Worth throwing out all our options. In my complaining of phpbb3's mod system (via manual core file editting), punbb was pointed out. It has language support (and we can probably connect it to Pootle to get some great mixups going), has some drop-in modules for Administration, at least, and is meant to be lightweight. All good things so far, right?
<br><br>It has import tools for both vbulletin3 (<a href="http://olpchelp.org">olpchelp.org</a>) and phpbb2 (<a href="http://olpc.osuosl.org">olpc.osuosl.org</a>). Worth glancing over. More simple/hackable code is preferable to complex/less hackable code, if we aren't losing any critical features.
<br><br><a href="http://punbb.org">http://punbb.org</a><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Jan 12, 2008 1:33 AM, Harrison - Schaaffe <<a href="mailto:peter.harrison@bigfoot.com" target="_blank">peter.harrison@bigfoot.com
</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div><font face="Arial">Hello everyone,</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">I have installed a test copy of phpBB3 on a FC8 system at
home. The features are improved. They have some importable modules for admin
control panel menuing systems, but the rest remain as direct template
modifications.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div></div></blockquote><div>Wonderful. I will be doing the same for a Internet-reachable site this afternoon. Will share the link around...<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff"><div></div>
<div><font face="Arial">The quantity of available mods for phpBB3 is still very
small.</font><font face="Arial"> </font><font face="Arial"><a href="http://www.phpbb.com/mods/db/index.php?i=browse&mode=group:phpbb&sub=3" target="_blank">http://www.phpbb.com/mods/db/index.php?i=browse&mode=group:phpbb&sub=3
</a> or
<a href="http://www.phpbb.com/mods/db/index.php?i=browse&mode=group:phpbb" target="_blank">http://www.phpbb.com/mods/db/index.php?i=browse&mode=group:phpbb</a></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font></div></div></blockquote><div><br> Agreed.</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">It now has CAPTCHA built in for registration and guest
posting. Hooray! It also has a better admin control panel search utility for
finding users, not just by email address.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">phpBB3 may be suitable for small installations due to its
cost, and the volunteer base to modify its language packs, but it still lacks
the ease of modification features of vBulletin. Some simple things like adding a
user account from the admin control panel is a modification!</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">If we were to go with it, I'd strongly recommend
minimizing the modifications to the skin/style and header. That way the
inevitable upgrades will be much less of a pain to do. There are no phpBB3
styles on <a href="http://phpbb.com" target="_blank">phpbb.com</a>, probably because it is so new. The default one, prosilver,
would have to modified. <a href="http://www.phpbb.com/styles/db/index.php?i=browse&mode=group:phpbb" target="_blank">http://www.phpbb.com/styles/db/index.php?i=browse&mode=group:phpbb</a></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">Does anyone know of anybody who could create a header
image with a transparent background for the forums, a gradient
tint image and four corners for effects? 10 images max, most of them
tiny.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">I'd also suggest the following for the new
forum:</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">1. Have email verification as part of the
registration process (SPAM)<br>2. Allow auto subscription to threads by
default. This helps to remind people to come back and see if their post has been
answered.<br>3. Don't allow users to edit posts for an indefinite time
after they have posted (SPAM)</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">4. Don't allow users to contact each other by email. (Can
send e-mails in phpBB3) It exposes the email address to SPAMmers</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">5. No guest posting</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">6. Hide the member list whenever possible (Server load for
robots and possible URL SPAM trap)</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"> </font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">
<div><font face="Arial">Put me down as a volunteer for phpBB3 testing on the
<a href="http://olpc.osuosl.org/" target="_blank">olpc.osuosl.org</a> test/dev database. Add a forum to it
specifically for this thread so feedback and findings can be more easily
tracked. How long should the feature evaluation period be? I'll work on creating
a phpBB2 export of OLPChelp.org, give me an scp account somewhere and I'll
upload it for you to do a test phpBB3 import.</font></div></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Regards,</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Peter & Diana</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px;"><div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">----- Original Message ----- </div>
<div style="background: rgb(228, 228, 228) none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">
<b>From:</b>
<a title="maburns@gmail.com" href="mailto:maburns@gmail.com" target="_blank">Michael Burns</a>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"><b>To:</b> <a title="peter.harrison@bigfoot.com" href="mailto:peter.harrison@bigfoot.com" target="_blank">
Harrison - Schaaffe</a> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"><b>Cc:</b> <a title="olpc-open@lists.laptop.org" href="mailto:olpc-open@lists.laptop.org" target="_blank">
olpc-open</a> </div></div><div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"><b>Sent:</b> Friday, January 11, 2008 9:17
AM</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"><b>Subject:</b> Re: Going forward with the
community forum</div>
<div><br></div><br><br>
</div><div><div></div><div><div class="gmail_quote">On Jan 11, 2008 11:54 AM, Harrison - Schaaffe <<a href="mailto:peter.harrison@bigfoot.com" target="_blank">peter.harrison@bigfoot.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div><font face="Arial">Michael,</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">I must admit I am very wary of phpBB2, for the reasons
I stated, but the feature set with phpBB3 seems greatly improved. I chose
vBulletin for the feature set when the open source product at the time
couldn't deliver what I needed. I used phpBB2 for about 4
years.</font></div></div></blockquote>
<div><br>Let me tell you, I've said some not nice things about phpbb2 this
month, and don't want to rely on it for more than the time required. A
logical upgrade path is welcome, and I would like to learn toward a phpbb3
installation (there is beta work on the mailing list software, which gives us
a nice option if we want to take it. The software looks solid without it as
well). <br><br></div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div><font face="Arial"></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">I understand the desire to stick with open source for
deployment of similar platroms around the world at the local level.
</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">Is there a plan to migrate to phpBB3, or is it in use
already? If v3 can do what it promises, then it would be best to upgrade
before the forums get too big.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font></div></div></blockquote>
<div><br>There is not a stated goal, as nearly all of the admin work on the
forum has been in my free time, with assistance from good Phil Bordelon and
his sysadmin skills to assist along the way. I don't want to flip the switch
on the site until we have a full running system (regardless of waht software
package we land with. a BETA forum running in tandem for users to stress test
with the production system seems like the best way to go. Agreed?
<br> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">I'm assuming it would import phpBB2 databases, can it
import vBulletin natively? If not a vBulletin export to phpBB2 format should
be able to be done with a built in utility.</font></div></div></blockquote>
<div><br>It is very much intended to support upgrades from phpbb2 databases.
No experience with vBulletin, but an intermediary step to phpbb2 seems good to
me. I've streamlined the backup process, so we can play around with db
snapshots and not worry about data loss. Whee! </div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div></div>
<div><font face="Arial">I'm going to assume phpBB3 will be the planned
platform for the unified forum. </font><font face="Arial"></font></div></div></blockquote>
<div><br>I want to echo the concerns overs file-level modifications to install
MODs. That really isn't a manageable way to keep software packages up to date,
both the phpbb base software as well as updates to the mods. Proper support of
MODs/Addons/Extensions is really important in going forward. <br> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div><font face="Arial">Please also send a login for the <a href="http://olpc.osuosl.org/" target="_blank">olpc.osuosl.org</a> forum.
</font></div>
<div></div></div></blockquote>
<div><br>Will get you a login account as soon as possible. Should be tonight
at the latest, will try and get it sooner (weird issue, don't
ask).<br> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div></div>
<div><font face="Arial">As I said previously I figured that <a href="http://olpchelp.org" target="_blank">olpchelp.org</a> would have a lot
of non-technical members, and it does. As a result of this I chose a
theme that would be attractive with limited use of graphics. Bandwidth can
be an issue on low speed links, so I have used a 30 day expires header on
all images to cache them on the client side. The <a href="http://olpc.osuosl.org/" target="_blank">olpc.osuosl.org</a> forum seems
to taken a different approach by stripping out most of the the default phpBB
subSilver template images. Is there a phpBB theme out there that is judicial
in its use of graphics, attractive and could be easily modified to match the
OLPC brand / feel?</font></div></div></blockquote>
<div><br>The low use of images on the site was a fortunate hack. Few images
the better, if only for rendering quirks and page loading, but proper cache
option settings is a very good thing, and I think we can find a nice middle
ground. As you can tell, I don't have the best artistic touch, so ripping out
subSilver images in place of CSS background colors where it made sense was
just a look-and-feel hack I threw together. <br> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div><font face="Arial"> This is an area in where technology, form
and function could come together for the relaunch of the combined forums.
For me this is very important in attracting membership. It's never just the
technology, it's people and process too.</font></div></div></blockquote>
<div><br>And not necessarily in that order! :)<br><br>I'm glad we're starting
to find a path to start going forward on. I can get a BETA phpbb3 install for
us to work on with a snapshot of our db at the <a href="http://olpc.osuosl.org" target="_blank">olpc.osuosl.org</a> server (some unique url will
be sent out to interested testers in the community) and we can evaluate how it
will work for our combined uses with a hands on approach. Tomorrow looks like
a good hacking day. Anyone care to join the fun? <br></div></div><br>--
<br>Michael Burns * Student<br>Open Source {Education} Lab
</div></div></blockquote></div>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Michael Burns * Student<br>Open Source {Education} Lab