Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

Gary Lewis wrote

The ability to post a link is poor.  Yes, you can click the chain link icon and it'll drop in the html code with the curser between the two brackets so all you have to do is paste in the link.  But I'd like you to try to cause it to make a link out of a word instead of having the whole link showing in the post.

Gary, I found this example on the web.  Is this useful for pasting a hyperlink too?

Yes, that is the same process I used in this post on phpBB.

Man, it was SO easy to do that in Nabble.  Just copy the link, type "this post", highlight it, click the Link button, and paste the link in.  I really don't want to go backwards, and unless there is a plugin to fix that then phpBB would be a big step backwards.  And since nothing I've found suggests a plugin exists, I'm doubting it.

But, Jeff, please tell me your thoughts.  Can you make the link bit work on phpBB?  And by work I mean highlight some text to be a hyperlink instead of pasting in some horribly-long URL.  I've seen some URLs for things from Amazon that have gone on for 3 rows of text, and I don't think it is acceptable to paste several of those in the middle of a post.

Also, can you figure out how to do bulleted lists in phpBB?  How about numbered lists?  If so, please enlighten me as I've not twigged.

And then please go try the same thing in InVision.  Links are exactly like Nabble, and bulleted & numbered lists are dead simple.  I'm really having a hard time with phpBB unless there are plugins to fix the problems.

Gary, I agree, this is a MUST.  We cannot go away from Nabble to worst.

I'll take some time tomorrow to test this feature on the two platforms.


Oh, btw, IT'S A GIRL!

Congratulations!!!!

Congratulations!

Thanks guys, we are so happy!
My daughter had her first baby the same way my wife did:  Difficult, very long, but at the end everyone is in perfect shape.
Mother is healthy, although really tired.  We are grateful.

Gary - I played with InVision link posting, really easy: Just place the cursor at the right place in the phrase and click the "link" button.  In the window that opens, paste the link and write the word(s) you want to be displayed.  So, compared to Nabble it’s easier, since you don’t have to first highlight the word(s) before clicking the link button (this step is often annoying on iPhone with Nabble, the cursor doesn’t stay on the word and steps a the beginning of the post).

This is not the same on phpBB.  We need to manually edit the pasted link in order to display word(s) instead of the full link.  It is not acceptable imho, we cannot suppose that members have html programmers skills.

BUT, I emailed you a link about an extension that probably enables easy link posting on phpBB.  Please tell me if it’s the case.

Jeff, aka Grandpa - I am so glad everyone is well.  You are going to really, REALLY love being grandparents.  Spoil them and hand them back to their parents to sort out the problems.  

Our grandtwins show up Wednesday, along with their mother/our daughter, but she's leaving them with us for several days and we are dreaming up all the ways we can spoil them.  

As for the forum, InVision is soooo easy.  And the native phpBB is sooooo hard.  But I'm looking at the link you sent.  Perhaps it'll solve that problem.  (Then we need to solve the bulleted list and numbered list problems, and ....)

Grandpa Jeff - Unfortunately that plugin just shows a link to the post.  In other words, it does what clicking on the title of the post does, and makes it easy to get the link to the post so you can send others there.

But it doesn't allow you to insert links easily into a post, which I think is a requirement.  As you said, we can't expect the users to be HTML programmers.  And anything less than what we have is going in the wrong direction.

Here's a pic showing where they put the link - below the post:

Let me try to summarize where we are with comparing phpBB to InVision.  But y'all can look at the spreadsheet to get a clearer picture.

There are three categories and within them several attributes.  I'll try to hit the major differences:

Must Haves:

Embedability: We still aren't sure exactly how well either platform will work being embedded, and won't know until Chris has a chance to spend more time testing them.

Posting links: It ain't easy on phpBB, although Jeff has found an add-in that may fix that.  Won't know until Chris can install it.  But this could be a major issue.

Ought To Haves:

Avatars: InVision swallowed my 4.2MB file and didn't complain, but phpBB barfed as it was way larger than the limits.  So maybe we need to up the limits?

Bulleted & numbered lists: It is complicated on phpBB and dead simple on InVision.

Nice To Haves:

Drafts: phpBB lets you save a draft but InVision doesn't.

Word documents: You can paste a whole Word document into either, but only InVision retains the formatting.

Gary, when you’ll have a chance, take a look here.

Jeff - I see that post but I'm not 100% sure I understand.  I think what you are telling me is that you are looking for lots of improvement plugins and while doing that you may have found one for going to a given page in a long thread.  Is that right?

I think that's right, but when I first read your post I thought you were saying that you've compiled a list of things we should look at.  But there are 24 things per page and 78 pages, so I'm guessing that's not your list but the whole list.

Anyway, back to the jump-to-page button.  I searched for that function but didn't find it.  And I looked to see if that is something that can be turned on in the phpBB setup, but didn't find it there, either.  I'm missing something.  

ratdude747 wrote

... AHA! The issue is the resize tool, as it stripped the metadata. Nabble's issue isn't that it can't handle metadata when viewing, but that the resize tool strips the data off.

I remember now that Nabble has the same issue with animated GIF.
If posted using “resize”, the GIF turns to still image, no more animation.

Gary, I had a “testing” break last week, I’m a bit lost…


Please remember me why we are giving a try to InVision and phpBB, but not to Discourse?

I don’t remember why it was discarded.  No reason listed in the comparison chart.

Jeff - Yes, I certainly DID have fun with the grandkids!  Unfortunately they left this morning.  

And thanks for doing all of that research.  

Your question about Discourse is answered with these statements from this post:

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 means that we can't make it look like the forum is part of the website.  So while you are posting you won't have access to the menu that has links to all of the documentation.  Not acceptable.

As for your questions in email:

Gary, I am wondering about the phpBB version we are testing.  I saw somewhere that phpBB 3.2 will be deprecated next August 2024, and is already replaced by phpBB 3.3.  What version are we testing?

We are running version 3.3.11.

Also, a lot of these extensions are no longer supported by their author.  I am wondering about the fact that one (or more) of them could be attractive for our needs now, but someday will stop to work on a future phpBB upgrade…

I read some extensions "discussion/support“ tabs where users are complaining about extensions that were working on v3.0.x and ceased to work since v3.1.x.

My fear:  If phpBB will be ok for our needs but ONLY with some add-ons, there are chances (risks) that future upgrades of phpBB will make us losing some essential features that rely on theses famous extensions.

Yes, that is certainly a possibility.  That is something we will have to think about, for sure.

Gary Lewis wrote

That means that we can't make it [Discourse] look like the forum is part of the website.  So while you are posting you won't have access to the menu that has links to all of the documentation.  Not acceptable.

Ok, thanks Gary for the reminder, that's a very good reason!

Time for an update, and boy is it a good one!  Chris has gotten InVision embedded on a Weebly page like Nabble!!!!!  You can see it and even kick the tires here.  Thanks, CHRIS!!!

Yes, there's cleanup to do and details to work out.  I hope to spend some time working on some of the details, like the joining process, today.  And at this point the link in the email you get when someone posts on a thread to which you are subscribed doesn't take you to the post, just the thread.  But these are cleanup things that we should be able to address.

Given that, I'm inclined to say we should move to InVision.  It is a commercial platform that is maintained and works very nicely with all the features I think we want.  phpBB can be made to work but that will take Chris making coding changes that may need to be redone each time phpBB is updated, and I don't think that is a viable alternative.

But there is a cost.  Right now it is running about $55/mo and that may go up some as we really start using it.  However many of you have said you'll help, so I don't think that's a big deal.

However, what IS a big deal is the cost of porting this existing forum over to InVision.  They said that starts at $1800 but I'm sure it'll go up some from there.  Some have suggested we start a Go Fund Me account to make that happen, but the question to y'all is whether it is worth it to have all of our stuff in one place?  And, do you think we can do it?  

Gary Lewis wrote

Time for an update, and boy is it a good one!  Chris has gotten InVision embedded on a Weebly page like Nabble!!!!!
[…] Thanks, CHRIS!!!

Oh yeah, what a HUGE job you’ve done for us Chris!  So many thanks!!

Gary Lewis wrote

Given that, I'm inclined to say we should move to InVision.  It is a commercial platform that is maintained and works very nicely with all the features I think we want.  phpBB can be made to work but that will take Chris making coding changes that may need to be redone each time phpBB is updated, and I don't think that is a viable alternative.

Having played with the two, I FULLY agree Gary.

Gary Lewis wrote

However, what IS a big deal is the cost of porting this existing forum over to InVision.  They said that starts at $1800 but I'm sure it'll go up some from there.  Some have suggested we start a Go Fund Me account to make that happen […]

That a nice idea.  Why not try it?
As I already said, I’m ready to absorb part of this transfer, sure I’m not alone.

Gary Lewis wrote

[…] but the question to y'all is whether it is worth it to have all of our stuff in one place?  And, do you think we can do it?

Oooops, you lost me… Not sure I understand your questions.  Can you re-formulate Gary?

Gary Lewis wrote

Right now it is running about $55/mo and that may go up some as we really start using it.  However many of you have said you'll help, so I don't think that's a big deal.

Twelve guys at one month each, and that’s it.
Hey, my TV+Netflix+etc costs largely more than a 55$-60$ yearly donation to this Forum.
This part could be as simple as a shareware is, no fix price but a voluntary donation based system.
I’m confident that the maintenance fees could be easily paid by members this way.

Gary Lewis wrote

[…] but the question to y'all is whether it is worth it to have all of our stuff in one place?  And, do you think we can do it?

BigBrother-84 wrote

Oooops, you lost me… Not sure I understand your questions.  Can you re-formulate Gary?

The question is whether it is worth ~$2000 to have our last almost 7 years of the Bullnose forum migrated over to the new forum as if everything was on InVision from the start.  I don't yet know what the cost will be nor how complete/accurate the migration might be, but if it was complete would it be worth that?

The alternate would be to lock the existing Nabble forum and just use it for history - as long as it is available.  But at some point I suspect it'll go away and we won't have it to refer to.  Or, it'll be part of the Way Back machine and we'll have to get to it that way.

Wouldn't it be nicer to have all of our history as part of the new forum and not have to go elsewhere to find our comments?

Ignorant question.

Can you save all the info on the Nabble forum somewhere you control, as in a disc, computer hard drive etc.?

Or is it just too much to handle or tackle?

I don't know how or if it could be accessed.

Yes, I can save it.  But I can't really access it.  I back the forum up weekly and it is now up to 7.2 GB in size.  But the only way I know of to use it is to have Nabble put it back on the server.  And if they go away, which is anticipated at some point, we won't be able to use it.