I really want to convert from InvisionFree to myBB or SMF. (PPVGeneral Forums) I'm really not sure which forum software to choose...SMF or myBB?

What are the ups and downs of both softwares?

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From what I've heard - and I could be wrong - neither is a joy to skin. I would recommend trying the forum demo system here to compare the Admin CPs, to see which you're more comfortable with.

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You will run into problems unless you have an existing instilation of IPB. Invisionfree screwed me over, lieing about the option of a universal database dump. They only give it in IPB 1.3 format.

Just making sure you know before you do anything.

Oh, and I choose SMF

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How difficult was it to convert to SMF Drk?

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I'd suggest MyBB, of course, but I do have a reason. For one, MyBB is pretty easy to skin - all you need to know is the most basic CSS, and then which thing on the page is which - in fact, it takes hardly any time at all for me to create a skin once I have the images (but that's after a bit of experience).

I also suggest MyBB because, personally, I find the Admin CP easier to navigate than SMF (and I have used SMF - not in a public setting, but I did use it to test the MyBB Merge System). SMF's ACP makes it hard to find many things, where in MyBB it's pretty easy (and the new ACP makes it even better - but I can't share details on that ). The front end layout itself is even easy to navigate - personally, I find SMF's confusing.

Edit: By the way, -thoma-, the MyBB Merge System is coming out soon enough, which will provide a quick way to convert from a IPB 1.3 database to MyBB 1.2 - I believe you only need the database, but I may be wrong. It's in beta, though, but I think we are still accepting beta testers.

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Yeah, that is the thing I liked better about myBB, there ACP. I DL'ed SMF on my server to test it, and the ACP was a bit confusing.

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You'd be better to talk to Captain Kirk about that one, he did pretty much all of the conversion work.

We had to hunt down a copy of IPB 1.3 to instal the database into, as the IPB converter only works on existing IPB forums. Once we found IPB 1.3, we installed it, plugged in the database, then ran the converter, and installed that onto a fresh SMF 1.1.1. That's what all happened, exactly how, I'm not sure.

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The MyBB merger doesn't need to have the script installed, you just need the tables in the database

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Which they do not give you

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Who? IF - they give you tables. That's how it worked when I last converted with from IF

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