - thanks partly to the awesome package manager.

What I really want, though, is a way to install diffs as packages >:) (yeah, I know that SMF's package manager is more advanced than that, but hey)

QuoteTime is irrelevant to memory. How important that moment was to a person... I think that's all that matters
@quote: scientists have determined that something's memorable-ness is determined by its emotional significance. Not citing any sources.
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: metallica48423 on May 24, 2008, 07:43:46 PM
you might be interested in this then: http://sleepycode.com/index.php/action,diffparser.html
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: Orstio on May 27, 2008, 09:31:39 PM
Quote@quote: scientists have determined that something's memorable-ness is determined by its emotional significance. Not citing any sources.

Ooo, can I? 

Science Magazine, November 2002:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/298/5596/1191
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: SantaClaws on May 29, 2008, 12:56:34 PM
Woo, 17 people posted phpBB3 is much better. I have a question for them.

If you voted that phpBB3 is better, Then why are you here?
Title: Re: smf vs phpbb3
Post by: aldo on May 29, 2008, 08:44:58 PM
Quote from: pk3r 0wn on May 29, 2008, 12:56:34 PM
Woo, 17 people posted phpBB3 is much better. I have a question for them.

If you voted that phpBB3 is better, Then why are you here?
Who knows, I don't like phpBB however I am registered there, I have posted a couple times, I don't like going there because their site is SO confusing.

Plus, just because people think phpBB3 is better doesn't mean they can't use SMF ;)

However, yes I do like SMF more :P