Migrating to Xenforo

[Duff-Man]

Duff-Man says...one of the music forums I post on a lot (fairly high traffic though maybe not as high as MacRumors) made the transition last year and the downtime and post-migration hiccups were pretty minimal - I suspect and hope that everything here will do so as well and people will generally be very happy with the new software....oh yeah!

 

[thecore762]

Thanks!

I looked a bit at IPB a while back, but several other forum owners I'm friendly with have had bad experiences with IPB and recommended I avoid it. Besides IPB4 was in the wings then and is in Beta now, so wouldn't be a realistic migration option at this point.

Xenforo had the right combination of stability, features we needed, features we wanted, and a good developer/support community around it.

arn

I am IcEWoLF from Theadminzone and XenForo saw you thread and your post there. I am glad you are switching to XenForo, been using XF over the past two years and our site traffic and activity sky rocketed, the XF notification system is so much nicer than vBulletin!

I am looking forward to see the gallery option on these boards, so people can start posting their sexy iPhone/iPad pics.

 

[Eric5h5]

The Unity forums went from VBulletin to XenForo a while ago, and yes it's nicer. Among other things, better notification system, and better moderation/spam controls.

--Eric

 

[phrehdd]

Perhaps a couple of reminders on the home page to all would be in order as the time draws closer.

As someone who has worked on projects like this in the past (ranging from BBS type software to large corp infrastructure software) I hope it all goes smoothly for MR.

 

[arn]

I do plan on opening up a test migration sandbox (with all data ported over) to anyone who wants to play around with it. To make sure any obvious bugs/issues get resolved before the final switchover.

I'll probably wait until we get the theme settled though, to make sure it's fully representative.

arn

 

[jeremysteele]

I do plan on opening up a test migration sandbox (with all data ported over) to anyone who wants to play around with it. To make sure any obvious bugs/issues get resolved before the final switchover.

I'll probably wait until we get the theme settled though, to make sure it's fully representative.

arn

Sounds good. As a dev I love beta testing. Makes the software better for everyone in the end

 

[JamesMike]

As a new member to the forum have enjoyed it with all the great information available, look forward to the new changes!

 

[iososx]

I'm familiar with Zenforo, it's a terrific product and results in an excellent forum once the migration is complete. The only challenge is for those with no patience.

For a forum this size it's rather laborious, yet the good news is migration is just a one time task.

 

[JoelTheSuperior]

Fantastic news.

I do think it's sad that vBulletin has gone the way it has - I remember back in the day that it was considered the best software around by a long way.

I do know of quite a few people who have even migrated from IPB to XenForo - it's got a very good reputation actually.

The other forum software that I've found interesting is Discourse, though, fantastic as it is, I'm not sure it's something I'd want to use in production just yet, though I do frequent a few forums running it still.

 

[grahamperrin]

A few questions

Thanks …

Link integrity

Will external links to topics, and to posts, remain good?

I assume that there'll be redirection to the new URL for each item.

Spaces

Do you know whether the new approach will allow nonbreaking*spaces?

vBulletin misrepresents them as * …

 

[arn]

Thanks …

Link integrity

Will external links to topics, and to posts, remain good?

I assume that there'll be redirection to the new URL for each item.

Spaces

Do you know whether the new approach will allow nonbreaking*spaces?

vBulletin misrepresents them as * …

All existing URLs should forward to the new URLs.

As for non-breaking spaces, I'm not sure that's possible. Feel like it could be abused to create formatting issues. What would the use case be?

arn

 

[Eric5h5]

XenForo converts non-breaking spaces to regular spaces.

--Eric

 

[grahamperrin]

Nonbreaking spaces?

XenForo converts non-breaking spaces to regular spaces.

OK. That's better than *

… non-breaking spaces, … Feel like it could be abused to create formatting issues. What would the use case be? …

Tidiness and legibility. It's a habit that's hard to break … I automatically, primarily, aim for optimal use of nonbreaking spaces. Then wherever I know that the environment might not support them, I preview, then edit out the *

 

[Partron22]

Oh dear, a new platform syntax to learn.
Still, it's got to be less clunky than the dinosaur vBulletin's become.
I hope there's at least some decent autoconversion tools so old posts don't get all slashy-square-brackety and plaintexted. No doubt smilies will be converted in scandalous fashion, to the outrage of many.

Good luck!

 

[JackieInCo]

Oh dear, a new platform syntax to learn.
Still, it's got to be less clunky than the dinosaur vBulletin's become.
I hope there's at least some decent autoconversion tools so old posts don't get all slashy-square-brackety and plaintexted. No doubt smilies will be converted in scandalous fashion, to the outrage of many.

Good luck!

Xenforo does an exceptional job at converting vBulletin forums. I believe most of the posting user codes are the same as far as using img tags and other things. The hardest part will be getting used to the new layout.

 

[crazzyeddie]

The current forums have surely done a good job serving the community, so here's to hoping that Xenforo can do the same.

Thanks, Arn.

 

[arn]

Xenforo does an exceptional job at converting vBulletin forums. I believe most of the posting user codes are the same as far as using img tags and other things. The hardest part will be getting used to the new layout.

Yep, functionally, it's very similar but better.

The style change will be the most disorienting part of it. So it's probably good to do it all at once (platform + style change).

arn

 

[grahamperrin]

Ah …

… arn

OK so I just realised who you are. Hey, thanks. Nice site, nice moderators. Big thanks.

 

[GGJstudios]

I do plan on opening up a test migration sandbox (with all data ported over) to anyone who wants to play around with it. To make sure any obvious bugs/issues get resolved before the final switchover.

I'll probably wait until we get the theme settled though, to make sure it's fully representative.

arn

I look forward to the new setup. Please let us know when you have the test sandbox ready for us to play with!

 

[grahamperrin]

MacRumors Forums search engine upgrade (2014-12-09)

Was yesterday's downtime, for the search engine upgrade, part of preparations for the migration to Xenforo?

If so, should we watch for anything unusual about search results?

Thanks

 

[arn]

Was yesterday's downtime, for the search engine upgrade, part of preparations for the migration to Xenforo?

If so, should we watch for anything unusual about search results?

Thanks

no, that was an unrelated issue.

the data migration tests are coming along reasonably well. Still figuring out the new theme though.

arn

 

[OneAnswer]

Will all members be transferred, even the banned ones with zero posts, the ones normally banned for spamming?
If you do that, it will probably lessen your member numbers though.

And the new interface, will it have only one theme or several to choose from?

 

[arn]

Will all members be transferred, even the banned ones with zero posts, the ones normally banned for spamming?
If you do that, it will probably lessen your member numbers though.

And the new interface, will it have only one theme or several to choose from?

1. All members will be transferred, but xenforo doesn't count banned members as part of the membership numbers.

2. There will be only one theme.

arn

 

[Clix Pix]

This is a good opportunity to clean out the deadwood -- so-called "members" who have not even looked in on this site for a given period of time, much less posted. There are undoubtedly people here who joined and who have continued to lurk but who don't post or haven't posted, but if they've been around for a while and still check in on the site regularly and recently, their memberships shouldn't be purged, of course, but, yes, those which are clearly spammers and/or spambots who "joined" a long time ago and who never posted and/or who were promptly swatted and banned should be eradicated forever now..... The real benefit to doing this is that it potentially speeds things up for the real users of the forum.

 

[grahamperrin]

… a long time …

At what length of time would you guess that a dormant member should be treated as deadwood?