| Not logged in - | |
| Not logged in - | |
Visit us here: Hope to see you there! |
| Moderated by: Di |
|
||||||||||||||
| Converting from WowBB 1.7 to WU 1.15 - UltraBB Pre-sales - UltraBB - UltraBB Forums | |||||||||||||||
| Author | Post | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||
|
Zenzoidman Apocalypse Member 
|
Greetings, I run a DIY appliance repair forum (http://applianceguru.com) under WowBB 1.7. Since development of WowBB has apparently gone comatose, I am considering converting to WU 1.15. But I have some questions: 1. I really like the look of the original theme in WowBB 1.7 and notice that this theme doesn't exist in WU. Is there a way to re-create it in WU? I would even consider paying someone to install it for me as a custom theme. 2. What's involved in converting the database from WowBB to WU? 3. Can this conversion be done without moving the forum to another webhost? 4. How much downtime should I expect for the conversion? 5. I'm happy to pay someone to do the conversion for me-- what would the fee be for this service? 6. WowBB 1.7 is a real resource hog and hosting the forum has been a continual thorn in my side. Can I expect better resource usage running WU? I appreciate any/all thoughtful replies. Scott
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
Jim Administrator 
|
Hi Scott, 1. Really? Have you checked out Sea and AIblue? We have been asked once to clone that theme and I got the Ok from Aycan, but they ended up taking a custom theme at the same price. The choice is yours but yes it can be done if you want. 2. We convert the database for you , I have a PHP file I run that adds all the necessary fields. 3. Yes, definitely. We need full FTP access to do so, the only files used are the avatars and the emoticons on a WowBB conversion. 4. With proper FTP access, about a half hour 5. Conversion is free. One of our many free services. 6. You might want to explain exactly what part is a "resource hog" and the problems you have been having. Usually the complaints have lead to a server too full or improperly configured. There are portions like the original search functions that could instantly lock up a MySQL database with runaway queries. Most of these problems have been identified and dealt with. Any bulletin board system pulls heavily from HTTP because of the "template engine " which assembles the html from templates directed by the PHP file. The key is being with a host that optimises for PHP driven apps. There is tuning you can do to the board also if membership and usage gets heavy such as using smart cache or turning user links off. So a direct answer would be that UltraBB is about the same in resource usage but safeguards are in place to keep things from running away. The second generation of Ultra was the "admin's cut" with mostly enhancements for admins. This release (1.17 which all new installs get) was the "Members cut" with a lot of member features. I intend to make the next release "the server cut" with enhancements in the core. Ultra is actively evolving and a little reading here will let you know that for sure 
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
Zenzoidman Apocalypse Member
|
Hi Jim, Thanks for your reply. Sounds great! I went ahead and purchased a license for WU. After you've processed the order, I'll PM or email you the FTP info for my server. In my WU trial board, I had checked out the other themes you mentioned. While they are nice, I still like the WowBB original default theme. Plus, it goes better with my logo.  I had to eliminate the built-in search a long time ago because of resource issues. Right now, I'm using Google Site Search as the search engine. Not nearly as good as the built-in search but I'm limping along with it. I've been playing around with the trial board and I love the new features and enhancements you've put into WU. Nice job! Looking forward to getting moved in. Domo! Scott
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
Jim Administrator
|
Well Scott if you like the 1.15 features you are going to love the 1.17 features. Welcome to the Ultra Family! We are processing your order as we type. You will be sent private support log in details, please post the FTP info in there. Jim
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
Mag License Holder 
|
Hi Scott and welcome. You will be very glad you made the move. Just ask any of the Ultra members here!
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
martin_wynne Licence Holder 
|
Zenzoidman Apocalypse wroteI had to eliminate the built-in search a long time ago because of resource issues. Right now, I'm using Google Site Search as the search engine. Not nearly as good as the built-in search but I'm limping along with it. Hi Scott, If you don't mind paying for a better search, I can recommend the Zoom Indexer program from Wrensoft. One-off cost is $99 for up to 200,000 topic pages. http://www.wrensoft.com/zoom This gives you full phrase searching. You can schedule indexing to take place daily or as often as you wish, and automatic ftp upload. I can provide a Zoom skip list for WowUltra if you want it. regards, Martin.
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
wingnutter Forever Learning 
|
Hi Scott and welcome. Most of us here are also survivors from WOW and extremely happy with the support and the software. You will find many threads here that should give you confidence in the move to Ultra.
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
wingnutter Forever Learning
|
Hi Martin, I'm looking at that link now. What's a zoom skip list please?
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
martin_wynne Licence Holder
|
wingnutter wrote: Hi Martin, I'm looking at that link now. What's a zoom skip list please? Hi Steve, Zoom indexes on the board pages, not the database. A skip list is a list of all the pages on your board which the Zoom indexing spider could reach, but which you don't want included in the search. For example the Calendar pages in particular, and all the pages where the spider would see only an "access denied" message, such as the PM pages, etc. regards, Martin.
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
martin_wynne Licence Holder
|
Hi Steve, I'm still experimenting with the Zoom indexer. But if you would like to see how it works with a WowUltra board, go to: http://www.templot.com/search/search.php Select "Templot Club" in the drop-down options, and enter a search phrase such as "branch track" (including the quotation marks). You will get about 5 results. If you click on one of them, it will go to the topic page and automatically scroll down to the searched-for item and display it highlighted. If you try again without the quotation marks, i.e. just enter branch track , you will get many more results and it will be difficult to find the useful ones. The larger the board, so the more important phrase searching becomes, to get useful results. Your large board has 55,000 topics, which might be near the practical limit for Zoom indexing. Would you like me to try creating a search index for it? I don't need any access permissions, just your say-so that you don't mind me doing it. The Zoom spider can visit your board as a guest in the same way as the Google spider. cheers, Martin.
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
wingnutter Forever Learning
|
Hi Martin, yes that indexing would be nice thanks. The blurb for that program didn't say if it worked for forums, just web sites. Or I may have missed it. But obviously it must be working if you are using it.
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
martin_wynne Licence Holder
|
wingnutter wrote: Hi Martin, yes that indexing would be nice thanks. The blurb for that program didn't say if it worked for forums, just web sites. Or I may have missed it. But obviously it must be working if you are using it. Hi Steve, Yes, it can do forums. But you need a fine-tuned skip list to keep the spider on the topic pages only. Your board is so large that it might take several hours to fully index it in one go. It might be better to provide a separate search for different parts of it. I will try just doing your technical forum at: http://www.goldwingfacts.com/forums/forum1/ for starters. Also, I'm not sure how Zoom will cope with the "html-friendly" urls (I don't use them on my board). I'll set it going now and report back when I have some results. cheers, Martin.
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
wingnutter Forever Learning
|
Thanks Martin.
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
martin_wynne Licence Holder
|
Hi Steve, I have now indexed your Goldwing technical forum using the Zoom program. You can try searching it at: http://www.templot.com/odds/goldwing/search_technical.htm If you want the topic pages to automatically scroll down to the first relevant result and highlight it, you need to make a small change in your theme template. Go to Admin > Themes > Edit > Templates. In the site_header template, find these these two lines:
and replace them with these lines (copy and paste):
(You would need to do this for every theme separately, changing the highlight background colour accordingly, although for this try-out just do your default yellow theme.) Your site is massive. Because of the size the php option in Zoom is not suitable and you must use the cgi option. I restricted the search to just the technical forum, but it still took 8 hours to index on my system. The indexer found 25,024 topic pages in that forum containing 208,094 unique words. I then needed to upload the data files, amounting to about 250MB in total. So you would probably want to run an update only say once per week. But it runs in the background on your computer and can be made fully automatic. If you index the entire board, or your entire site including the board, obviously those numbers are going to be even larger. But for average-sized Ultra boards, a daily update would be more usual. The great advantage of Zoom over the built-in Search function in Ultra is that you can search for phrases of several words by enclosing them in quotation marks. This is a big help in pin-pointing what you are looking for on a large site. The disadvantage of Zoom is that you have to buy it, and run a regular indexing session to keep it up to date. Google also gives you phrase searching on your site and is free of course. But the Google indexing is often several weeks out of date and you have no control over the way the results are displayed, nor the automatic scrolling feature. With Zoom you have in effect your own private version of Google, and everything can be customized to your requirements. Anyway Steve, try the link above, post it for your members, and see how they feel about it compared with the regular search. The automatic scrolling on the topic pages is a big help when you are trying to find things. If you decide to go ahead with Zoom, I can help you set it up if you want. A new version of Zoom was released last week (version 6), which I have downloaded but not yet installed. It has some extra features -- the above indexing was done using Zoom 5. p.s. I have no connection with Zoom, I'm just an ordinary user. Merry Christmas, Martin. Last edited on Thu Dec 25th, 2008 02:00 am by martin_wynne |
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
John Floyd License Holder 
|
Hi Scott Merry Christmas and Welcome To The Ultra Club. You won't be Sorry!
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
wingnutter Forever Learning
|
Wow that was some amount of work for you MArtin, thanks a lot. I'll take a look later once I've got back from doing the Christmas day rounds.
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
Zenzoidman Apocalypse Member
|
Domos all around for the welcome. And Happy New Year! Live long and prosper. Scott Attachment: spock.gif (Downloaded 40 times)
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
wingnutter Forever Learning
|
Okay Martin, thanks very much for your help, it made us get moving on this. What David/tanygaer managed to do was to get the Google search on the forum itself and he tweaked it so it only searches the forum and not the whole web. You can have the option to just have the Google search function (but it won't search by members names, well it might return them indirectly) or add it above or below the forum search which is what we did as you can see in the screengrab;
It works in all the browsers I tested. The big plus with this is that you don't need to feed a periodic fresh index into it at all, you just leave it alone after installing. It works very well and is a nice supplement to the Ultra search function. I think I'll keep this one for the forseeable future.
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| Current time is 01:50 am | |
| UltraBB Forums > UltraBB > UltraBB Pre-sales > Converting from WowBB 1.7 to WU 1.15 | |
