Is the current RC stable enough to run on a live site with >50 active users?

[pulgoki]

I've been thinking about moving over to this RC of this forum on a very small live site. The forum isn't tied to a business nor does it generate revenue of any kind. It is a small site with a group that has similar manufacturing interests. 

I'd be happy to help with bug reports etc or any other way that I can help. 

I'll be leaving my current forum in place just in case anything goes wrong.  Most of the chat in the forum is OffTopic nonsensical jabber so it wouldn't matter if we lost two weeks of posts if we had to move back to the original forum for some reason. 

Suggestions? 

By the way, you guys have really outdone yourself with this version.  Very nice.

[GigaWatt]

Yeah, I'd say it's stable enough for a small forum . It has some bugs, but nothing critical that can cause massive post loss .

By the way, you guys have really outdone yourself with this version.  Very nice.

Yeah, 2.1 is great .

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Yes, it works and performs well enough - But we don't really recommend running it on live production sites.

[pulgoki]

As long as I don't run in to any gotchas I'm not too worried.  I would be more concerned if the site were more important. 

I am switching over from PHPBB so it will be a little work.  I've already got everything up and running on two test sites so I have the procedure down. 

What drove my decision, this version of the forum has all the functionality that I wanted to see without needing to add a bunch of plugins. 

Thanks for the input. 

[Kindred]

well, the main reason we don't recommend it is because going from RC to RC or RC to final can not be done by patch -- it's a full upgrade/replace every time -- which means that any customization that you make in RC3 would have to be repeated in RC4 and also in final...

[pulgoki]

well, the main reason we don't recommend it is because going from RC to RC or RC to final can not be done by patch -- it's a full upgrade/replace every time -- which means that any customization that you make in RC3 would have to be repeated in RC4 and also in final...

Can you be more specific when you say "customization"? 

Are the forum permission, settings, groups, members, etc - all kept through the RC and final?   

I don't plan on customizing anything beyond adding a theme or possible one or two plugins. 

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Basically any changes to code or themes - large upgrade means overwriting the codebase. Settings, users, posts, so on are safe - modifications are not.

[pulgoki]

Perfect! 

Thanks!

[shadav]

should also note that there are limited themes and mods available for rc3 as most theme and mod creators are waiting until 2.1 final
so if you currently are running a heavily modded forum, you aren't probably going to be able to find most of them compatible with 2.1rcX
so that's another thing to consider.... will you be losing some functionality of existing mods or not

[pulgoki]

There is one dark theme available that will work and mostly I think that the default will work. 

The only mod that I would like is a paypal/donation mod that keeps track of a yearly goal or similar, but I don't think that there is one available for earlier versions of smf?  I can just use a portal and setup a html block with a paypal button.   We run off of donations to keep the site going and it is nice to have a visual for the members to see if we are reaching a yearly goal. That's one thing that I will miss from phpbb. 

Everything else I want is built in or can be added with a portal.   

[shnazzle]

Mr2roc.org has been running RC2 since it came out and the only issue we have is that subscription PayPal doesn't work properly. Not many people use that anyway.
I've had to do a few fixes here and there but quite minor.

Other than that, some styling changes.

The key is not to expect too much. Don't install any mods/packs/etc.
We run no modifications at all to ensure "easy" upgrade to RC3, RC4 and Final. Once on final I'll revisit mods.

[Antechinus]

Other way of looking at it is you can always uninstall mods before upgrading anyway, so they shouldn't have any adverse effects during upgrades. Worst case scenario is that you have to stop using a mod when the next RC comes along, but that still means you get to use it while you're waiting for the next RC.

Also, upgrades between RC's, and from RC to Final, are all large upgrade packs anyway. That means even if you totally screw your files they will still be overwritten by clean ones when you upgrade. TBH I really don't think mods on RC's are that big of an issue. If you find one you like, and it installs cleanly, I can't see why you shouldn't use it.