APUG's next version and migration to a new system, possibly in June/July.

[Sean]

Hi All,

Most vBulletin forum owners have been caught in limbo with this software. In my opinion the next version of vBulletin is unworkable leaving us stuck on this older version. This can only continue for so long, as the longer it does, the more vulnerable and buggy the system becomes. I and other forum admins have been keeping an eye on a newer system for a couple of years now. They have evolved into the best system available for large forum communities. I have seen 100's of vbulletin migrations to this new system ( Xenforo ). These vbulletin forums which migrated to Xenforo were much like APUG with millions of posts, 10,000's of users and various custom applications. They have all been extremely happy with their migrations. I am in talks with one of the leading Xenforo experts in performing these custom migrations and intend to schedule a major system migration for us in June or July. This may even provide a facility for a back end connection between APUG & DPUG allowing for single user accounts and much more. If all goes well you will not notice a huge difference, in fact you may find many of the things that annoyed you about our current system, vanish.

This will not be easy or cheap so if needed I may run a small Indiegogo crowd funding campaign. We can worry about that later.

Anyway, just giving you a heads up and I'm pretty excited to finally be able to move forward with this in the near future. I'll update this thread as I get more details.

Thanks!
Sean

***UPDATE - April 28***

Ok, I intend to move on this but in phases. Primarily:

APUG.ORG
forums
gallery
classifieds

then the rest of APUG functions implemented over the course of 4-6 weeks. Some things will be quick such as social groups, then articles and blogs. A few things will need a complete rewrite such as APUG portfolios (will be a good opportunity to bring this up to a much nicer level).

Once APUG is finished and we're all happy the next phase will be DPUG.

The next two weeks will be installing the software and having our styling work done.

So far forum and gallery license have been purchased $200 US. Styling work estimate $1-300US. I'll setup a fundraising notice for those who want to kick in a few bucks and make a dedicated donate button.

Migration support and custom coding will run anywhere from an estimated $500-1500 over the next 4-8 weeks.

***UPDATE - May 1st***

I have hired a skilled styling coder to transfer our look and feel to the new system (his team have done a lot of these conversions). This should be done in a couple of weeks. Then we will move on to importing content into the new system and swapping over.

***UPDATE - May 8th***

Slight delay, but templating of the new system is now under way. This will hopefully be done in a week or so.

***UPDATE - May 27th***

Moving along.. The development site is up and running. So far I am extremely pleased with the new software and am confident we can do a near 1:1 transfer of what we currently have to the new system + added functionality, less bugs and a far better user experience for all. My goal is to make it so you don't really notice we are on a new system, but you feel things are more refined, run better and there are general improvements everywhere you turn. For example we have issues with people bulk deleting gallery entries, they would notice they can now do this. The articles area, videos, social groups all lack a lot of functionality and the new system will resolve that and much much more.

***UPDATE***

Some screenshots here: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

***UPDATE***

We're having an extremely successful fundraiser. I'm now working with my coder Clement who is one of the best forum coders I know (we've worked on many APUG projects over the years). The dev environment tweaking has begun..

 

[pdeeh]

One of the other forums I frequent has recently migrated to Xen, although it is nowhere near as large or busy as APUG.

The only negative comment I will offer is that on my browser (Opera 12) Xen is rather slow and resource hungry, but I imagine the proportion of the APUG user base who might experience this problem is pretty small.

Good luck with the migration when it happens. For something the size of APUG it's not a task for the faint of heart

 

[Sean]

One of the other forums I frequent has recently migrated to Xen, although it is nowhere near as large or busy as APUG.

The only comment I will offer is that on my browser (Opera 12) Xen is rather slow and resource hungry, but I imagine the proportion of the APUG user base who might experience this problem is pretty small.

Good luck with the migration when it happens. For something the size of APUG it's not a task for the faint of heart

This could be an issue with their host as well. We are on a dedicated 8-core server running SSD, so it should be very fast. Xenforo also has far less bloat than vBulletin so I anticipate everything would be snappy.

 

[pdeeh]

Well, I've used other Xen sites that are equally slow, so I believe it's a client-side problem with Opera, which only affects digital dinosaurs like me who like the flexibility and customisability of the Opera 12 series and refuse to upgrade ... as I say, not many of us will suffer, no reason not to encourage you to proceed

 

[samcomet]

Good luck Sean!!!

I would be most happy to make a donation to facilitate the migration once it is set up.
cheers,
Sam (samcomet)<script type="text/javascript" src="safari-extension://com.ebay.safari.myebaymanager-QYHMMGCMJR/3067df82/background/helpers/prefilterHelper.js"></script>

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

Thanks for the update and all your hard work Sean. I'm sure the support from the community will be strong should you decide on the need of an Indiegogo campaign. Keep us posted! All the best...

 

[analoguey]

Thanks for the commendable efforts Shawn, and good luck with the migration!
if the funding thing happens, I'll be happy to contribute there!

 

[removed account4]

sean

the work you do for this site ( and dpug ) is imeeasurable .
thank you for a great site, and a haven !
good luck with the migration !
john

 

[Roger Cole]

Will it work with Tapatalk?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk and 100% recycled electrons - because I care.

 

[Dr Croubie]

This may even provide a facility for a back end connection between APUG & DPUG allowing for single user accounts and much more. If all goes well you will not notice a huge difference, in fact you may find many of the things that annoyed you about our current system, vanish.

This would be an immense improvement. It would boost the popularity and use of DPUG (eg people like me who know and love their scanners, but just can't be bothered signing up to, and religiously checking, yet another forum).
Not only that, but if it's possible for mods to move threads between the two sites, that would cut down on a whole lot of howling every time someone new (who doesn't quite understand the rules) comes in to apug, asks a dpug-question, gets shouted down and runs away scared.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

The back-end APUG/DPUG connection would solve some ongoing problems, if all goes well. Sounds like progress!

 

[winger]

Sounds like a BIG project, but worth it. I'm also in if there's a need for funding. A smoother APUG/DPUG connection would be good.

 

[Sean]

Will it work with Tapatalk?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk and 100% recycled electrons - because I care.

Yes, it will be tapatalk capable..

 

[Sean]

It's just a software platform that you buy. Some leave it with generic default settings and some customize it as well as add on additional software and custom coding. There is no direct connection between vBulletin and any communities running their software.

 

[Sean]

The owner buys the software and is then pretty much on their own. They are responsible for keeping it updated/patched, security, configuration, maintenance, database, etc. Servers are typically rented by the month (hardware and bandwidth) and reside at large data centers where they are monitored by technicians.

 

[Dr Croubie]

Thanks. I didn't know how it worked. When I heard in the news about some politician who had their own server, I pictured them having it at home, like a refrigerator or something. GL

Yeah, that's also possible.
My friend's dad was a Doctor, he had a server with all the patient records and such on it. He also let us install a virtual machine on it and run a small website and mailserver.
When he moved out of home and couldn't use it anymore, I just installed my own mailserver at my house. Nothing fancy, just an old Pentium 3 with a 10GB disk that I had lying around, stuck it in a corner somewhere.

 

[Jerevan]

Get a tip jar going already, Sean?

 

[Sean]

Not yet but soon. I am so excited about the capabilities of this new system I have already started some preliminary work on it. Not only can APUG & DPUG remain individual sites but they can be connected so members have 1 profile between both sites. Also, if someone posts a scanner or digital topic it can simply be moved by moderators to DPUG and the APUG member can discuss there without having to create an account or login. People on both sites can choose how much data, new posts, searches etc they want to see from each site. The new Gallery system looks to be an improvement. Well, all in all I would say there are dozens of major improvements so I am highly motivated to get this going asap.

 

[munz6869]

Sounds ace Sean!! I am so glad you continue to be enthusiastic about traditional photography and this forum. Because of yours and the moderator's/council's labours, it remains relevant and useful as ever!!

Marc!

 

[Rafal Lukawiecki]

Good luck, Sean, and thanks. I also hope that some of the recent navigation niggles get resolved with a new platform. Let me know if you need help in testing.

 

[Sean]

Thanks guys. Yes the navigation issues should be resolved as well.

 

[Sean]

Ok, I intend to move on this but in phases. Primarily:

APUG.ORG
forums
gallery
classifieds

then the rest of APUG functions implemented over the course of 4-6 weeks. Some things will be quick such as social groups, then articles and blogs. A few things will need a complete rewrite such as APUG portfolios (will be a good opportunity to bring this up to a much nicer level).

Once APUG is finished and we're all happy the next phase will be DPUG.

The next two weeks will be installing the software and having our styling work done.

So far forum and gallery license have been purchased $200 US. Styling work estimate $1-300US. I'll setup a fundraising notice for those who want to kick in a few bucks and make a dedicated donate button.

Migration support and custom coding will run anywhere from an estimated $500-1500 over the next 4-8 weeks.

Thanks

 

[MattKing]

So Sean:

Any bets on how long it will be before someone complains because they prefer the "old" APUG

 

[Roger Cole]

So Sean:

Any bets on how long it will be before someone complains because they prefer the "old" APUG

Almost ready to say that. I'm admittedly a very change-averse person and the existing one works fine for me so "it ain't broke, don't fix it!" is the first thing that comes to my mind. But it may be "broke" from Sean's POV and the new one may be easier to run, more reliable, whatever. So I'm determined to grin and bare it.

Well except for the lack of multi quote, a feature I have on every other vBulletin board I use. Other than that, it ain't broke.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk and 100% recycled electrons - because I care.

 

[Sean]

I'm sure we can tweak it to be practically identical in most ways, minus the annoying bugs we've had for a while. I do understand "if it ain't broke", but the front end and back end are two different aspects of the system. From an admin point of view it's always best to keep up to date server applications (PHP, MYSQL, etc) and software (forums, gallery, etc) + constant security patching. Our gallery alone is quite a disaster having lost software updates years ago. I could go on.