upgrade to phpbb3 progress

[admin (no pm's please)]

custom profile field creation from xprofile fields is now live, but not populating due to what looks like a few trivial issues.


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[admin (no pm's please)]

Actually whilst I still have concerns this does seem to have worked fairly okay.

Even the BIRTHDAY field if set up is being translated into the phpbb3 birthday field rather than creating a custom field.

All the same it is 500 lines of code added to the conversion program, it is unlikely to be fault free.

One thing I have not attempted to do is to convert dropdown/option fields.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

Authorization now in place. So admins will be able to see an upgrade link in their admin panels. The link will do the upgrade without any need to enter a password again.

So basically we are now in a slow rollout phase, which involves quite a bit of work and some sensible waiting for more phpbb3 test results before this will become available.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

the upgrade process now gives the link to the upgraded forum. A needed step as it will not in fact be phpbb3 inserted in the link as earlier stated  

It will be one of:

slarti3
ford3
zaphod3

depending on server.

Should have realised this earlier.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

Continuing to make a few more tweaks textarea type xprofile fields were not having their dimensions converted, which is now fixed. Some of the text and the logos in the converter are now more correct for myff.

Some work is going on sorting ip addresses for the upcoming events, several hundred forums were on an ip address scheme that seemed like a good idea a year ago, but which conflicts with clearing the decks for phpbb3, and that is now hopefully sorted.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

The upgrade link and phpbb2/phpbb3 status now shows in the office control panel.

I just need to write suitable code and blurb for the finalize upgrade DNS bit. This is more a matter of clear instructions than anything.

The next step then is the boring one, we need to bring all the code on the servers into line. But initially with the phpbb3 options all turned off except on the current phpbb3 forums system.

That should be done this Saturday with upgrades being available the following Saturday.

It is still  notable just how much of this framework was in place over a year ago.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

touch wood all code complete.

You can flip back between phpbb2 and phpbb3 links, and access the upgrade facilities from the control panel, but only if the master forums system says you are allowed to.

This should be off by default allowing me to roll out the code safely on Saturday.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

Is this clear? The screen changes a bit according to what you have done so far.



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[admin (no pm's please)]

Just thinking actually, as the control panel is getting a make over in what it contains, it is probably about time the long in the tooth and cosmetically iffy tabs are reworked. There is much better tab code available now.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

Yep, the new look if definitely more functional.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

Been tweaking a bit more, putting on more explanatory text and removing witter.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

I think when the upgrade facility rollout begins this week, we will have a rolling programme whereby on the first day 1% of forums will be able to see the upgrade link, with additional %'s being added each day.

Apart from anything else upgrading a forum is going to add a lot of server load and we don't want scores of people doing it at once. I can envisage it will take a month for everyone to be able to get to the button, but only time will tell just what a hit on the servers this proves to be.

It may be that not many people are that fussed about going phpBB3 at all.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

I have actually pressed ahead to the point where things seem live.

http://forum.zaphod3.myfreeforum.org/

is an example.

The conversion was not totally smooth, there were a couple of dodgy usernames that needed dealing with, and a little custom profile field problem along with a few not unexpected issues with any new installation.

But with those problems resolved it is looking good.

I will still wait till tomorrow at least before letting anyone else try. Not least I spotted one DNS address on the slarti server that had not been set up  
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[admin (no pm's please)]

I have changed the text about the upgrade to:

[admin (no pm's please)]

Seems there is an issue with xprofile fields being converted.

So we may not manage this for Sunday after all.

On the scale of things though we are well ahead of schedule.

I wasn't really aiming to give people a phpbb3 upgrade option until weeks after this point.
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