UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums UBB.threads 6 Version 6 Support UBB.classic to UBB.threads import module

Can someone please post what exactly the (most current) import module ports over from UBB Classic to Threads?

In the past there have been problems here and there... moderators, styles, message&post icons, graemlins - all not being imported. What is the current state of the importer?

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Go Cougs!

The importer is a third-party script, totally unsupported by Infopop.

No offense meant to its author, but it's very poorly written and loaded with problems.

I've had to spend a lot of time fixing it up so that I could use it. Some of the changes I made are specific to my installation, and would not be useful to others.

So when you pay Infopop to do a professional upgrade, do they use the same script or what? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

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Go Cougs!

I'm not sure exactly where he's at with it but Dave, navaho, has been working on improvements to the importer.

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Rick Baker
UBBThreads developer

What happens to polls or posts using the quote feature (which Threads doesn't have) if I ran the upgrade module myself or had Infopop do a professional upgrade for me?

What I find really annoying is that I run UBBC 6.2.1 and I don't feel like upgrading to 6.3 because what's the point? People would install avatars and then after moving to Threads none of them would probably be imported.

In fact what's even more annoying is that vBulletin develops a very good importer of their own to attract users choosing to go from UBBC to a MySQL solution. Their upgrade module from UBBC to vBulletin goes way further... than Infopop's UBBC to UBBT module. The best word I can choose to describe this is "embarassing."

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Go Cougs!

I didn't know that but was planning to do the crossgrade... after this I will happily wait a few until infopop sorts out a real 'transporter' of their own.

- Kayjey -
www.fiatcoupe.net

I also added basic features to the import script, as common features between the two were missing - like ICQ number, and additional custom fields. I was also easily able to copy across the avatars from users.

Not sure why these common features were missing from the import script, but it appears not to have been updated for 6.3x of UBB.

What I will say is that with 1,000 users I didn't get many complaints over the transfer - in fact I am sure some are not even aware we have even changed from UBB to UBB.T.

Ian

Canvey, did you have any trouble importing display names as opposed to logins? Did you just alter the code as recommended by Philip (who wrote the script)?

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Go Cougs!

I finally put my update of Philipp's script to the test last night and found a couple of things broken. I'll have to work on it over the weekend but I hope to get it out soon. My private messages did not all import properly and I mishandled a varaible importing the AIM names. Everybody got the same AIM name, oops <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

The latter is easy enough but the former is being a pain. If The private messages would work right I could expand to importing buddy lists properly too.

Honor The Victims

Dave, what do you guys use in terms of import modules when you perform professional upgrades from Classic to Threads?

Maybe it's just me being picky, but private messages are one thing that I'm not really bothered about from the users point of view. After all, they're mostly temporary material.

I give more priority to message icons and graemlins (including custom ones) so that old posts show up properly (without broken links).

I also think that it would be important to import polls properly, as they are just as important as any other message.

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Go Cougs!

So does this mean that the conversion script that we get when we convert our UBB.Classic license to the UBB.Threads license isn't even supported by Infopop, and that we may just end up getting a bunch of gobbly gook in our new boards systems? I would hope that the conversion modules that we get would be of good quality and be fairly reliable. I've been using the trial version to see if it would even be feasible for us to migrate and now that I'm just about ready to do that, I find that there maybe a problem migrating?

Please can someone set my mind at ease about this whole migration? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" />

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...

</font>

• <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>

<font size="" face="">

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Go Cougs!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">Originally posted by Conrad:
Yes, unfortunately Infopop hasn't done much at all for users wanting to upgrade from Classic to Threads.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">Not totally sure I agree with that - yes it is not easy - but equally so it is achiveable.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">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.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">Whilst they might have better import tools to import other packages to their poorer software - I cannot agree with the second part.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">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...</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">As a user, and someone who has converted recently, I will try and answer the points below from my experience...

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><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.[QUOTE]

You are correct the problem will soon cease to exist - but I went down the line of importing only usernames, and using a mod from threadsdev to change those users that wanted to have their oldnames back - with 1,000+ users I did not have anyone complain - why? Because I had warned them, and I had a solution ready. No complaints.


[QUOTE]+ _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><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">This is easily achievabe with the templates - I had already set up a test threads forum - so it was just a case of copying my new templates over - took a few seconds to get the feel right

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">+ _message icons_ - the option to import old message icons would be a useful option to those upgrading.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">All my icons are showing - true users could select them, but by copying them to the directory that threads was expecting them, I had no broken images.


</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">+ _graemlins_ - as above.
+ _custom graemlins_ - also important for posts to be imported properly as otherwise there would be missing links.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">As above easily moved so no broken images - mods on threadsdev allow for custom graemlins to be available again

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">+ _moderators_ - last time I checked moderators weren't imported at all.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">Had a minor problem here, with my admin account, but as I had run a dummy transfer, I was ready with a soloution - which just meant a minor alteration to the database. Any missing moderators are easily assigned as required.


</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">+ _polls_ - just as important as any other message, importer should import them properly.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">Not possible as the polls are different from ubb.c to threads.


</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">+ _private messages_ - only temporary material. Nonetheless, can only make the importer better.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">Had no problems here - no complainst either.


</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">+ _buddy/ignore lists_ - useful addition, but not vital.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">Unlikely to be used by many people - I had no complaints from anyone.

What I would say is that your users are probably a lot more tolerant than you think - they know that an upgrade of any software will have problems - if you give them enough warning everything will be fine.

Yes - I was doubtful before I did it - but it went fairly smoothly - but then I did prepare well - and delayed it 2 or 3 times as I wasn't happy - but when it went we had hardly any downtime - I started at 10pm, and it was up by midnight.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">Not totally sure I agree with that - yes it is not easy - but equally so it is achiveable.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">It should be as easy as possible.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">Whilst they might have better import tools to import other packages to their poorer software - I cannot agree with the second part.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">They shouldn't have better import tools than Infopop (to import from an Infopop product), but unfortunately they do. As for poorer software, the competition does have some good boards out there, but I believe Threads will easily be the #1 database-driven package on the market. As for the second part I have to disagree with you. An importer that doesn't work properly in each and every aspect isn't going to make the downtime as short as possible.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">This is easily achievabe with the templates - I had already set up a test threads forum - so it was just a case of copying my new templates over - took a few seconds to get the feel right.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">Did you have to edit the templates? I stil don't think Infopop has done enough about them. They promised official Classic skins in April... it's now August. I'm not joking. Allen claims his UBBC skin is official though I'm not sure that's right because others claim they're still being worked on. 4 months... for a template?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">All my icons are showing - true users could select them, but by copying them to the directory that threads was expecting them, I had no broken images.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">I take it you had to do this yourself. Fair enough, but why can't the importer do this as an option?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">As above easily moved so no broken images - mods on threadsdev allow for custom graemlins to be available again.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">In 6.1 custom graemlins can easily be added, though the importer should really take care of this. Even the competition pays attention to such details.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">Had a minor problem here, with my admin account, but as I had run a dummy transfer, I was ready with a soloution - which just meant a minor alteration to the database. Any missing moderators are easily assigned as required.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">Thanks for the info, hope someone repairs the importer to do this properly.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="">quote:</font><hr /><font size="" face="">Not possible as the polls are different from ubb.c to threads.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="" face="">If you had polls on your old board please let me know what happened to them. Were those messages erased?

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Go Cougs!

polls:

The current import script imports the topic containing the poll, but not the poll itself. The result is that the topic may look strange, because it may contain a discussion about a poll that doesn't exist.

I looked into trying to import polls, but the problem is what to do with UBB.classic polls that use features not available in UBB.threads, e.g. multiple questions and starting/ending date/times.

What I settled for was importing the poll results as text that's inserted into the post. The way I did it was a bit messy; it involved using a shell (non-CGI) Perl script to reformat the UBB.classic polls into a single text file, and then referencing that text file when importing the topics.