Considering switch from IPB to vB

[Daniel00]

I have an Invision Powerboard forum running 2.1.2 (the latest version, with the latest bugs - none of which existed in 2.0.4 :)) and have seen the light and found the error of my ways.

I'm not sure if the forum I have is considered a "busy" one but have read that busier forums run better with vB because it's more efficient. Typically there'll be 100 people online at peak each day, about 250 messages a day and 30,000 pageviews on the hitcounter. 850 members and about 75,000 posts in total.

Is it worth me starting to test with vB's importer? The FAQ pages say the latest version supported is IPB 2.04 but there's another thread elsewhere talking about 2.1.1.

I've also got the Invision Blog software connected to the forum, but it's fairly underused so switching manually to another script shouldn't be too difficult - do any integrate with vB?

I've also got a Coppermine gallery but I'm sure that will integrate just fine, there were lots of forum types listed when I did that. There are about 7,000 photos in the gallery though so I'll be careful :)

If I start to test the importer, what is the standard practice? The current IPB forum is at http://forum.domain.com and the gallery is at http://forum.domain.com/album - should I start VB on http://test.domain.com to simulate being in the root folder or at http://forum.domain.com/test?

Also for databases, should I create a new one or just use the same one as the current forum+gallery do and use a vb_ prefix?

[ManagerJosh]

Hi Daniel :)

I'm not sure if you saw this thread (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=158935), but it appears there is a IPB 2.1.1 to vBulletin 3.5 importer all ready and released for usage. Running a test installation couldn't hurt :).

There are a few blog software. The ones I could find currently are:
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=96462
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=97341

The coopermine gallery...that's a different story all together. I didn't see anything over at vBulletin.org that could have been any use honestly. I think most people chose to use this (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=92875) or vBadvanced Gallery (http://www.vbadvanced.com/products.php?do=productinfo&p=5) instead.

As for the import process, it technically doesn't matter where you put the test installation. What matters is if you have access to the SQL Database. Just configure Impex to access it :).



As for the databases, you'll need to use a prefix assuming you have table names that are the same as vBulletin does. Probably not, but it's a safe bet to use a prefix of your choice to do the installation :)

Hope I've been of some help :)

[]SK[]

I prefer to use the root so http://forums.example.com/
Be sure to post a URL for your site when your done, I wouldn't mind seeing how this progress's.

[Daniel00]

Thanks MJ, that gives me a bit of reading to do.

SK, not sure if I explained clearly in my original post - I meant to say that eventually I'd like vB at http://forum.domain.com but need to test it at an alternative location because that's where the current forum is, so I need to use either another subdomain or a subfolder of the same subdomain.

Coppermine requires access to IPB's cookie so needs to share the same subdomain, so an option I didn't previously think of would be to copy the gallery rather than attempt to connect to it using vB at the same time as Invision. Obvious really when you think about it, it's not called a test install so that you can break the live gallery is it :)

Copying the 2 gigs of photos will be less fun but is much safer, and this is where the dedicated server with root access comes in handy!

[adguru]

From what I've read at coppermine's forum, the integration should work with 3.5 too. :)

All the best.