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Spectere:
phpBB 3 was a major overhaul over phpBB 2. Even back when it came out (June 2006, according to Wikipedia) it was a solid product. The reason I didn't use it for any sites is simply because I was already running SMF. I ended up demoing it pretty extensively around that time. If I remember correctly, I was contemplating whether to switch back to phpBB 3 due to the stronger third-party ecosystem or upgrade to the next major release of SMF. Obviously I chose the latter.
I think the main problem with SMF is that it lost momentum. When they were cranking out new releases and bug fixes with relative regularity it was great, but now I'm concerned that the next PHP version is going to break the site entirely. I'll bet a large part of that is simply due to Reddit more or less replacing community forums. phpBB was likely popular enough to ride the wave while the smaller open source forums ended up losing too many resources. I dunno.
Oh well. It was a good run, if nothing else. I might do a test conversion on my dev server at home to see if things convert over somewhat gracefully.
Spectere:
W H O A
Edit: It's worth noting that the screenshot was taken after the first conversion step (SMF 2.0.15 -> phpBB 3.0.14). The theme in phpBB 3.2.5 is a bit cleaner and has some of the other missing features, such as showing the most recently updated topic along the right of the index page.
Bobbias:
Oh my god, it still looks like phpbb after all these years lmao.
Spectere:
YEPPPPPP. I love it, haha. SMF definitely looks cleaner, but it can always be reskinned.
But yeah, the conversion was successful, and phpBB's media extension is like the YouTube one I installed on steroids. Custom BBcode is also a thing, so admins can create basic BBcode thingies without fiddling with mods.
I'm pretty much going to give SMF a long as it takes me to make a phpBB skin. If they haven't gotten any closer to a proper release or bugfix patch I'm going to make the switch. The PHP team has been making a ton of breaking changes to shed off their old ridiculously naïve and insecure features and based on the log spam I'm seeing, Simple Machines either doesn't have the resources or the motivation to ensure that SMF isn't using calls that have been deprecated for over a year.
Bobbias:
The custom BBcode feature is pretty neat. But yeah, as much as I like SMF, if they can't keep with the times, that's kinda a problem.
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