The Free Talk Live BBS

Free Talk Live => The Polling Pit => Topic started by: AlexLibman on January 13, 2007, 11:26:36 PM

Title: Time to Upgrade Forum Software?
Post by: AlexLibman on January 13, 2007, 11:26:36 PM
This forum is powered by the Simple Machines Forum (http://www.simplemachines.org/) [WP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Machines_Forum)] version 1.0.10 - the latest version in the legacy 1.0.x branch, which is still maintained for security and bug fixes.  It is, however, missing the newer features that go into the 1.1.x branch, and it's only a matter of time until this forum starts looking like a time-warp to the past compared to the forums that have upgraded.

This upgrade decision should not be done hastily, however.  As I understand it, upgrading to a latest fix within the 1.0.x branch is trivial via the admin interface, but upgrading to a new branch requires more effort.  It might be worth considering setting up an alternative (beta) forum running the latest 1.1.x release, which would also give admins the opportunity to experiment with the interface tweaking, SMF plug-in (http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/) selection / testing, and other stuff like that.  I figured the first step would be to gauge user interest in the new features...
Title: Re: Time to Upgrade Forum Software?
Post by: sillyperson on January 15, 2007, 10:19:07 AM
SMF 1.1.1 fixes a shitload of major security holes over 1.0.x
To be honest it's a matter of time before somebody 0wnz this board
Title: Re: Time to Upgrade Forum Software?
Post by: mikehz on January 15, 2007, 11:41:53 AM
I think it's pretty good right now. However, from what I read, a spell-checker might be nice.
Title: Re: Time to Upgrade Forum Software?
Post by: aquabanianskakid on January 15, 2007, 11:52:09 AM
Be nice... he is doing his best. If it is an issue of security I say upgrade it, otherwise things are ok as they are.
Title: Re: Time to Upgrade Forum Software?
Post by: Brian Wolf on January 15, 2007, 12:10:41 PM
I think it's pretty good right now. However, from what I read, a spell-checker might be nice.

Hey Mike, have you tried Firefox lately?

Its pretty nice, and it has a built in spell checker (2.0+).
Title: Re: Time to Upgrade Forum Software?
Post by: mikehz on January 15, 2007, 12:51:13 PM
I don't need it, since I use iespell, which is a spell checker for the internet. It's a free download that works really well. http://www.iespell.com/

I tried Firefox, but it did not play well with my wireless router, which for some reason is a very sensitive setup.
Title: Re: Time to Upgrade Forum Software?
Post by: lordmetroid on January 15, 2007, 01:08:29 PM
If you are using firefox in ubuntu you have a spellchecker automaticly. Sometimes I am not using firefox though! I don't see much reason for an upgrade if a better strand entirely will be released in a couple of month anyway.
Title: Re: Time to Upgrade Forum Software?
Post by: YixilTesiphon on January 15, 2007, 01:20:04 PM
Software upgrades are dumb. One of the most vibrant boards on the internet - I don't have time to keep up with it - probably hasn't upgraded since 1998: www.totse.com (http://www.totse.com)
Title: Re: Time to Upgrade Forum Software?
Post by: AlexLibman on February 11, 2007, 01:42:32 PM
Torgo tried to upgrade it a while back, and screwed up a bunch of shit...

SMF 1.1.1 fixes a shitload of major security holes over 1.0.x
To be honest it's a matter of time before somebody 0wnz this board


I just hope they keep good up-to-date backups...  A lot of people use this BBS as if it was their blog, and losing what they wrote would mega-suck.   :x

Too bad the users can't syndicate content through a nice simple RSS system.  I'm always tempted to write a script that grabs the forum and parsers it into XML myself, but with 11,700+ threads (some split into dozens of pages), that would be an overkill, at least as long as there's the Wayback Machine (http://web.archive.org/web/20060529180212/bbs.freetalklive.com/index.php)...
Title: Re: Time to Upgrade Forum Software?
Post by: rabidfurby on February 11, 2007, 03:08:57 PM
I use iespell, which is a spell checker for the internet

I can imagine the brainstorming meetings now:

"3D FPS?"
"We tried that already"
"Software for managing recipes?"
"Gay."
"What about a spell checker?"
"Lame"
"But what if we made it a spell checker....for the internet?"
"Dude!"
"Brilliant!"
Title: Re: Time to Upgrade Forum Software?
Post by: error on February 11, 2007, 03:10:16 PM
SMF upgrade is coming soon.
Title: Re: Time to Upgrade Forum Software?
Post by: AlexLibman on February 17, 2007, 04:16:46 PM
Yaay, now we're running version 1.1.2!

Anyone disappointed?

I'm not, but I have to write a little LWP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_for_WWW_in_Perl) scriptie to fix my past posts, because the new version has different tag parsing and some of my indentation is screwed up...

Anywayz, where's RSS 'n stuff?   :P
Title: Re: Time to Upgrade Forum Software?
Post by: error on February 17, 2007, 06:49:07 PM
The RSS autodiscovery is already present. Just feed the board to your feed reader, and it'll pick it up.
Title: Re: Time to Upgrade Forum Software?
Post by: Alex Libman on August 13, 2010, 11:45:46 AM
SMF v2.0 should be out shortly.  A release candidate can be seen on the NH Underground forum (http://nhunderground.com/forum/).  Lots of minor changes and optimizations in the new version, but what really impresses me the most is a feature I've been nagging about for a very long time - thread splitting!

As a copyFREE (http://copyfree.org/) nut I of course should be pushing something like Phorum (http://www.phorum.org/) [WP] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorum) instead, but, c'mon...  :roll: