My experience - IPB to xenforo

[CTXMedia]

I do have analytics installed, so we'll see how it trends over the next six months or so ...

 

[AzzidReign]

lol After reading through threads on IPB, I just found a user that had gone to forumcon in Chicago recently and he had found a group of people or something that would search out for IPB sites in order to buy them, convert to vb, increase traffic and make more money/monetize better. I find that absolutely funny!

Anyone have ad revenue trends for before and after the conversion?

 

[PetersWeb]

This topic is very interesting to me - thank you for sharing your experiences. I moved from vBulletin to IP 3 in October last year. My members have had some difficulty getting used to the new software and I've had a little difficulty in getting used to the Admin area and locking down the configuration. Now that XenForo is on the scene, I'm planning to move as soon as 1.1 goes gold.

I've announced this to my members and they've almost breathed a collective sigh of relief that they're finally going to get software that's easy to use. My one concern is migrating the IPB.Gallery into one of the XenForo add-ins - [XFR] UserAlbums. I think that most of the work in migrating the images will have to be done manually.

So far, my trial imports to XF have gone without a hitch and complete within 3 to 4 hours. My site has 2,100+ members and 387,000 posts so it's not overly large, but not a small site either.

 

[Digital Doctor]

My members have had some difficulty getting used to the new software (IPB)

What were the complaints ?
It's not *that* hard to use !
/curious.

 

[PetersWeb]

What were the complaints ?
It's not *that* hard to use !
/curious.

The biggest issue by far is how IPB reacts when you click on the "View New Content" link. Even when your setting is set to "Show me all content that I have not read", it shows a mixture of unread topics and read topics. This confuses some members. When you click on "What's New?" using XenForo, all you get is unread posts - as it should be.

This behaviour is one that I haven't experienced using any other software - phpBB, SMF, vBulletin, or myBB. I have tested IPB 3.2 and this issue still remains.

Overall, the feedback that I've received from my members is that it is not easy for them to use. Perhaps that's partially because they had used VB 3 for 5 years and had become familiar with that UI. In order to get a good feel for how XF would be received, I included some of the more vocal opponents of IPB in my test group. Their comments about XF have been glowing so I'm comfortable at having made the decision to change.

 

[Dean]

The biggest issue by far is how IPB reacts when you click on the "View New Content" link. Even when your setting is set to "Show me all content that I have not read", it shows a mixture of unread topics and read topics. This confuses some members. When you click on "What's New?" using XenForo, all you get is unread posts - as it should be.

I had a similar experience when using IPB, along with other of those types of issues. Though it has been over a year since I last tried it.

I believe there is now a IPB 3.1 importer in xf, but not a IPB 3.2 importer. You may want to stick with IPB 3.1 if that is the version you are now using.

 

[PetersWeb]

I believe there is now a IPB 3.1 importer in xf, but not a IPB 3.2 importer. You may want to stick with IPB 3.1 if that is the version you are now using.

Yes....I'm sticking with IPB 3.1.4 until I migrate to XF.