Rayman Pirate-Community

If only phpBB came with a mobile app! Unfortunately, it is only maintained by a handful of volunteers (thank God for those guys!) and lacks so many modern features that it basically looks like it's stuck in the late 2000s. I've looked into alternatives a few times, and while there's a lot of much better products out there, I still haven't found something good enough that it would justify rewriting our entire code base just for it.

I love phpBB for how simple and lightweight it is. Would want every forum to stay on it forever.

This reminds me of the opprobrium when RZ switched from phpBB to Infopop. Everybody considered the (proprietary, professionally-maintained) product from Groupee (Grue Pee) vastly inferior!

dr_st wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 9:23 am I love phpBB for how simple and lightweight it is. Would want every forum to stay on it forever.

It does a lot of things well, but not having mentions, a visual editor and desktop notifications today is not acceptable. The mobile version is also far from great.

PluMGMK wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 11:50 am This reminds me of the opprobrium when RZ switched from phpBB to Infopop. Everybody considered the (proprietary, professionally-maintained) product from Groupee (Grue Pee) vastly inferior!

And it certainly was a terrible product in terms of user-friendliness!

Hunchman801 wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 4:29 pm

dr_st wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 9:23 am I love phpBB for how simple and lightweight it is. Would want every forum to stay on it forever.

It does a lot of things well, but not having mentions, a visual editor and desktop notifications today is not acceptable. The mobile version is also far from great.

All these things are nice, and I can understand why their absence is a deal-breaker for some people. It always saddened me, however, how every forum software that came with those features either brought ridiculous CPU hogging and slowness, horrible clumsiness, or both. Yes, vB3 / ProBoards - I'm looking your way.

A few years ago I heard about Tapatalk, which is an app for the mobile phone used to navegate through many forums. Many people log in phpBB forums using this app, but it was said to be insecure. Has anyone heard about it?

dr_st wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 5:17 pm All these things are nice, and I can understand why their absence is a deal-breaker for some people. It always saddened me, however, how every forum software that came with those features either brought ridiculous CPU hogging and slowness, horrible clumsiness, or both. Yes, vB3 / ProBoards - I'm looking your way.

Yeah, they're a total deal-breaker for the younger ones used to mobile-first, social media and chats like Discord. But I share your opinion that there appears to be no good solution out there.

DaveRattlehead wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 9:18 pm A few years ago I heard about Tapatalk, which is an app for the mobile phone used to navegate through many forums. Many people log in phpBB forums using this app, but it was said to be insecure. Has anyone heard about it?

I remember looking into Tapatalk, which, IIRC, provides a phpBB plug-in that must expose some kind of API which in turn allows for the forum to be used in their mobile app. However, I read about many security flaws in the process, and while they may have been fixed since, I won't take any risks here.

Speaking of which, a comprehensive API is another must-have that phpBB, well, does not have.