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May 25, 2012, 09:29:31 AM

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Author Topic: You all really should try SMF  (Read 1573 times)
ronmsf2
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« Reply #15 on: February 20, 2005, 01:55:20 PM »
I guess I'm going to have to give SMF some serious consideration.  Dani, I was wondering what your reeasons were for choosing it.  It looked like you did a pretty thorough investigation of the various options, (from you poll post a short while back).  You mentioned two reasons here:  flexibility in changing the look and feel, and easy administration.  Are there any other reasons?  Where did you find templates?  It seemed like phpbb had hundreds, but I didn't see many for SMF.  I must be  looking in the wrong place.  What about security, support, etc.  Any comments?
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Danielle
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« Reply #16 on: February 20, 2005, 02:07:37 PM »
The main thread on SMF where the various themes are posted is at:

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=15620.0

The reasons I picked SMF were the following

1. The theme I found was the nicest of all of them for what I wanted (something unique, simple, and quick loading/light on graphics)
2. The administration area was easy to understand, easy to make changes, and full-featured at the same time.
3. The forum appears to not be intensive for load issues.
4. The forum has an active development team who are dedicated to improving it and keeping it secure.
5. Customizing it has been easy.  I was able to determine where things are located to change colors, add a simple graphic, etc. without a lot of hassle.

Now after doing an upgrade today, I would also add:

6. Upgrading is very easy.  I lost no changes I'd added, and the upgrade itself took less than 5 minutes (the site backup took far longer to do because I wanted that in case anything went wrong).

SMF seems to have a lot of great features in the admin area similar to what a paid forum like IPB or vB has but without the price tag.  Unlike those 2, it also appears to be less intensive and faster loading.  Of course, the theme I picked is really a minimalist one, so it is going to have vast time improvements over some other themes.
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TranzNDance
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« Reply #17 on: February 20, 2005, 02:08:32 PM »
It lets you use icons to mark threads. So if threads are solved, etc, you can mark as such.

You can merge topics. With phpbb, you can only split.

Search function is better. With phpbb, I have to always change the settings to get results I want whereas with smf, the default search is how I would want them. Plus the search box is right on every page, with an advanced one if needed, which hasn't been the case much.

Statistics are better. They're basically non-existent in phpbb.

There is a News Box built in to make it easy to make announcements.

You can see the list of threads that you are subscribed to and manage that list. With phpbb, I still get notices from old threads although I have disabled notifications, so I have to individually stop watching those old threads brought to life.

Showing online status is builtin

There are some drawbacks but they're trvial.

Sorry that I'm picking on phpbb, but these two are the only forums I use regularly so I know phpbb enough to compare.
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Danielle
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« Reply #18 on: February 20, 2005, 02:15:17 PM »
Yes, I agree that the News box is a handy feature as well.  I am keeping a running update on my forum and that feature would be very handy for an announcements area for forums that have time sensitive/important announcements  Thumbs Up
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TranzNDance
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« Reply #19 on: February 20, 2005, 02:17:16 PM »
Plus, the admin area has a live feed from SMF, so it shows you announcements that an upgrade is available.
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ronmsf2
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« Reply #20 on: February 20, 2005, 02:23:27 PM »
Wow!  The list of benefits is impressive.  So, let me check out what themes are available.  I do remember that thread now.  I guess I grew impatient with it.  It seemed much more difficult to preview themes than with phpbb, but I'll go back and see what I can find.  Thanks Dani and Thu.
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"Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars" -Henry Van Dyke

"Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel." -Socrates
TranzNDance
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« Reply #21 on: February 20, 2005, 02:27:07 PM »
Another thing, (I'll try to stop but this one is a big bother in phpbb), the New icons in the recent posts list actually point to new posts. In phpbb, they only point to the new ones when you started the session.
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Danielle
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« Reply #22 on: February 20, 2005, 02:35:40 PM »
You're welcome Ron.  If you have any more questions about SMF, I'd be more than willing to help out.  The best themes I've found are by Bloc (who did the theme I picked, the one Leigh picked as well as the one BlueTicona picked heh).
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