Astahost.com   Mar 20, 2010
Open Discussion & Free Web Hosting > Computers & Tech > Software > Bulletin Board Systems > Simple Machines Forum
Pages: 1, 2

From phpBB To SMF ? - How easily can it be done?

 		free web hosting

Read Latest Entries..: (Post #18) by iGuest on Mar 10 2009, 05:27 AM.
smf is the way to go From phpBB To SMF ? Funny how l337 Nurse Pedestrian thought phpbb forum can't be converted to smf just because they're different forum platforms running different scripts.
Read the FIRST post of this Topic. - Express your Opinion! Contribute Knowledge :-).

Open Discussion & Free Web Hosting > Computers & Tech > Software > Bulletin Board Systems > Simple Machines Forum

From phpBB To SMF ? - How easily can it be done?

Hercco
Apr 2 2005, 09:15 AM
Hello SMFers.

SMF looks really tempting.. and as I'm a bit fed up with phpBB I'm thinking about changing forum system. Vbulletin would be my first pick but there's no way I'm paying that much for a forum software. So SMF would be the way to go...


However, I just spent and almost entire day getting the new version of phpBB working with all the mods and imported the old posts/users (needed to be done through phpmyadmin manually...). And I'm not going to go through that kind of work again any time soon...

So my question is, has anyone here gone from phpBB to SMF and how well can the posts/users/forums/categories be imported to SMF? Bear in mind that I have used categories hierarchy (an absolute neccessity for me) and attachments mods. I have understood that these features are built in the SMF (like they should) but are there import tools for this much modified phpBB database?

Also how would you compare the template/theme designing between phpBB and SMF?

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

l337 Nurse Pedestrian
Apr 2 2005, 11:20 PM
You can't, they are two differen't softwares, running two different ways, phpbb2 is put together way differently than Smf. Nope, you can't even import topics and categories to Smf (I know, I have an SMF board). Sorry for the bad news. I guess you could go in manually and fiddle with stuff, but even then, it will come out wrong.

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

Hercco
Apr 2 2005, 11:47 PM
There's got to be at least a basic level impotrter/converter written for phpBB->SMF. These usually exists for all major boards.

What I'd like to know is that is there a tool which can handle a modded phpBB so that I could keep my categories and attachments.

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

l337 Nurse Pedestrian
Apr 2 2005, 11:51 PM
I've already told you my answer. As far as template designing, I like the SMF templates more than phpbb2. Because of the way Phpbb2, it seems that when you've seen one skin, you've seen them all. SMF, like IPB has tons and tons of different and unique style. You can see what SMF has to offer here: http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php? .

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

Trekkie101
Apr 7 2005, 09:14 AM
yes easily, on there downloads page, click the "covertors and Tools" link and there will be a very good converter there for you. Sorry for delay in answer. You wont loose a thing.

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

Hercco
Apr 7 2005, 09:47 AM
QUOTE (Trekkie101 @ Apr 7 2005, 11:14 AM)
yes easily, on there downloads page, click the "covertors and Tools" link and there will be a very good converter there for you. Sorry for delay in answer. You wont loose a thing.
*



Thanks. Once I get my current project at uni done I'll be installing SMF and trying out the template designing. If I like it it's gonna be a forum change for my site.

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

Trekkie101
Apr 8 2005, 09:23 AM
You'll love it, also dont forget the first time you see it, the admin panel is organised, thats why it looks simple and not very powerful but dig a little and youll see the true power.

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

Hercco
Apr 8 2005, 01:45 PM
Wow!

I just installed it and it's just amazing!

To answer my own question: the change is really easy to do. I think you could train a frog or something to do it. The conversion tool did everything perfect except categories hierarchy. What it did was put all forums in the same level (ie. no child boards). But it's not a big deal to go and fix them in the admin panel.

What suprised me the most was that the conversion tool actually imported phpBB attachments. For those unfamiliar with phpBB, attachments are only available as an hack.

I'm changing to SMF for good when I get my theme finished and some of my self programmed utilities on my site converted to support SMF database structure.


And Trekkie the SMF admin panel looks like a dream from the first glance for someone's who's been administering phpBB. biggrin.gif

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

Trekkie101
Apr 10 2005, 05:19 PM
Glad you like it. Yeah its built to support a few mods. Hope you enjoy also make sure you check out http://you.com/forum/ssi_examples.php those are godly.

I love the panel its very clean and non-confusing.

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

tcave
Apr 10 2005, 06:56 PM
Trekkie101, the link doesn't work

does anyone have their own SMF they can post on here? I wanna see a few examples before I get it myself..

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

Latest Entries

iGuest
Mar 10 2009, 05:27 AM
smf is the way to go
From phpBB To SMF ?

Funny how l337 Nurse Pedestrian thought phpbb forum can't be converted to smf just because they're different forum platforms running different scripts.


Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

Sten
Aug 25 2007, 11:33 PM
u should just use phpbb3, its rc5 at the moment, aparantly thats its last release candidate.

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

Mordent
Aug 25 2007, 03:34 PM
*whistles* That is a lot of converters, I'll have to say I'm impressed. It's a shame SMF doesn't fit on the standard 10 credit hosting, as I'd love to use it. On a random note, are phpBB forums naturally a pain to transfer to other software (aside from SMF, which I see does it admirably), or is it generally pretty good at that sort of thing?

In fact, how easy is it overall to move your forum (losing as little as possible) from one type (such as phpBB) to another type (SMF, for instance)? Do converters normally work both ways, or is it a lot easier to go from most software to another than it is back again?

These are some questions I'd love answered as I'm looking to set up a forum using my Astahost hosting, and as I haven't tried most sorts of forum software available out there I may want to switch around occasionally. Sure, I'm aware that most cost to use but the question still stands.

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

Abhishek!
Aug 25 2007, 01:45 PM
Hello
There are many converters for a forum to smf available to download.
Just go to http://www.simplemachines.org/download/?converters biggrin.gif
Enjoy!!!! biggrin.gif

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

HellFire121
Jul 27 2006, 08:21 AM
You can always usually find converters on the site of the software and most of the time they do a pretty good job, until the new version of phpbb comes out i would stick with smf unless you have a payed for IPB or vbulletin (which by the way is worth it!)

-HellFire

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

Got an Opinion! Express your Views! (no registration):-
Add your Reply/ Opinion/ Views/ Comments/ Suggestion/ Questions/ Queries etc.
Posts with decent grammar & English will be accepted and please refrain from profanities.
For asking a Question, We recommend you to sign-up (for free) so that you can track the topic easily.
Nature of your Post*: Opinion/ Reply/ Comments
Question/Query
Feedback to us.
       
Name   Email
Title/Question*

This textarea will convert to Rich-Text automatically (IE, Firefox, Chrome)

Pages: 1, 2



See Also,

*SIMILAR VIDEOS*
Searching Video's for phpbb, smf, easily
advertisement




From phpBB To SMF ? - How easily can it be done?

Affordable Web Hosting, Low cost Web Hosting - ComputingHost.com



Creative Commons License