Can someone link the location of the previous jgo dump? I will help to get it migrated to a new place (I have plenty of SQL experience). Is the new software chosen yet?
@riven is there any documentation on the schema you customised for this site or is it just using vanilla and?
@abcdef
A link is on this thread post.
http://www.java-gaming.org/topics/gosh-it-s-quiet-in-here/38470/msg/367372/view.html#msg367372
I have two ideas. First: maybe we could get jgo.com? It, and jg.com, aren’t used. And we could keep this domain running as a redirect to the new forum (unsure how complicated that is to do).
Second: what if we made this JVM Gaming? That means it could include Kotlin, Scala, etc., which could grow the forum decently. I came here for help even though I was using Kotlin, and it worked out great–why not make it official?
I would kill the idea of using JForum2, its a dead project (see https://github.com/rafaelsteil/jforum2)
For this project to go anywhere it needs a few things
And the most important item of all is to have someone take the lead with the above and actually make decisions so things can progress. With out this, this will never happen
@cygnus - I like the idea of a JVM gaming site
@abcdef
That link you gave is NOT the JForum2 software being considered! That is an older version by Rafael Steil, known to be obsolete.
The project is HERE, on SourceForge.
The project is quite alive and well. The most recent update, 2.6.2 was less than two weeks ago (8/7/2019). The software is currently in use at JavaRanch.com as well as other sites.
I’ve posted this correction before. I guess we will have to keep doing so since the obsolete version comes up quite high on searches.
You might want to reconsider your preferences on the choice of software based on this. (I hope you will!) I think our site needs to be evangelistic about Java if we want to take an active role in encouraging growth, rather than being passive in the face of all the competing platforms and languages. Running off of Java-based software helps demonstrate Java’s positives.
(I attempted to supply some initiative here, but ran into an obstacle due to my limited knowledge at the server level. I’m now spending time studying, to see if I can get more up to speed. Currently reading Java Projects.)
fair enough 
Apologies, I only saw the github in my search.
I have gone ahead an looked at discourse so people can compare.
There is a migration script for discourse https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/script/import_scripts/smf1.rb, the next dump from @Riven would need to have the attachments as well so they could be migrated (hopefully not needed to the test)
I’m in the process of importing in the dump now to a local docker installed discourse, first issues was there are invalid dates for birthdays, I just set them all to 1971-01-01. Will see how it goes as it looks like it it will take a while. Will report how it goes
Minor update. I have users and boards migrated and have started the message migration. Some more things to concider and decide
Once the migration completes I’m guessing as long as docker is on the new host I can just copy the container across and start it up for people to look at. If you want to host jforums2 as well I am not an expert on how best to set things up on the host (as they will want the same base url)
@Philfrei
The main problem with JForum2 is that the UI is old, which I have previously stated and so has SHC.
If you are willing to update the HTML and CSS to be of modern styling that is also responsive / reactive, then feel free to keep JForum2 higher up on the list of software to use. If you are not well experienced in HTML and CSS, it is going to take you a while to update the theme to be responsive and reactive to all browser sizes, as well as supporting all browsers.
From what it seems, some people on here are willing to help migrate, but not reimplement the styling of a new website when we can easily use discourse for flarum that solves both a more modern implementation as well as a responsive / reactive front end.
I am sorry to say, but code ranch is probably not a great example of “Look what JForum2 can do!”, its styling in my opinion is also outdated, and in my opinion worse then this design and the base JForum2. Its response / reactive to mobiles is about the same as JForum2, which is not much better then this forum.
To get to the level of Discourse or Flarum in terms of front end design and responsive / reactive design, you will probably be doing a full rewrite of all HTML and not just a CSS change.
I personally, think its best to kill off JForum2 now as an option, and instead find a solution that covers all minimum requirements:
By having an outdated forum ( e.g. JForum2 ), we are really not attracting newer people, as the site may be more seen as historical and not used anymore; while also requiring a higher maintenance workload by fixing front end issues with a custom front end developed.
I am also not really sure how many people are going to even care what language the backend is written in, if people are going to judge the site, it will be by the front end, not the backend. I think a lot of people who are going to do game development in Java may have some knowledge that Java is fairly big for backend implementation and is not really going to impact a person decision on whether they should use it to make a game, I personally never thought “Hey, Java can be used for a forum backend implementation, I should use it to make my next game”.
Sorry for being straight upfront about this, but I personally don’t see JForum2 as a logic step forward for the community. It is going to require a development team aswell as maintainers to setup a modernised forum for all devices. In approximately 2 months, we have not made signficant progress on moving forward to a new forum software, thats not including the effort that SHC has put into migrating the database in the past.
Find a backend that has a modern and responsive / reactive front end and put the effort into migrating to the new forum, not choosing JForum2 and rewriting the entire frontend as well as migrating the backend.
I appreciate the discussion on this! I just don’t want people coming to judgments based on bad information. Several have pointed to an obsolete project that is not the one being proposed and using that to say JForum2 is out of date. Are you looking at the latest version, by andowson and udittmer?
And as far as I know, there is a responsive aspect to the JForum HTML/CSS/Javascript, for example there is an explicit “Mobil view” at JForum’s own forum as well as at JavaRanch.
I agree that I don’t think the design chosen by Javaranch is something that would be good for us.
Can you confirm with me that you have seen the html templates that JForum is currently using, and that these are problematic? I think, but am not certain, that this is the file folder being used: https://sourceforge.net/p/jforum2/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/src/main/resources/templates/default/ I see dates on the files ranging from fairly recent to several years old.
Can you give a link to how Discourse handles the UI? I’d like to see and better understand the ways in which Discourse does a better job in this. Thanks!
migration has completed, the below were migrated (not all were in the data set though as the dataset was sanatized)
users
avatars
board names
topics
posts
reply counts
topic counts
post counts
timings of everything
private messages
attachments
banned things
I would post screenshots but its a pain to upload them somewhere. If someone wants to send me details of this new server I can upload it for people to play around with and see. There are a couple of things in the migration that might need looking at but this was the first pass.
@Philfrei
I did not look at the code, I just looked at the website examples I had found and checked how they worked on mobile.
Here is the URL i found for JForum2, which has a custom UI for mobile. The ui is very bear bones for mobile, and does not have much styling. Sure you are right, it works in mobile, but its not flashy and looked older then their desktop UI.
Try them all on a mobile.
I work pretty much as a full stack developer, currently on the project I am doing front end for, I have had more or similar amount of bugs to do with the UI design and on different resolutions compared to non HTML / CSS bugs.
You will implement something that works fine in chrome, almost perfect in firefox and does the complete opposite in internet explorer.
@Phased I appreciate your expertise, and that coding for the different browsers is a PITA!
What I’m wondering about right now is how easy or difficult it is to make changes. Eventually, everything looks dated, and we’ll want to make changes.
Do you know what the process is for modifying the Discourse site’s front end? Or are you saying, it looks good and works, and we don’t need to be concerned about modifying or editing it?
AFAIK, the forum for JForum can be modified to give the same look as either Discourse or Flarum (which I agree look better). I don’t know how difficult it would be to do so. I linked what I think is the file folder that holds the code. It consists of HTML/CSS/JS and embedded FreeMarker links to the Java code base. I think this is what we would be editing or rewriting. It would be great to hear from those with HTML/CSS coding experience as to the quality/modifiability of this code.
If we select Discourse, are we locked into limited design/configuration options? How flexible will it be going forward? Discourse is Ruby-based, right? So would we be dealing with Ruby-equivalents of Java’s JSP or Servlets?
Update for today :
I received the credentials to the new host (thanks @philfrei)
I have managed to install discourse on that server and I am in the process of importing the data again (I can run it as a background task so it doesn’t need my laptop to be up), should be done later on tonight (its running much slower than my laptop but I won’t have time to check today anyway).
One of the first issues I had was that I needed a hostname for discourse as it couldn’t run on ip only. I registered http://www.jvm-gaming.org as a place holder. I have this mapped to the host now and discourse is up and running and its available for anyone to go see now. The site might be slow as its importing and the server is pretty low spec (had to re build discourse to run on 128Mb ram).
You can’t register new users as there is no email setup but I have created 2 users testadmin and testuser. I’m not sure how best to let people log in to these (either by posting the password manually) or accepting pm’s. Feel free to comment.
If anyone has any questions, its quickest to get me on the discord but I will be checking here too.
Feel free to set up any SMTP service you feel like on the box. For testing purposes just local SMTP would be fine. Later on you can point it at Google or something.
Cas
Google is my back up plan as it allows you to send a small amount for free, the current data dump doesn’t have any emails so it will be people creating new users.
Some other next steps will be to brand things, I’ll need to get a copy from river of the jgo image files (or down load the ones I can see).
As far as I understand it, there is not much of a discussion here. It seems to me as if you got the idea of using JForum, because Java, stuck in your head and are willing to go for “good enough”.
Everybody else seems to disagree with that; so do I.
The design chosen by Javaranch is not a case of “not something that would be good for us” but a clear case of “who the hell ever thought this would be a good idea?”.
The layout and design is messy, outdated in many ways and extremely difficult to navigate.
If you want to do this with any kind of support behind you, you will most likely have to go with either Discourse or Flarum.
@Drenius If you have answers to these questions, I would be most appreciative. I’m here to learn. But mostly I am just happy the ball is rolling once again. My top desire for the site has been to get our topics expanded to include more about publishing-related issues and various target systems.
Data import completed some time overnight, so feel free to look at discourse in all its default form showing jgo posts
As a comparison here are the url differences
Its going to be an issue mapping jgo urls to a new forum set of urls as things currently stand
The other issue that needs more time is the conversion of Image and Youtube bbg codes, code tags seem to have worked fine but there is a specific part of the migration script that looks at this. It might be a capitalisation issue.
I’ll have a bit of time tomorrow to look at conversion issues and also might add some branding and look at the configuration
Anyway feel free to explore the posts and comment on what you think, I have test admin and user ids pre created but you don’t need those to view the posts. Should work well on mobile too.
That’s looking pretty good.
mod_rewrite will probably do the job you need as far as remapping URLs goes.
Cas
The issue on rewrite is the number at the end, needs more investigation though