Request: Further phpBB migration suggestions

[packman]

The phpbb_ranks table is functionally the same as the post based entries in the smf_membergroups table and the structure is pretty similar too, so it looks like it might be fairly easy to migrate the rank data across to post based SMF membergroups (in place of the default SMF post based membergoups).

I would also find it useful if the membership of what I view as access control groups, i.e. SMF Regular Groups, was migrated, along with the permissions those groups have to specific phpBB2 forums. I think what's needed is:

For each record in phpbb_groups with group_single_user=0
     Create an equivalent SMF Regular Group.
     For each user in phpbb_user_groups that has a matching group_id to those selected from phpbb_groups
         Add the user to the appropriate newly created SMF Regular Group

The icing on the cake would be to translate the contents of the phpbb_auth_access into roughly equivalent entries in smf_board_permissions. There is at least a partial mapping between the fields of the phpBB table and the records in the SMF table.

These items would migrate virtually everything that I use in phpBB across to SMF and I suspect it would help a lot of other people too.

[[Unknown]]

Would you add them to the groups "additionally" or "primarily"?

That is, does phpBB support a member being in more than one group?  If so, this has to be handled by using SMF''s (I'm sure different) group assignment.

-[Unknown]

[packman]

phpBB users can only be a member of one 'number of posts' based group (called ranks in phpBB).

They can also (optionally) be a member of multiple (non rank based) groups (regular groups in SMF terminology).

I'm not the worlds leading expert in SMF groups  but from what I can see I think group membership translates fairly well from phpBB into SMF, i.e.

phpBB rank = SMF posts based membergroup

phpBB non-rank group membership = SMF regular membergroup membership

[[Unknown]]

Well, not exactly.  There are actually three types of group *assignments* in SMF:

1. Post groups.  These are like phpBB "ranks".
2. Primary groups.  Meaning, the regular group currently being displayed as your group.
3. Additional groups.  Regular groups the member gets permissions/access from, but cannot see that he is in. (nor can anyone else but administrators..)

The goal of this design was many fold:
  - allows a member to be in a post group at the same time as another group. (was not possible in YaBB SE.)
  - makes it possible to apply many groups to a member, used only for permission purposes.
  - makes it possible to put a member in a group without them having to know.
  - allows for adding a person to a group "less publicly" like a moderator group.
  - simplifies viewing because there is only one group to display. (well, 2, the post group and the primary group...)

My question was, since phpBB has only post and additional groups (mapped to SMF terminology) how would it be best to map them over?  Would no one be in any particular primary group?  Or would everyone be in the first group they were in, as the primary group?

-[Unknown]

[packman]

Sorry...I clearly don't know as much about SMF groups as I thought I did...but know more now than I did 

I think that as phpBB doesn't have a similar concept to SMF primary groups, it's probably best just to assign people to the appropriate additional group and not set a primary group for anyone. That fits with the way I've used phpBB, i.e. users don't necessarily know which access control groups they are in and most users don't know who the mods/administrators are.