Scott
12-17-2006, 03:30 PM
So it's been a year (http://www.forumuniversity.com/campus/showpost.php?p=2719&postcount=36) since I looked at SMF and phpBB in detail and I've decided to take another look and see what's changed over the year. Unfortunately, I've not got the code from last year to directly compare them. SMF has released version 1.1 but phpBB has been rushing on with version 3. They're at beta 4 at the time of writing, but since it's not stable, it'll have to wait.
1.1 seems to address the issue I had last year about the skins requiring file edits for customisation. It includes both the option to modify the full CSS stylesheet and the PHP templates which do everything else. I even like the template editor, which splits them up into functions for a little bit more usability. Unfortunately, if you are someone who turns red at the sigh of PHP, this editing facility might not be for you. A slight slip-up and you could be looking at PHP errors for a while. Ideally, HTML only editing would probably be nice, but this is already a great improvement upon nothing.
Groups and permissions aren't as simple in SMF as they are in phpBB. However, if you get to grips with it, you have a lot more control over what you can allow or not allow certain groups to do. I think it's changed since my last review, since they seem a lot simpler than I remember. Either that or I've gained a little bit more intellect over a year :iunno:
Search engine friendly URLs are a standard feature on SMF and these are becoming a huge plus for much web software. Whether they help or not is another article, but IMO anything that might just improve rankings isn't a bad thing. Especially if you have no editing required to get them working.
The ban features of SMF impressed me last time, and still do this time. Not only is it much simpler to follow than that of phpBB, it also allows more options including temporary time-limited bans and partial bans such as preventing the user from posting. Karma is still there in 1.1. I'm a little unsure about its usefulness on an active forum but perhaps it could be tweaked into a proper warn system with a little bit of effort. I think it's attempting to by something like the reputation feature in vB but doesn't quite cut it.
The package manager also deserves a mention again. Not only does it fetch the latest available packages from the web, you can also install/uninstall them without leaving the browser. PhpBB has nothing to compare with this IMO, although I'm not quite sure how active the SMF modding community.
I also stumbled across a quick edit feature in SMF, which allows the post to be edited without page refresh. It's not much, but it's an attempt to join the commercial players who've gone AJAX crazy in recent releases. I do think it could be better promoted though, the icon doesn't really mean much until you click on it.
While the moderation features of SMF are pretty well laid out, I'm not so sure that the admin panel is the same. It took me a while to find the submenus which control a lot of the features. This might just be me, but I think they could improve the side navigation a little.
phpBB hasn't really changed much in the last year - this particular release (2.0.21) has been out since June and was mainly bug and security fixes. I'm not going to bother repeating all the stuff I said about phpBB last year. Instead, hopefully, version 3 will be released by this time next year, and maybe that will tip the balance a bit and give me something to write about ;)
1.1 seems to address the issue I had last year about the skins requiring file edits for customisation. It includes both the option to modify the full CSS stylesheet and the PHP templates which do everything else. I even like the template editor, which splits them up into functions for a little bit more usability. Unfortunately, if you are someone who turns red at the sigh of PHP, this editing facility might not be for you. A slight slip-up and you could be looking at PHP errors for a while. Ideally, HTML only editing would probably be nice, but this is already a great improvement upon nothing.
Groups and permissions aren't as simple in SMF as they are in phpBB. However, if you get to grips with it, you have a lot more control over what you can allow or not allow certain groups to do. I think it's changed since my last review, since they seem a lot simpler than I remember. Either that or I've gained a little bit more intellect over a year :iunno:
Search engine friendly URLs are a standard feature on SMF and these are becoming a huge plus for much web software. Whether they help or not is another article, but IMO anything that might just improve rankings isn't a bad thing. Especially if you have no editing required to get them working.
The ban features of SMF impressed me last time, and still do this time. Not only is it much simpler to follow than that of phpBB, it also allows more options including temporary time-limited bans and partial bans such as preventing the user from posting. Karma is still there in 1.1. I'm a little unsure about its usefulness on an active forum but perhaps it could be tweaked into a proper warn system with a little bit of effort. I think it's attempting to by something like the reputation feature in vB but doesn't quite cut it.
The package manager also deserves a mention again. Not only does it fetch the latest available packages from the web, you can also install/uninstall them without leaving the browser. PhpBB has nothing to compare with this IMO, although I'm not quite sure how active the SMF modding community.
I also stumbled across a quick edit feature in SMF, which allows the post to be edited without page refresh. It's not much, but it's an attempt to join the commercial players who've gone AJAX crazy in recent releases. I do think it could be better promoted though, the icon doesn't really mean much until you click on it.
While the moderation features of SMF are pretty well laid out, I'm not so sure that the admin panel is the same. It took me a while to find the submenus which control a lot of the features. This might just be me, but I think they could improve the side navigation a little.
phpBB hasn't really changed much in the last year - this particular release (2.0.21) has been out since June and was mainly bug and security fixes. I'm not going to bother repeating all the stuff I said about phpBB last year. Instead, hopefully, version 3 will be released by this time next year, and maybe that will tip the balance a bit and give me something to write about ;)