New forum software

[Waldschwein]

Hello!

Just a small information:

We're currently preparing a new forum, that's leaning on the new WebsiteBaker design from the website.
In the course of that we're switching to a new forum software: phpBB3.

The reasons are: It's OpenSource (GPL2), has a better moderation & better anti-spam measurements, an active development, is XHTML strict valid.

Of course all old posts, attachments, etc. are remaining, also all features of the current (SMF) board are available.

For clarification what is possible also in the future:
- Subscription per eMail or Atom-Feeds (Thread- and/or forum based) and the takeover of the current ones.
- Full Multilanguage
- "Show newest posts" and extensive statistics
- Toggling forum categories
- EMail notification of PMs and it's content
- Takeover of all current settings

We're trying to keep all current URLs (e.g. with .htaccess rewrite), because the "URL generation" of phpBB is different from SMF.

Of course a few things are different than now, but we think, it's both a big advantage for moderators / admins and the user and the long-term better solution.

It will take several weeks until we can tell you the date we will move.

Yours Michael