Why phpBB?

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Schyken

Why phpBB?

Post by Schyken »

Not sure where to post this, so here it's gonna go.

Though I do rather like the way these forums are set as I am familiar with how they've been for a while now, phpBB does not quite seem like the best choice for these forums. Not only does it lack any aesthetic pleasure, it's quite janky and unpleasant to navigate. Discourse is smoother, better looking, and more feature rich. Are there any plans to do anything about the forum platform or not? The only reason I've not been using these forums is specifically because it feels like garbage and is just inconvenient.
DeMus

Re: Why phpBB?

Post by DeMus »

What is so bad about the forum that makes you stay away?
I'm simply using them every day and I think it's quite alright. I have no problem with the way it looks.
Schyken

Re: Why phpBB?

Post by Schyken »

What is so bad about the forum that makes you stay away?
It feels like emails in 1998 to say the least.
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jimallyn
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Re: Why phpBB?

Post by jimallyn »

Schyken wrote:It feels like emails in 1998 to say the least.
And do the forums work? If so, then why would it matter what they "feel like"? I am on the forums several times each day, and have never been at all disturbed by the way they look or function. But then I mostly care only for functionality and never cared much about esthetics. It works, why mess with it?
“If the government were coming for your TVs and cars, then you'd be upset. But, as it is, they're only coming for your sons.” - Daniel Berrigan
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Re: Why phpBB?

Post by Moem »

Schyken wrote:Not sure where to post this, so here it's gonna go.
Moderator here:
Since it's not related to Linux Mint, I'll move it to Open Chat.
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innnnate

Re: Why phpBB?

Post by innnnate »

Email in 1998 reminds me of pine.
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Re: Why phpBB?

Post by Moem »

Schyken wrote:
What is so bad about the forum that makes you stay away?
It feels like emails in 1998 to say the least.
You say that like it's a bad thing. :wink:
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Re: Why phpBB?

Post by Portreve »

The only way I would be champing at the bit for LM and any other message board to change platforms is if there were a 100% libre, fully GPL'd mb platform option available.
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Re: Why phpBB?

Post by Wildman »

Why do you frequent this forum? IMO this forum is more bent towards learning about Linux and the horns, bells and whistles don't do a thing to improve that. Now if you are looking for a social forum then I would agree the aesthetics become more important, but this is not that type forum.
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Re: Why phpBB?

Post by millpond »

Forum software needs to be clean, simple and fast.

Its good to remember that this is a Linux community, and essentially worldwide in scope - so that many viewers will be on ancient machines and even dial-up connections.

No Web2.0, and with Javascripts kept to an absolute minimum. There is nothing wrong with 'old' especially if minimal graphics can keep the bandwidth down on frequently expensive hosted servers where simplicity of site means economy of cost.

Also, considering that phpBB is much like myBB which I use myself, I can say that the software is fairly simple to operate and maintain, and should not require dedicated personell. If there is something somebody feels this site is sorely lacking on, request it to the mods, as there is a high probability it has modules out there for it. What you are seeing on this forum is probably on 1% of its capabilities. For one thing, note the excellent spam control. Better than commercial sites.
Habitual

Re: Why phpBB?

Post by Habitual »

Schyken wrote:Are there any plans to do anything about the forum platform or not?
Do? Works here. It feels like phpBB.
Not utilizing the forum for whatever reason is your choice.
Changing forum software won't affect the decision you have already made.
Schyken

Re: Why phpBB?

Post by Schyken »

Habitual wrote:
Schyken wrote:Are there any plans to do anything about the forum platform or not?
Do? Works here. It feels like phpBB.
Not utilizing the forum for whatever reason is your choice.
Changing forum software won't affect the decision you have already made.
That's not necessarily true. Though I understand now, that the forum software works for most and doesn't need changes, aesthetic appeal doesn't always have such a small impact on use as you make it seem. However in this case, it is not a problem for most, and in that case doesn't need changes. I'll probably end up just making a plugin that handles all that part for myself.

Thanks for the replies.
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Re: Why phpBB?

Post by millpond »

Put it this way:

What would be your requirements for making a site esthetically pleasing?

This is not a facetious question, but one whose answer I am personally interested in.

What would be your top rated online forum?

DO you understand that different website types require different design styles?

For example, an ecommerce site needs to keep attention on merchandise, with a minimum of disttractions. In the case of Amazon, all the distractions *are* merchandise!

An art/photographic website or one that needs to keep viewers on the page for the longest time, would do well to make the most of esthetic embellishments.

Web 2.0 is now being replaced by 'Flat Design' (which personally I do not care for as to the degree its being used).
MKGirlism

Re: Why phpBB?

Post by MKGirlism »

The look and feel of phpBB has never really concerned me.
However, phpBB has always been the forum software with the least useful features, even for a free forum software, it's extremely limited in its possibilities.

Another thing is, phpBB has always been very slow with updates, it has been 2.0 from 2001 to 2007, and since 2007, it's still 3.0.
Major versions often indicate that a lot of huge changes were made, which I haven't seen with phpBB since 2007...

I run my own community as well (see my profile, I'm not going to blatantly advertise anything), for which I've created my own forum software.
It basically uses the good old look and feel, but at the same time, it's been modernised to the point it's still usable.
If you look at commercial forum softwares like vBulletin or XenForo, these 2 are very unusable due to their huge usage of Javascript, which even break everything!

Long story short: I don't like phpBB myself, but at least it's better than any of the heavy-arse commercial solutions.
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Re: Why phpBB?

Post by millpond »

Indeed, JavaScript is an annoyance - to be used *very* sparingly.

I dont consider updates to be *major* factor, but something that hasnt been updated for a while does seem like abandonware.

To me the main element for choice is community support. Which is why i have used myBB, OSCommerce, and Drupal - particularly for their large number of community addons, that allow for better customization and features than the developers could provide.

That often may involve *not* jumping on the latest version. I am at least a version behind in all my site software, but am comfortable enough with their security, and most importantly their feature sets. OSC is not the greatest looking, and its theming is enormously complicated - but it is the only one I am aware of that can handle large product databases without stressing database memory limits. Drupal is a monster memory hog. The *BB software seems to more like OsC, at least in size - from what I have seen. (Web2.0 software tends to use the database for *everything* )
Schyken

Re: Why phpBB?

Post by Schyken »

millpond wrote:Indeed, JavaScript is an annoyance - to be used *very* sparingly.

I dont consider updates to be *major* factor, but something that hasnt been updated for a while does seem like abandonware.

To me the main element for choice is community support. Which is why i have used myBB, OSCommerce, and Drupal - particularly for their large number of community addons, that allow for better customization and features than the developers could provide.

That often may involve *not* jumping on the latest version. I am at least a version behind in all my site software, but am comfortable enough with their security, and most importantly their feature sets. OSC is not the greatest looking, and its theming is enormously complicated - but it is the only one I am aware of that can handle large product databases without stressing database memory limits. Drupal is a monster memory hog. The *BB software seems to more like OsC, at least in size - from what I have seen. (Web2.0 software tends to use the database for *everything* )
May I ask why you put asterisks on either side of many words? What purpose does it serve?
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Re: Why phpBB?

Post by Fred Barclay »

If I can guess, it's to serve as italics. A single aterisk *like so* looks like italics in Markdown like so, while double-aterisks **are bold** in Markdown.

(Markdown is used when replying on a lot of websites - GitHub and Stack Overflow sprint to mind). :mrgreen:
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Re: Why phpBB?

Post by millpond »

Asterisks are an old fashioned way of highlighting, from back before the web was born - and can be interpreted as a combination of bolding and italics.

Word processing features did not exist in the original messaging forums, Such as FidoNet and UseNet.

Some markup languages might have adopted this convention, but it originated in the use of pure ASCII.

Like the smiley face (which was never meant to be a graphic! :) )
Schyken

Re: Why phpBB?

Post by Schyken »

millpond wrote:Asterisks are an old fashioned way of highlighting, from back before the web was born - and can be interpreted as a combination of bolding and italics.

Word processing features did not exist in the original messaging forums, Such as FidoNet and UseNet.

Some markup languages might have adopted this convention, but it originated in the use of pure ASCII.

Like the smiley face (which was never meant to be a graphic! :) )
That's neat. (Out of curiosity, why not just use ,,?)
Spice

Re: Why phpBB?

Post by Spice »

Schyken wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2016 4:53 pm Not sure where to post this, so here it's gonna go.

Though I do rather like the way these forums are set as I am familiar with how they've been for a while now, phpBB does not quite seem like the best choice for these forums. Not only does it lack any aesthetic pleasure, it's quite janky and unpleasant to navigate. Discourse is smoother, better looking, and more feature rich. Are there any plans to do anything about the forum platform or not? The only reason I've not been using these forums is specifically because it feels like garbage and is just inconvenient.
+1. Any progress with transitioning this forum to Discourse? I feel like I'm in a time machine here. A time machine to the past. ;( viewtopic.php?f=58&t=267132
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