Moving to the New Forums
Posted: 21 Aug 2013 16:23
A while ago I installed some new forum software and wrote the scripts to import all the old forum topics to the new software.
The only stumbling block is the fact I can not extract the passwords from the old system, as it uses a one way encrypt.
So my thoughts on moving over are
1. Import all the forum posts to the new forum Written
2. Import all the users excluding passwords Written
3. Send an email to all users who have visited FHUG in the last 24 months, to reset their password. Written
The additional jobs are
[strike]1. Change the wishlist software to use the new forum for user validation[/strike] - Done now checks both old and new to find a user.
[strike]2. Write a perl page to redirect links from outside of FH to a page on the Wiki which explains how to find what they are looking for.[/strike]
The other problem will be links to other posts with in forum posts, but this is not that common and I can deactivate them, adding a recommendation to search. This has been partly handled, the redirect will take you to the correct forum, but not the post I need to explore the search on PHPBB to see if I can call it directly.
The way the new forum database works I don't think it will be possible to track where they end up just using the old numbers, but I have changed the script to insert the original number in the body of the initial message so they can be searched for.
ID:7052
The only stumbling block is the fact I can not extract the passwords from the old system, as it uses a one way encrypt.
So my thoughts on moving over are
1. Import all the forum posts to the new forum Written
2. Import all the users excluding passwords Written
3. Send an email to all users who have visited FHUG in the last 24 months, to reset their password. Written
The additional jobs are
[strike]1. Change the wishlist software to use the new forum for user validation[/strike] - Done now checks both old and new to find a user.
[strike]2. Write a perl page to redirect links from outside of FH to a page on the Wiki which explains how to find what they are looking for.[/strike]
The other problem will be links to other posts with in forum posts, but this is not that common and I can deactivate them, adding a recommendation to search. This has been partly handled, the redirect will take you to the correct forum, but not the post I need to explore the search on PHPBB to see if I can call it directly.
The way the new forum database works I don't think it will be possible to track where they end up just using the old numbers, but I have changed the script to insert the original number in the body of the initial message so they can be searched for.
ID:7052