IMHO it could be for a small fee. It is better than vB that's for sure, at least with respect to features, speed, and php code quality.Originally Posted by eestlinc
IMHO it could be for a small fee. It is better than vB that's for sure, at least with respect to features, speed, and php code quality.
Last edited by Samuraid; 10-26-2004 at 03:26 AM.
vB is far superior to IPB, not that I expect to change your opinion. It's all a matter of personal opinion and what kind of 'features' you're after, not to mention that vB is known to be better for larger boards and IPB is known to be better for smaller boards.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
(Note: I'm not trying to be a pain or a problem, this is just for interesting discussion.)
It's true about the features. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.
I also took a good look at the raw PHP code and how each board handled resources. IPB is a modular (OOP) code design and certainly uses server resources more efficiently. The overall performance is cleaner and quicker, not to mention the code is "nicer".
How so? "known to be"? Where did you hear this?vB is known to be better for larger boards and IPB is known to be better for smaller boards
There are quite a number of excellent and large boards that use IPB with great success:
http://forums.amd.com/
http://forums.megatokyo.com/
I would assert that IPB is better designed to handle a heavy load than vB based on the code, DB schema, caching system, etc...
This is what I'm talking about. As for the reasons, it's the admin CP. IPB is adding features to catch up with vB very fast, but it's a long way away from having the admin CP (or the mod CP) to be up to standard. vBulletin is known to be better for large boards because of the amount of control you have (which is due to the admin CP being so far ahead of IPB's admin CP).
As for coding, I don't know much about PHP, but I do know that vB's template system is designed to be easily customisable. If we wanted, we could make EoFF look exactly like it did in vB2. We could probably get it to look exactly like IPB does. From what I've read at TAZ (The Admin Zone) and DevBoxForums, vBulletin leads the way. People do argue that IPB has advanced a lot faster than vBulletin, but vBulletin users will argue that once ten barriers are broken down over four years, anyone can walk through the debris and catch up in a matter of days. It's all about being ahead and being first to do something that matters. IPB have been first to do a few things, but not many. A very large amount of their features were functional on vB long before they were functional on IPB. If IPB can catch up with vB and continue to develop at such speeds, they may well become the better group, but everyone knows that until they do catch up, they're still behind.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
Edit: and also the FAQ is still empty meaning there are no rules *schemes and plots*
Recognized Member
The FAQ is there and has been for a long time.
Hello Pika Art by Dr Unne ~~~ godhatesfraggles
You have to click on the links to pull up the FAQ info.
I'm a fan of phpbb. For one thing, it's free. For another, its template system (last I used it, which was a year or two ago) is superior to VBs. The VB template system is one of the worst things I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with. I belong to some MBs which are a couple times bigger than EoFF that run fine on phpbb. So far as innovation, I couldn't care less, but that's just me. Our current MB is nearly identical in function to the EZBoard. A lot of people still do message-board-style communication using only email and mailing lists. We don't really need a lot of the crap VB gives us, in my opinion.
I think a lot of "big sites" use VB because it's a status symbol. I wouldn't pay for it, let alone pay hundreds of dollars for it.
If I can use vB's template system, then it's brilliant. And I think I represent the average admin quite nicely - ie, not a technical whizz kid. If there's anything wrong with vB3's template system, I can't find it. I got EoFF looking like this.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
vB's code is very ugly. It's hard to find what you're looking for. vB IS a status symbol. EoFF would be alright running a phpbb, with a few hacks.
IPB was a really great piece of code, though. I knew the thing inside and out, and it made sense. At tGA I have to fiddle around too much with the templates to get what I want. I agree that vB is still superior, albeit, not for long.
I would agree. phpBB code is very well done and is solid. The template system (and the file caching system) is excellent too.
vB does have a good skin editor.
As for code, I give vB3 a lot of credit because they greatly improved the code over vB2.
Like I said, you weren't the one who had to employ negative-margin CSS hacks to get the MB to look like it does now.Also VB3 made the move to put branching code (conditionals) right into the templates. Mixing actual source code into the template is a big fat no-no. I think c_l also agrees with me on that, if I remember his comments right after we got VB3.
The naming conventions for the templates for example is terrible and inconsistent. Forum Home, Forum Display. Which of those is which? Now I did eventually manage to remember that Forum Display is displaying forums themselves and not a list of forums. So I'd say that threads should be Thread Display, right? Wrong, it's Show Thread. So maybe the templates for showing individual posts is under Show Posts? Wrong, it's Postbit.
Don't even get me started on how nasty the HTML is that VB produces. phpbb isn't a whole lot better in that regard either, but it more heavily relies upon CSS, which is how it should be.
I run my own personal forums through PHPBB and your right the code on the orginal template provided is crap but you can get people made ones and the coding quality on most of them is really good
From what I've heard in the past, isn't phpBB reliant on you knowing the ins and outs of php yourself?
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
Not really, I haven't had to write any PHP myself and all the mods are completely comprihensive so you just change what it says, and their latest feature is a mod that automattically installs mods for you, haven't tried that one yet though
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