Started a forum on MyBB. Limitations of MyBB?

[joey23art]

Not all IPB mods are paid. Some are free, as long as you own a license.

Most MyBB plugins are free.

Stay on topic please. MyBB is the subject.

I was saying that MyBB has obvious limits because it does not charge for the software and there is not money coming in like paid software. There is no money to fund the developers so their time is limited. Limited time, limited software development..but hey - that is just my 2 cents.

Obviously you're going to be biased.

That's just wrong.

The best plugins/mods come from sites like MyBBCentral which require a small fee for access to all of their plugins.

The plugins on MyBBcentral are terrible. The coders have no clue what they are doing.
No here is my opinion. MyBB is an okay software. It has a couple cool functions but just a few. it has a great reputation system. But good luck getting support. That is the biggest problem. If you have a problem and need get it fixed fast, not gonna happen unless you can figure it out yourself. Or if you don 't get banned. I would say IPB is so much better you can't even put them in the same sentence. In fact, we need to stop this uprising of MyBB before it becomes an academic.

 

[StateDOG]

Wysiwyg...?

 

[el canadiano]

Most MyBB plugins are free.

I realize that. It was just someone else incorrectly said that all of IPB's mods are paid.

No here is my opinion. MyBB is an okay software. It has a couple cool functions but just a few. it has a great reputation system. But good luck getting support. That is the biggest problem. If you have a problem and need get it fixed fast, not gonna happen unless you can figure it out yourself. Or if you don 't get banned. I would say IPB is so much better you can't even put them in the same sentence. In fact, we need to stop this uprising of MyBB before it becomes an academic.

Academic? I use both, and both are great. Actually, I'd consider MyBB's forum based support only second to IPB's. I have had very good support with MyBB, although I do find it convenient that IPB's support team fixes my problems for me. Actually, MyBB with Google SEO has always been really good when it comes to indexing my sites and such. It's also a lighter package, and the Admin CP is the most user-friendly out of all of them.

 

[AJS]

No here is my opinion. MyBB is an okay software. It has a couple cool functions but just a few. it has a great reputation system. But good luck getting support. That is the biggest problem. If you have a problem and need get it fixed fast, not gonna happen unless you can figure it out yourself. Or if you don 't get banned. I would say IPB is so much better you can't even put them in the same sentence. In fact, we need to stop this uprising of MyBB before it becomes an academic.

The support I've recieved on the MyBB forums has been second to none.

I doubt the uprising of MyBB will become "an academic". That would just be silly tbh.

But since it's the best free forum software by far, it's going to keep growing.

I thought of a limitation though, no Facebook Connect, that sucks.

 

[el canadiano]

The support I've recieved on the MyBB forums has been second to none.

I doubt the uprising of MyBB will become "an academic". That would just be silly tbh.

But since it's the best free forum software by far, it's going to keep growing.

I thought of a limitation though, no Facebook Connect, that sucks.

Yeah, that's actually one of the main things MyBB lacks. I find it great that they've moved to a GPL license, but I find the open source attitude quite isn't there. Other than for support, I got someone rudely say "I'll convert the forums as a paid option. I do charge $25/hour though for about three hours, but you can split it" as an answer to an unsupported forum conversion. I also find IPB actually listens to their users much more than anyone else does, but even then, MyBB is still likely going to be the free forum software of the future.

 

[joey23art]

The support I've recieved on the MyBB forums has been second to none.

Give them a couple months. And I meant epidemic.

 

[AJS]

Give them a couple months. And I meant epidemic.

It's been 4 months already.

 

[el canadiano]

Give them a couple months. And I meant epidemic.

How exactly is it going to be an epidemic?

 

[MattR]

The thing with support is that some people (not necessarily joey23art) make a few threads and because they don't get answered within a few hours, they think the support is always crap, whereas other people realise we can't always answer threads within hours of them being posted, they appreciate the fact we do it in our spare time, they just wait a bit and then get the answer they need. It's very subjective.

There was once a person who made a thread saying they were moving to phpBB because out support was slow. I went through their support threads, there were only seven. Every single one had a reply within an hour. Four of them had a post within ten minutes. Two of them had a post within one minute.

If that's too slow for some people, then they're not going to be happy wherever they go. With IPB you pay for a 2 day ticket response, and around 80%+ of support thread on MyBB are solved much quicker than that, and we don't get a penny. If the people saying the support is bad were actually the ones giving support, they'd quickly see it's not as easy as people seem to think.

 

[el canadiano]

The thing with support is that some people (not necessarily joey23art) make a few threads and because they don't get answered within a few hours, they think the support is always crap, whereas other people realise we can't always answer threads within hours of them being posted, they appreciate the fact we do it in our spare time, they just wait a bit and then get the answer they need. It's very subjective.

There was once a person who made a thread saying they were moving to phpBB because out support was slow. I went through their support threads, there were only seven. Every single one had a reply within an hour. Four of them had a post within ten minutes. Two of them had a post within one minute.

If that's too slow for some people, then they're not going to be happy wherever they go. With IPB you pay for a 2 day ticket response, and around 80%+ of support thread on MyBB are solved much quicker than that, and we don't get a penny. If the people saying the support is bad were actually the ones giving support, they'd quickly see it's not as easy as people seem to think.

Don't get me wrong, you lead a very good support team, and my regular support has always been answered with MyBB. Having said that, IPB takes much less than 2 days to have a problem fixed for me. On average, I had perhaps a six hour wait time at worst to have their problems fixed for me (having said that, they do have my hosting information as well along with Admin CP access). Mind you, I haven't talked about phone support yet (however, that's only available for business licenses and the first thirty days of a new license). They even were able to go as far as saying that my host used EHLO over HELO for SMTP since my PHP Mail doesn't work.

If anything, two days was more or less my time for a response at vBulletin's ticket support. That was only for a response. They never really fixed any of my problems.

 

[Lich_king2]

If you ask me nothing beats SMF support team.

 

[el canadiano]

My problem with SMF's support team is that it isn't organized. Too many people are asking for support and you can sometimes get bumped down. Mind you, as much as I like SMF, the fact that Cathy is acting like Axl Rose doesn't really help the many friends who left. I'd be interesting to see how Phoenix does though.

 

[ahstanford]

The biggest limitation of MyBB is it's templating system. The problem is that it offers no control over the logic flow which really limits the amount of customization you can do without editing the core files.

That's the major area that SMF has over MyBB - logic flow control. But, MyBB definitely has a better community and support. Not to mention, SMF is sort of imploding...

Anyway, MyBB does have a mod that is free and supposedly integrates conditionals and PHP into the templating system, which in theory would solve the issue of logic flow. The problem is, I've never been able to get it working.

Anyway, with that said, MyBB is still the best forum software package available in my opinion.

 

[hari]

Application logic or even display formatting logic should be kept away from templates in my opinion. It's good programming practice not to use templates as a way to control logic or anything. The only purpose for a template should be simple variable substitution. Other than that it adds way too many overheads to code and complexity to boot.

I myself dislike templates in general because of the extra overhead and never use text templates in my PHP programs unless the program is run off line one time and is used to generate HTML files.

In PHP apps, I prefer "wrapping in" PHP helper functions in HTML instead of templates.

 

[ahstanford]

Application logic or even display formatting logic should be kept away from templates in my opinion. It's good programming practice not to use templates as a way to control logic or anything. The only purpose for a template should be simple variable substitution. Other than that it adds way too many overheads to code and complexity to boot.

While I agree with in theory, I still have a small problem with that approach. If you leave the logic flow to the core files rather than included in the templating system then the developer is stuck doing all kinds of monkey tricks to keep things working every time the software core is updated.

With basic conditionals included in the templating system it can prevent the headache of editing the core files for simple logic flow issues. In turn, that prevents the developer from jumping through those hoops upon every core update.

 

[hari]

While I agree with in theory, I still have a small problem with that approach. If you leave the logic flow to the core files rather than included in the templating system then the developer is stuck doing all kinds of monkey tricks to keep things working every time the software core is updated.

With basic conditionals included in the templating system it can prevent the headache of editing the core files for simple logic flow issues. In turn, that prevents the developer from jumping through those hoops upon every core update.

I agree somewhat, and that is one reason why I prefer avoiding templates altogether.

But for the problem you state I think it's the other way round. Too much changes to templates between versions is what causes problems rather than core file changes because end users rarely edit core program files, but frequently edit templates.

Also I believe that rather than template conditionals which can end up being messy, using master template/subtemplates is a cleaner approach and the software chooses the appropriate subtemplate to use in the situation.

 

[Nitrus]

MyBB has great support. The people who complain about it, often ask dumb questions and provide next to no info to help the support team figure out the issue.

Most people seem to expect the MyBB support team to fix their problem from "omg its gone wrong cant see thread or anything".

 

[MattR]

What I don't like is when people can't wait 30 minutes for a response, instead they claim they're being ignored or say the support is bad.

 

[MattF]

I myself dislike templates in general because of the extra overhead and never use text templates in my PHP programs unless the program is run off line one time and is used to generate HTML files.

In PHP apps, I prefer "wrapping in" PHP helper functions in HTML instead of templates.

Templates are a clean way of doing things though. I suppose what one classes as a template makes a difference too. I agree with keeping code and logic out of them wherever possible though. IMO, a template should literally be exactly that. General layout/markup containing placeholders which will be replaced with the relevant output.

 

[el canadiano]

The biggest limitation of MyBB is it's templating system. The problem is that it offers no control over the logic flow which really limits the amount of customization you can do without editing the core files.

That's the major area that SMF has over MyBB - logic flow control. But, MyBB definitely has a better community and support. Not to mention, SMF is sort of imploding...

Anyway, MyBB does have a mod that is free and supposedly integrates conditionals and PHP into the templating system, which in theory would solve the issue of logic flow. The problem is, I've never been able to get it working.

Anyway, with that said, MyBB is still the best forum software package available in my opinion.

Project Phoenix will take over SMF. Also, unlike SMF, Phoenix will likely be released in some Open Source License.