Some of you may notice that at busy times the site is still crashing. This has a lot to do with the system we currently use. The forums just overload the server and crash it.
As such I have been looking around at different solutions to move us to. I was going to move us to a paid software names IP.board but have decided I will stick with the free software that is out there for a while and if it still presents issues then consider moving to one of the paid alternatives such IP.board, vbulletin or xenforo.
I considered all options such as PhpBB, Vanilla, myBB and a whole host of others. After looking through them I believe myBB is going to suit the needs of the site the most.
I am currently setting up a test board and converting all the posts over. This is a lengthy process and takes 5+ hours to get all of our posts across.
Once I have the test forum up and can see how far behind it will be I can start planning the full upgrade/transfer to the forum.
I need to write a few bits of code for things like the next game menu etc but that should not take too long.
Once I have managed to do this I will let you all know of a date for the change over. I will again shut the forums down at an appropriate time and start the transfer. I will aim for a time in the middle of the night so the interruption is minimal. But hopefully the change over will be fairly painless.
Some things to note about this.
1 - Tapatalk will no longer work with the forums.
I know a lot of you like to use tapatalk and the current mobile version of the forums is not quite as good as it could be. However thankfully the new forums come with a mobile theme which looks great on Smart Phones and works as well as tapatalk native in the browser, obviously without some of the push notifications.
2 - The forum will be different so there will be some learning curve in how it works.
3 - I may need some beta testers if anyone wants to have an advanced look and play sometime later this week.
Dan
As such I have been looking around at different solutions to move us to. I was going to move us to a paid software names IP.board but have decided I will stick with the free software that is out there for a while and if it still presents issues then consider moving to one of the paid alternatives such IP.board, vbulletin or xenforo.
I considered all options such as PhpBB, Vanilla, myBB and a whole host of others. After looking through them I believe myBB is going to suit the needs of the site the most.
I am currently setting up a test board and converting all the posts over. This is a lengthy process and takes 5+ hours to get all of our posts across.
Once I have the test forum up and can see how far behind it will be I can start planning the full upgrade/transfer to the forum.
I need to write a few bits of code for things like the next game menu etc but that should not take too long.
Once I have managed to do this I will let you all know of a date for the change over. I will again shut the forums down at an appropriate time and start the transfer. I will aim for a time in the middle of the night so the interruption is minimal. But hopefully the change over will be fairly painless.
Some things to note about this.
1 - Tapatalk will no longer work with the forums.
I know a lot of you like to use tapatalk and the current mobile version of the forums is not quite as good as it could be. However thankfully the new forums come with a mobile theme which looks great on Smart Phones and works as well as tapatalk native in the browser, obviously without some of the push notifications.
2 - The forum will be different so there will be some learning curve in how it works.
3 - I may need some beta testers if anyone wants to have an advanced look and play sometime later this week.
Dan
