500Eboard Forum Software Conversion to XenForo

[gerryvz]

This will be an ongoing thread for those folks who are interested in the progress with which this site's software will be converted from the vBulletin platform to the XenForo platform.

I've discussed a bit about the genesis of XenForo and the rationale for the switch of platforms, coming just four short years after the conversion from the original, free "phpBB" forum software to the paid-for "vBulletin" platform.

Now, we are embarking on the new conversion, and today I have initiated the first of a series of "test" imports of the current forum's information, user data, private messages, images and attachments, and other data into the new software.

After initial installation and update to the latest version of the new software, I just began the first of these test imports. Right now I'm about 20 minutes into the importation process. It's going to take about 3-4 hours for the whole import to happen.

After the initial import is done, I'll review various facets to see actually how accurate the importation was. This means that I'll be checking user names and avatars, checking to make sure that the forums are named correctly and are in the correct order, and that the individual threads and posts that should be in each forum ARE in each forum, and so forth.

We've got 101,000+ posts to correctly import, along with all photos, attachments, avatars, and so forth. So it's a lot of data to get right.

This should identify problems in the importation process that I can then remedy for the next "test" import so that things are more accurate and translate over properly the next time.

The process of converting to this software required two "test" imports and then a final one. I am expecting that we'll probably go through two or three "test" imports to the new software before we do the final one. I will try to schedule that for the Labor Day holiday weekend unless a lot of work needs to be done in the meantime. Certainly I'll keep folks up to date as we get closer to that point.

So far, just running an "upgrade" of the software from a prior version to the current version, is much easier and more seamless than with vBulletin. For example, the XenForo knows when it's getting upgraded, and the forum turns itself off automatically instead of me having to manually turn it off and post a "Do not wig out !! ... Coming back soon !!" type of message like I have to do with vBulletin.

The next thing after this initial import will be to configure the forum for member permissions, new member signup (to prevent spammers), to tweak the search settings, and to import a few new "skins" so that you all will be able to customize the color and "look and feel" as to how you want your new forum experience to look.

A lot of work to do, but it should be fun yet challenging as I explore new territory.

As I hit milestones toward the final importation, and get the process and tweaking and fine-tuning down pat, I'll continue to update this thread with some images as to how things will be.

Your existing user IDs, your private messages and other data will all remain the same as they are on this forum, so you don't need to expect that you'll need to do anything different when the new forum is up and live.

More to come...

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Couple of initial import photos.....

 

[Ntrepid]

Nice clean interface Gerry. Looks good!


Robert

 

[gerryvz]

An update:

I spent about 8 hours on migration related tasks yesterday (Friday). Among that activity, I did two test imports to see what would come through.

Generally, all of the user information, private messages (I can't access folks' private messages, but they were definitely migrated over), and accounts came through just fine. My own "gerryvz" account on the new system actually indicated that I had the correct number of unread PMs, which was great to see.

I was able to log into the new forum using my password from this forum, just as if I was logging into this forum. So, the basic import was a success, which is great.

What caused a major snag was the attachments and images. We have almost 13 GB of them. The import process is hanging up with a system error when it gets about 40% through the attachment process. This is going to present some problems that I'm going to have to work around, which is going to be a challenge and a major research focus for me in the coming weeks. It looks like I'm going to have to do a combination of some custom php (computer scripting language) programming and work with the ISP to see if they will increase some limits they have imposed, which hopefully should help the importation process.

This was a similar issue when I migrated the forum to the current vBulletin software, although our database was only about 3 GB at that time and I was able to do things manually in each post to re-attach and insert the images. With well over 100K posts, doing this manually is going to probably be out of the question, so I'm going to have to go all-out to provide an automated solution.

Another issue centers around the links that are in existing posts on the forum. For example, when GSXR posts a link on a new thread to an existing HOW-TO thread on the forum. These links will, once the new forum is up and running, effectively point to non-existing links (unless they are outside the forum). Fortunately there's a fairly easy set of things I can do (and actually two or three options, which I am studying) to make this internal forum link issue nonexistent. It's not going to be nearly the challenge that the attachment/image import issue is going to be !!

I've done a fair bit of work tweaking the settings of the new forum, but this is going to be an ongoing process for some weeks after we migrate over. What I mean by this is all the minutiae of what people can and can't do on the system, what they can access, the types and sizes of photos and data that can be uploaded and attached to posts, and so forth.

There are literally hundreds of parameters that need to be individually reviewed and often times adjusted. I want to re-create the exact environment here as closely as possible, so this is a very important and deliberate process.

Once I have all of the baseline settings tweaked and adjusted pretty much where they need to be, I'll run a backup of the database that has captured them. This backup of the database will become the foundation for the new forum, but I'll be able to re-use and re-import it as many times as I want to in the future as I do more test imports, and having a "ready-made" baseline database will save many hours of future configuration work. Basically for all future test imports of this forum's data, I'll be adding this forum data onto the small, pre-configured "baseline" MySQL database that I created.

I'm going to initiate a request to work with the XenForo folks on a solution for the attachment/images issue. I can already see that multiple other folks have had similar issues, and it seems that they have been able to work through the problem. So I am very hopeful that I can do the same, with enough time and patience. The main thing is to get the process down accurately and succinctly, so that the actual migration of the forum takes place in a matter of a few hours, rather than over a few days.

So that's an update. Great progress after one day, and I'm highly confident that the built-in XenForo importer will work great at moving everything over very nicely. But there are some challenges too, and I haven't even gotten to numerous areas that I need to investigate and tackle:

- Wiki software install and migration
- Tapatalk software install and migration
- Rotating banners at the top of the page - finding a solution to maintain that

One thing that the new forum is NOT going to have enabled, will be Facebook, Twitter or Google+ links in the posts. We will keep social media stuff OUT of the equation on the next-generation 500Eboard. We will maintain the ability for folks to "like" or "thank" others for posts, which will be a built-in capability of the new forum rather than the "add-on" nature of that on this forum.

Hope you found this update informative. I'll continue to keep folks apprised on progress as I tackle the two big challenges of attachment migration and link redirection.

The new forum software has TONS of new features and fun capabilities, and its anti-spammer capabilities are literally unbelievable they are so advanced.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[nocfn]

Awesome display GVZ. Thank you for being so dedicated to this forum and the people it serves.

 

[TerryA]

For all that you do Gerry.

THANKS!!!!

 

[dbb7697]

I concur. Thank you for your time, energy and dedication. Bravo!!

 

[gerryvz]

I've now done about 5 test installs of the forum software, and generally speaking have the process down pat with no data loss. I am running into a continuing snag with the importation of our 12.8GB of images, but am working directly now with the XenForo developer team to get around this.

It appears that there is a single (perhaps corrupted) image that is causing the entire image import process to "hang up" about 44% of the way through, and cause a server "out of memory" error for this final portion of the test migration. As I said, we are working in isolating this bunk image and we'll overcome the problem.

I've been successful at overcoming some other smaller challenges of the migration process, which is great. My license for the Wiki software is expiring in August, and when I renew that I'll renew it as a XenForo license and then migrate the existing Wiki to the XenForo version. I've been in contact with the Wiki software developer and we've outlined a tentative plan to do that.

I have decided to license some additional "modules" for the XenForo installation, for when it goes live. These licenses, along with the Wiki software license renewal, will probably total around an additional $300 in outlay by me for the benefit of the site.

In addition, the six-month hosting bill for the site is coming due this month, and will be around USD $65.

These modules will include a "gallery" feature (and I think I can migrate over the Gallery on this site to that new gallery on XenForo) as well as an "enhanced" search add-on, which is really going to supercharge the search capability of the new XenForo site (which is already light-years ahead of this site's search capability as a stock function).

So hopefully the additional supercharged search will help overcome the biggest complaint that folks have had about this forum to date. Of course, the best search function in the world can't alleviate the fact that a person enters crappy search terms. I can provide great tools, but I can't get inside your brains to make you actually create good searches. So the onus will be on y'all with the new forum to practice good searches and use the new tools to their fullest capability.

I am going to provide a "preview" of the imported forum capability for all of you in the very near future, so that you can actually get onto a test migration and play around with the site a bit using the actual posts from this forum. You should be able to log in using your account ID and password from this vBulletin forum, but you won't be able to post anything ... just kick around the system a bit and check things out, and familiarize yourself with the interface. It also probably won't have images yet, or enhanced search, or gallery, or wiki functionality. Just posts, PMs, and the ability to move around the system.

So, stay tuned for this "live" preview capability, coming soon.

Again, just trying to be transparent and keep you all informed as to how things are going. Right now I've got about 30 hours of research and other time into the migration of the forum, and I'm anticipating many dozens of more hours over the coming weeks and months.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

JUST IN seconds after my prior post ... it looks like through some custom php scripting/coding & working with the developer of XenForo, that we do have a solution to the attachment import problem. Looks like when I get home tonight that I'll be able to do a successful import of all the photos and document attachments.

 

[nocfn]

Woohoo indeed! Good work Honch!

 

[Christian_K]

What are the advantages as a user with this new software? What are the advantages on the admin and provider side?
I myself is a big SMF fan

 

[gerryvz]

First of all, SMF is a free open source forum package in the same vein as phpBB, which is what this forum initially used.

Paid software is nearly always better than open source software in terms of polish and capability.

XenForo is about half the size of vBulletin 4.X and is designed by the same team that originally did vBulletin, that left the company after it was acquired some years ago. When vBulletin was acquired, the development basically stagnated and the software that was released was of fairly poor quality.

The founders of vBulletin started a new company and took all of the lessons they learned from creating vBulletin and started from scratch to create XenForo. I watched this XF software mature over the past 4 years and have been really impressed with it in terms of the modern architecture, more simplicity and advanced features that it has. It's easier to administer and once you use it you'll see the great functionality it has.

Furthermore from an administration standpoint it has very advanced spam and user management features, excellent search capabilities, and overall great modern user interface.

vBulletin software really hasn't added a single new feature (only a few minor bug and security fixes) in well over two years. They have focused on the even more bloated vBulletin 5.0 software platform. It is so horrible that many if not most customers who have looked at it have either stayed with vBulletin 4.X or have migrated to other platforms such as XenForo. Which is one reason why XenForo has so much momentum behind it .... people know that the developers behind it are the "real deal" who are forum designer pros.

Open source forums like phpBB and SMF are OK for basic forums, but they don't have the advanced capabilities and customizations and plugins (say for Tapatalk) and modern user interface that are really needed to make a top-notch forum.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[Christian_K]

Open source forums like phpBB and SMF are OK for basic forums, but they don't have the advanced capabilities and customizations and plugins (say for Tapatalk) and modern user interface that are really needed to make a top-notch forum.

Thats where i disagree for SMF at least...You cant compare SMF to something as shitty as PHPBB, sorry no way. Its like comparing Porsche to Vauxhall/Opel
I know SMF pretty well.. There are Forums extremely huge and they consume only a fraction of ressources compared to Vbulletin. While the basic software is a bit limited or not bloated, there are countless free or paid mods/addons for it that are top notch. Everything from every standpoint was sooo much better than Vbulletin and every other free bulletin Board software back in the days (around 5 years from now) when i had some forums on the internet (one large RPG community for instance).
But i will look forrward to the new software. Thanks for all your efforts

 

[gerryvz]

If anyone actually CARES, here's what's been going on......

Right now, it is looking like the file attachment import problem has been solved, and the import is underway now, and going well. It has about an hour left to go, but is now well past the point where it was hanging up with a server error over the past 4-5 days while I was working on this.

Basically, from a technical standpoint, the issue was as follows: the hosting company (1and1.com) limits the amount of memory available for server-side operations to around 85MB per member.

And during the file attachment (photo/document) importation process, manipulating each image requires a large amount of memory as to read the image. This is because information about every pixel in the image is required, which works out to approximately 5-6 bytes of data per pixel.

The image that was choking the server up -- causing the fatal error during the importation process -- was about 8 megapixels (~8 million pixels) so it was taking around 48MB in and of itself.

However, the image was not oriented properly, so XenForo was rotating it to ensure that it displayed correctly. This temporarily created 2 copies of the image, which required around 96MB of space.

I was able to add some code to the importation scripting (in the php language) to prevent XenForo from attempting to manipulate images larger than approximately 6 megapixels. This then provides enough memory overhead to cover any other, similar types of photo manipulation issues.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[nocfn]

Kool!

 

[Jelmer]

If anyone actually CARES

Don't be silly.

 

[gsxr]

EIGHT mb for a single image? Sheesh. Could you identify the rouge image and re-size it to something more appropriate, like 1/10 that size? We don't need raw, uncompressed, full-size DSLR images on the forum.

 

[gerryvz]

I don't know how that slipped by the size restrictions (which are already quite generous in terms of both image size and pixels).

We will tighten things up a bit with the new forum.

 

[Christian_K]

Most Forums Software i know (specifically SMF haha!) have the admin option so that uploaded pictures of any format will be resized in pixels and of course in filesize and saved as jpg. You can even set compression/quality slider for the final pictures and that they getting resized below a certain limit. So something like an 8MB picture will be something of the past.

 

[gerryvz]

Yes, we have that currently and the limits for PHOTOS are much smaller than 8 MB .. more like about 1.5 MB. So it's a bit of an anomaly. With vBulletin as I have installed it, I have also been using the built-in Gd image re-sizer/compressor, which is a standard but leaves a lot to be desired. It works, but it's not powerful nor that great.

For the XenForo install, I'm going to install the much more advanced (and free) "ImageMagick" resizer software. In fact, I've already uploaded it to the forum server. We will use that and it will provide a lot more options and better quality images that are resized.

My first import using the updated/tweaked code was successful last night, and I am doing a SECOND import today "for practice" and to ensure that the process is air-tight.

You guys can't see the stress I've been under since initiating the practice imports starting last Friday. This problem with the attachment import more or less has been a "deal breaker" as to making the eventual migration happen, if it didn't get solved. Everything else is going to be fairly easy and straightforward ... at least, most of it has been done before by others who have made similar migrations, but nobody every encountered my exact issue/parameters/circumstances, so I have been breaking new ground as to the solution. Thankfully the developers of XenForo have been absolutely responsive and brilliant to work with, elbow to elbow, on this.

Literally I have been up until 1 and 2AM every night since last Friday working on this solution. Getting 3 and 4 hours of sleep every night before I get up for work this week. Solving the problem has been all I could think about.

Now that that dragon has been slain, I have a huge sense of relief and much less stress. This was a beautiful sight ....a successfully completed import !!!



Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gsxr]

Gerry, we did not have an auto-resizer in vBooletin... if there will be one in the new software, that would be awesome. Too many people upload images from their hundred-megapixel iDevice and have no idea how to make the file small enough to upload. If the forum could swallow any size input file and spit out a forum-happy output file (say, 1600x1200 max in JPG format), that would be fantastic.

 

[gerryvz]

We do have a built-in resizer. But the existing resizer is rudimentary - it basically makes thumbnails and smallifies images a bit when they are uploaded is all.

As I said, ImageMagick is already uploaded on the server, and once the final import happens I'll integrate/configure it with XenForo.

Perhaps you and your uncle can collaborate on how to do this.

 

[gsxr]

We do have a built-in resizer. But the existing resizer is rudimentary - it basically makes thumbnails and smallifies images a bit when they are uploaded is all.

That is not what I consider to be a resizer. Currently if you try to upload an oversize image, the screen goes blank/white with no error displayed. It does not fix the problem. The resizer you describe primarily creates thumbnails, which IMO is a thumbnail creator... not a resizer.

As I said, ImageMagick is already uploaded on the server, and once the final import happens I'll integrate/configure it with XenForo.
Perhaps you and your uncle can collaborate on how to do this.

Sounds cool. I'm sure we can get someone with an iDevice to upload a ridiculous-size image and see if the fourm will swallow it.

 

[gerryvz]

As I said, ImageMagick is already uploaded on the server, and once the final import happens I'll integrate/configure it with XenForo.

 

[Christian_K]

Ahahahahaha... Uncle Kent... Hahhaha
Yes i do remember Imagemagick and know GD(2). Good that you will make use of it for the new software.

 

[gerryvz]

I think it's best to refer to him as "Dave's Uncle" and leave it at that.....

 

[gerryvz]

All:

If you are interested, you can now view an EARLY "preview" of the new forum at the following URL.

http://www.500eboard.com/testforum

You can log in using your regular user ID and password that you use for this forum.

The data that the forum is using is based on an import of this forum's database from yesterday (Thursday) morning.

You won't be able to post, reply, create PMs or do anything on the system except for view all of the posts and PMs that you have that were imported. Your user profile, PMs (at least as of yesterday), and avatars and such should have translated over with the import.

Obviously there are a lot of bugs and small issues to work out, and TONS of fine-tuning to do, and tons of add-ons to make (such as the Tapatalk software, and to add the 500Eboard site banners at the top of the forum, and so forth).

But you can definitely click around the system and check everything out.

I am thinking of adding a "skin" so that you will have the option of configuring the new forum software to look like this vBulletin in terms of design and color palette, or you can use the new XenForo design.

We are still many weeks away from any sort of switch-over, but at least for those who care, you can start to get a very early preview of what the site is going to look like. Again, this is VERY VERY early days and the final site will have much more polish and be configured to operate like this one does.

I will delete this "test forum" in the next couple of weeks, but will leave it up long enough for you to check it out.

Cheers,
Gerry

P.S. One other thing. The "test" forum is currently based on XenForo 1.4.6. On Tuesday of this week, XenForo released the first public beta of their 1.5 software. This is a major upgrade with a ton of new features and capabilities. We will very likely be running the 1.5 version of the XenForo forum software when the change-over to the new platform happens in the September/October time frame.

 

[nocfn]

Works good for me

 

[nocfn]

A question, is there going to be a "thanks" or "Like" capability like this forum?

 

[gerryvz]

A question, is there going to be a "thanks" or "Like" capability like this forum?

Uhhh .....

One thing that the new forum is NOT going to have enabled, will be Facebook, Twitter or Google+ links in the posts. We will keep social media stuff OUT of the equation on the next-generation 500Eboard. We will maintain the ability for folks to "like" or "thank" others for posts, which will be a built-in capability of the new forum rather than the "add-on" nature of that on this forum.

And remember, with the new forum, EGGL (everyone's gonna get laid) !!

 

[Jelmer]

Forum looks good, though it lacks some contract on the page, imho. It's all a bit flat and bright, but that's a personal opinion.

I tried opening an attachment (with Russian character in the name, http://www.500eboard.com/testforum/index.php?attachments/антенна-jpg.27075/) which gave me an error.

I did like my achievements, thought:

 

[nocfn]

In my owner thread, some pics did not open that might be due to referenced threads, rather than a specific picture

 

[Glen]

Looks good, Gerry. Search definitely works better!

 

[gerryvz]

Looks good, Gerry. Search definitely works better!

That's good to hear.

 

[7delta]

The xenforo has a much more mobile friendliness to it than the v.bull. I do use the Tapatalk app. But decided to check anyway. Looks good to me.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[gerryvz]

The xenforo has a much more mobile friendliness to it than the v.bull. I do use the Tapatalk app. But decided to check anyway. Looks good to me.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

That is correct. XenForo was designed with mobility in mind from the ground up, with or without "mobility" plug-ins like Tapatalk. Vbulletin isn't the best on mobile devices and that is why I have the ForumRunner and Tapatalk plug-ins installed for folks with mobile devices.

In the future more and more of us will access things through mobile devices to a much larger extent. Already probably one-half of the access of this forum is through mobile devices, and this percentage will increase over time.

Unfortunately GSXR will be left out of this trend and he'll increasingly be relegated to the "legacy" or "classic" user interface for accessing the forum. Eventually the forum will have to rely on modern operating systems and browsers, compounding the problem for GSXR as he is still using the Windows NT (1995), Windows 2000 (1998) and Windows XP (2001) operating systems on his computers.

 

[gsxr]

WINDOWS M.E....

 

[nocfn]

I thought he used DR DOS

 

[7delta]

He could jump to Linux...

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[gerryvz]

He could jump to Linux...

I think he would and could do that no problem. It's more the cell-phone & mobile device thing that's going to be a problem. As the world moves to accessing things through a 5-11-inch screen, GSXR is going to get increasingly squeezed out.

 

[7delta]

I agree. But, can't blame a man for going against the grain and having a strong will. I'm sure he has his reasons. We all have our quirks. He'll abapt and overcome. He's a "Lifer" .
And one question... How does he do it?? Meaning .. How does he log so much time here without a mobile device? Bravo to him!
[emoji106]

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[gsxr]

I think he would and could do that no problem. It's more the cell-phone & mobile device thing that's going to be a problem. As the world moves to accessing things through a 5-11-inch screen, GSXR is going to get increasingly squeezed out.

I love my 27", WQHD resolution Z1 Workstation. I don't know how people function on screens that require tweezers, stylii and a magnifying glass.

 

[gerryvz]

I'm going to leave the "test" forum up for another week or so before pulling it down and deleting it. Hopefully, those folks interested in an early look at the future of the 500Eboard have been able to get a good glimpse of things.

The next step will be to begin uploading the "final" install of the actual software install that will be the "real" forum. Then, I will spend some weeks configuring the hundreds of parameters (including things like image sizes and types that can be uploaded, user privileges, and tons of other fine tweaks) that comprise a properly operating forum. During this process I'll also add the "plug-in" software like Tapatalk and begin creating the code for the software that will "rotate" the banners at the top of the page.

Only when most all of this work is done, and the forum is "ready" ... I will then import this forum's data and images into the new forum. And at that point, it is likely that this forum will be "down" overnight ... I'd say about 8 hours in total. I will try to do this overnight (me staying up all night to manage the process) so that it is as transparent and least disruptive as possible to folks. Hopefully most folks won't even know the transition is being made - they'll log on to the new forum and will just notice a different look and feel is all.

One decision I'm working on is whether to maintain the same URL "www.500eboard.com/forums" as this forum has, or change it slightly to "forum" or the like. I'm leaning toward a "lift and shift" approach whereby the new forum will keep the same URL as this one has. That will entail coding some redirection scripts into the root of this website so that any and all requests by Google Spiders and other search-bots, or references to other threads on this forum, are "redirected" to the proper place on the new forum automatically and without any user intervention.

That's going to be a big deal to make sure that works correctly and probably the largest remaining challenge to plan/implement/execute correctly now that I've got the attachment/image import problems solved.

Looking ahead, it is likely that you won't see too much outward progress during the rest of the month of July, and early the first half of the month of August. I've got some heavy business travel in early August including a trip to San Diego, and then again in mid-late September. So, it is likely that the final date for conversion of this site to the "new" forum software will be around October 1 or so.

If you haven't had the chance to check out the "new" forum software preview, do it now at http://www.500eboard.com/testforum

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Hi guys -

Sorry I've been very AWOL on the forum in recent weeks due to extremely heavy travel. I do have a 2-week break in travel and during this time I've been getting caught up on stuff around the house, and taking care of my G-wagen which blew its HFM engine management computer, and trying to source a replacement. So the wife is driving my E500 for some weeks

I haven't done too much recently in terms of the forum conversion, but seeing as I did a lot of the work over the summer we're in decent shape.

I actually have a full "virgin" installation of the forum software (XenForo 1.5.0) up and running on the server. It's the one I'll likely use as the foundation for the "new" migrated forum. I'm a little rusty on migration process as it's been some weeks since I did the test migrations and had to do the code modifications, so I am going to do one more test migration before committing to the final switch-over to the new software. I'll do the switchover during a weekend night (probably a Friday or Saturday night) but not anytime in the coming few weeks.

One note: I have made the decision NOT to proceed with the Wiki on the new forum. There are several reasons for this:

1) It's added expense for the software licence, and honestly not many people used the Wiki as I had hoped/intended they would.
2) At least on this forum, it's been rather buggy and a lot of links have been broken when I've updated the software version, and it's a real PITA to fix that stuff. Once I get it fixed, the next software update basically "undoes" all of the work I had just done

Thus, I will re-create the Wiki entries in a separate sub-forum, but will maintain them as individual posts/threads rather than as a separate Wiki. This recreation is going to have to be a manual process, but I think the information in the Wiki is good enough that it's worth preserving as forum threads in a "Wiki" type sub-forum. The good thing is that this won't entail any organizational or structural changes in the forum -- it just will be run by the XenForo software rather than the VaultWiki software.

I'd rather put the money for the VaultWiki license into other things.

We will still continue to have full Tapatalk support (that plugin is already installed in the virgin XenForo 1.5 that is on the server).

I'll provide more information as we get closer to the cutover date, but that date is still some weeks out. I need to find the time to do one more test migration. I will try to get it done before I head off to London and Germany for my mid-month trip.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[nocfn]

I thought I was going to print off the wiki, thanks GVZ

 

[gerryvz]

It's been some months, and I wanted to give folks an update with regard to the XenForo conversion for this site.

Unfortunately, due to a very busy work schedule, and breaking my foot last fall, and some travel at the end of the year (and during this travel, I was finally -- after 13 years -- able to meet GSXR and Mrs. GSXR in person !!) I have literally had no time to work on the conversion of the site since late last summer. Even this month of January, I'm on the road for three weeks out of four.

However, today, this morning, I made a very small, but important step in the ongoing conversion of this site. Basically I updated the site's underlying scripting language, which is called "php" from version 5.3 to version 5.6. This is very important, because php 5.6 provides some VERY important capabilities that underly the new version of XenForo that we'll be installing and converting to.

For the test imports that I did last summer, I had installed XenForo version 1.4.X and 1.5.X. Just last week, XenForo released version 1.5.5a, which is a bug fix version of the forum software. At the same time, for the past year or so, they have been working on & testing version 2.X of the software, which is a major leap forward in terms of capabilities and maturity of the platform. My original plans were to install version 1.5.X and use that as our base software for the conversion from vBulletin to XenForo.

Given that the public (general availability) release of XenForo 2.X is coming in the not too distant future, I have decided that I will just move directly to version 2.X once it hits GA release, indicating that it has been thoroughly tested and vetted. My new timeline for the forum conversion will be this spring. I'm going to put special emphasis on this conversion during the month of February, and will aim to have everything done by the end of February. It's likely this conversion will be done over the US Presidents' Day holiday weekend, which is a 3-day weekend here. This will give me ample time to complete the conversion and work out things so that the forum is functional on the new platform.

The significance of the movement to php version 5.6 is that it provides the underlying capabilities that will be required, and helpful for many years to come, including many future XenForo versions and upgrades as we continue to stay current with that platform over time.

I will do one or two more "test" imports before this time, so that I am not rusty on this process anymore. It's been six months since I did the last test import, so my brain is a bit rusty on the nuances and process involved with performing a successful migration/conversion.

We have a lot to look forward to with the new platform. It's going to be modern and well architected under the hood, as opposed to the bloated, 8-10 year old code that is running our vBulletin platform.

Thanks to everyone for your interest.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Folks,

I've been quite lame in the planned forum migration to the XenForo over the past 9 months or so, I'm the first to admit !! Now that my workload has died down a bit, and I'm only on the road 50% of the time, you have probably seen in the past couple of weeks that I've been a bit more active on the forum that I have been for the past 6 months or so.

This is also allowing me more time to pick up planning for the migration to XenForo.

Today I renewed the license for XenForo, and also added an "Enhanced Search" capability, which is a $50 extra add-on that should provide much better search results than with the "standard" XenForo search, and should be light-years better than the search available with this site (even using the Google Custom Search add-on Band-Aid that I had installed some time back).

Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know that I haven't dropped the plans to migrate to XenForo, and am continuing to invest money in this migration to make it as seamless/easy and beneficial as possible for everyone once it happens.

Here's the XenForo description of the Enhanced Search capability:

XenForo Enhanced Search is designed to give significantly better search performance and additional search options to your users. It is built on top of elasticsearch, which is in turn built on top of Lucene. This gives excellent performance, even with millions of pieces of content. Elasticsearch allows nearly infinite scalability and redundancy by silently allowing searches to be run across multiple servers. Additionally, you benefit from a very small stopword list and no minimum word length, allowing nearly any search to return meaningful results. Elasticsearch also provides support for returning results based on how relevant they are to your search. You can select relevancy ordering on the advanced search page.

You must have access to install elasticsearch 0.16.0 or newer and XenForo 1.3.0 or newer to use this add-on. Only customers with dedicated servers or VPSes will be able to use it.

Access to Enhanced Search updates and support is included as long as your XenForo license is current for support and updates. When extending your XenForo license, the cost of add-on extensions will be automatically added to the base cost.

I'll continue to keep you all apprised on progress toward the migration, along with a specific timeline. If all things go according to plan, no action should be required on the part of anyone (i.e. same login/password that you're using now) other than awareness of the time period the migration will be happening.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

All:

I am happy to report that lots of progress has been made in the past couple of days with the new site and forum software. Our next-generation site will now be running on its own virtual private server, which has a single core of an AMD Opteron server processor, 2 GB of main memory, and 50 GB of hard disk data storage. The site is running on CentOS Linux 6.7, which is a very close cousin to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The site also has its own dedicated IP address, which is awesome.

What this all means is that we're going to have super performance. And more importantly, since the forum will be running on a dedicated virtual server, with its own resources, rather than being shared with hundreds of other web sites and fighting for processing capacity, we're going to see much better abilities on the new platform. I have 100% control over every single resource on the system, including the ability to set all of the settings for the size of uploads, how much memory they can take up, etc. We haven't had that control with the current system -- we can only use the strict limitations that the hoster gives us. You can see this in the illustrations below -- first the current memory limitations, and then the configurable limits that the new system provides.

Here's the current hosting system, with its "hard" limits that we have had to live with:


And here's the next-generation system, with the limits that I can tweak:


The XenForo software is loaded and installed. The new high-performance search software is installed. The latest versions of the mySQL database and the php programming language have been installed and updated. Everything is fully operational. All I have to do is some configuration tweaks to the forum itself (security related stuff) and then basically we're ready to do the import of the data from this forum to the new one. The versions of mySQL and php that I installed will be good for at least the next 5-7 years and won't require any major upgrades or changes, even as XenForo continues to evolve their software.

I have created a new "interim" domain, 500ecstasy.org, which we will use as a "transitional" domain until everything is imported, tweaked, and operating seamlessly on the new forum. At the time that the data from this forum is imported, I will "redirect" the 500Eboard.com domain to the 500Ecstasy.org domain so that nothing will change in terms of what you type into your browser to reach the (new) forum. (You can see the new forum up and running at http://www.500ecstasy.org/forums ... although I've got it shut off).

Eventually, perhaps after a few days or weeks, I'll switch over the 500Eboard.com domain back to the primary domain for the forum, just as it is now. Basically I want to have this "old" forum ready and waiting in the wings to continue operation, just in case something goes catastrophically wrong with the new forum.

I expect the transition (data import & initial configuration) to require about 6-12 hours to the new forum. During that time, which will likely be a Friday or Saturday night here in the US, this forum will be essentially "down" with a simple "Don't Wig Out!" message showing on the screen. I've done three successful importations of past versions of this site to the new forum software, so I think we are looking pretty good as far as process is concerned.

Between now and the time we do the transition, I'm going to be tweaking the software on the new forum, and uploading a few new "skins" so that each of you can customize the "look and feel" (color scheme and layout) of the new forum to your taste once it's active. You'll be able to change how it looks, although the actual forum and subforums and such will remain the same.

I am tentatively scheduling the down-time for this forum to be Friday night, March 19, at around 2200-2300 hours Central Time (0400-0500 GMT).

Folks ... you've seen the past previews of the site on the new software, and even been able to play around with it. We're going to make this transition successfully to the new software, and we're not going to look back. You guys are going to LOVE the new software. Everything you like about this site, such as the smilies and such, will be perfectly preserved on the new forum. Your user names, passwords and everything should all be exactly the same on the new site. Best of all, we're going to have some supercharged search capability AND the existing Google Custom Search for those who want it.

We're in the final stretch to this project, that I've been dreaming about for more than 2 years.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Having a bit of fun with the "Coming Soon" screen ...

 

[gerryvz]

Quick progress update from last night. I spent a couple of hours on configuring the new forum with regard to most types of settings - user/member settings; user authentication/registration; message posting and attachments; image resizing; new anti-spammer capabilities; and so forth. This is really time-consuming to do, but you only have to do it once.

The problem is that there are literally hundreds of settings that need to be reviewed, thought about, and either determined to be left alone, or changed/tweaked. For example, the size of images and thumbnails. Or how you want images to display within a thread when you click on it. Or how you actually want to upload and attach images to a post. Or the number of images that you want to allow to be attached to a single post. Or the default number of posts that you want to display when you click on a thread. Or the default when someone registers as to whether you display their birthday/year (I'm not making this a default !!).

I also decided on 2-3 new "skins" that you guys will be able to select to change the look and feel of the forum to match it to your tastes. Of course, you will be able to use the "standard" options that come with XenForo, as well. There are a couple of REALLY cool skins that I am purchasing (at $30 a pop) that I will customize for E500E purposes. Even I was pretty blown away with it, and you guys are gonna be too.

Tonight I'll work on the "rotating banner" at the top of the forum. It's going to require a bit of custom coding (including to the new skins that I'll be buying, downloading and installing). We'll using the same images as we have now, but I have to adapt the forum software code to accept them.

The other major task that needs to be completed before the import is the "redirection" of existing 500Eboard links in posts, so that they directly translate to the new forum and don't create errors or broken links. And so that Google search engine recognizes them and doesn't wig out.

After those two tasks are done ... essentially we're ready for the import of this forum database to the new forum. Then a post-import process of tweaking so that "newly registered" members aren't accidentally given "Administrator" permissions, etc.

Tell me if these regular updates are too detailed or are becoming too much for you guys, and I'll chill on them.

"Make 500Eboard Great Again!"

Cheers,
Gerry