phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

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neboor
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phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

Post by neboor »

Well... first of all sorry if my english is not the best, i'll do my best ;)

Second, i respect and admire the developers team and all the contributors community, this is a wonderful opensource project.

I strongly believe in the phrase " less is more " when designing any interface made for humans. In my opinion phpBB2 is a lot better than phpBB3 when talking about user friendliness ( no matter the template used ).

I think power without control means no power. Personally, as an admin i don't like to have all that big number of "forum toys" installed by default in phpBB3, for example, birthdays, subforums, online-offline, and a lot more. I know there are a lot of admins that love this toys collection and a lot of users too.

But i love to choose what to install and what to not install. This is what i love most of phpBB2.

When you download phpBB2 from this site you download a Vanilla Forum, when you download phpBB3 you download an overcharged " Vanilla " forum.

The "multilayer" user control panel in phpBB3 is in my opinion too "chubby" for the average user, i consider my self as an almost-advanced users and when i first look to this user control panel i felt, honestly, overwhelmed.

Sadly i think phpBB3 lost the goal of a forum. Forums are a wonderful communication system, people use them to write and read interesting threads, that's the point of a forum. For this i think phpBB3 is not an evolution, is a cosmetic and fetichist change.

I repeat, what i said is with all the respect to the developers/contributors community, i really love phpBB2 and i will not upgrade to phpBB3.
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Re: phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

Post by KevC »

You don't have to upgrade.

The thing is though that you can't please all the people all the time. What you think is bloated an unnecessary, someone else might be crying out for. Yes you can add subforums to phpBB2 but it's one of the more complicated MODs to do. In phpBB3 you can use it or not use it. In fact a lot of the features can be switched off if you don't want them. Birthdays, online, subforums, attachments can all be turned off.

The part I found overly complicated was the permissions but they have changed that a lot of it since beta1 and now there are some sensible default options which I think will suit the needs of most inexperienced users.
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Lastof
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Re: phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

Post by Lastof »

And that is why support for phpBB2 is going to continue indefinately.

To be honest, compared with most forums out there, phpBB3 is still very feature light. No calandar, no gallery, which I think it wonderful. They are trying to step the path inbetween, and keep it fairly light, while still giving the community a comprehensive forum software. And just a forum, no more.

And you can turn most, if not all, of the features off.

There are a few things that I personally wouldn't have included (birthdays), however, most of the rest contribute to the use of the forum in ways I find useful. I love how v3 is a chamoelion, abe to be nearly anything you want it to. But unlike v2, some of the more common desires don't come with having to install mods that ineviatbly are incompatable and/or raise the sql queries so much, that they slow down the forum.
Last edited by Lastof on 04 May 2011, 00:00, edited -1 times in total
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Ida
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Re: phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

Post by Ida »

The only thing I personally find unnecessary -- even incongruous in fact -- in phpbb3 is the "birthdays" feature. So what? 5 seconds lost to deactivate it.

However, I am extremely glad not to have to install attachments, deactivated board message, merge topics and such... so... a couple of hours gained...

From my point of view, the choices of the developers for phpBB3 are very well thought out, and happen to fill my own needs almost perfectly.

As for phpBB2 vs phpBB3... so much has changed that it seems to me they are completely different softwares, so I wouldn't call going from phpBB2 to phpBB3 "upgrading" per se. It is more of a change than an upgrade, really.
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-CoS-
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Re: phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

Post by -CoS- »

...birthdays, subforums, online-offline...


Three things I'll use for sure. I think that default phpbb3 is not "overcharged" at all. And, if you can disable them from admin panel, where's the problem?
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Black Antitoon
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Re: phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

Post by Black Antitoon »

Kevin Clark wrote: In fact a lot of the features can be switched off if you don't want them.


In addition, if you don't like that "overcrowded" ACP, you can always disable some modules.

Personally, my impression when I saw the new ACP was "Great! Now this board can really be compared with other paid boards." In fact I think phpBB 3 has a lot of the features phpBB 2 lacked. (for example I couldn't imagine why phpBB was defined "the best forum software" if it didn't even have subforums).
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Re: phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

Post by Highway of Life »

beboor,

What’s great about phpBB3 is it’s customization ability.
You can easily turn things off that you don’t want, and nearly everything you mentioned can be turned off or "toned-down". So what’s the problem?
In addition to being able to turn some of those features off, you can disable modules, AND disable many functions using the permissions tool to limit the functions that users see... you can dumb phpBB3 down to a simple version of phpBB2 if you wanted to.
If you do have a problem with phpBB3, please don’t feel like you need to upgrade, just stick with phpBB2.
The upgrade from phpBB2 -> phpBB3 is not required, so just stay with what you feel comfortable with.
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Re: phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

Post by starware »

When I first used phpbb 3 beta 1 I felt the same way.

Phpbb 2 was so simply had a nice straight forward layout, however phpbb 3 had a very complex and confusing layout. Once you can remember where everything is though phpbb 3 is light years ahead of phpbb 2.
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Kaitlyn
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Re: phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

Post by Kaitlyn »

Ida wrote: From my point of view, the choices of the developers for phpBB3 are very well thought out, and happen to fill my own needs almost perfectly.

As for phpBB2 vs phpBB3... so much has changed that it seems to me they are completely different softwares, so I wouldn't call going from phpBB2 to phpBB3 "upgrading" per se. It is more of a change than an upgrade, really.


That's pretty much exactly how I feel, the new version adds a lot of basic stuff, and perhaps a little bit of the simpler fun stuff that most people would come to expect from a forum now a days. They left out all the extras that don't make up that minimum (quick reply 'etc).

Quite looking forward to the update.

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Re: phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

Post by dark/Rain »

neboor wrote: ... and when i first look to this user control panel i felt, honestly, overwhelmed.


Felt exactly the same, but the more you play around with the new version, the more you get used to it. :)
If possible, install the CVS build on a test server (not live (!) - bugs, possible security flaws and no support...) and try out the whole new/improved stuff.

When you have used it for a while maybe you change your opinion :D
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Re: phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

Post by Gideon5L2F »

It took a while to get the idea but now that I understand 'roles' and 'permissions' I wonder how I could do without phpBB3. Bring it on! 8)
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Re: phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

Post by dniezby »

By far the best looking interface.
Least complicated and easiest to understand.

Far easier to user than 2.x.x
Far more secure than 2.x.x
Far better features than 2.x.x

2.x.x is being removed from my servers as we speak.

Keep up the great work developers.
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Re: phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

Post by Avaya »

After playing around with v3, I must say that I find the user interface much easier to use than v2. And yes, while there might be some additional features included with v3 that may not appeal to some users, I think that including them upfront is an advantage rather than having users track down the appropriate mod. All in all I'm pleased with all of the work the team has put in to v3, and I'm looking forward to the release of RC1.
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Cohsty243
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Re: phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

Post by Cohsty243 »

I love phpBB3 so much. I'll never go back to phpBB2 :mrgreen:
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Lastof
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Re: phpBB2 vs phpBB3, my point of view...

Post by Lastof »

dniezby wrote: 2.x.x is being removed from my servers as we speak.


Just to check, you realise that there is no support for beta/cvs used in a live enviroment, right? Or for upgrading said versions to future versions?
Last edited by Lastof on 04 May 2011, 00:00, edited -1 times in total
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