You won’t really notice the difference in the way the forum operates, because I’ve effectively been running the latest beta versions for some time. Where is does make a difference is that I can now start to use a few of the modifications (mods) that have been created to enhance the software. I’ll start trialling a couple over the next day or two and let you know what to epect. Some of them might be invisible to you, but will help me to manage the forum more easily.
It might be worth switching anyway. SMF appears to be more Google friendly than phpBB2 (which I used to run). The number of users on here has increased by 50% in the 4 months since I moved to SMF, as have the number of posts. I can only attribute that to a better presence on Google because the excellent users, posts and support on this forum all existed before the switch
The intention os SMF isn’t to beat any other forum software. They just want to provide a good, secure and fast forum software package. I moved from phpBB because the development team have, in my opinion, a more enlightened view of integration with other packages, e.g. portals, photo galleries, as well as actually making some progress towards releasing code. I sat watching phpBB2 release a few minor security releases in around 18 months whilst working on the ‘huge’ upgrade from v2.0 to v2.2 (which was promised last year but hasn’t appeared yet and still hasn’t got a confirmed release date.
I realise that developers have private lives and therefore developers of free software cannot commit to specific deadlines, but I do believe that the .2 upgrade in phpBB was just trying to pack far too much in. They should have done a series of smaller upgrades rather than trying to go for such a big change (almost a re-write). I think a lot of people are now looking for alternatives. As an example, SMF has only just gone gold v1.0, yet the phpBB2->SMF converter has already been downloaded well over 2000 times.
I went ahead and switched last night. Very interisting package. It presents a whole new learning curve. I maybe should have waited until the weekend when I’ll have more time to explore all the options available over the old forum software I was using.
I know this is a weather forum, but if you want to ask any questions, feel free to ask them here (in Chatter). There are at least three members here running SMF now. I’m not an expert, but I’ve gone up the learning curve ahead of you, so maybe I can help pull you up after me!
I moved over 5 existing phpBB forums and started 3 new ones using SMF.
SMF has a fast pace to development to it, more included in the “core” from my point of view and a lot of pretty good add on mods which are easy to
keep up to date as Chris is doing here.
Like Chris… I can can answer questions as well if you have any. The SMF community is very responsive as well.
I believe that support for Yabbse stopped once SMF 1.0 was released. There are Yabb and Yabbse converters due out soon (I’ve just been doing some testing on the Yabbse one), so that will give people a way to move to SMF if they want to.
