Should We Move To A New Forum Platform?

[ratdude747]

One of the forums I've been a longtime member of migrated from vBulletin to Discourse. A bit of a learning curve, but it wasn't a bad migration and once everyone got used to it, it works great.

Another one migrated from vBulletin to Xenforo (forum ownership change). A bit jarring, but after some migration fixes, works well enough.

Both are good platforms. Discourse is a lot more powerful (from what I've seen) but with power comes a learning curve. And it's GPL'd (free open source)... they make their money off support, not the software itself.

Xenforo's main boon is that it was more-or-less forked off vBulletin; it was made by ex-jetsoft employees and they actually got sued over it (which was settled out-of-court). Since we never had vBulletin, that doesn't mean much.

Pick thy poison.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Thanks, Pete. That helps a lot.

I see that you can do bulleted lists and also align text, probably left, center, or right. What does the paragraph icon do?

And when you click the "link" icon does it pop up like here on Nabble so that you just paste in the URL?

Do you know if you can embed a document? I see the table icon, but I really like embedding Word, Excel, or PDF documents in posts.

Imbedded docs are the bane of my experience here on the forum.

YOU make like it, but it causes me to close the tab and note never to go there again.

Often, if it's a post, I will refuse to return until the page rolls over.

[Gary Lewis]

Imbedded docs are the bane of my experience here on the forum.

YOU make like it, but it causes me to close the tab and note never to go there again.

Often, if it's a post, I will refuse to return until the page rolls over.

Why is that, Jim. Are they too big and take too long to load?Hard to see on your phone? Just trying to understand.

[Gary Lewis]

One of the forums I've been a longtime member of migrated from vBulletin to Discourse. A bit of a learning curve, but it wasn't a bad migration and once everyone got used to it, it works great.

Another one migrated from vBulletin to Xenforo (forum ownership change). A bit jarring, but after some migration fixes, works well enough.

Both are good platforms. Discourse is a lot more powerful (from what I've seen) but with power comes a learning curve. And it's GPL'd (free open source)... they make their money off support, not the software itself.

Xenforo's main boon is that it was more-or-less forked off vBulletin; it was made by ex-jetsoft employees and they actually got sued over it (which was settled out-of-court). Since we never had vBulletin, that doesn't mean much.

Pick thy poison.

Larry - Thanks. Interesting that you like both Discourse and Xenforo. Chris already has Discourse running so I'm sure we will try it at some point.

All - Speaking of trying, we are now trying myBB. Chris just got it up and I've not done anything on it - including registering as I kept getting an error.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Why is that, Jim. Are they too big and take too long to load?Hard to see on your phone? Just trying to understand.

Take forever, if they finally do load at all.

If I'm sitting here watching a blank page with a "W" ord logo for 5+ minutes it does nothing but piss me off, and I know that if I reload the page things are going to be the same.

Instead of enraging myself any longer, I just quit. And ignore the thread until the pg# changes.

It's that way with some of your photo packed posts too.

I think you take perverse pleasure in making as much detail as possible.

But 99% of us are not looking at a 32" monitor, we're looking at a 720p screen in our pocket (ok, probably not 720 in this day & age.. but you get what I'm saying)

Eta: definitely not my connection, when I'm on ac wifi, a business class router w/ FTTH.

[BigBrother-84]

Take forever, if they finally do load at all.

If I'm sitting here watching a blank page with a "W" ord logo for 5+ minutes it does nothing but piss me off, and I know that if I reload the page things are going to be the same.

Instead of enraging myself any longer, I just quit. And ignore the thread until the pg# changes.

It's that way with some of your photo packed posts too.

I think you take perverse pleasure in making as much detail as possible.

But 99% of us are not looking at a 32" monitor, we're looking at a 720p screen in our pocket (ok, probably not 720 in this day & age.. but you get what I'm saying)

Eta: definitely not my connection, when I'm on ac wifi, a business class router w/ FTTH.

I agree with Jim, the MS Word documents are useless on a phone. If I have to read at such documents in the library, I wait to be in front of my desktop computer. PDF are easier.

I would say this is the case for most of the library… not built to be seen from small screens, tables are difficult to navigate in, etc.

But the worst case is really the .doc format.

[BigBrother-84]

I think you take perverse pleasure in making as much detail as possible.

Personally, I like well detailed documentation Gary!

I think you like too, and I’m pretty sure it’s not a perverse pleasure.

Maybe?

ok, probably not 720 in this day & age.

I too feel that, the more I am getting in age, the less crisp is my monitor resolution.

Jim, are you telling me this is not a hardware issue?

[ArdWrknTrk]

I think you take perverse pleasure in making as much detail as possible.

Personally, I like well detailed documentation Gary!

I think you like too, and I’m pretty sure it’s not a perverse pleasure.

Maybe?

ok, probably not 720 in this day & age.

I too feel that, the more I am getting in age, the less crisp is my monitor resolution.

Jim, are you telling me this is not a hardware issue?

Back in the day we would say the problem was the meatbag between the monitor and keyboard.

Humans haven't changed much in 40 years...

[Gary Lewis]

Back in the day we would say the problem was the meatbag between the monitor and keyboard.

Humans haven't changed much in 40 years...

Ok, I'll admit that I almost never use my phone to look up things on the website or forum, and don't post using it often either. So I don't see those problems, and am glad y'all pointed them out - especially since today's metrics show a 50/50 ratio between mobile and desktop users.

So I need to find a better way of posting information, especially for the forum. (I don't think there is a better way for the website when we have large documents, but I'm willing to consider something else.) Given that, I'll take embedding off the table as a requirement for the new forum.

[BigBrother-84]

I don't think there is a better way for the website when we have large documents, but I'm willing to consider something else. Given that, I'll take embedding off the table as a requirement for the new forum.

Gary, I don’t think that the issue is about embedding.

I think it’s more about Word and Excel documents.

Let’s take Manuals and literature as example. The table works well on a desktop computer, but is very annoying to navigate in from a mobile device (iPhone or iPad in my case).

In this table, if I click on "open link", I get a long delay before it opens the document.

And if the target document is a Word or Excel one, it takes forever to open it…

Just for testing purpose, here is a PDF copy of the same table.

Don’t know for others (Jim?), but on my Apple iGadgets, clicking a link is much faster to reach the target document.

Manuals_&_Literature.pdf

I suspect that using PDF format for tables and documents would greatly accelerate the library navigation, and this format would be more "friendly" for mobile devices.