Yes, unfortunately Infopop hasn't done much at all for users wanting to upgrade from Classic to Threads.

Even Infopop's competitors have better import modules - that's the embarrassing part. The worst thing is that when you upgrade you want the downtime to be as short as possible. Unfortunately everything is geared towards making the opposite happen.

Here are a few problems/omissions that we should discuss with Infopop. It's best if they're straightforward with us and when we inquire about something we should hope to hear A) the importer actually does that B) the importer doesn't do that, but we're working on it C) the importer doesn't do that and it won't because we're not bothered about it. I understand that some are complex so a simple ABC will be impossible...

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  • <font size="" face="">display names as opposed to login names - at the moment only login names are imported which means that people lose their display names if those happen to be different from their logins. This poses a problem because a user could unwillingly show up on the new board as someone completely different. Solution: create two versions of the import scrips (only a small change in the code). I understand that in 6.1 logins and display names will be separate so this problem will cease to exist... as long as the import script is brought up to date.</font></li>
  • <font size="" face="">UBB Classic skin - many users moving up from Classic to Threads want to maintain the look & feel of their old board. Since (obviously) this importer is only for Classic users, it should contain an option that would automatically install the UBB Classic skin. It would also be useful if users would have some sort of way to modify their UBBC skin beforehand so that they can make it look as close as possible to their Classic board before upgrading. Otherwise the importer can ask questions such as 1) do you want ratings displayed? 2) do you want total thread count on the forum summary page? 3) do you want total views displayed? - after which it would set the skin properly.</font></li>
  • <font size="" face="">message icons - the option to import old message icons would be a useful option to those upgrading.</font></li>
  • <font size="" face="">graemlins - as above.</font></li>
  • <font size="" face="">custom graemlins - also important for posts to be imported properly as otherwise there would be missing links.</font></li>
  • <font size="" face="">moderators - last time I checked moderators weren't imported at all.</font></li>
  • <font size="" face="">polls - just as important as any other message, importer should import them properly.</font></li>
  • <font size="" face="">private messages - only temporary material. Nonetheless, can only make the importer better.</font></li>
  • <font size="" face="">buddy/ignore lists - useful addition, but not vital.</font></li>
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Go Cougs!