TheCodex said
Hello.  Im looking to get away as fast as I can from vbulletin.

I have a forum with about 250,000 posts that I would need to import along with the member lists, avatars, images, threads, etc.  Do you have an import tool for this?

Our own importer  will not handle uploaded images or avatars if they are also uploaded. And those kinds of numbers would probably best be handled locally before being loaded up to a live site. I would strongly suggest you go look at http://gconverters.com/ which we hear good things about and can manage a more extensive import then our own currently available tools.

VBulletin is also somewhat idiosyncratic in that way it stores it’s data and would probably benefit from the experience gcovnvertes have.

Can simple:press handle a medium sized forum like this?

There are many SP users with what we would consider pretty large forums. Numbers are not really a problem.

All of the membership will be handled with SSO through wordpress?  So for billing for access and recurring billing, I would like to use s2Member.  Would simple:press be compatible?

I myself am unsure what SSO is but we do have users utlilising S2Member. The main thing is that whatever plugin is used, it respects and correctly uses the WordPress API.

I would plan on buying the $135 support option so I can have access to everything possible.

Can I setup private forums and restrict access via usernames?

Within SP, access is controlled more by user groups matched to sets of permissions per forum. if you look at our FAQs (sidebar menu – ‘how to’) there is one in setting up a membership plugin – using WishList – but the principles are the same for all SP membership plugins.

Thanks for any information you can provide!

Yellow Swordfish said

TheCodex said
Hello.  Im looking to get away as fast as I can from vbulletin.

I have a forum with about 250,000 posts that I would need to import along with the member lists, avatars, images, threads, etc.  Do you have an import tool for this?

Our own importer  will not handle uploaded images or avatars if they are also uploaded. And those kinds of numbers would probably best be handled locally before being loaded up to a live site. I would strongly suggest you go look at http://gconverters.com/ which we hear good things about and can manage a more extensive import then our own currently available tools.

VBulletin is also somewhat idiosyncratic in that way it stores it’s data and would probably benefit from the experience gcovnvertes have.

Can simple:press handle a medium sized forum like this?

There are many SP users with what we would consider pretty large forums. Numbers are not really a problem.

All of the membership will be handled with SSO through wordpress?  So for billing for access and recurring billing, I would like to use s2Member.  Would simple:press be compatible?

I myself am unsure what SSO is but we do have users utlilising S2Member. The main thing is that whatever plugin is used, it respects and correctly uses the WordPress API.

I would plan on buying the $135 support option so I can have access to everything possible.

Can I setup private forums and restrict access via usernames?

Within SP, access is controlled more by user groups matched to sets of permissions per forum. if you look at our FAQs (sidebar menu – ‘how to’) there is one in setting up a membership plugin – using WishList – but the principles are the same for all SP membership plugins.

Thanks for any information you can provide!

Your quick response is very impressive, thank you!

I did read a little about the membership permissions.  That seems pretty straight forward.

Is it possible to hide forums that are not available to certain users?

For example:  I will have 3 forums.  Only a select few have access to 2 of them.  Everyone has access to one of them.  So Yellow Swordfish logs in, and he only has permission to view one forum.  Can it be set where that’s the only one he sees in his forum list?  I need the other 2 forums to be hidden to those without access to them.  Completely hidden.

i’ll checkout gconverter.  Thanks.  How many can your importer handle?  It is possible that we dump data older than 5 years old, just wondering if that would put us in the threshold of using your importer?

Thanks for your help!

On the access side then yes – that is exactly how things would work. There are two forums we use here that you will not be able to see or have any knowledge of because of our user group/permission system. Only a very small handful of people can see and use them. The API for this is pretty robust and very well tested out.

As to import numbers then I wouldn’t really like to say. Is is dependent upon so many conditions like volume of post text, numbers of posts in topics, performance of the server etc., The main problem is one of timeout and, to be totally frank, is an area where our import tools need some code revisions! Thje vBuletin script we have available was actually written by a user for their own forum import (which they went ahead with) so I know very little about it as such. A few users have used it I do know that. But as I said, I also know from my own investigations that vBulletin has used some odd data structures which just makes the task more complex and time-consuming and thus more prone to timeouts on large forums.

Few more questions…

the Forum page would display the header/footer of the rest of the pages since it’s just a page inside the wordpress template?

The users with access to the forum; I would NOT want them to have access to the entire site.  I have a few guys that post articles, and those would keep access.  But I would not want users to have access to write articles and see the dashboard.  Can I also assign forum moderator permissions so not everyone has certain rights to change posts made by others?  Is this possible as well?

If I am importing from vbulletin; should I download the free version and tinker with it setting up the individual forums and all and then import into it?  What is the best process for this?  I also would like to make sure it will work before paying the $135.  Do you have a 30 day money back guarentee if it doesnt work out?  From everything I have seen and read I am confident that this is the best solution for us though.

Hey TheCodex,

Yes the forum just runs on one WordPress page dynamically, so it would appear as any other WP page as it does here.

I’m not really sure what relation Simple Press has to your users having access to other areas of your WordPress site. Although SP has it’s own user groups and permissions to control forum access, these are forum specific groups and permissions, not WP. It is worth mentioning that SP doesn’t have it’s own unique users however, users are still controlled through WP – So controlling access elsewhere would be down to your membership plugin / other WP plugins.

Yes the best way to get started is definitely downloading the core plugin and having a play. I’m not sure if importing from another forum will have any major impact as to where you are in the set up of things, although it’s probably best to do that first so you can then organise things around a forum with content.

Unfortunately no we don’t offer a money back guarantee as once you’ve purchased a membership or plugin and downloaded it’s then yours. We don’t use product keys or have any method of retrieving what you’ve downloaded. However hopefully you should have a good idea of whether it will work for you having used the core plugin, imported and played with things. And of course we are here nearly 24/7 to help where needed.

Hope that helps!

On the money back question then this is actually covered in our membership policy: https://simple-press.com/membership-policy/

And Ie is correct regarding access. Sitewide access is totally under the control of WP. Forum access works independently and in tandem with that

Gconverter made mention of importing users and changing their passwords.

But how will I import the users to have access/login to the forum?

I’m still not quite clear on this.

I have downloaded the base package and will begin working on that in the next day or two.

Your users do not log into the forum. They log into your website which is totally under the control of WordPress. For anything user registration, login, logout etc., see WordPress.

Yellow Swordfish said
On the money back question then this is actually covered in our membership policy: https://simple-press.com/membership-policy/

And Ie is correct regarding access. Sitewide access is totally under the control of WP. Forum access works independently and in tandem with that

This answered my question.  I want to let people in the simple:press forum set up their own UserID and password.  Thank you Yellow Swordfish.

You’re welcome. Any number of plugins will allow for the password to be user-defined at registration time.