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Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

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ckuske

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

Sorry, I'm not sure what happened. I rebooted the server.

Chris

'84 F-150 XL 2WD Flareside, 302 w/ AOD transmission, Motorcraft 2150 feedback carb w/ CA Emissions, EEC-IV w/TFI, factory A/C, Tilt Column, Borgeson/Bluetop Steering, Speed Control, 308,000+ miles - Info about me and my truck - My project thread

BigBrother-84

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

In reply to this post by Gary Lewis

Gary Lewis wrote

I know what you mean. On my iPhone I wind up with a gillion tabs open and then have to go back and close them.

Can’t say about all platforms, but there are some app settings for “open new links” behavior, on Mac for Safari, Chrome and Firefox.

On iPhone, Safari settings enable to setup opening and closing new links:

Jeff / 1984 F350 Crew Cab 4x4/5.8L w351 4V/ T18/ D50 4.10 front/ 8' bed.
Restored 2019-2022.
Nicknamed «Big Brother 1984», due to its soooo-looong shape & nod to George Orwell's 1984 famous novel.

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

Jeff - Thanks, but I use Chrome on my iPhone and can't find any setting like those on it. Am I missing them?

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

In reply to this post by ckuske

Chris, don't sweat it, we are testing.

Larry, and anyone else that uses Discourse. What do you see when you are using the forum? Are you on the Discourse forum itself or is it embedded on another site?

I ask because our Nabble forum is currently embedded on our Weebly website such that it looks like it is actually part of the Weebly site. In fact there's a redirect on the Nabble server such that you cannot log on there, you must come to our Weebly site to use the forum.

So we've been looking over the Discourse documentation and embedding one on another website doesn't appear to be possible given this:

Discourse has the ability to embed the comments from a topic in a remote site using a Javascript API that creates an IFRAME. For an example of this in action, check out Coding Horror’s blog 5.4k. The blog is run via Ghost 908 but the comments are embedded from his Discourse forum 858.

One important thing to note with this setup is that users have to navigate to your forum to post replies. This is intentional, as we feel that the posting interface on a Discourse forum is currently much richer than what we could embed via Javascript.

That seems to us to be the death nell for Discourse as I really want the forum to operate as part of the whole website. But do you, any of you, know of anything that would indicate otherwise?

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

BigBrother-84

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

In reply to this post by Gary Lewis

Gary Lewis wrote

Jeff - Thanks, but I use Chrome on my iPhone and can't find any setting like those on it. Am I missing them?

Well, seems that Chrome has less settings than Safari on iOS.

I only found a setting to automate inactive tab archiving.

Jeff / 1984 F350 Crew Cab 4x4/5.8L w351 4V/ T18/ D50 4.10 front/ 8' bed.
Restored 2019-2022.
Nicknamed «Big Brother 1984», due to its soooo-looong shape & nod to George Orwell's 1984 famous novel.

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

Yep, that's what I found. Thanks.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

ratdude747

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

In reply to this post by Gary Lewis

Although I don't know this for sure (I am no web developer!), on the forum in question, Discourse is part of the site and/or run on the same server. Similar to how vBulletin and the like run. Discourse doesn't host anybody's forum... they just make the software and provide paid support for such.

It can be referenced by other sites as you've described, but I don't think it has to be. The feature is more of an "ease of integration" thing (in that case, for enhancing blog comments)... but not required.

The other forum's internal "buttons" all have intra-site links (not just a wad of JavaScript), which, combined with what I do know about the site transition (everything moving to a new server(s) at once, complete site redesign), is why I'm pretty sure it's all integrated as one setup (and if not, they do a very good job of hiding it!).

So, you'd want to run it on the server currently running the site for an optimized setup. But so are the other non-nabble forum systems to at least some degree.

1984 F150: 300 L6, AOD, RWD. EEC IV / TFI, Feedback Carter YFA Carb. Stock everything but radio (for now).

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

I don't fully understand what you are saying, Larry, but I do think I understand this statement "So, you'd want to run it on the server currently running the site for an optimized setup." We can't do that as our site is on Weebly and they don't offer a hosting service for things like Discourse.

But I'm not sure that even if the two pieces of software were on the same server it would matter. I go back to the statement on Discourse of:

Discourse has the ability to embed the comments from a topic in a remote site using a Javascript API that creates an IFRAME. (Skip the example.)

One important thing to note with this setup is that users have to navigate to your forum to post replies. This is intentional, as we feel that the posting interface on a Discourse forum is currently much richer than what we could embed via Javascript.

To me that says that the only way to post on Discourse is to go directly to the forum and not through an embedment via an iframe. You can show the posts elsewhere, but you cannot post from elsewhere.

Am I reading that incorrectly?

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

ratdude747

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

I don't know. But I think this is an issue you're going to find with most platforms.

1984 F150: 300 L6, AOD, RWD. EEC IV / TFI, Feedback Carter YFA Carb. Stock everything but radio (for now).

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

Fortunately it isn't. I found last night this statement: "XenForo can be made to look like your website and integrate seamlessly." And there was further discussion, not discourse, on how to do that.

But, there's a downside - as Jeff pointed out there are some tools that help migrate from Nabble to Discourse, but don't appear to be to Xenforo. However, over the last few days I've been helping a guy from church paint the rear bumper on his daughter's Charger, and during that time I explained what we are trying to do regarding the forum. So he explained what he used to do - ETL, which he said stands for Extract Transform Load, which is exactly what we need to move the Nabble forum's data to a new forum. And he'd like to take that project on, assuming we can find the format of whatever platform we choose to use.

So far I've not found anyone who says they know how to migrate from Nabble to Xenforo, but there are plenty who say they migrate from other platforms to Xenforo. So apparently the Xenforo format is a known entity.

But as of this writing we've not given up on Discourse yet. That may happen later today though.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

ArdWrknTrk

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

I never meant for Discourse to replace the forum.

Just as a Backpage to the forum...

Jim,
Lil'Red is a '87 F250 HD, 4.10's, 1356 4x4, Zf-5, 3G, PMGR, Saginaw PS, desmogged with a Holley 80508 and Performer intake.
Too much other stuff to mention.

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

There are two different packages - Discourse and Discord. From Wikipedia:

Discourse is an open source Internet forum system. Features include threading, categorization and tagging of discussions, configurable access control, live updates, expanding link previews, infinite scrolling, and real-time notifications.

Discord is an instant messaging and VoIP social platform which allows communication through voice calls, video calls, text messaging, and media and files.

But Discourse also allows direct messaging, as do many of the packages we are looking at. So I don't think we will need Discord - assuming I understand what it is.

And I did have the young lady whose Charger we were painting show me how she uses Discord. It looked like direct/private messaging mixed with almost a forum layout. There was some structure with threads on some topics, but also a lot of one-on-one messaging.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

ArdWrknTrk

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

To THIS (Nabble) forum....

Jim,
Lil'Red is a '87 F250 HD, 4.10's, 1356 4x4, Zf-5, 3G, PMGR, Saginaw PS, desmogged with a Holley 80508 and Performer intake.
Too much other stuff to mention.

ratdude747

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

In reply to this post by Gary Lewis

Discord isn't a forum... More akin to slack and MS Teams, only mostly used for non-work activities. Bad fit here...

1984 F150: 300 L6, AOD, RWD. EEC IV / TFI, Feedback Carter YFA Carb. Stock everything but radio (for now).

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

We, Chris and I, are in the midst of checking out Xenforo and it is looking very promising. Having said that we've not gotten email to work nor the embedding we need, so Chris is to contact them to see how they can help us.

If we get that sorted then we'll suggest some of y'all give it a spin. But you'll like the ability to edit posts, do background messaging, etc. And it looks like we can set it up so people can join w/o admin help, but will have to agree to our guidelines before doing so.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

BigBrother-84

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Does Xenforo has a mobile version app?

Jeff / 1984 F350 Crew Cab 4x4/5.8L w351 4V/ T18/ D50 4.10 front/ 8' bed.
Restored 2019-2022.
Nicknamed «Big Brother 1984», due to its soooo-looong shape & nod to George Orwell's 1984 famous novel.

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

Jeff - I'm not aware of any of the forum platforms that has its own app. I'm not saying none do, but I'm not aware of any that do. Having said that, I just checked and there is an app called Xenforo but the reviews are awful and it apparently isn't working. It wasn't written by the Xenforo team, just some individual, and he's not kept it up to date - in spite of it costing $5.99.

However, I've read and posted on our Xenforo test forum from my iPhone and it worked very well so I don't know that you'll need an app. On the other hand, I couldn't load pics taken with my phone's camera and discovered that I had the camera set in highest resolution mode and it was storing pictures in .dng format. I added .dng to the list of formats the forum would accept and it still didn't like anything that was in my library. So I changed my phone to HEIF format and added that to the list on the forum and now I can load up pics I take.

As soon as we get a couple of things sorted I want y'all to use Xenforo and see what you think. Hopefully that will be today.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

Jeff, and anyone else that wants to try, you can see the test forum here. But in spite of what it says, and I can't figure out how to remove that text, you cannot log on with admin/admin.

You can look around to your heart's content, but I don't think you can register. For some reason it isn't sending the email to confirm your registration. Still, it won't hurt to try. I used the admin function to finish my own registration for Gary Lewis, and could for you if you don't get that email.

We only have this demo for another 6 days, so see what you think, please.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Gary Lewis

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

Oh yes, in a post type "Chevrolet" and then click the preview button.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

ArdWrknTrk

Re: Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Administrator

You're overworking that poop emoji...

Jim,
Lil'Red is a '87 F250 HD, 4.10's, 1356 4x4, Zf-5, 3G, PMGR, Saginaw PS, desmogged with a Holley 80508 and Performer intake.
Too much other stuff to mention.

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