It was June 6th, 2001 when I installed my first xmb forum. I asked for assistance from one of the staffers to install it for me. A nice young man (Ben) 15 replied to my request. 14 years later I still look to xmb first for an updated forum I can use. Now it seems obvious that it not going to happen.

I'm saddened by the demise of this once great forum format. My thanks to the founders and the support staff that were able to come together and make something so great. My thoughts and prayers to all.

Thanks from a loyal user of xmb. It is now time for me to look for a newer format for the 5 forums I operate. Not a task I look forward to.

Life goes on for everyone eventually. XMB has survived much. Best wishes.

So, is XMB dead? The last bug fix appears to date from 2012, there hasn't been a single new post in over 2 months, and the last release not including bug fixes dates to 2009.

I think it appears to be a good software which seems retro to use, but what happened to its development and such? Is there some sort of continuation of the board software?

Sure wish it was still being supported and upgraded. My favorite forum I've ever used, and our squads have used it for soooo long we have large boards and don't want to switch to another. I have zero knowledge on how to code, so I have had to rely on XMB's community. Is it ever going to get support again?

XMB is a two way street. There was a huge disconnect with the community which was what drives XMB and always has. Without it there is not much of an evolution for XMB.

Dart: There is little hope, but there is still a future that could arrive for XMB.

The best idea would be to spread word around communities to help support XMB Forum at the current time. I'm using XMB Forum at the moment, for my new forum and most of my current user base like the forum so far.

Hey John! Long time, man! I think about XMB from time to time, thought I would actually drop by and see what was up. Quite a bit has changed for sure!

Quote:

A nice young man (Ben) 15 replied to my request.

Ah - that was Ben! I miss the old gang! Ben, Tularis, Rev, John and so many whose names escapes me. Good times. Sorry to see XMB didn't catch on.

Take care everyone!
Daf

No "goodbyes" from me. Hoping to one day see a resurrection of XMB.

XMB still appears to me to be the best Forum software. Skins are available, and are easy to modify or create your own. The functionality is outstanding, with many useful user settings and the U2U internal messaging system.

Most other Forums seem to be elementary and child-like, but that's what frequently succeeds in today's world of brainless communications, limited functionality, and short attention spans. Think Facebook, texting, Twitter, etc. It is next to impossible to publish something of substance that is built to last and provide easy searching and logical structuring.

XMB helps tremendously in gathering together information, making it readily available, presentable, and to clearly collaborate among information contributors.

It's not perfect, but it meets many of the needs currently not being provided by the aforementioned products and organizations. When packaged for use with a palate of appropriate web apps, excellent/unique websites can be built and maintained. Without the inherent constraints which have been imposed for years by Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, etc. It depends upon what one wishes to accomplish.

If all one prefers to do is sit around and chuckle at photos of someone's toddler, their cat, or pass-around the latest gossip, mean-spirited writings, or troll musings, then FB, Twitter, or other social media is meant for you!

If one wants to publish something meaningful, to be searched and referenced repeatedly, inviting collaborative feedback which is professionally presented, then XMB makes for an excellent foundation.

I agree with JulioFranco's post. Take a look at XenForo, it seriously overdoes the amount of bloat, while XMB is made to be lightweight and fast. I can load an XMB site (this one at least) on a 2G connection relatively quickly, while XenForo takes ages because apparently the modern web requires a website to be fancy and be at least several megabytes of size. Really, should a forum be as bloated as some social media? I don't think so!

XMB also still looks professional and mature, at the same time as being lightweight and fast. It has pretty much all the features you need to get going and it just works.

Again, I agree with the skins. They are rather easy to make and they seem to look pretty good at times. You just need to know good design in order to make one unlike other forum software which require you to mess with per-theme templating and such. It also keeps everything consistent.

As for XMB's status, I noticed fairly recent activity on the bug tracker (from April 2017, so 2 months ago), meaning at least one person out there cares enough to bring bugs to attention. I'm hoping a release of 1.9.11.14 surfaces at least to add something like MySQLi support. ^^

The wait is over folks. I think I may have successfully ported XMB to mysqli. I just need some brave souls to beta test it for me.

Let me know if you guys are interested.

Good to se Daf and John Briggs are still around!

Hey guys,

It's been a while since I was here/4 years+ since posting

Logged in on a whim and was surprised to see I'm a moderator!

Quote: Originally posted by Mark

Hey guys, It's been a while since I was here/4 years+ since posting Logged in on a whim and was surprised to see I'm a moderator!

Hey Mark. How are you buddy?

Quote: Originally posted by John Briggs

Quote: Originally posted by Mark   Hey guys, It's been a while since I was here/4 years+ since posting Logged in on a whim and was surprised to see I'm a moderator! Hey Mark. How are you buddy?

I'm very well, thank you mate.

How about yourself?

I am good. Thinking about digging up my xmb archives and trying to relearn php and port some of my old mods to the latest version. Life is as good as can be. No complaints.

Quote: Originally posted by Xian

The wait is over folks. I think I may have successfully ported XMB to mysqli. I just need some brave souls to beta test it for me. Let me know if you guys are interested. Good to se Daf and John Briggs are still around!

You could always try running it on a test server on localhost or something, if it works, I'll be very interested since I run an XMB Forum site and want to use PHP 7.

I did test this on a localhost dev server running:

Apache 2.4.27
MariaDB 10.1.26
PHP 7.1.8

If more people can beta test this besides me it would be better.

I'm sure that some hacks might also need modifications for this.

Works good on PHP 5.6 latest version and MySQL 5.5, need to upgrade to PHP 7 on my server and test it there at some point.

Quote: Originally posted by John Briggs

I am good. Thinking about digging up my xmb archives and trying to relearn php and port some of my old mods to the latest version. Life is as good as can be. No complaints.

Sounds good! I've been a professional full-stack dev for the last 6 years now, maybe thinking about having a relook at XMB, and seeing if I can jazz it up with some more advanced features.

That'd be pretty sweet of you if you could do that Mark.

Quote: Originally posted by Mark

Quote: Originally posted by John Briggs   I am good. Thinking about digging up my xmb archives and trying to relearn php and port some of my old mods to the latest version. Life is as good as can be. No complaints. Sounds good! I've been a professional full-stack dev for the last 6 years now, maybe thinking about having a relook at XMB, and seeing if I can jazz it up with some more advanced features.

Good to hear from you again Mark! Hopefully we all can revive XMB!