MyBB Community Forums

Hi everyone,

I'm an administrator with ThinkClassic ( www.thinkclassic.org ), a community centered around the use, care and repair of vintage computers. We've been in operation for around 13 months now. We based our community around the FluxBB 1.5 forum software but recently our members have been requesting several features that we haven't been able to offer them. In addition, the roadmap for FluxBB has been changing since the decision to merge their development efforts into Flarum.

I've been searching for a replacement forum engine that allows us to continue building the community and have found significant drawbacks with most of them, from size, resource utilisation, difficulty of maintenance and difficulty of configuration, among others. We've been looking at MyBB and it does seem to be the most viable option for us as it checks a number of boxes for us. Before making the switch though, I wanted to come across and ask a few questions from those that know it best.

ThinkClassic requires five key requirements to be met to keep our users satisfied:

• Private Messages
  
• Attachments (subject to available server resources)
  
• Simple Frontend (not too Javascript heavy, Discourse and Flarum for example wouldn't do)
  
• Works on both HTTP and HTTPS (we allow our users to use both, for newer and older computers)
  
• Stable Roadmap
  

At the moment FluxBB satisfies the Simple Frontend and Works on both HTTP and HTTPS requirements, but it doesn't meet the other three. This holds us back from building our community further.

So, on to the questions.

Can MyBB operate on both HTTP and HTTPS simultaneously, working with whatever protocol it is being accessed from?

Our current forums look at the current protocol and use it for form requests and redirections. A lot of forum software solutions require a base URL to be configured, and if the base URL is configured to http://www.thinkclassic.org (for example), it will always attempt to use the HTTP version of the site. Redirections after submitting a new post or topic will redirect back to the HTTP version of the site. 

FluxBB gets around this by checking what protocol is in use (http or https) and rewriting the base url to use that protocol. In PHP it looks something like get_current_protocol() . '://www.thinkclassic.org'; or something along those lines.

Does anyone here currently use MyBB on a site that allows users to use both protocols? If so, how does it run?


Will MyBB continue to be mostly PHP/HTML/CSS or are there plans to adopt a more Javascript-heavy frontend?

We chose FluxBB because we serve a demographic that isn't overly fond of Javascript, to say the least. FluxBB uses PHP, HTML and CSS for layout with absolutely no Javascript dependency, other than a couple of small scripts to automatically highlight fields. FluxBB development has since shifted to Flarum, and Flarum is entirely Javascript dependent, much like Discourse. It's a massive shift and our members don't like it one bit. 

MyBB doesn't seem to follow the trend of moving entirely to a Javascript frontend, which for us is a very good thing. However I am aware that MyBB 2.0 is in development and I must admit that I have absolutely no idea what the aims for that new version are. It would be a shame to transition our community across from FluxBB to MyBB, only to have to make another change later on because of major changes in the next version.

Does it seem likely that MyBB will continue to use a similar frontend to v1.8 in the next major version? Or does it seem likely that Javascript will become integral in the next release?


We run several in-house extensions for spam protection and to generate Facebook-compatible Open Graph tags. We also have a custom designed website style. We would of course also be looking to bring all of these across to MyBB in the future.

I understand that these are questions that are probably heard quite often and the community here would perhaps be tired of hearing them, and for that I apologise in advance. The decision to uproot an entire community, including all of its customisations and extensions and migrate it to a new platform however is a major one. We need to be absolutely sure that whatever software we choose to back is the right one, and we need to make sure we handle the switch as smoothly as possible.


Thanks,

~ iMic.

Currently, the http protocol is fixed. There is a plugin for the 1.6 series that SHOULD work on 1.8 (not tested) http://mods.mybb.com/reviews/ssl-switcher

MyBB 2.0 is currently in development, and is php based, so the javascript dependency should be less than for example Discourse.

Relevant posts on MyBB2 development: http://blog.mybb.com/tag/2-0/

(2015-07-03, 10:33 AM)iMic Wrote: [ -> ]Can MyBB operate on both HTTP and HTTPS simultaneously, working with whatever protocol it is being accessed from?

Aside from Leefish's reply, you can also use a .htaccess redirect or this plugin: http://community.mybb.com/mods.php?action=view&pid=491

(2015-07-03, 10:33 AM)iMic Wrote: [ -> ]Will MyBB continue to be mostly PHP/HTML/CSS or are there plans to adopt a more Javascript-heavy frontend?

1.8 will definitely stay PHP/HTML/CSS with several jQuery additions. 2.0 most likely too, even though there were discussions about a possible usage of a JS framework. I'm hoping myself it won't happen. The current builds and prototypes make it even more unlikely to be changed to completely JS dependent.

(2015-07-03, 10:33 AM)iMic Wrote: [ -> ]We run several in-house extensions for spam protection and to generate Facebook-compatible Open Graph tags. We also have a custom designed website style. We would of course also be looking to bring all of these across to MyBB in the future.

MyBB is known mainly for its easy extensibility I'd say, so that should be no problem.

(2015-07-03, 10:33 AM)iMic Wrote: [ -> ]I understand that these are questions that are probably heard quite often and the community here would perhaps be tired of hearing them, and for that I apologise in advance. The decision to uproot an entire community, including all of its customisations and extensions and migrate it to a new platform however is a major one. We need to be absolutely sure that whatever software we choose to back is the right one, and we need to make sure we handle the switch as smoothly as possible.

You don't have to apologize, that's understandable.

I would say: start a test forum in which you can test all your required modifications and additions. During that process you can ask all your questions here. My experience (and that of many others) is that problems are solved very fast and efficiently.