New Forums at Modelwarships.com

the way you've gotten beat up over your new forum you kinda remind me of Rocky...just one more round to go !!!! lol.......keep up the great work Jeff ! Si Wellington

I used to be concerned about what people thought...then I started to realize I was spending more time doing damage control on the old apps than I was anything else.

Can't please everyone...the new board has caused some folks to leave, but there's a whole slew of folks I've never heard from that are already signed on to the new one.

Best,

Jeff

Jeff I really enjoyed looking at the new forum. The other one seemed too chaotic. Anyway I joined up today under a different name than I use here primarily because I needed a somewhat easier name and password to remember(I have too many between home and work). I think it will work out very well.

Congrats on the new forum Jeff!

I hope you don't mind, but here's the link for everyone to make it easier (your sig isn't an active link):
http://www.modelwarships.com/

To anyone visiting -- click on the Forum link highlighted in yellow on the left!! Don't do like me...

I don't know if you've ever seen the old versions, but on Astronomy.com and Trains.com we had a forums which were (IMHO) worse than your old one. We recently replaced them with similar forums to what you see here. Trains.com wasn't bad, but on Astronomy.com, boy did we hear about it. I couldn't believe the response. It's been a month and many of the people who originally didn't like it have come around and in fact like the new format. Give them time and if they don't like it, well there's not much you can do about it. Like you said, you can't please everyone. I would imagine it will be easier to manage in the long run.

Anyways...

I'm curious why you chose phpBB over Invision? Nothing against phpBB, they are both really good. I'm just curious.

Here's a link you might find interesting:
http://www.big-boards.com/

Hi Dave,

One of my readers metioned PHP awhile ago, but until we migrated over to a new server that supported databases, we were stuck with the MivaCode.

Now that we've migrated and have more bells and whistles than we know what to do with, a new forum was the very first thing we focused on. I looked at Snitz' ASP board, but to be honest, I DL'd the PHP package and it worked from the start. Rather than spending time re-inventing the wheel, I just went with it. PHPBB seems to be popular board, and I've never had troubles with it, so I went with it.

I actually had never heard of Invision until now...maybe I'll have to do some investigating.

Our next big project is a resource database for ship models...I have 2 programmers developing a front end for our MS Access database, so modelers can search for a particular class of ship, a Fletcher for example, and get a list of all the available kits, add-ons, and and references like books and websites...A daunting task for ships...imagine trying to do that for aircraft or armor...

Well, back to the code!!

Jeff Herne
Modelwarships.com

Snitz is decent, but if I had a chance to do it over now, I think I would go with Invision. Although I would have to seriously compare the two (Invision vs. phpBB). Unfortunately with the work that has been put into this code and writing some custom features (both front and back-end), it's not that easy to migrate. Plus we're mostly a Microsoft shop, so it would be difficult to get a PHP solution in here.

For PHP, there is a lot of code out there. When you're thinking of something for the site, take some time to either ask around or do some searching. There's bound to be something already written in PHP. Content management, ad servers, forums, portals, link management, galleries, etc. It's amazing.

If you're ever looking for a gallery, check out http://gallery.menalto.com/ - one of the best I've seen.

Your resource database sounds awesome. I'm sure it will be a popular item on your site when it's done. I'm looking forward to checking it out when you're done.

I'll call ya' if I need coding done :-)

Jeff

Whichever it is Jeff, I checked out your site and kudos for a great job.
I especially like the Debtris field as my modeling leanings are small working vessels.

I have some good museum links to send you to add to your research section as well ...
Regards,
Bruce

Thanks Bruce!!

J