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I am considering switching software from MWPX that this site currently runs but which is no longer in development (although I can still tweak it as I need) to something else. Are there any particular recommendations on alternatives? I know of several like vBulletin that might work, the issue would be what functionality would we gain/lose and what would happen to our existing content and member base.
I'm open to suggestions, including sticking with what we have, but if we do that at a bare minimum I will need some help getting the Access DB that this site runs on up-sized / converted to MS SQL otherwise we will hit the Access DB file size limit at some point.
Thanks in advance for any recommendations, comments, etc.
You should definitely convert to SQL from Access. As you know there are major limitations with Access and you will probably need to convert anyway in case you plan to use a different/newer software for the web site. Also, the newer versions of SQL are practically self maintained once it's configured properly.
If your willing to switch to PHP/mySQL and run on a Apache/Linux, then I may be able to help you out with the conversion as well as hosting the site on one of my firm's servers. There are quite a few PHP based BB out there, I believe phpBB is one of the more popular ones, and there is an up-and-comer called Vanilla that looks nice to me.
Our host can support either IIS or Apache/Linux so I don't think the platform is much of a problem, it would be the database conversion, getting all the info out of the Access tables and into the proper fields for the MySQL or MSSQL tables for whatever software we migrated to. I'm always looking for those who want to help, drop me an email and we can chat.
I just took a quick look at the VBulletin documentation and it doesn't look like they support MWPX in their import so I imagine it will be a fairly manual process.
Here's a link to the help. Look at the ImpEx Import Systems -> ImpEx systems.
I imagine the users will be easy to migrate over but the posts and threads might be a challenge.
I'll be willing to help. I've setup and administered VBulletin/phpBB system before and I'm a perl/php/mysql programmer.
I would recommed VBulletin over phpBB. I know phpBB is free but I think the proven track record of Vbulletin is worth the $160 for a license and the amount of support and customization plugins that other people have done already for it is well worth the cost.
i've tried browsing several site using vBulletin, and all the tests i tried worked ok. in particular, clicking on a topic while holding down the pretzel key successfully opens the topic in a new tab (the current software handles this incorrectly). however, none of the bb that i frequent use vBulletin, so i have not been able to check out posting (which also does not work correctly with the current software).
can anyone else using safari to access a vBulletin bb confirm whether posting works ok?
I use vBulletin for the community I started at sculpture.net - most of the largest sites do. It is good software and has great pickup by google searches.
But even so, you have a nice site here - why change? I think you might lose momentum - stay with what works is my advice.
