Message Board Upgrade

[Maljonic]

The site needs to be upgraded, to make it more up to date, a bit more spam proof and much more secure, so I’m going to make a start today.

It will be converted to a knew system entirely, Joomla for the content, with vBulletin for the message board, which is quite a big job so might take all day today and a bit of tomorrow to fully complete – though I will try to keep normal service interruption to a minimum.

The current site runs on PHPNuke with PHPBB for the message board, which is kind of created by this one Brazilian guy and has to be patched up enormously by willing supporters every time he releases an update. It’s quite difficult to keep up with.

Anyway, everyone’s posts and all the threads will still be here, as will all the articles that people have added to the main site – it will just work more efficiently.

The journals (blogs) wont be ported across immediately but their content will be saved from the current database and can be added to the new blog system that will be installed.

The games data will probably be lost, but the games themselves should return – possibly with some new ones too.

Members may have to redo their avatars after the change, I don’t think they can be ported across.

Private messages will most likely not be ported across either. If there is any important info in them it will be possible to dig it out of the old database in future though if anyone really needs to.

The main thing, I think, is that the message board will all be there (no posts will be lost) and fully functional, just like it is now only much better.

The actual swapping over wont take place until late tonight (GMT) or early tomorrow morning, which is hopefully okay with everyone.

[KaptenKaries]

Best of luck with the migration, Mal!

[Tephlon]

Good on you Mal. PhPBB can be a b*tch.

Maybe send out a shout or even an e-mail to everyone, just in case they want to save their avatars?

[Maljonic]

Originally Posted by Tephlon

Good on you Mal. PhPBB can be a b*tch.

Maybe send out a shout or even an e-mail to everyone, just in case they want to save their avatars?

Good idea, I've made a shout and will try the mass email, but I never tried that before so don't know how well it works.

[Tephlon]

I just received the e-mail, So I guess it worked :-)

[Katcal]

It works

Good luck to you !

[Cynical_Youth]

Good luck!

[Buzzfloyd]

Thanks, Mal! I hope it all goes smoothly.

[Maljonic]

Blimey, that avatar makes my arms cringe.

P.S. I'm backing everything up, which takes ages, so a lot of the avatars and other images will be saved somewhere - all the ones that were uploaded to the site, and those in folders etc.

[Buzzfloyd]

Originally Posted by Maljonic

Blimey, that avatar makes my arms cringe.

Blame KK!

If threads contain embedded images that are hosted on this site, will they stop working?

[Maljonic]

No, they might if they were in that members' gallery, but they never worked properly anyway I think when trying to show them in the forums? The ones that were uploaded to folders specificly should still be the same.

[TheJackal]

Spent ages getting those high scores! Nah, good on you Mal.

I'll just go have a silent cry for all the effort I put into getting the number 1 spot in Bloody Pingu!

[Bradthewonderllama]

Good luck, and thanks!

[Hsing]

That email things worked, it seems.
And everything is still running smoothly despite all the changes going on! Cool. (I am somewhat naive when it comes to such things, and I expected the online equivalent of a three miles long construction site on a highway.)
Thanks for all the work.

[spiky]

ta Mal. I got my email and will forgive you for everything.