Such a shame, but I finally transferred back to phpBB a week or so ago.
This project has so much potential, the beta was really outstanding - hats off to that.
I've been trying to achieve complete integration for a long time now, and FB looked to be the icing on the cake.

This may seem like a pointless post, but I'm just letting the devs know the reasons why I'm leaving so perhaps they can do something about the issues to not let it happen again.

1. Terribly behind the roadmap
Understandable! It's open source - and you guys have lives outside, but me, the average user who only checks the front page and doesnt have time to sift through thousands of forum posts is terribly uninformed. Communication would have definately helped this!

2. SMF to FB Converter (And it's thread)
I wasn't in on from the start, but I had been waiting (very excitedly) from very early on, and it was just one disappointment after another. Again, a lack of accurate information, and absolutely no moderation to a 40 page long thread (even after several requests from other users). This may have changed, I haven't checked in a while.
It's very simple things like that, which shows that the developers are active, and care about the community.

3. Lack of front page updates
This kind of led me to believe that the project was dead. Terrible conlusion, I know, but again, it's the main thing I check, and it hasn't changed in months.

4. Permissions
I know this will probably be fixed in future versions, but the permissions were incredibly flimsy. I also understand that this is more a joomla fault than FB, but nevertheless, it is one of the reasons I've left FB. I run a average size css clan which has multiple teams and private boards, some of which are shared between groups. After much testing and mucking around, this seemed impossible to achieve.



So yep, best of luck - Very awesome project, don't loose hope - but if you can maybe take a few of those points on board, you may not loose more people who are in a similar situation as me.

I'll check back from time to time, and if things have changed, I might come back and give it another go
Good Luck!

I too have been patiently waiting for the stable version of the board to be announced. I would like to see an update on the front page regarding the stable release. FireBoard has to be one of the best products I have seen yet for Joomla. Hopefully all is going well.

If people are so interested in what is going on, the easiest way to see what progress has been made is to review the SVN. Once in the SVN, if you click on the highest revision number listed, you will see all revisions with notes. It's just my opinion on the best way for finding info on where the project is at.

d3v1an7 wrote:
1. Terribly behind the roadmap
2 weeks is terribly behind??!! They said mid july and it's just the end. Patience is a virtue.

2. SMF to FB Converter (And it's thread)
I converted, hiccups and all. It's not the easiest at the moment, but it is do-able. Considering you're moving to a beta, that's understandable.

3. Lack of front page updates. This kind of led me to believe that the project was dead.
Have you seen the forum? Oh, wait you have...or the SVN? I don't even understand SVN, but I was finally able to connect and see what was going on.

4. Permissions. I know this will probably be fixed in future versions, but the permissions were incredibly flimsy. I also understand that this is more a joomla fault than FB
1...It's a beta!! 2...you just said it had nothing to do with FB.

We've all been frustrated and keen to see new versions come along, but for a free piece of software that was released fully stating it was a beta, I'm happy to wait whilst some of the rough edges get resolved.

Phil

Sorry, I mis-read the roadmap, I thought permissions were due in 1.0.2.

I also 'successfully' converted, but ended up with thousands of duplicate posts and everything ended up in quite a mess. When converting back to phpbb3, the fb database was in such disarray, I simply reverted back form the previous smf install.

I've seen the forum, but I don't have the time to sift through thousands of random posts.
Support is messy between the 2 separate versions, everything on the forums seems to be a bit of a mess. Moderation, cleaning and stickying would help this - Too much work to fix whats already done, but perhaps when the new version is out, lock all the previous support boards and simply have one, where the user specifies which version they are using in their post.
Far be it for me to tell people how to run their boards - It's simply a suggestion that I have seen work perfectly well on other forums.

As for the SVN, again, I've had a brief look (as every noob would) in the front page and through the menu items. Not easy to find!

Again, I realise that this is free and provided in the spare time of some talented guys, my point was not to put this down, or complain about bugs in a BETA - that's just silly.


I'm simply providing the reasons as to why me (I consider myself an 'average' user) have left the project, so the developers have some idea as to why, and perhaps look at these issues. It's not complex stuff, just time consuming really.

whouse wrote:
If people are so interested in what is going on, the easiest way to see what progress has been made is to review the SVN. Once in the SVN, if you click on the highest revision number listed, you will see all revisions with notes. It's just my opinion on the best way for finding info on where the project is at.

The point is that we should not have to rely solely on the SVN to figure out what is happening with the project. Some users and newbies in particular will not necessarily gravitate to the SVN to find out what is going on. This is what the roadmap is for. This is also (presumably) what this site is for. I don't want to slog through the site or the forums all day looking for news on any project. Who has time for that? This is what the news page or the front page of any site is for. If the front page is not up to date, what is the point of having one?

Yes, there is a roadmap. Yes, it is only a couple of weeks behind. Yes, it is open source and unless I am paying for it I have no right or justification to demand a gold release of Fireboard. That is not what I am asking.

All I ask is this.

www.bestofjoomla.com/component/option,co...d,66/id,16442/#16470

Hi There,

You have studied communication, and I am sure that you are already aware of the fact that this is not a business model. This project and other projects here are our free-time projects. I am doing my PH.D studies along side other IT projects and yet find time to take this forum further, which basicly means all the free time I could have invested for "myself". Anyway, the point is that people unfortunately like to discuss matters rather than actually helping. There are others that do help, like whouse, pable and other dev team, translation team and .... So please if you find this project slow, give a hand too and reduce the time that me and other devs are spending on forums,... so we can use our time efficiently.

This turned out to be a complaining respond sorry for this. Regarding the release, we are nearly finished with RC2, so hopefully you will have a working version, and stable enough, to start with toward this weekend.

Please help the team so we can go faster.

If this were a Paid Component, I would understand complaints, but it is not. The fact that these developers are taking time out of their personal lives to try and make something great for our community is something that should be well praised.

I am not a developer, but I do take time out of my day to try and visit these forums and help members sort out problems. But that doesn't have to be limited to just the support team or mods. Anyone can jump in and offer help.

As far as time frames go...I would MUCH rather have a delayed and less buggy release than a release that has been put out because a deadline has expired.

palebluedot wrote:
If this were a Paid Component, I would understand complaints, but it is not. The fact that these developers are taking time out of their personal lives to try and make something great for our community is something that should be well praised.

I am not a developer, but I do take time out of my day to try and visit these forums and help members sort out problems. But that doesn't have to be limited to just the support team or mods. Anyone can jump in and offer help.

As far as time frames go...I would MUCH rather have a delayed and less buggy release than a release that has been put out because a deadline has expired.

Totally 100% agree with you, I know I have made a post or two asking for a road map upgrade, and if that was taken as me being impatient I do apologise, it was merely just so I can keep an eye on things from time to time to see how it is coming along and for my own planning.

I take my hat off to the dev's and others helping out, as said in their own free time while doing other work and study, and hope that other users of your forums component and these forums will take a breath and realise they are not paying for a product and should not be unreasonable and just be patient - or use something else...

I guess what I am trying to say is to all those that do offer their time and help developing such a great forum component there are a few that will complain but there will be many more that do appreciate your work and I for one am included in that bunch - so keep up the great work and please be assured your efforts are being appreciated greatly.

cheers

well...well....well.

i guess we can find an in-between the 2 sides.

Yes there is a lack of information. And maybe asking around the forum to take care of this would have help. At least a little word: "it's coming but a few more bugs to fix".
if you look at the RSS feed of the site, it's still the same info for the 1.0.1 beta was released.

But like we said before, The dev. are doing all this tremendous work on their own time for free. Can some one tell me where on earth do you find such great philosophy/spirit than in the Open Source Community.
You've got better product and better support than any of the giants out there like MS, or other paid product.

Let me remind those who complain that if you want to have an answer presto for a paid product, you either count on the community of that product or you max out your credit card by calling tech support! And talking about MS, no need to talk about bugs unfixed.

that being said: when is it out? ....just kidding.

So to cheer up everybody, let's have an old "bashing MS" joke: how do microsoft developers change a light bulb? they don't, they just redefine darkness as a standard!

cheers everyone.

keep up the great work guys