UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums General Suggestions and Feedback I'm Dissapointed With UBB.threads

What I don't like the most about this forum software is that EVERYTHING is an inconvenience.

It has taken me over a week now and my forums are still not even close to being set up the way that I want them and I have been working from 7am to 3 am in the morning!!!

I don't mind doing all of the work to set this up but what ticks me off is that for every change I make I have to come to this forum to ask a question and wait for reply on how to fix something. I have tried the support route too and all I get get back in response is "yes it can be done." When I ask a question I expect somebody to point me in the right direction or even solve the problem for me. I participate in many other forums and I always help out other posters to the fullest extent. I see none of that happening here.

It would be so simple to make a blog or instructions page that answers the most common problems but I see nothing of the sort. You could even have suggestions listed in the control panel such as field values but I don't see that either. How to set up a portal? Who knows? Permissions? hmm let me spend 4 hours figuring that out. Web gallery integration? Yes bout you have to pay another $150 for Photopost. Why not integrate with Coppermine its free and users have been requesting this since 2004!!! Multiple image uploads? Nope. Support? From one guy who is overloaded with too much work and there are usually only 2 forum users here who know what is going on. The search button? I've worn that thing out with not much success. I almost feel like UBB.threads should be paying me for doing all of this inconvenient work.

I feel your pain.
Documentation has been left behind since the 7.x series.
Hopefully it will improve when version 8 is released.

I won't be moving to version 8 from what I've seen so far.

Well, this forum is user to user support; none of us work for MindRaven... I'm sorry that you don't like that we're not always here, but we're not paid to be here to answer every question everyone asks...

We're here simply as volunteers to aid users who're having problems with the software.

I try to help at every avenue possible; supporting users for free on a forum isn't my full time gig, so designing sets of code for users after they post a request is a little above and beyond, but I do it regardless when I need to and when it won't take a huge chunk of time out of the development work I do for my own clients...

BTW, I as well as other users here do try our best to help others as users. We have been there ourselves
But I know for a fact That I have responded to some of your requests without a response.
I understand the frustration that you can't find documentation on what you are trying to change.
I have been there myself. But eventually somebody here has helped me. And I think most all of us will return the favor.
It is just that you can do so much with ubb some of us are stumped on how to respond without more details from you.

I hope you realize that most all of us that have responded to you are users helping each other.

Which in my opinion says a lot for support from a user group.

I like getting support from other users... They experience issues the same way we do. People like Giz and Ruben and the others respond as quickly as they can.

Could the documentation be better? Of course. But I probably wouldn't read the instructions, anyway. I learn by doing (and sometimes breaking).

I like that term (breaking).
Is that not the slogan from ubbdev?

Breaking Your Forums Since 1999!

Your help is more than appreciated and I'm not blaming any one individual. I did ask a question a few days back and got hardly any feedback. All I basically wanted to know was what were the best avenues to take to add on the best services to my site down the road. I got no response. For example, what is the best way to do SEO with UBB.threads? Who has the best service? How do you set up Google Ads and where do you place the javascripts? Is there a better service tan Google ads? If there was a blog or something all of the findings could be mentioned with the pros and cons. It goes on and on and on. I just wasted 2 days installing 3 diffent photo galleries to find out that none of them are going to work for me. Photopost will work but I'm not going to pay those dikks $140 to have an integrated gallery and then they nickel and dime you year after year to have access. Forget that.

What is the best way to do SEO with UBB.threads?
Sitemaps (I have a script available that integrates into the UBB, but as you said you don't like paying for addons it's likely not an avenue you'd want to go).

I'd also turn on the following options in the CP (CP -> Master Settings -> Primary Settings -> Advanced Options):
-Enable Spider-friendly URLs?
-Enable HTML Extension
-Enable zlib Compression?

Who has the best service?
For hosting? I'd say Mindraven; generally I'd also include my affiliate link, but 'eh.

How do you set up Google Ads and where do you place the javascripts?
Well, you'd set them up how you liked them ideally; feel free to steal my layout on UGN Security; I calculated all of the spaces based on Google Adsense's "heat data" some years ago; you'll need to hack the templates to set some ad's however.

Is there a better service tan Google ads?
Google Ad's work well with Kontera's targeting ad's.

If there was a blog or something all of the findings could be mentioned with the pros and cons.
Well, Rick asked several of us if we'd be interested in collaborating on a Wiki once v8 is out; I for one said I'd be more than willing to work on it.

Photopost will work but I'm not going to pay those dikks $140 to have an integrated gallery and then they nickel and dime you year after year to have access.
Well, unfortunately, we coders aren't made out of money, and we have small companies. My scripts for example follow the same path that photopost does (which follows the path of many other companies), I charge initially for the current version with a year of free updates, then if you want updates you need to pay X amount more each year to fund development costs. Granted my prices are way less than theirs at every turn lol.

Shift, is your site running? Is there an address?

I guess that give me plenty to do for now. Where can I take a gander at your website with this script?

check my blog out ( in my sig ) for some tutorials and how to's as well

i need to add more stuff

The sitemap script? There is info on it here as it generates every possible url it'd crash your web browser if you attempted to load the script directly (it's meant to be fed to Google, Yahoo, Bing, whatever supports sitemaps).

I personally think UBB Threads is the best I have ever used. I have used them all. Was with SMF for yrs and finally had to give up on them.

When I came here a few weeks back I also was a little dismayed at the lack of obvious support then I realized that it would likely be impossible to write a support document that covered every little issue. Just adding to that, go to almost any site that has a support document and ask a question. The very first thing you will get as a reply to your question is the url to the support document which is way way to long forcing you to have to look through the entire thing to only find out that there was a paritial answer but not good enough. Nope I will take this personalized one on one service any day.

For me it as more a case of thinking out side the box I had gotten so used to living in. Once I did that and with a little help from SirDude I had the forum up and running pretty much the way I wanted to run.

Sure I will always have little issues but there isn't a forum software that I have run that I didn't have little issues.

To me UBB Threads is the BEST.

i actually didn't have to do much either.

swampysc took a coupla hints and ran with it

I have to agree that it is the best but there are somethings that should be included as a default such as subforums like this:

Where you may prefer it to look like that, there are a lot of us who prefer a comma delimited listing to save real estate on already cramp pages...

Oh yes! Sub-forums in list fashion are not something I would consider. They would take up way to much space.

I remember when Windows 3.11 came out. The book was 2" thick. Then Windows 95 came out the book was an inch thick. Win98 the book was 3/8" thick.

My point is this. People want the ability to use a complex product that will be all point and click on a 2nd grade level cus they are just to lazy to actually open a book and read something or learn anything. Pretty much why Windows is so popular anyway and not a more powerful, cleaner, and more stable operating system like Linux.

If Rick sat and wrote a complete manual for this product it would take 2 years and no one would buy it anyway and if they did only 10% of them would actually read it. So why waste his time doing it at all. I personally would love to see a fully documented product.

With windows xp and beyond there is no book at all.

The problem is it is needed more than ever.

Your exactly right Ruben. It's the dumbing down phase I guess, LOL.

I remember having the looseleaf DOS 2.0 books. I suppose I should have kept them. They may be collectors' items some day. I also had Lotus 1-2-3, Wordperfect, etc.

I have some old DOS and Windows books (even the 3.11 manual) laying around here somewhere... lol

I have windows 95 on the original 13 floppy discs.

Oh that brings back bad memories of building computers in the back room of a small shop before "Ghost" We would setup 10-15 of them and just wander back and forth changing discs

I have it on floppies somewhere too lol...

My first job after college was with BASF. We made 5.25" and 8" "FlexyDisks." How many of us have used 8" disks? I can remember struggling to hand assemble the new 3.5" disks so we could display them at the CES show.

We also developed 3.25" disks with a drive manufacturer, but that obviously didn't work out!

Many of us had uncoated 16" aluminum rigid disks on our walls as mirrors.

I can remember using a few of the 8" disks, the computer I had used 2 of them if I remember right

I have windows for workgroups 3.11 on floppies. It was lightning fast compared to 3.1, I forget why right now, but combine that 8MB of ram and your computer flew!

I probably have 3.1 on floppies too, I kept those thinking I would need them again for some reason

Wouldn't it be a matter of exchanging a , for a <br /> ?

Same here - have loads of floppies - just can't quite bring myself to throw them out.

When someone is clearing all my junk after I am gone - they will question a) as to what they are and b) why on earth I kept them!!

Ditto lol

I have a shopping bag with a lot of floppies in it... I don't have any PC's with a floppy drive anymore. For some reason I too can't bring myself to toss them and I feel mine are mostly worthless at this point. That and my box of computer parts salvaged from old computers. I still have my first computer too, just sitting in the basement collecting dust and probably mold. LOL!

i'm tempted to buy a usb floppy, but they're expensive

Expensive? Lookie! ----> http://www.floppydisk.com/usb.htm

last one i saw was at fry's for like $50...

Hi

I have used this forum on my websites for years and despite the fact that I'm not very tech minded, I have always managed to resolve any problems quickly thanks to the guys here and also the suppliers.

I would be gutted if this product and community ever vanished. I'm not affiliated to this product in anyway other than as a customer and I don't know anyone within the community.

Keep up the fantastic work.

For what it is worth.
A couple of us have been working on a wiki for UBBThreads.
Still needs some work but visit
UBB.Wiki

Thank you!

This seems to be an appropriate place to post this question ---

What is the status of the next release?
I don't expect to see any date posted (wouldn't trust it anyways)... but at least it would be nice to know MONTHLY that someone is actually working on the upgrade.

Can't someone just post a single line EACH MONTH saying that SOMETHING is still being done? November 1st, December 1st, January 1st.... etc.

I think that it's called "customer relations".

agreed, imo someone (the owner, or a representative) needs to make constant updates on where thigns stand, it's good business to keep customers happy... A lot of people have jumped ship and I see that as a huge problem.

good point -- now that i am back into 'normal' coding mode again, i owe you a status report..

i'll try to get it going by the weekend...

i lost a lot of time with the security patching and the many forums that needed security audits / hardening..

my bad

My BIGGEST FEAR is that I've waited almost two years for an update which SHOULD add FEATURES and easier ADMINISTRATION to the product - and what we're going to see is a bunch of linky-winky association with Social Media cra... er.. stuff.

I can tell you for a fact that my 10,000 users DON'T give a rip about Facebook -- and don't want any more intrusion into their privacy by linking OUR UBB FORUM to their other accounts.

So, as the void gets darker waiting for this delivery, my pessimism grows... Sorry, but it's probably worth you understanding our concern that the "new" feature-set may not meet the needs of THIS group of users.... :-(

Of course this feeling is largely based upon the "limited" info that we've seen about what changes were actually included in this version.

Note: The lack of information always stimulates people to assume the worst possible outcome.

I think you might be pleased to see some amazing progress is being made on the development front. (This is actually a rather old thread now.)

Features + Fixes

Not a linky-winky to social media associated focus but some useful tangible progress.

Kudos to SirDude!

What does the release date look like?

It has a day a month and a year in it!

Where's the "like" button?

Well I wrote this thread when things were under different management. Rick is/was great but I think he was biting off more than he could chew. I appreciate all of the hard work by all and I'm glad the team is progressing to bring together a great product. So far it has gone beyond my expectations. You might as well call it version 8! I can't wait to upgrade when its available hopefully soon!!!!