Search options (Page 2 of 8)

2007-07-12 06:31

Hey kids,

Since I started this thread I'm going to dig it back up with an update and a bunch of questions. I ended up going with punBB for my recent project and so far I'm mostly glad I did. There are moments that I wish I had all the bells / whistles of vBulletin, but I'm afraid the resources required to run a big forum on that platform would have been too much for my budget (hosting costs, not the software). With that said I'm realizing that for some of the members of my new community the bells and whistles are more important than speed and performance.

So, here I am running punBB with a pretty busy forum. I want to start adding more mods but have been holding out for version 1.3 and the magic extension system. The "big" mods I'd love to add are:

Mark Topics Read
Easy Poll
Private Messages

From what I understand "mark as read" will be built into the core and the other two are first on the list for "supported extensions". The big question I have is do I install them myself (very manual / difficult process) or wait for 1.3 and extensions? Here are my issues / problems / concerns / thoughts:

1) 1.3 may be 3, 6 or 12 months away... nobody knows. From what I see, the early discussions of 1.3 go back to January of 2005
2) Even if 1.3 was released tomorrow it would still take time for the dust to settle and for the extensions to be built / tested

So, with this uncertainty I begin to go down the path of installing the existing mods manually, but this brings up a bunch of other issues:

1) We all know it is just a pain to manually hack the code to add mods
2) I'm not php / PunBB savvy enough to know which mods will break / effect other mods where and when. It scares me to death that I'll follow one of the "Replace this line with this line" instructions and kill an already installed mod or cripple my forum.
3) Lets say I magically get all the mods working together (like smartys has on his cool PunBB hosting site). Well, then I'd be worried that ever time there is a PunBB security / version release that the patch files that have worked flawlessly thus far (knock on wood) would stop working because of a "heavily modified forum" and I'd have to edit all the updates manually... blah.
4) What if one of the mods causes problems on my server (for example, hogging resources). If you thought manually adding a mod was a pain, try hunting through code to remove it! This is one of my biggest joys of an extention and being able to add / remove seamlessly.
5) Once 1.3 rolls out with all the cool extensions, how difficult will it be to upgrade to 1.3 and then clean up all the hacked pages and integrate / load the cleaner extensions?

So, where does this leave me? Should I have gone with vBulletin originally? Should I make the switch now? Should I install the mods or wait for 1.3 and extensions?

I seriously look forward to your comments & suggestions!

2007-07-10 21:32

Definitely way more than two punbb users requesting this.

I was thinking about creating a new member group with additional privileges (Private messaging, image hosting, etc.) for "forum sponsors" but the administration of manually adding people to the group and then removing them after xx months is too much of a hassle.

vBulletin has a payment mod which looks pretty advanced: http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/main ? ns_example

I'd almost be willing to settle for a simple countdown mod that automatically moves someone from a premiere group to a standard user group if they haven't renewed after xx days. I'm okay with manually adding members to a group when they pay, but it would be a pain to have to remember to pull their membership when the time runs out / subscription expires.

This may be better suited for version 1.3, but maybe some people can partner up to pay someone to build this mod / plugin.

2007-07-07 18:06

Okay, where are Connorhd or Smartys to help share their overflowing fountains of knowledge on this subject? Here are my two questions:

1) Do the three steps above look like a good way to copy my forum to a new folder / DB for testing?

2) When I did the above it worked fine... but now I'm wondering why it worked? If I copy the DB and the punbb folder exactly then how are config settings (based on the original folder and DB) not causing collision / config issues with the original install? I guess I just don't know where the config settings for punbb are kept and why they weren't copied over?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

2007-07-05 17:34

Yup, I (and the almost 3,000 members of my forum) are anxiously awaiting 1.3 so we can implement this much desired... nay, needed... dare I say required feature. On a forum with almost 3,000 members and 600+ new posts per day it becomes very difficult to keep track of what is read and not read.

I'd ask how 1.3 is progressing and when it is expected to be released, but I don't want to get flamed

---edited to add--- Many members are telling me to go vBulletin but I'd love to stick with punbb

2007-07-03 19:02

No ideas / suggestions?

I've got a question then: If I copy all the files and the DB exactly, wouldn't my new forum location (www/folder-test) be pointing to the original DB? I ran through all these steps and it seems like the new test install is working perfectly and independent of the production install... now I'm just not sure why.

2007-07-01 18:50

That's pretty cool. Be careful, it may be against the AdSense T&C's... they are very particular about how their code is displayed.

2007-07-01 18:45

Hey everyone!

I cobbled together a process which allows me to do the following through ssh / shell (I use Putty)

1) Backup my punbb DB EXCLUDING all the search tables (my DB is 90mb with search tables and only 35 without)
2) Add drop tables if the table exists
3) Restore the DB to a copy of my forum to a location where I can run tests on an exact copy of my production site without worrying about impacting the live forum

Here's what I do:

1) Copy all files from my main forum to another location:

cp -f -p -r /home/site/www/folder-production /home/site/www/folder-test

2) Backup my main punbbDB and only the non-search tables:

 mysqldump --add-drop-table -u username -p db_name bans categories censoring config forums forum_perms groups online posts ranks reports subscriptions topics users  > /home/site/forumdb.sql

3) Restore my main punbbDB and only the non-search tables to another DB I've already setup:

 mysql -u username -p NEWdb_name < /home/site/forumdb.sql

So, how does that look? Is this a good way to setup a test environment and also have a perfect backup of my forum in case I need to redirect to it?

If you have any comments / suggestions I'd love to hear them. Also, any way to completely automate this whole process into a single batch file?

2007-06-25 17:02

Doh! Always the last place you look. I'm so use to finding stuff on punres that I forget to look here.

I ended up just doing it manually... seemed to work like a charm. Thanks anyway Matt for pointing that page out. Lots of goodies there which I hadn't looked over in a year or more.

2007-06-25 00:44

Hmmm... still can't find that merge forums plugin. I'll do it manually unless someone can point it out in the next 5 hours or so.

2007-06-23 18:51

I've been looking for this merge forum plugin and can't find it. Can someone point the way?

2007-06-22 17:05

On my test forum it took 2 seconds once I got the sql lined up. I'll put my forum into maintenance mode, run the command, post two topics in each of the forums which were touched, delete the posts, then remove maintenance mode.

If this process sounds good then I'd prefer this hands-on method over a mod / plugin... especially for something I don't expect to have to do again or a very long time.

Thoughts?

2007-06-21 22:40

Wow.... that was almost too easy!

Created a new topic in both forums and deleted... all fixed!

Thanks guys!!!

2007-06-21 22:25

Hi All,

I know we can move topics from one forum to another using the admin panel, but this is a very slow process if you've got 200+ topics that you want to move.

On my test forum I thought I'd try a test and went into the DB and ran a sql command to change the forum_ID in each topic:

UPDATE `topics` SET forum_id = '10' WHERE forum_id = '17'

Well, as you can imagine it didn't work quite right. The topics were moved, but the pagination wasn't calculated correctly.

So, what's the easiest way to move all 200+ topics from one forum to another?

Thanks!

2007-04-23 00:24

Tested and everything works like a charm so far! This is definitely one of the best mods I've ever seen. Much needed functionality, easy to install / uninstall, simple & clean design, great features.

Thanks much Koos!

2007-04-16 19:52

I just noticed this problem on my forum and almost had a heart attack because I thought posts were dropping off / being automatically pruned: http://punbb.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=15562

A few follow up questions:

1) Was a fix applied back in September of 06 but didn't work?
2) When a new fix is applied will it auto resolve the hidden topics, or will a cleanup script need to be run?
3) Is there anything I can do in the interim (while waiting for a fix) to show all the topics?

Thanks much!

2007-04-16 16:43

Excellent, I'm glad it is a known issue and not specific to my forum. Thanks Smartys!

2007-04-16 03:17

A moderator told me that she was doing some cleanup by removing "moved" redirects from our main forum / category. There are 26 pages of topics in the main forum and she deleted about 25 redirects. She expected the page number to drop from 26 pages to 24 or 25 pages of topics, but it remained at 26... well that was weird.

I restored a backup of my forum in a new folder and started out to duplicated exactly what she did.

First: I noticed the last post on the last page (page 26) was on 02/04/2007 4:14 pm.

Second: I deleted 10 moved redirects and (this is where it gets weird) the last post on the last page (still page 26) is 02/01/2007 5:48

What's going on? It looks like posts past page 26 are falling off / being pruned, but once I "make room" by removing other topics the old topics re-appear.

I haven't pruned anything and there aren't any settings (that I can find) that would hide topics past a certain date / page / number.

Any ideas what the heck is going on?

2007-04-15 01:19

Thanks Jérémie! So, the "+" and "-" in the .rej file show what is there and what the patch is trying to replace it with?

Any ideas why that wouldn't have worked? Of all the modded files on my forum where I was expecting problems... this was the least I thought I'd have any problems with (seems like a simple change compared to all the others).

Thanks again!

2007-04-14 19:07

Hi Friends,

I searched the forum for "hunk FAILED" and was surprised there was only one result (which didn't help). Is this because everyone that runs the patch either doesn't have problems, or is so smart they don't need help?

Well, I don't fall into either of those camps!

Here is what I got when I ran the upgrade patch: punbb-1.2.14_to_1.2.15.patch.txt

patching file admin_categories.php
patching file admin_forums.php
patching file admin_loader.php
patching file admin_maintenance.php
patching file admin_options.php
patching file admin_prune.php
patching file admin_ranks.php
patching file admin_users.php
patching file extern.php
patching file footer.php
Hunk #1 succeeded at 155 (offset 16 lines).
patching file header.php
patching file include/common.php
patching file include/dblayer/mysql.php
patching file include/dblayer/mysqli.php
patching file include/dblayer/pgsql.php
patching file include/dblayer/sqlite.php
patching file include/email.php
patching file include/functions.php
patching file include/template/admin.tpl
patching file include/template/help.tpl
patching file include/template/main.tpl
Hunk #1 FAILED at 1.
1 out of 1 hunk FAILED -- saving rejects to file include/template/main.tpl.rej
patching file include/template/maintenance.tpl
patching file include/template/redirect.tpl
patching file install.php
patching file misc.php
patching file moderate.php
patching file post.php
Hunk #1 succeeded at 129 (offset 1 line).
patching file profile.php
patching file register.php
patching file search.php
patching file style/imports/base.css
patching file userlist.php

First ?: What are the offset lines?
Second ?: Can I assume all the patching went fine (other than the one failure)?

I see one FAILED (I was expecting more... so this is good, right?) So, I opened up main.tpl.rej and see this:

***************
*** 1,6 ****
  <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
  
- <html dir="<pun_content_direction>">
  <head>
  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=<pun_char_encoding>" />
  <pun_head>
--- 1,6 ----
  <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
  
+ <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="<pun_content_direction>">
  <head>
  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=<pun_char_encoding>" />
  <pun_head>

So, what am I looking at, and what do I still need to do?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

2007-04-07 16:17

This is an excellent / simple chat script. I'd like to test it with a bunch of user but one thing is bugging me like crazy:

One item I can't figure out is why all the messages are shown on a new line below the username. Is it just my install or is it always like this? I've changed the "message parsing" and "Message separation" but I can't get the message to show on the same line.

For example, this: <pun_username> - <pun_message> should show:

admin - this is my message

Instead it shows:

admin -
message

Any ideas on how to fix this so the message shows on the same line as the username?

2007-04-07 16:15

Just a footnote: I'm on a VPS server and ran flashchat. I had 10 people logged in and actively chatting and it seemed to be running well at first. After about 20 mins my server load started to increase and then kept going up and up and up. I've tried xchat, phpfreechat, and flashchat and all of them seem to run fine at first, but if you get 10+ people chatting you better have a pretty robust server.

I'm going to keep testing these applications, but I'm not holding my breath.

2007-04-03 22:49

Looks excellent! I've already added it to one of my forums and the feedback has been great. Any chance there will be an option for resizing on upload?

BTW, I still like the fact that this "mod" is independent of any DB / File modifications. Simple, clean, easy to add and easy to remove. This is how I dream that the extentions in 1.3 will work.

2007-04-01 23:58

An update on my forum that is almost 3 months old:

Total number of registered users: 1216
Total number of topics: 2130
Total number of posts: 16512

MySQL 4.0.27-standard
Rows: 483269
Size: 19.95 MB

2007-03-29 19:22

I'm not a programmer, but I'd like to see the file name changed on upload to convert spaces to _ or to -

I really like where this script is going. A lot of potential here.

BTW, anybody else think that resizing the image on upload or giving the option to resize on upload is a good idea? My users will have a hard time trying to resize images locally and if the uploader can do it... great!

2007-03-28 01:19

This is a quick "fix":

In 1.3 I really think the default location for the "The post is located at" URL should be above the line "The message reads as follows:". This is of course assuming that the user has opted to "Include post in subscription e-mails."

Many posts are often VERY long. If you want to see all the other posts on the forum then you need to scroll through the email to get to the link. I think the link should be at the top of the page (which is why I moved it to the top of the page in all my forums).

Any reasons not to have it above the line "The message reads as follows:" at the top of the subscription email?

Search options (Page 2 of 8)

Posts found: 26 to 50 of 182

26 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-07-12 06:31

Re: Should I Stick With PunBB for my next project or Switch To vBulletin? (12 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

27 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-07-10 21:32

Re: upgrade forum --> paying members can do more than standard users (5 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)

28 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-07-07 18:06

Re: Backup Database Excluding Search Tables Restore To New Test DB (7 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

29 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-07-05 17:34

Re: proper "mark as read" functionality (44 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

30 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-07-03 19:02

Re: Backup Database Excluding Search Tables Restore To New Test DB (7 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

31 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-07-01 18:50

Re: ad sense drop down code (1 replies, posted in Programming)

32 Topic by reviewum.com 2007-07-01 18:45

Topic: Backup Database Excluding Search Tables Restore To New Test DB (7 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

33 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-06-25 17:02

Re: How To Move All Topics From One Forum To Another ? (15 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

34 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-06-25 00:44

Re: How To Move All Topics From One Forum To Another ? (15 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

35 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-06-23 18:51

Re: How To Move All Topics From One Forum To Another ? (15 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

36 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-06-22 17:05

Re: How To Move All Topics From One Forum To Another ? (15 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

37 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-06-21 22:40

Re: How To Move All Topics From One Forum To Another ? (15 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

38 Topic by reviewum.com 2007-06-21 22:25

Topic: How To Move All Topics From One Forum To Another ? (15 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

39 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-04-23 00:24

Re: Automatic Image Upload with Thumbnails (154 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)

40 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-04-16 19:52

Re: when a forum has some "moved" topics, the oldest topics are not shown (5 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 bug reports)

41 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-04-16 16:43

Re: HELP! Old Posts Dropping Into Abyss / Expiring Then Coming Back !?! (2 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

42 Topic by reviewum.com 2007-04-16 03:17

Topic: HELP! Old Posts Dropping Into Abyss / Expiring Then Coming Back !?! (2 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

43 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-04-15 01:19

Re: hunk FAILED - Help with running patch upgrade (3 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

44 Topic by reviewum.com 2007-04-14 19:07

Topic: hunk FAILED - Help with running patch upgrade (3 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)

45 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-04-07 16:17

Re: OLD TOPIC TO DELETE (65 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)

46 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-04-07 16:15

Re: Chatroom, chat, ajax chat, java chat.... integration with punbb (9 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)

47 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-04-03 22:49

Re: Automatic Image Upload with Thumbnails (154 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)

48 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-04-01 23:58

Re: The biggest PunBB? (142 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)

49 Reply by reviewum.com 2007-03-29 19:22

Re: Automatic Image Upload with Thumbnails (154 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)

50 Topic by reviewum.com 2007-03-28 01:19

Topic: 1.3 Default location for "The post is located at" URL should be moved (0 replies, posted in Feature requests)

Posts found: 26 to 50 of 182