I have a number of final questions before taking the plunge and upgrading our classic 6.7.2 with about 200,000 posts to the new threads. I do need to know the answers to my questions before making the final decision and so if anyone could help I would really appreciate it. Here goes:

1
The $149 "upgrade" - is that just install or is that importing things as well?

2
We have had trouble in the past with people registering and them instantly abusing the PM feature. So we set it so that when we approve them we do not allow them access to PMs. When we notice they are ok, we manually give them PM access. I could not see a place where we can turn PMs on and off for each individual user on the control panel. Are we able to do that or is it "on for all or off for all"?

3
When I go to the main page it goes to the "portal". I like the idea of that portal for new users, but I think heavy users will not want to visit that page much. I would prefer people be go to http://..../ubb/cfrm (which is the main "forums list" page, right?) automatically rather than the portal page - but still be able to view the portal if they wanted. Am I right in thinking that the way round this would be to have it so that when people go to our forums we make it so they just get directed http://..../ubb/cfrm ? If you could shed some light on that for me please.

4
Our current board is located at URL for the forums is http://www.domainname.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi.
I'd like to keep that URL (www.domainname.com) if possible for the "new" threads forums. (There is no other content on the domain name other than the forums).

How would that work in setting up etc? Is it possible to have it so that the main forums page is http://www.domainname.com/ubb/cfrm

I suppose what I want to know along with this is is there a necessary structure? ie for this board it seems to be /forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/cfrm? or can we have something simpler?

It might be worth mentioning that I intend on setting up the new threads on the domain and then playing around with the settings and everything before importing from classic.

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Many thanks for any help in my understanding this!

Upgrade Install * $149 includes importing new files afaik; i think it can cost more on larger installs.

You can limit user access to pm's by adjusting the "Accept Private Messages?" field in their profile.

You can "disable" the portal, and users will go directly to the forums, or you can link to the crfm page; but when the portal is enabled your users will go there by default when accessing yoru forum without crfm in the url.

and yes it's possible to use the same directories, however during yoru import you'd want to use a new directory, then change the directory name once it's installed.

Thanks Gizmo.

Can you take me through that last point in a bit more detail please.

As for the PM part - won't users just be able to adjust that themselves though?

Thank you

You've got a point there on PMs... In .C we could restrict users abilities to edit the profile; i think that'd be a good way to enforce this, but it's not presant in .T7 lol...

As for the install/import; basically you'd make a new directory (ubb7 for example) and install threads there; then you'd do your import, and once completed you'd delete your ubb directory (which is likely your UBB.C data directory) and rename your new directory (ubb7) to that (ubb).

THe importer for UBB7 comes with "redirectors" which will redirect requests to your old forums to the new locations; the non-cgi copy can go in your UBB7 directory if it's using the classic non-cgi folder (I have this on my forums)

Thanks.

About importing. Do all member records, threads, posts and PMs import without a problem? Just anxious!

I did the import/conversion in October, and more than enough information was imported. More than enough meaning just that, lol. All members will get *every* PM they ever were a part of, IF, neither they nor the other party BOTH deleted the PM. So many of your users will end up with 100s of PMs possibly...

Everything else was imported just fine - as long as there were no snags...

That is good to hear. Thank you.

yeh, us beta testers where rather anal with what we wanted imported

Just going back to this point:

"and yes it's possible to use the same directories, however during yoru import you'd want to use a new directory, then change the directory name once it's installed."

So I can install the new forums in

/thisfolder

and then when it is all setup just simply change the name of the folder to

/thatfolder

Simple as that?

And when I import, does my classic need to be closed?

Thanks for all the help!

almost as simple as that, but you'll need to update the paths in includes/config.inc.php

As for yoru forums, you'll want to have it closed during the import; you dont need thngs being added while you're importing, as data will be spotty.

Yes or No Quiz! (Sorry no prizes, just thanks)



Classic currently @
http://www.DOMAIN.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi
(nothing else in the main / folder of that domain name)

Want new threads to be @
http://www.DOMAIN.com/ubbthreads.php
http://www.DOMAIN.com/ubbthreads.php/ubb/cfrm

where DOMAIN is the same domain name and there is NOTHING on that domain name apart from the current /ubb and /cgi-bin folders.

Here's the quiz question. I just install everything in this location:
http://www.DOMAIN.com/

Right?

yeh yhouc an do that; you should put your non-cgi redirector in the ubb-noncgi directory.

Good, thanks.

"you should put your non-cgi redirector in the ubb-noncgi directory"

I don't have that to look at/check/understand, so just to clear that up for me. You mean that the "non-cgi redirector" in the above case will be going in the /ubb folder?

Thanks

ok, the importer files come wiht a ultimatebb.cgi and ultimatebb.php file; these are redirectors that direct users or search engines coming in from search engine links or bookmarks to your new locations (within threads7).

but yes in the above case the non-cgi redirector (the php file) goes in your /ubb folder (after you update the url inside of the file)