vBulletin4 to XF

Discussion in 'XenForo Discussions' started by Dan Hutter, Jan 4, 2012.

  1. Dan Hutter

    Dan Hutter aka Big Dan

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    I'm planning on moving my DJ board to XF. I'm definetly going to do a test run long before going live. My plan is to go live around March 1.

    From a technical standpoint, what pitfalls should I look out for?
    • vB 4 URL redirection. I'm hoping this works with the htaccess redirection in vB.
    • I see there's a mod over on XF to convert Thanks to Likes. I plan on doing that.
    • I'll be losing the arcade at least temporarily until XFArcade is ready.
    • Anti-spam - I'd like something similar to stop forum spam.
    • How hard are usergroup and forum based permissions compared to vB. Ideally I'd like to be able to restrict forums based on usergroups as I do now.
    • Lastly I'll need a spiffy style. Is there anything out there on the level of Pure VB right now?
    • Is there the ability to show adsense to guests, etc?
    So far my plan is to just do a test import and play around on the board as an admin, moderator, and regular member. Take lots of notes, and a bunch of screenshots and write up a moderating tutorial so that the moderators can still moderate. Good idea, right? ;)I'll do the tutorial on the default theme and compile it into a PDF to share with other admins who might find it helpful.

    After that I'll open the board to the moderators so they can get a feel for it. Part 2 will give the advertisers and (some) regular members a chance to look around. Finally on March 1, close the vB board, do a final conversion, wipe the vB files and move the XF files into place.
     
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  2. Marc

    Marc Checkmate - Game Over

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    http://xenforo.com/community/threads/8wayrun-com-xenutiles-tools.9754/ ( stop forum spam included )

    This should help you: http://xenforo.com/help/permissions/

    Everyone has their own opinion on styles, so it's best to do a search for yourself, ;)

    Some useful style websites to check out :
    Yes! Find the template in your xenForo Style and insert the contents below where you'd like to display the ad(s) :

    Code:
    <xen:if is="!{$visitor.user_id}">
    Ad Script Goes Here!!
    </xen:if>
    Or you can use ( limit your workload ) : http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xf-moderator-manual.21581/
     
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  3. Dan Hutter

    Dan Hutter aka Big Dan

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    Marc, I cannot say thank you enough man! :)
     
  4. Brandon

    Brandon Regular Member

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    No doubt, thanks @Marc for the great post :thumbsup:
     
  5. forumhookers

    forumhookers Regular Member

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    Why are you moving from VB to Xenforo?

    You may loss organic traffic.
     
  6. Dan Hutter

    Dan Hutter aka Big Dan

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    I'm tired of vB's bloat, lack of any new worthwhile features without an upsell, and the direction it's taken.

    I'll take a little SEO hit but gain in the long run.
     
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  7. Dan Hutter

    Dan Hutter aka Big Dan

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    I Wanted to update you folks on whats' been going on with the conversion. Yesterday, I opened the dev board up to all my regular members. So far, the feedback has been great! I'm liking the default style so much that I probably won't worry about a custom one right now. Next year, I'll have a custom WP & XF theme done.

    So far I've installed:

    Tag Me (Thanks Marc!)
    Tapatalk Plugin
    User online status (along with additional CSS from one of the members at XF.com)

    Things are shaping up great!:weluvxf:

    Things that need to be added:

    Ad management (seen Lawrence's thread on XF.com PM'ed him asking if it were available) any other plugin options?
    Arcade - I'll pop over to XFArcade and see what's up there.

    Other than that I may actually make the move ahead of schedule.
     
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  8. Dan Hutter

    Dan Hutter aka Big Dan

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    I started my import at 3am this morning 10 hours later I'm live on XF! http://ourdjtalk.com

    9 hours for the actual import another 1 spent backing up, etc.
     
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  9. cpvr

    cpvr Regular Member

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    How are your users liking XF?
     
  10. Brandon

    Brandon Regular Member

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    nice job Dan!
     
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  11. Dan Hutter

    Dan Hutter aka Big Dan

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    So far so good overall.

    The only problems so far are spammers and email notifications. Within 20 minutes of opening the board we got two spammers then I stepped out for a bit and we got 2 more. I installed XenUtilities to check registrations against stop forum spam.

    I'm finding some of the admin tools lacking in the users department. There's no way to bulk unsubscribe (unwatch) a user from threads. No daily setting for email notices. Little stuff like that but I suppose that's just because XF is so young.
     
  12. Carlos

    Carlos Regular Member

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    No he won't. In fact, his site will rank even higher. I transferred CODForums from vB4 to xF, it was the best decision that I've ever made for the site and it's still on stock xf skin. Imagine that.
     
  13. AWS

    AWS Administrator

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    The big thing for me is there is no way to mass move threads. I want to reorganize and trim down forums on a site and found that the only way to mass move threads is to do them a page at a time or run a query. In reading over at xenforo it seems like a mass move/delete feature has been requested since 1.0 and no signs it will ever be added.

    There are a couple other management tools missing and if I had known they were lacking I wouldn't have converted the sites I did convert.
     
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  14. Dan Hutter

    Dan Hutter aka Big Dan

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    I didn't realize so much was missing in user management. No way to bulk unsubscribe a user from threads. No way for a user to select daily (or weekly) email notices. Heck there isn't even a select all in the subscribed threads area. :-/ No way mass delete a user's sent PMs (this would good for spammers)

    I posted about these things over on XF's board and was told they were duplicates. I looked over 5 pages and didn't see them so how long have they been waiting for implimentation?

    Don't get me wrong, I still really like XF and hope these small issues are just because it's a young software yet.
     
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  15. Dan Hutter

    Dan Hutter aka Big Dan

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    Day Two:

    I changed the "Email address or name" phrase on the log in box to User name. A few mentioned that they couldn't figured out the email they'd signed up with. I guess they didn't see the or name part.:eek:

    Feedback has been mostly good. The biggest issues are members finding their way to "New Posts" and figuring out how to post a new thread. I started a thread (Getting to know the new ODJT) with some basic screenshots and sent out a mass email pointing to it. BTW XF's mass email tool is pretty sweet. I plan to add to the guide, compile it into a PDF, that will be included with a member welcome kit. I'll probably post it on XF for other converting admins to use.

    Some CSS edits were made. Namely changing the font to Verdana the fonts were a complaint. I also added a line between the post and signature as the post content and signature just ran into each other.
     
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