Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

pj is right.

The switch has been delayed to the first weekend of December. It will be that Sunday at 7 AM Eastern. The reason it won't be until then is primarily because of Thanksgiving.

Since I last posted about this we've made a number of further improvements and have taken steps to smooth out the import of posts and users to the new software. I fully expect things to go well this time around.

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

Ryan,

Any way of us, saving our favourite threads ?


vava

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
Ryan,

Any way of us, saving our favourite threads ?


vava

[/ QUOTE ]

LDO, my screenshot service.

Yours

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

When we switch over, can we get the following added to the smiley array?

http://www.improvresourcecenter.com/...es/popcorn.gif

http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/im...s/thumbsup.gif

kthnxbai

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

A popcorn guy, likely that one, will be part of the new smilies. Not sure about the other.

Vavavoom,

To clarify what I mean by losing your favorites, I'm just talking about the actual list of favorite threads in the panel not porting. Since it's only going to be 60 days worth of active threads that come with to vB, any favorites older than that wouldn't be useful in vB rergardless. PMs, favorites, posts and all the rest will remain as sort of an additional archive in UBB for the foreseeable too.

Also, those of you who mentioned you may have a problem if 2+2 stopped using a forum subdomain should be pleased to know that we did decide to keep using one.

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

Here's what you guys should do if you have access to a php programmer.

IN the vbulletin database you add a new table called old_favorites that has a user ID, thread URL, and thread title (user id and thread url are combo primary key). You write a couple line script that loops through each user ID in UBB and grabs their favorite thread IDs and titles.

You convert the thread ID into the proper archived URL location. For example a UBB thread ID may say 777634 so you'd convert it to http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/...read/ID/777623 (or whatever archive URL you guys are using) and insert that and the thread title into the old_favorites table for that persons vbulletin user ID.

Then in vBulletin you add a few lines to the "my home" php page that loops through the old_favorites field and displays a table of links to their old favorites.

It probably took me longer to type all this out than it would to develop the script. You just have to make sure each person in UBB has the same username in vbulletin so you can link their user IDs.

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
Also, those of you who mentioned you may have a problem if 2+2 stopped using a forum subdomain should be pleased to know that we did decide to keep using one.

[/ QUOTE ]

THANK YOU!

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

I'll take this up with Chuck. It may not be feasible since userids will change along with only using the display names. That may not be an issue with what you're suggesting, but linking userids through names seems dicey to me.

Regardless, at the end of the day spending time on getting UBB panel favorites into the vB panel doesn't seem useful. You're only dealing with a relatively small number of imported posts, and everything will still be available in UBB. The more worthwhile thing to look at would be the address book / buddy list.

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

Well the functionality can be duplicated for just about any feature that doesn't directly import which is a benefit to doing the initial code. Simply change favorite thread ID to whatever other field you want and the underlying looping, database reading/writing, and name matching code is already done for you. And for username, if you're unsure then you could do a match on username and password before inserting into the VB database.

What I described is really pretty simple (I'd expect someone halfway through an intro to PHP & MySQL class could do it) and shouldn't take a php programmer more than a few hours to get the code down. Then doing any additional field transfers should take an hour or less in modification time. If you do this, remember to set a huge page timeout value since it will take forever to loop through all 100K users.

And just because a thread is archived doesn't mean it's useless as a favorite. Think about the functionality of a favorite and why a person would prefer using it over using a web browser bookmark. Accessable from any computer at any location, doesn't take up any room in a huge list of bookmarked websites, won't be lost when you get a new computer, etc.

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
The more worthwhile thing to look at would be the address book / buddy list.

[/ QUOTE ]
does anyone use this?

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

Bradley,

You'll still have the same favorites and everything else in the UBB panel, and parts of what you're saying aren't a way I would want to go about doing that for vB. For me this is less a question of whether it's possible than it making sense to add in the way you're suggesting. But I'll still bring it up after we're finished with a few other issues.

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
Also, those of you who mentioned you may have a problem if 2+2 stopped using a forum subdomain should be pleased to know that we did decide to keep using one.

[/ QUOTE ]
Ryan,

Because of the sheer number of posters who use 2+2 from work (when they shouldn't be [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]), I thought you might find this vB.org template modification useful:

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/3761/panicqz4.png

If your boss comes in, click "Panic" and you're redirected to whatever web page you're supposed to be viewing. The addon lets each user specify their own exit URL.

Judging by the responses about forumserver in this thread alone, a lot of posters have day jobs and most of them would probably love the mod.

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

I for one cannot browse 2+2 were it not for the forumserver url. I cannot access twoplustwo.com from work.

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

Thanks. I'll tag it and give the idea a look later this week.

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

Sorry if I'm not understanding this correctly, but after the switch happens would a link to an old UBB post still function or will you be changing the URL in such a way that everything is going to be broken?

I ask because I'm working on building a collection of links on del.icio.us. so if forumserver.twoplustwo.com (or archivesever) is no longer going to link to UBB (because you've moved the UBB archive to a different location) I'll be very [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

(either way I'm still [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] about moving to vBulletin, but would be really bummed if I did all that work for nothing).

Thanks,
FB

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
I for one cannot browse 2+2 were it not for the forumserver url. I cannot access twoplustwo.com from work.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT.

Will that still exist?

Nevermind. I didn't look back far enough...

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

Will it support RSS/Atom feeds?

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
Ratings would be fantastic in the strat forums but stupid everywhere else.

[/ QUOTE ]

They'd be very useful in Legislation as well.

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

How much space for private data will each user be allotted? Does vBulletin have a KeePM equivalent?

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
Does vBulletin have a KeePM equivalent?

[/ QUOTE ]

vBulletin has a one-click ability to save your PMs as an XML, CSV, or text file.

Maybe not as useful as how KeePM puts them all in a separate file, builds a browsable HTML index and so on, but it is available right out of the box.

If people really clamor for it, I'll explore an extension or rewrite of KeePM to interact with vBulletin. But for now, no immediate plans.

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

Here's a question I don't think has been asked yet: Will the hand converters still work after the switch?

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
Here's a question I don't think has been asked yet: Will the hand converters still work after the switch?

[/ QUOTE ]

[iron] yes and no. some will, some wont. [/iron]

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Here's a question I don't think has been asked yet: Will the hand converters still work after the switch?

[/ QUOTE ]

[magnesium] yes and no. some will, some wont. [/magnesium]

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Here's a question I don't think has been asked yet: Will the hand converters still work after the switch?

[/ QUOTE ]

[magnesium] yes and no. some will, some wont. [/magnesium]

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

[gold/]

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Here's a question I don't think has been asked yet: Will the hand converters still work after the switch?

[/ QUOTE ]

[iron] yes and no. some will, some wont. [/iron]

[/ QUOTE ]

[Rubidium]This isn't exactly true. For any converter you use, if you continue to choose 2+2 format for the output, it won't work, unless the people who maintain that converter are really on top of the ball for getting the format changed. However, I think if you choose FTR format, or the format of another forum that uses vB, it may work. You'll have to double check that the other formats don't use non-standard images or smilies, though. Unless the reds have changed things since I last tested, the text coloring syntax we use now is incompatible with vB.[/Rubidium]

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

Perhaps this has been asked and answered, but I want to ask it again as I am not prepared to wade through fifteen pages of responses.

Will coming to the forum and then logging in be accomplished in the same manner? By that I mean when I come to the 2plus2 site and click on the link, I will get to the forum with no problem. Or do I need to clean something out on my end before trying to get to the forum for the first time after the change?

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

I believe you will be redirected with a link to the new forums on the day we switch.

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

ugh, i hate change [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
ugh, i hate change [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

http://icanhascheezburger.files.word...s-ymca-cat.jpg

Cheer ya up?

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

Having been here long enough, the question burning in my mind is, "Will it allow for a spell checker?"

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
Having been here long enough, the question burning in my mind is, "Will it allow for a spell checker?"

[/ QUOTE ]

No, but Firefox has one.

Also: what is going to happen to all of the threads that are older than 60 days? Will they just get deleted? Saved in archives? Will we be able to still post in them?

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Having been here long enough, the question burning in my mind is, "Will it allow for a spell checker?"

[/ QUOTE ]

No, but Firefox has one.

Also: what is going to happen to all of the threads that are older than 60 days? Will they just get deleted? Saved in archives? Will we be able to still post in them?

[/ QUOTE ]

Why worry about things sixty days old? Around here, some things three hours old are ancient and out of date!

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Having been here long enough, the question burning in my mind is, "Will it allow for a spell checker?"

[/ QUOTE ]

No, but Firefox has one.

Also: what is going to happen to all of the threads that are older than 60 days? Will they just get deleted? Saved in archives? Will we be able to still post in them?

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe that they'll remain on the UBB server un-imported. You can still view them, but you can't post in them. It'll be like having two archiveservers, essentially.

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

How long is this estimated to take?

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

What time is this going down?

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

How will we know if it isn't working when it should be?

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
What time is this going down?

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
On Sunday, 12/2/07 the forums will be unavailable from about 4am Eastern Time until late afternoon for software upgrade.

[/ QUOTE ]
Can't recall where I found it though.

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
Having been here long enough, the question burning in my mind is, "Will it allow for a spell checker?"

[/ QUOTE ]

Firefox 2.x imo

Re: Important info about vBulletin
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What time is this going down?

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
On Sunday, 12/2/07 the forums will be unavailable from about 4am Eastern Time until late afternoon for software upgrade.

[/ QUOTE ]
Can't recall where I found it though.

[/ QUOTE ]

So that is 3am my time which means I only have to stay up about four hours and fifteen minutes so I can try to be the last poster of the old forum.