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Jens

Full Member
Joined
Apr 23, 2000
Messages
11,971
Ever thought of replacing the UBB with the new VBulletin software?
 
I think UBB boards stand a chance of becoming passe in the near future because of their reliance on CGI instead of PHP, like many of the newer boards do. I think that Infopop is going to have to switch over to PHP if they're going to survive, otherwise VBulletin and all of its knockoffs are going to steal their marketshare.
 
I´m posting on quite a couple of forums that use VBulletin and I prefer them over UBB. Easier to use and you have more features ...
 
They're also significantly faster than UBB boards. I still like the look and feel of the UBB better though.
 
<a href="http://www.footballforums.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=2f3c52b3247e2fcbddd398a8e134b58c&forumid=55" target="_blank">Here's one!</a>

Slow as feck mind! ;)
 
I agree with Raoul on this one. UBB looks alot better than VBulletin. The latter seems very sterile for some reason.
 
A good PHP based forum could be worth changing to considering the constant cgi-limit problem would then be eliminated. But if there is a major trade off of features/speed it might not be worth it.

I'll look at this VBulletin software and weigh up the pros and cons.

Thanks for the suggestion Jens!
 
Is there an import featue though? Would we have to start from scratch?
 
Also, PHP depends on the server, here it is part of the CGI limits, I guess because it is just an executable program that is run just like PERL.

Let's get this right, CGI is only a protocol for sending data to a server, it is not a language, and CGI scripts can be written in C, C++, Assembler, Perl, Tck, Unix-shell, PHP, whatever.

The difference PHP and ASP and others can have is when they ar plug-ins to the Web Server software. Here I do not believe that is the case with PHP, I believe it is a called program just like the Perl core of UBB.

The reason I think this is that when a CGI timeout occurs, trying to access a thread by PHP causes a download of that PHP script. Guess what the download is! It's a HTML page that says "CGI limits reached, please try later" <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laugh Out Loud]" />
 
hmmm, you could have a point weaste, would have to ensure that the cgi limits (or something similar) aren't still an issue doesn't if we did change over.

And yes there is a ubb6 import feature for topics and members.
 
Originally posted by Niall:
<strong>hmmm, you could have a point weaste, would have to ensure that the cgi limits (or something similar) aren't still an issue doesn't if we did change over.

And yes there is a ubb6 import feature for topics and members.</strong><hr></blockquote>

It's good that there is an import feature, but I think that the PHP here is a call to an exteral program, so it wouldn't help the CGI timeouts, so a change will not help. You'll have to check that though.

Also, I agree with Raoul, I prefer the UBB look and feel far more.
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I've seen a forum or two and I must say that this is the best looking of them all. I don't see any need for any more features. It's good as it is, but for the cgi-limits problems of course.
 
Originally posted by Niall:
<strong>hmmm, you could have a point weaste, would have to ensure that the cgi limits (or something similar) aren't still an issue doesn't if we did change over.

And yes there is a ubb6 import feature for topics and members.</strong><hr></blockquote>

10,000posts+ members say "PHEWWWWW" :)
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Originally posted by WeasteDevil:
<strong>Also, PHP depends on the server, here it is part of the CGI limits, I guess because it is just an executable program that is run just like PERL.

Let's get this right, CGI is only a protocol for sending data to a server, it is not a language, and CGI scripts can be written in C, C++, Assembler, Perl, Tck, Unix-shell, PHP, whatever.

The difference PHP and ASP and others can have is when they ar plug-ins to the Web Server software. Here I do not believe that is the case with PHP, I believe it is a called program just like the Perl core of UBB.

The reason I think this is that when a CGI timeout occurs, trying to access a thread by PHP causes a download of that PHP script. Guess what the download is! It's a HTML page that says "CGI limits reached, please try later" <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laugh Out Loud]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>

Having done (a small) amount of research into this issue I don't think cgi-limits would be a problem with a php forum. As far as I understand it, PHP is an Apache module although it can also run like cgi where the parser is loaded into memory every time a php script is called. But if it's installed as a module it runs in the background all the time thus working much faster and saving memory.

I would be very surprised if this host (and any other) didn't run PHP as a module considering its popularity these days. To do otherwise would create an unnecessarily huge demand on the server.

I've been playing around a bit with vBulletin as well and am so far very impressed. Has many (if not all) of the same features as UBB and some very good new ones. I do prefer the look and feel of UBB but from a functional point of view it's top notch so far...
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