webwolfe,
I also am deeply troubled by all of your dissatisfaction.
You have pointed out some very key issues here, some that I see repeatedly, some not. Please, let me touch on them and respond to them.
"So when ubb.threads came out I naturally assumed that it was developed in-house based on the classic."
I agree that we do not do a good enough job highlighting the fact that this ISN'T UBB.classic rewritten in php and running on a MySQL back end. I do think though that if we put Try It! on
this page in one more spot it would be overbearing though.
Nonetheless we hear your sentiment echoed a lot and take it to heart. Look for changes to that page to make it more clear that UBB.threads is not at all like UBB.classic.
"The upgrade from classic to UBBT was equivalent to being thrown into a completely alien environment without a flashlight."
In truth this disturbs me most of all. I like to think our
documentation to be top flight. To have our documentation referenced to being compared to being tossed into an alien environment without a flashlight is deeply troubling indeed. We review the docs continually and gladly accept feedback on them from users, new to, or experienced with the product. Please feel free to email me (
[email protected]) with whatever you felt deficient in them. That can truly help the people that follow behind you. Sometimes we're so close to the product that we don't see what's missing. If the documentation is sub par let Infopop hear from you. Let's make them better. Tell us what we're missing and where we are missing it.
Please do though, direct your Member's attention to the User's Guide. Post links to it or quote it. That's what it is there for. Your Members will probably not seek it out themselves, and there are a lot of good hints for them.
Next, I do understand the difficulties in the importer. Wish you had filled out a
trouble ticket on that, we could have helped you along the way. We truly understand the difficulties in upgrading. We do a lot of them.
As of just a few minutes ago we have released an upgraded version of the importer. It currently is only for the 6.1 beta version and while the script has been tested quite a bit it too is beta.
That said, it is a long way ahead of the importer for 6.0.x. You'll find no more empty forums, of that you can be sure.
My announcement regarding the updated importer is posted
right here. Any and all feedback as far as this importer is gladly accepted. Remeber though, that these ARE different product and some things just simply cannot be translated. Nonetheless we are importing a lot more data, and doing a much better job it it. Let me take this opportunity, if you don't mind, to put in a word of thanks for your Admin, Allen Ayres for doing test imports until his eyes were glazing over.
Thanks AA. Allen did so many imports that his site was practically filling the database of it's own volition by the time we were done with him. A few other folks were in the same boat.
At this time I am not sure if the importer for 6.0.x will be updated. 6.1 is looking really good at this point. Bug reports are minimal. We may get 6.1 out so soon it doesn't make reworking the 6.0.x importer worth allocating the time for. I'll know more by mid next week and I have not ruled out doing it if 6.1 looks to be a while yet.
As far as the disparate quality between UBBdev and this site, Threadsdev let me just make mention of the fact that UBBDev has, as you know, been around a loong time. This site is still very fledgling and hasn't the time or the volunteer level to yet stretch it's wings out and soar. It's made a lot of strides in a short time. The number of UBB.classic owners still numbers many many thousands over UBB.threads, but more and more .classic owners are discovering .threads and this site.. Give it more time, I think we'll all be proud what these .threads owners can show us.
I haven't made a post this long in months! Excuse me please!
