Congratulations on the migration!

[AnotherJohnson]

Very little downtime. Great job!

[admin]

Thanks AJ. I was able to migrate the site with under 24 hours of downtime so hopefully it was not a major inconvenience. I wanted to do it right and not rush things. It should be accessible for all now, although there may be a few stragglers who are using their ISP's DNS servers which can sometimes take up to 48 hours to update. I have confirmed that all major public DNS servers are up to date and pointing to the migrated website.

This puts CJO into a much better position in terms of speed, security, and ability for future updates. I had wanted to make the switch for some time due to the previous host's limitations. They were a reputable hosting company 12 years ago when I first started CJO but were really stagnant in their platform for a number of years now. They were recently bought out by another company and they are not even taking new customers so that was really the final nail in the coffin. It's going to be a little bit of a learning curve for me as the backend is significantly more adjustable with lots of options and settings, but I can already tell that it is a far superior hosting platform.

I'll take down the migration announcement in a few days, just in case if there are any unexpected surprises but I think we are in the clear.

Again, thank you for everybody's patience.

[Joe Appierto]

+1 on the congratulations!

Would one of the new settings be a dark mode by any chance?

[admin]

+1 on the congratulations!

Would one of the new settings be a dark mode by any chance?

I too am happy the upgrade went well. It did cause me some anxiety this past week!

As for "dark mode". It's possible. There are pros and cons. The pro is obvious. It would allow a different look for CJO, one that may be more easy on the eyes, especially in dark lighting.

There are some cons. The way forum software handles the design of the colors, layouts, etc.. is via something called "styles". These styles are independent packages I can download and load into the site. There are nearly 300 of these styles available, many of them being a dark theme. The default style that CJO currently runs is called "prosilver". Why I choose to keep it default is that when the underlying board software, phpBB, is updated, we can be 100% certain that there are no incompatibilities or problems with the official style. Styles need to be updated as the forum software version progresses or there can be problems introduced. If we go with one of these "non-official" styles, we have to rely on the author of that style to keep it up to date and compatible with the newest version of phpBB. Some style authors are good at this, some not so much, and some style development is simply abandoned by its author. For example, when I look at the styles database and filter for "dark styles," over half of the styles are no longer compatible with the current version of the forum software. So there is significant risk that an actively supported style today may not be compatible in 5 or 10 years. I try to do phpBB upgrades fairly soon after new releases (usually within a week or two) so there is a potential risk that the style may no longer be compatible or the author will not have updated it fast enough for me to get an updated version by the time I update the forum software. That could either break the site for people trying to use the dark style or have to cause me to disable the style while the author releases a new version (which I can't guarantee they ever will).

So, yes, it can be done. But I am not completely sure if it's worth the site's reliability and the dependence on 3rd parties. I will definitely keep it in mind and if there is a strong desire to have that as an option I will do more research and try to come up with something.

[Joe Appierto]

Understood. In my naivete / ignorance I didn't realize there were so many aspects to consider. I appreciate your taking the time to respond in such detail and think that the best approach would be to leave well enough alone.

If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Again, thanks.

[admin]

Like I said, I will keep it in mind. However, my number one priority is to keep the underlying software up to date for security, speed, and new features. This was one of the major reasons for the migration as our previous host was not keeping the programing environment that phpBB runs on up to date and I was stuck with an outdated (and unsupported) version.

As an alternative, there are many extensions for web browsers to automatically turn any webpage into dark mode. For example, if you use chrome, you can use this extension: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detai ... gopgpnjfkc and turn any website (including CJO) to dark mode on the fly.

[Joe Appierto]

I use Microsoft Edge as my browser and while I use the Dark overall appearance setting and the default theme it will present black tab backgrounds, it won't override individual website settings.

[admin]

I use Microsoft Edge as my browser and while I use the Dark overall appearance setting and the default theme it will present black tab backgrounds, it won't override individual website settings.

I think Edge calls them "Add-ons" vs Chrome's "Extensions. You can try this: https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/add ... jfafmpiahm

[Joe Appierto]

Perfect and worked like a charm! You're my hero! Thank you so much!

[admin]

Glad it worked! I think your idea for dark mode is a good one and I wish phpBB had it natively.

If memory serves, back when I first worked on CJO to get it live, I was going to significantly alter the style to have have it champagne color, add/remove some user interface buttons, etc... I started experimenting with it and quickly came to the realization that this was going to be a lot of work, not just up front but for maintenance purposes. My computer knowledge is also not at that high of a level, especially when it comes to webserver based software. I have what I would describe as a very rudimentary ability to read code, and even less ability in writing it. Also, I had no experience in reading/writing in php so that was another barrier. I decided to leave that to the experts and concentrate on the content side of the website.

Software that runs websites is very different than how a personal computer runs programs. There is no "install" or "update" button. I literally have to manually delete files, upload files, manually alter configuration files, run scripts, etc,.. to make the updates happen. A simple update is a multistep procedure that now I feel much more comfortable doing but it was a steep learning curve. I remember the first few updates gave some trouble. When the first step in an update procedure is "download the install package and delete these few 100 files" it's just very different way of approaching it than simply double clicking on a .exe file in windows explorer! There are also a lot of interactions between phpBB and server side software and of course any of these can cause issues which can be difficult to track down and fix. And unlike my home computer where I have full access to everything, web hosting is somewhat gated. So you have access to your files, database, and many settings, but then there is an entire background environment that only the host has access to so often you have to talk with them to sort out issues.

Ok, I'm probably boring everybody to death with this! Bottom line, running a website can be difficult if you don't have a background in web servers (and I certainly don't).

[Joe Appierto]

Not boring at all and a good insight into what hosting involves.

Thanks for both this site and for helping me as well.

[roberto]

Hola Amin,

Great job and those things that you did, really work!!! Thanks again!

[Wildcat]

Software that runs websites is very different than how a personal computer runs programs. There is no "install" or "update" button. I literally have to manually delete files, upload files, manually alter configuration files, run scripts, etc,.. to make the updates happen. A simple update is a multistep procedure that now I feel much more comfortable doing but it was a steep learning curve.

I used phpBB the last time (as an admin) over a dozen years ago, back when I was stuck on an older version I had to heavily modify continuously to combat spam...which lasted about a month each time. For some reason I kept having issues trying to upgrade to a newer major version where it would stall early on in the process, and I couldn't get any help to get past that hurdle.

I made the jump and I've used XenForo ever since, on both small and really large forums, and the newer versions make upgrading much easier--the update for the forum system itself is a single click, and add-ons and styles are as simple as uploading the zip file and running them. The newest version adds support for light/dark style variations, which will pick up the setting from the OS automatically if desired. Converting from phpBB was a chore, but was worth it (that was before they had an importer for it). Alas...never a dull moment!

I have a large forum with an overdue upgrade coming within the next few weeks. I remember we had a similar issue, right after I took over as the admin (back in 2004, I believe), where we had to move to another hosting company. Back then, DNS changes were much slower and it took a couple of days before everyone was pointing at the right place!

[admin]

@Wildcat

Yes, you know the hardships of keeping everything up to do date. I have to say that I have become very proficient at doing the upgrades now. I've easily done a dozen of them and it takes me maybe 15-20 minutes now. I have had zero issues thus far. Typically there are about 2-3 releases per year so this has not been a significant time investment. Changing the host recently was a bigger undertaking but that didn't really have anything to do with the forum software itself. Luckily, downtime was less than 24 hours which I thought was reasonable. DNS updates took a few hours. If I get another 10+ years out of this host, I'll be satisfied! At the time of the migration I also uncoupled the domain registry from the website hosting provider so that is a good thing as well. Not much reason to currently consider a migration to another forum software as phpBB seems to meet my needs. Runs well (hopefully people have noticed the site is rather "zippy" now) and upgrades are pretty simple now. Each software package is going to have its own pros and cons of course.

As for your experience with phpBB, I don't know when you migrated away. There was a very large change in the software going from version 2.x to 3.x in how phpBB fundamentally works. Modifications (although can still be done) were replaced with extensions. So if you want the software to work differently, the best way is to write an extension and not modify the core files. This substantially cut down on causing problems with phpBB or general php upgrades. I've found the best way of doing it is to keep core files unmodified and to keep up with the updates (I'm usually on the latest version within 1-2 weeks of release). Just by reading stories on the phpBB support forum, I think people tend to have more problems when they have not updated the software in a long time and are doing a multi-version jump.