Olympus vs. the rest

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Also, doesn't vB have an option to PM the user automatically if you delete his/her post?
With the quoted post and the reason for deleting?
That I don't feel is as 'critical' but it would be *nice* to have as a MOD.

I don't think so.

[TwistedWeather]

I have had a SMF and IPB up and running for month's now (IPB longer ) and ofcourse running the new phpbb3 beta. Have used the old phpbb2 as well.

I have never used/setup vB, I have ran IPB, but as stated they don't really compare. With the new beta out i think they do as far as user/admin features go. About the only thing missing is ajax and QR. Other then that they are the same right down to the ACP look. However i believe phpbb3 has a better permission system then IPB's. The big difference IMO is that phpbb3 is FREE which makes it all the better. Once my license expires at IPB i will not renew it because the new phpbb3 has all the features that i wanted when i got the IPB forum.

I will try to point out the differences between SMF and phpBB that I have found.

This is all IMO so take it or leave it, chew it up or spit it out, put in on your plate or pass it back. Its all on you.

I have found the coding for phpBB to be more readable. SMF, from what I remember doesn't do a very good job of seperating the code from the presentation. Agree somewhat with this.

Templating SMF I found to be much more difficult. Probably for the above reason and my lack of experience with it.

SMF does have the mod installer which phpBB would GREATLY benefit from. Agreed 100%. Especially considering PHPBB encourages people to use mod's versus adding some features and has a very nice large modding community.

I think the phpBB ACP/UCP/MCP are much better organized and layed out. Especially with phpBB3. I was always trying to figure out where SMF put things. It didn't seem logical. Again, this could be lack of exposure. phpbb IMHO has always had a very easy to use ACP. However i believe their newer ACP is up there with IPB's now with 3.0 making it the best as i like IPB's acp as well. SMF's is ok but nothing to write home about. It's much like phpbb2

phpBB for it being pure GPL. true

The modding community for phpBB, I feel is the best of any BB system. There are thousands of mods. SMF I couldn't find what I was looking for most of the time. This depends on what you want. Personally all the mod's i have wanted i have found be it for smf or phpbb. Phpbb ofcourse has a larger modding community.

Asthetically, I prefer the layout of phpBB over SMF. The organization of the information, etc. This is for the most a template issue, but there are things that I have found phpBB does that SMF had a different take on and it didn't jive with me as well. Exposure and bias I am sure. Agree about the layout. However i do like the option to collaps the forums with smf and as well i like that you see what was last posted in the forums from the main index page. My other problem with SMF is the thread/post view. It appears as if one reply goes into the next reply. I have heard that complaint as well from some users i have on the smf forum.

phpBB feels so much more flexible in what it can be made to do. I felt like I was locked into the design the developers wanted when I was using SMF. Again, this could be an exposure issue. I have found a couple of nice skin's for smf one of which is Helios Multi which IMO is perhaps one of the best dark themes i have ever used and seen. Hope to see someone here on phpbb do a simular one for 3.0. Other then that i feel BOTH SMF and PHPBB are built around what the developers want as far as LOOKS are concerned. However SMF is atleast more open to new ideas unlike phpbb

Overall SMF felt clunky to use. The user experience doesn't have the refinement that phpBB2 does, let alone phpBB3. Disagree about the 2.0 series. 3.0 I agree with.

If/when phpBB gets EasyMOD integrated into it, it will remove my one complaint about it. Thats one of a couple of complaints of my own with respect to feature request. But this is not the time or place to go into that.

This is all subjective and should be taken with a grain of salt.

And to add onto what i said above. I believe a few here on the development team etc could take a few lesson's in patience and friendliness from the guy's over at SMF. Yeah i know that seing people ask this or that be it about release dates, adding features, etc may get old to you all but i know for a fact from being at their site almost as much as here that they get asked the same things day in and day out just like here BUT rarely IF ever get irate with people when stuff like that is asked and or discussed this especially applies to feature request. Plus it may help if you all had a forum just for the purpose of feedback/feature request. Doesnt mean every feature has to be added either. However it does show that you all here at phpbb care about the USERS of your software and what they think. Every software site (BOTH FREE and Paid for) i have ever been to has this except here.

[Uchiha Nick]

you might want to use some interpunction and break down your lines a bit

also phpBB creates the core, in what seems in their eyes good. they want a fast, stable forum package, not bloated with to many features. the mod community provides features. feedback? security tracker/bug tracker? and you can always post feedback at the mainsite. this piece is still under construction, they work as much as they can on this, they dont have time to work through the feedback at the time

[Acyd Burn]

Regarding feature requests... since we feature froze 3.0.x (and to some extend 3.2.x) we closed our feature request tracker, therefore the link to the tracker had been removed. With the amount of current requests made by our users we could do +10 further revisions.

I believe a few here on the development team etc could take a few lesson's in patience and friendliness from the guy's over at SMF.

I for one never was unpatient or not friendly, neither anyone from my team as far as i know. You also need to differate between the development team, the moderators, the support team, the mod team, the styles team, etc. because they are all very different and the development team has the lowest post count of all. To actually look at who said something might help too if people say (only a example, this never happened): "hey, a developer said that subsilver2 will not be released with the final" where maybe a support team member said this once - purely speculating and also said so - and everyone thinks it is a statement 100% true given by the development team (who would be the only ones able to confirm it).

Of course every team member is instructed to be as friendly as possible, even if handling the same question the 1000th time.

[TwistedWeather]

you might want to use some interpunction and break down your lines a bit

also phpBB creates the core, in what seems in their eyes good. they want a fast, stable forum package, not bloated with to many features. the mod community provides features. feedback? security tracker/bug tracker? and you can always post feedback at the mainsite. this piece is still under construction, they work as much as they can on this, they dont have time to work through the feedback at the time

Thanks. The point however should still get across i believe. The part of your reply i bolded agrees with what i said about the software being built around them. Although i think you missed the part where i said PHPBB DOESNT like feature request and should have a forum for that and feedback. Yeah i know they have the phpbb discussion forum ( Which i believe you are referring to ) but if you read the rules of that forum feedback doesnt appear to be encouraged and nor do they want feature request.
_____________________________________________________

Acyd Burn
Post subject: Re: Olympus vs. the rest

Regarding feature requests... since we feature froze 3.0.x (and to some extend 3.2.x) we closed our feature request tracker, therefore the link to the tracker had been removed. With the amount of current requests made by our users we could do +10 further revisions.


Quote:
I believe a few here on the development team etc could take a few lesson's in patience and friendliness from the guy's over at SMF.



I for one never was unpatient or not friendly, neither anyone from my team as far as i know. You also need to differate between the development team, the moderators, the support team, the mod team, the styles team, etc. because they are all very different and the development team has the lowest post count of all. To actually look at who said something might help too if people say (only a example, this never happened): "hey, a developer said that subsilver2 will not be released with the final" where maybe a support team member said this once - purely speculating and also said so - and everyone thinks it is a statement 100% true given by the development team (who would be the only ones able to confirm it).

Of course every team member is instructed to be as friendly as possible, even if handling the same question the 1000th time.

Perhaps you should go look at SHS reply in HighwayOfLife's thread. [EDITED TO ADD that i seem to have misunderstood SHS reply in that thread-Sorry ]That is part of what i am talking about. Was the eye rolling really needed? I think not. And everyone knows that is not the only occurance especially with him. Yeah i should have clarified more so on who the rude ones are but i saw no reason's to go around pointing finger's at specific people. Now ofcourse that has been blown. Not all of you all do this and believe most know that as well. Sorry but this is something IMHO that needs addressing. Need we go into how many times i myself have gotten lambasted for asking thing's here buy a couple of people from both the Mod's and developers? You yourself that i can recall has always been helpfull and nice.

And thanks for backing my comment's regarding development/feature request. As said i think a forum just for those would help out alot. IT DOESNT MEAN THAT ALL FEATURES has to be added as well. That is why it would be called a REQUEST forum.

[SHS`]

There are a gross number of things that you still don't seem to "get", so I'll entrtain myself in replying here too...

I believe a few here on the development team etc could take a few lesson's in patience and friendliness from the guy's over at SMF.

May I remind you that SMF is a commercial outfit and by definition will have an interest in making money some way or another. The software may be "free", though it is certainly not "libre" as per in the OSS definition.

You are also mistaking "handling-wth-kid-gloves" as being friendliness. Also, you are mistaking "short-and-direct" (read terse) as being rudeness. OSS people generally of a technical background and if there is anything in common with them is the fact of the general distain for "time wasters". Furthemore, support in OSS (excluding paid distro support) is also very different to commrcial software... and generally of the ilk "help you help yourself". If that rubs you up the wrong way... use something else.

Yeah i know that seing people ask this or that be it about release dates, adding features, etc may get old to you all but i know for a fact from being at their site almost as much as here that they get asked the same things day in and day out just like here BUT rarely IF ever get irate with people when stuff like that is asked and or discussed this especially applies to feature request.

Spelling, punctuation, grammar goes a long way. Online, you are what you write and anything which wastes time in people reading what you have to say is likely to reflect badly upon yourself. Writing in a clear, lucid, structured manner is more likely to get your point across... even if the point may be of ideologcally opposing views to the reader.

Plus it may help if you all had a forum just for the purpose of feedback/feature request.

There is a forum for feedback of implimented features. It's also been stated very clearly that there are to be no feature requests whatsoever. The original plan for "phpBB2.2" got broader in scope as it was being developed, and thus aside from being renamed (as per Linux kernel tradition of changed API) to "phpBB3.0" and moving some features that can't be implimented between than and "Gold", to "phpBB3.2".

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that by definition then, all features at least up to "phpBB3.2" are frozen, aside from fixing whatever bugs in the current implimentation there may be. By extension... this means requests for new features also wouldn't ahppen till whenver "phpBB3.4" gets started.

Doesnt mean every feature has to be added either. However it does show that you all here at phpbb care about the USERS of your software and what they think.

Aside from the above, phpBB first and foremost cares about the software it produces. It doesn't make the slightest bit of difference if it's one user (ourselves), 100 users or 10 million users.

phpBB has it's own vision for the software and if a users likes it, great. If they don't, then they are free to use something else. If they don't like how some things are implimented, then by the nature of it's opensourceness, are free to fork it (assuming they abide by the requirements of the license).

Every software site (BOTH FREE and Paid for) i have ever been to has this except here.

Hyperbole and logical fallicy of appeal to authority. I suggest you read the really rather good "Producing Opensource", penned by the author of Subversion, on why OSS projects are the way they are. http://www.producingoss.com/" target="_blank

[Alenônimo]

I'm a little disapointed with the fact that phpBB doesn't come with Quick Reply too. The users from my forum love this feature and all the new BB systems (SMF, vBulletin, IPB, etc) are coming with that. Why not implement this?

By now, I'm sticking with the SMF.

[ElbertF]

viewtopic.php?p=150000#p150000

[Alenônimo]

viewtopic.php?p=150000#p150000

I know it will not be on the Olympus. But the users from my board want this feature. And my board is not mine: it's a comunnity board managed by 15 users. I'm just the webdesigner.

How can I sugest to use phpBB if it don't come with this simple and needed feature? Sure I can just install an MOD, but just using an SMF is easier. And the upgrades? If I use an phpBB, I will have to deal with the code almost once a month again? With the SMF, even the others members who don't know exactly what is a upgrade can deal with it.

[ElbertF]

I was just pointing you toward some topics that will answer your question, and a couple mods in the making. You may also find this has been discussed many times. It's not about what you or your users want, you're not in the position to demand.

You're sticking to SMF anyway, so what's the big deal..?