Looking for Feedback

[wildjokerdesign]

I have been working on one of my puppetry sites and have re-worked it based on the php of phpBB 2.06 and now that it is open to the public wanted to get some feedback on it.

http://www.puppetsandstuff.com/index.php

Although as a non-member you pretty much see what the members see there is a test user you are welcome to use.

Username: Phantom
Password: phantomuser

Some of my old users are having difficulty navigating the new set up and I am curious if it is just that things have changed or if I need to lay things out better.

It well look very different from this board and all the links other then the ones noted are running through the phpBB script. I have added some Mods from the phpBB site along with many of my own. The Knowledge Base Mod is not fully functional yet and I am having some problems tracking down the problem so there is not much in that area yet.

Your welcome to comment here or if you sign in with the Phantom user you can PM me on the site.

[torrin]

Nice site.

I think it's pretty easy to navigate. Let's see, I looked at this site before you made the changes, and if I remember correctly, it was using the old Westhost message board. So the change to phpBB is a pretty big one for your users. Now you have more than 1 forum, usernames, passwords, etc. So I can see why they would have trouble in the beginning. I think if you give it some time, they will get use to it.

Nice job on integrating phpBB into your site. I worry about phpBB updates. Not the take away from your question, but if you don't mind me asking how do you plan to update? Do you have to redo all this integration?

[wildjokerdesign]

You are right I was using the old Message board and had convinced others to switch to phpBB and changed some of my other sites over. It took me longer on this site since I did want to integrate into the site as a whole. I was also using a cgi script for the community part so they are used to usernames and passwords but with the new set up they have more options. The biggest mod I added to the board was the Profile CP. It gives alot more control over the user for the Admin and allows the user to have more control over how they view things and the info they can put in their profile.

On Integration:
Are you speaking of the next generation they are working on? I did downloaded what they have done so far and took a look at it. Much of what I was wanting to do was what they where working on. Most of what they are doing is integrating many of the mods into the new version (the ones I want I now have) and working in the portal for it. I have the board and integration set up so that it is well not be overwritten if WH does an update. You many notice I do not have anything in a phpBB2 folder. I keep track of any security updated they issue and code them in instead of using any of the auto updates.

I really did not like the way they where going with the new program so I doubt I would want everything they are adding. I do have what is done of it running on my test site to reference. If I decided to switch it wouldn't be to hard using phpMyAdmin and I have been digging around in the code so much now that it is pretty easy for me to work with.

Does the answer what you where wondering?

UPDATE: Just thought I would add the link to the Annoucment page on the phpBB site where I watch for security issues if anyone else is using phpBB and wants to keep track http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=14