Dungeon Master Forum

Hi everyone

I've been looking into upgrading the forum software. We're currently running phpBB 3.0.14 which is no longer supported, and should upgrade to the latest version (v3.2). Unfortunately, this upgrade is not fully backwards compatible: all our customisations would be lost, including Linflas' "ProScreamer" forum skin and several feature extensions (forum chat, spoiler tags, etc.)

The main reasons to upgrade is that the current version of the software runs on PHP version 5.6. This version of PHP is outdated. Applications written in PHP are now being encouraged to target PHP version 7.0+ -- it is more secure and more than twice as fast as the old versions.

This got me thinking -- do we still *need* to use phpBB? Is there anything better that we could use? Something more modern, lighter, cleaner, easier to maintain? (We only use a tiny subset of the features of phpBB and it's always been a bit overkill for our purposes). I've looked around and there are a few options, but before going into all that, I wanted to gauge how people would feel about moving to a completely new system?

REST ASSURED THAT ANY UPGRADE WILL PRESERVE ALL OUR CURRENT CONTENT.

So... please could you answer the poll above so that I can understand how you all feel about this. You may select up to 3 options. Feel free to add additional comments below.

Thanks for your time

If things are going to be really outdated, an ungrade is needed.
Just the week my Win-profile got somehow destroyed and it just gave me a temporary profile - deleting all changes at the end of a session... I could fix that, but somehow it deleted a lot of stuff in the registration. So the registration of my old VC-express 9.0 was lost too. Being registered at MS for getting the registration keys, I expected no problems, but oops - that link was dead. I'll shorten this: oldest version to get officially with key is from 2015 and for Win 8.1. Fortunately a few people have solutions... So - before we come in such a situation, go ahead.

I don't have a problem with it, but I'm a bit of an internet dunce... so it being easy to use is my main thing.

Adaption must be first, loss of information sucks.

I don't care how the forum looks, it's the content that matters.

Anything simple that cuts down overhead and makes it more accessible to other platforms would be great - but not at the expense of people's sanity. Let us know if there is anything we could do to help.

so long as there is no risk of losing content that has been built over the years, i have no problem with getting our software up to date. =)

I voted for "I would miss the old forum, but would be able to adapt to a new system. Change is inevitable." I would really be sorry to lose Linflas' ProScreamer, it really is fantastic. But of course I understand the need to do this, security, technology, simplicity etc. must be preferred; and, as the others said, the contents is the most important thing here. I wish I could help you, Gambit. Is there any way a total computer dummy could help - except for staying out of the way?

OMG: after all this time, you can change the look and feel? Yes, we definitely need a new forum, for dummies like me
https://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/vi ... 47&t=28077