try this online html to bbcode converter.

don’t think you can do the other way round.

i had this problem with one of the site i built with smf. the page load time is about 18 secs. but the page load is normal when logged in as admin user.

if enable and depends on the theme, the forum will show somewhere on the page the time to load the current page.

in this particular scenerio, you need to change an admin option. in Layout and Options, look for ‘Disable hostname lookups?‘. check it.

i don’t understand why it works. but it works!

this is not a tutorial on how to do it, but rather a note on how to fix a the correct location of themes after data is imported. this is provided the sites are on the same server. for cases such as, using live or production data at another site for testing / development purposes.

note: for moving your forum, read this post from the official smf forum, which provides a better guide..

one thing i don’t like about smf is domain name and file path are hard-coded and stored in database. because live and test sites are at different locations or directories yet on the same server, the test site will continue to work but it is using the theme used by the live site. if you’re trying to make changes to the theme, you’ll be wondering why you don’t see the change no matter how many time the browser is refreshed.

to globally change the theme location

• export data from production db and import into testing or development db
• login as admin
• go to admin > themes and layout settings > Reset Theme URLs and Directories
• scroll down the page, click ‘attempts to reset all themes’

in smf, everything is driven / processed by index.php. files with this name is also used as the default startup page when a website / directory is accessed.

if you don’t want to use the forum as the default page and want to write your own, one way is to install the forum in a subdirectory. but if you want to use the same directory as the forum, you can rename the file and write your own index.php.

to rename index.php to [newname].php:

• vi Sources/QueryString.php
• search for $scripturl = $boardurl . ‘/index.php’; - replace index.php with [newname].php

this information is taken from one of smf’s forum post [link…]

ok, i’m exaggerating. but if you believed what the title said, i got your attention.

i play an online game called world of warcraft, or WoW for short. it’s very addictive, if you love it.

but i’m not going to talk about the game here. i’m talking about the website i built for my guild.

the main purpose of the website is for guild members to communicate. hence a forum is required. a forum by itself is boring. it needs a nice front page.

the solution? simple machines forum (smf) with tiny portal (tp) as the front page. strictly speaking, tp is not a product by itself. it’s a mod (or addon) for smf.

installation

here are briefly the steps (for detail instruction refer to documents at relevant websites):

• setup mysql database for this website.
• download smf and tp. registration is required to download tp.
• install smf - upload downloaded smf to server and untar / unzip to website directory. access the site via browser to install. follow instruction.
• install tp - login smf as admin. go to admin > packages to browse and upload tp. apply mod and follow instruction.
• now a basic website is ready. setup forum and tp and select themes etc.

so it took more than 3 minutes. maybe just an afternoon. keep in mind that i’ve already had prior experiences with smf.

wow theme

most of the time was spent on looking for the perfect theme. imo, the best WoW related theme (there aren’t many out there) for smf is this. for smf + tp version, download here.

of course it’ll take even longer if you wish to customize your own site.

so if you want a simple community website, nothing too fancy, smf + tp is the perfect solution. anything fancier, you may need anther cms product.