phpbb3 nuisances

[lordsmurf]

Since this forum is apparently moving to phpbb3, I just wanted to mention some really crappy functionality that might need to be fixed or customized early on:

-- Too many in-between screen. When you login, post, etc ... there's the new screen that confirm you just did something or thank you or whatever ... complete pain in the ass ... reminds me of poorly set up vbulletin forums. I already know what I just did, don't ******* tell me 2 seconds after I did it, and then make me stare at the message for 10 seconds (or click here to move faster). I don't have mad cow or Alzheimer's.

-- "You cannot post too soon" problems. Lower that stupid number. I think it comes with a 90-second default, meaning you can't edit posts, etc. And because PM's are now treated as posts/threads, it's easy to be locked out of PMs. At the moment, I'm locked out of one site because this crap doesn't work right, and another one I gave up on, will visit another day if I feel like it.

I thought we left slow-ass Internet activity when the days of dial-up modems. I'm so tired of phpbb3 upgraded sites that are dog slow and screwball functionally. I quit going to several of them, I have better things to do with my time than stare at the screen for 60 more seconds because I type fast or want to PM/post more than just 1 message per two minutes.

For your consideration, Baldrick.

[thecoalman]

-- Too many in-between screen. When you login, post, etc ... there's the new screen that confirm you just did something or thank you or whatever ... complete pain in the ass ... reminds me of poorly set up vbulletin forums. I already know what I just did, don't ******* tell me 2 seconds after I did it, and then make me stare at the message for 10 seconds (or click here to move faster). I don't have mad cow or Alzheimer's.

I'm not sure if there is any functionality going on behind the scenes for that. In any event it does have some functionality viewable, it gives you the choice of either returning to the forum or the post you just made. Not sure what the meta refresh is set at but its probably only 2 or 3 seconds. I personally like it because you get a quick chance to make choice if you don't want to go back to the post. There is a mod to remove it that is really only a single edit to change it.

-- "You cannot post too soon" problems. Lower that stupid number. I think it comes with a 90-second default, meaning you can't edit posts, etc. And because PM's are now treated as posts/threads, it's easy to be locked out of PMs. At the moment, I'm locked out of one site because this crap doesn't work right, and another one I gave up on, will visit another day if I feel like it.

I don't know what the default is off hand but its far lower than 90 seconds, something like a few seconds. If it's larger than that then the board admin changed it. As far as being locked out of PM's I'd take it up with board admin, that's a problem on their end. I've been running it live for months now and have experienced no such problems . Board permissions are quite extensive which allow you to set it practically in any manner you want, with that in mind its a little complicated so the admin probably has them set wrong. Personally I prefer the complication because it gives you many options.

I thought we left slow-ass Internet activity when the days of dial-up modems. I'm so tired of phpbb3 upgraded sites that are dog slow and screwball functionally. I quit going to several of them, I have better things to do with my time than stare at the screen for 60 more seconds because I type fast or want to PM/post more than just 1 message per two minutes.

phpbb3 is the fastest phpbb yet, even with all the bells and whistles. Average page execution time on my old phpbb2 forum was about .25s . phpbb3 is about .08s . That can be reduced to about .03 with memcache. I'd also add the following two points, that's probably faster than any forum with the features it has and it's specifically designed for larger scale forums such as this one.

Whatever problems you are encountering are due to a poorly configured board/server, its not the software.

[lordsmurf]

It's just something I've come across on basically every phpbb3 board I've come across. I can only guess at what causes these problems, but they can be repeated on several places that "upgraded" to phpbb3.

I honestly think vbulletin is a better way to go these days.

[thecoalman]

Well again I'd suggest its the site/configuration. My phbb3 installation flies and I have no such problems. Try www.phpbb.com , there's usually 1000 people online there at any given moment and it's never slow. You can try my forum but that's really not a good indication because I won't have a huge amount of people online.

[thecoalman]

I honestly think vbulletin is a better way to go these days.

Why? Honestly functionality wise they have the same features: http://www.phpbb.com/about/features/compare.php

If you're a "I don't want to get my hands dirty" type of person VB is probably your best bet, but if you want get down in the trenches phpbb is your choice. There is pretty good thread here if you want read about the main differences as far as mods are concerned:

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=617575

Another thing to keep in mind is that this is the first new release in 5 years and the current development team is quite aggressive so I'll venture to guess the next release will not be so far off.