Hi all,

 

The club as it stands is more than just a forum and we would like our members to have the same opinion and support it.

Having rich content, lots of videos, pictures, online competitions and other features would enhance the club 10 fold.

 

Thats all great but we have an issue and its the root of our enture website and forums.

 

The forum is run on vBulletin version 4.2.5, which has been for the over 10 years the back bone of this clubs social hub,

However vBulletin has run its course and has become end of life with no futher updates and is rapidly falling behind in both

features and security.

 

vBulletin has an upgrade path which is called version 5 and is a complete disaster; we attempted an upgrade at the start of the

year and quickly moved back after multple failures with the system.

 

If we want to stay ahead of the game then we simply need to upgrade our system.

 

But vBulletin isn't going to cut it so its time to change things completely and migrate to a new platform.

 

Invision Community is the new system i propose we get.

 

You can all go and see it in action at :

 

https://invisioncommunity.com/

 

This new software is not simply Forum orientated so we can create a full rich website full of content pulled directly from the community.

 

Every member can have there own Blog section, Gallery (that works) and many more features.

 

The mobile experience is first class too as you no longer have to zoom in to click forums or to read threads.

 

This new platform is top quality and has great support from the creators and owners who create their own apps for it.

 

If you want a quick view of what the forum side of it looks like go here :

 

https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/

 

This upgrade will be a major game changer for us but i hope that it will bring together even closer what a great community we have.

Edited October 29, 20196 yr by JaiKai

This is taking forever and its at 62%

 

I've setup the test site at if anyone wants to give it a try :

 

https://www.300zxownersclub.com/

 

Just remember this is the default theme and not customised yet.

 

Also the database is still converting so not all posts may be available and there may be errors.

Looks good to me Lee, I currently struggle on the forum as I really only use my phone to access it. Will this help?

Have you tried loading it on your phone ?

 

Looks good to me Lee, I currently struggle on the forum as I really only use my phone to access it. Will this help?

Have you tried loading it on your phone ?

 

Not sure what you mean? I access it via Google and it brings it up as the desktop site. My phone is a Huawei Android phone if that helps?

Your phone must be defaulting it to desktop mode.

 

On chrome there is a setting to uncheck desktop mode.

 

Not sure what you mean? I access it via Google and it brings it up as the desktop site. My phone is a Huawei Android phone if that helps?

Your phone must be defaulting it to desktop mode.

 

On chrome there is a setting to uncheck desktop mode.

 

I think thats unchecked...

 

That's it, but you need to be on the other test site and change it

Looks much better and cleaner.

 

Will that be the only theme available?

That's it, but you need to be on the other test site and change it

 

Looks miles better:)

A little update.

 

Testing is going good with a few false starts here and there.

 

The trickiest part is importing everything in one go as if that process fails and need to wipe the files and database and start again.

 

I'm doing one further test at the moment which is a full import with attachments and if that works we can do a full conversion.

Seperately from the conversion process we are going to lose a few things as follows :

 

Gallery / Garage

 

The new system has a gallery feature but i'm finding it hard to import these as the garage sytem is not a vbulletin product so the conversion

script doesnt know about it and will not import any current garages setup.

 

Thanks / Like / WTF

 

Our favourite buttons to like are wtf a post wont be available instantly, there is the same feature but its horrible emoji icons in a drop box.

good news is i'm sure this is a theme oriented change so we can look to change this at a later date.

 

Premium Member Subscriptions

 

The subscription system is completely different so these are not transferable; but don't worry Premium Members will be placed in a premium Group

with access to all the features and privleges the paid for as part of the subscriptions. It simply means i may have to manually create 170 or so new

subscriptions with the new system manually and add them to each account.

 

Top Navigation Bar

 

This may be a bit mixed up untill we get the sections sorted out to be in a known order, the default links are completely different as is the way the new

system works so it may just take a while to get to grips with the new design.

 

Classifieds

 

Again this is a third party plugin for vBulletin so we need to create a new way to change the selling status and colours on each thread. We may have to do

this manually until a selling plugin can be installed.

Looks like there will be some teething problems but Rome was not built in a day you will get there Lee.

I remember moving to vBulletin 4 and the issues that caused.

 

Although i also remember we had to move 2 weeks sooner than we wanted as another club copied our theme.

 

Looks like there will be some teething problems but Rome was not built in a day you will get there Lee.

The test conversion is going well at 38%.

 

i've left the forum live so anyone can log in to see what its like.

 

https://www.300zxownersclub.com/

Looking good Lee

How many active classifieds are there and how will they be affected?

I might be missing something here, but whilst it has a slightly different design, I'm not quite sure how this new format really differs from the old one?

The layout is about the same, just decorated differently, with the additions of a few sections.

Where it changes vastly is on features, some available to us regular users and mods, but more so on the Admin side.

I havent done anything to it yet.

 

like i said previously; this is an untouched theme.

 

And its just testing to ensure that i can import everything we have.

 

 

I might be missing something here, but whilst it has a slightly different design, I'm not quite sure how this new format really differs from the old one?

Looks great...I can imagine the work involved to sort this and all i can offer is a massive thanks to Lee :thumbup1:

Last update before we decide on when we start moving :)

 

The test board has succesfully moved all content including the attachments.

 

The whole process takes about 4 hours; however after that there is a lot of background processes involved to

rebuild the search index, rebuild the topic, post and images aswell as a whole lot of other stuff.

 

All in i think it may take 24 - 48 hours all in to get a stable system again after we push to convert button.

We need to purchase a new theme as the default one is a bit bland.

 

What do you guys think of this :

 

https://invisioncommunity.com/files/file/8141-elegant-ipsfocus/

 

Its very similar in style to what we have but looks much more crisp and updated.

 

This one also allows the members to select the overall theme colour so they can change it to what they prefer.

 

A working demo of this theme is below :

 

https://ipsfocus.net/4x/

Edited November 1, 20196 yr by JaiKai

Looks great...I can imagine the work involved to sort this and all i can offer is a massive thanks to Lee :thumbup1:

 

+1 Bri.

It's way beyond my comprehension.

As a fairly small club we are lucky to have someone like Lee on board to take on these tasks.:thumbup1:

A working demo of this theme is below :

 

https://ipsfocus.net/4x/

That is very slick on my phone, I’d happily ditch Tapatalk for that.

We need to purchase a new theme as the default one is a bit bland.

 

What do you guys think of this :

 

https://invisioncommunity.com/files/file/8141-elegant-ipsfocus/

 

Its very similar in style to what we have but looks much more crisp and updated.

 

This one also allows the members to select the overall theme colour so they can change it to what they prefer.

 

A working demo of this theme is below :

 

https://ipsfocus.net/4x/

 

 

Actually looks so much nicer on mobile. Nice!