The first enhancement is that deleted and suspended users are now automatically deactivated in phpBB3.  This means that they can not log on or be seen but the posts remain visible.  You should review each user and either delete them, leave them as deactivated or ban the user and then re-activate the account as you wish.  phpBB3 handles deleted users in a different way – the account is removed and if you wish to keep the posts these are transferred to the anonymous user (but keep the same poster user-name).  You should probably do this for any deleted users that you had in DF (although you should permanently delete as many of those as you can before the convertion).

The second enhancement is that simple html in forum descriptions is now automatically converted into bbcode.  In DF is was possible to use bold, italic and underline html codes in forum descriptions but in phpBB3 this is not allowed so these are converted into the appropriate bbcodes so that the formatting is kept intact after the conversion.

The last enhancement is that time zone-correction is now automatic – providing that you do your conversion in the same time-zone as the DF server (so if you test locally in a different time-zone the times may be off by an hour or so).  I think that this is a better option and easier to manage than having to set and unset options.  This uses a php function that required php5.2+ but I expect that most people will have this by now.

This is done using the .current-cat class.  You need to add an entry for this class in your style.css for you to utilise this feature, for example

li.current-cat a { color: #000000; font-weight: bold; }

will make the link for the currently displayed category be bold with black text.

If you don’t wish to make use of this feature, then you don’t need to add anything to your css.  It’s totally optional and the widget will work as it did before.

This release is pretty serious.  Lets talk about the enhancements first

Enhancement 1 : BBcode conversion

There are a number of differences between the BBcode used in DF and that used as standard in phpBB3.  The convertor tries to do the most sensible conversion for each type of BBcode in DF.  Those codes that work in both systems are left alone ([b], [i], [u], [url], [email], [img], [quote], [code], [list], [color] and of those that don't exist in phpBB3, some are removed ([hr], [marq]), some are changed to fit existing codes ([flash], [size]) and some are changed to use codes that you can easily add to phpBB3 in the ACP ([align], [video], [php]).  You can easily add an extra conversion or two in the function if you wish (look for the function df_fix_bbcodes in functions_dragonfly.php).

 Enhancement 2 : URL Replacements

If your forum is anything like mine it will be full of links to forums, topics post and other bits of the site.  None of these will have the same URLs on the new phpBB board.  This enhancement converts the more common URLs to their new formats.  This is limited to Forum and Your Account links because I don't know what you will do with other modules so can't decide.  You can easily add an extra conversion or two in the function if you wish (look for the function df_fix_forum_urls in functions_dragonfly.php)

NB:  If you use LEO then you'll have different links that also won't work but won't be converted.  You'll have to sort yourself out.

Enhancement 3 : Time Zone Correction

So you live in the EU and host in the USA.  Your time zone is CET (+1) and your hosts is "Central Time" (-6).  In DF all the posts in your database are stored in your hosts time (-6).  These are then converted and displayed using either your setting or your boards setting to give you local times (or that for your guests).  This is dumb.  In phpBB3 they have done something much more sensible.  All posts are stored in GMT (+0) and converted to your local time as per DF.  Why is this better.  Because if you get a better hosting package somewhere else in the world the times for your existing posts will still be correct.  In DF they won't be.  They will be offset by the difference in the two locations.  I digress.  DF is almost behind us.

What this enhancement offers is a time zone correction to reset all the times to GMT.  If this isn't done after the conversion all the previous posts will be treated as GMT times and so if they are not in fact GMT, the post times will be offset in the other direction.  In the case above they will be six hours ahead (+6).

To do the conversion we need to know the time-zone of the server.  There is no 100% reliable method for this (especially if you change hosts or are testing locally) so we need to get it from somewhere.  You therefore need to set your system timezone in DF (Admin -> Forums -> Forums Tab -> Configuration) to the same time zone as your server (in this example above this will be -6).  You can set it back afterwards in phpBB3 so that it reflects that of most of your guests.  This is not great and I'm working on sorting it out another way - but this does sort out the times correctly.

Various Bug Fixes

I've fixed bugs with avatar paths and user name collision checking (neither of which you will have noticed) and I've also changed the topic icon import process to replace icons rather than add them to the list.  This means that you'll have to add in any new icons from phpBB3 that you like, but this way it makes the conversion process repeatable and all tables work the same way (they are emptied first).

Delete My Account UCP Tab

The mod, by default, assigns any posts to the guest user with a unique name (based on the old users ID).  There is an option to set a role or group permission to also give users the ability to delete their posts.  It this is set to Yes then a third check box is displayed on the Delete My Account tab for users to choose to remove their posts as well.

This is a simple mod, but I welcome any suggestion or comments that you may have to improve it.

The enhancements are:

• an option to change the date format on the administration page
• an option to change the number of events per page on the administration page
• The event name is no longer limited to 255 characters and has a larger input area

There is also a new options page under settings where you can choose your preferred settings (year, month or day first for the date format and a range of numbers from 10 to 100 for the per-page event listing).  The defaults are as original settings (year first and 10 events per page).  After upgrading you should go to the new settings page and click save settings if you have any errors on the Historic Events pages.

There are also a few minor html and css fixes.

You should note that you can enter very large events names (thousands of characters) however the widget is not designed for pages of text so your event listing may not look good with super long names.  Also although you can enter line breaks in the administration screen, these will not be shown, either in the list of events nor in the widget itself.  This is not a bug but expected behaviour.