To update everyone on the progress toward a new version of this website, it has now become clear that we will need to change this platform to something else. There is a plan to procede with manageable resources, so I'm hoping that the migration can get started very soon. Thanks again for your patience everybody. Meanwhile, to insert images into your posts, I'd advise again to use third party websites like https://postimg.cc/ where you can upload and then copypaste links or thumbnail links.

From the platform options, Joomla looks like it will be the better option. This is quite similar to WP, but the wp forum, like most useful wp addons, seems come with a ballast of premium features. Meanwhile, the Drupal advanced forum (this one) and the Joomla kunena forum don't need subscriptions. As a preview of what a DTCA website with Joomla could look like, here's an example https://joomla160724.dtcawebsite.com/index.php/forum/placeholder-categor...

To give an update about the site migration, and following up on where I've mentioned moving to the Joomla system. This current system, called Drupal, is in a chaotic phase of development to the point where it's not viable to pursue as an upgrade option. I had informally agreed with the committee to buy a piece of assistance tooling to move all the data that's here into a Joomla platform, to which I've linked above. On final investigation, and at the point of installing this tool, I find that it doesn't work. In fact there are no automation tool available at the moment, which only leaves a manual method. This is what I had to do to get this current site to work originally. (now having developed some unwanted quirks). In a way, this is good to know because it settles what the approach must be. It does leave a possibility of some choppy transfers - such as we saw some broken up threads and titles before. This might mean some retrospective sorting of pages, but hopefully nothing too major. There's no chance of breaking anything else here meanwhile.

Hi Ravi, It might come to a wp installation because I see there is an available migration assistant. My main reservation with wp is that absolutely everything above the most basic features is premium (including a forum and even the theme... so it has a bit of a blank cheque feel about it), I know the joomla standarad forum is solid and joomla is more configurable generally. That's possibly offset by wp being maybe more portable in the sense that it could be shuffled to a managed host elsewhere pretty easily - and one of the plugin forums might be perfectly adequate. At any rate, I've popped up a wp demo site which I'll be evaluating https://dtcawebsite.live-website.com/

hi Ravi - I'm going to press on this weekend with the Joomla installation since I've made progress in that direction, so I'll see how far I can get with migrating some data. I've assembled a joomla friendly sql dump of members and think I've set up the smtp side of things so password resetting can happen. I think it's inevitable that the members will have to reset passwords because the requirements are more stringent these days and the encryption protocol seems to have changed, so I can't just copy the old encryptions and expect they will work. I did try this with a test account and it would not play easy. Anyway, the task tomorrow will be to try and replicate the forum structure and start to mirror the content.

Hi Ravi, if you have a chance, please can you try to login at the new website? I've activated and enabled your user but I'm fairly sure you will need to change your password ( it will not affect your password here). Your username is the same. You should be able to see some static content and your profile. You should be able to reach the forum too. By default, the forum shows recent topic when you land there. Click the Index link at the top to see where I've copied in all the structure from this place. If you could post some text and pics, that will be a good test too. I'll clear the decks afterwards if it looks okay, because I have the forum contents in big sql files that I can start to migrate. I did all the users first, this evening, because the posts will need to be matched to the authors as they load in.

Sorry, Ravi, I thought I'd mentioned the joomla platform address ... which is at https://joomla160724.dtcawebsite.com/

Yes, I think everyone will need to reset their passwords on the new site, when it comes to it. Can you see a link under the login that says Forgot Your Password? Hopefully the reset process will work. It will not affect your password on this website... they are quite separate.

I will have a look later. None of the forum data has moved over yet, so there's nothing really there. I'll try to move some in tonight.

Thanks Ravi, I'll have another look and see if I missed something. There may be a seperate permission between the site login and the forum.

hi Ravi, I think your error message is from trying to see a page on the new site from a bookmark that is based on this site. All the url formations are going to be different - so for example this page comment/14395#comment-14395 but on the new site it will be /index.php/forum/dtca-website/8269-dtca-website-upgrade-2023. Everyone will have to update their bookmarks, if they have any.
I should say that the new website is rapidly getting close to being ready. I have mitgrated all the data apart from a few articles and indexed everything. Just need to migrate all the pictures that trail the topics and comments. Hopefully will do that this week and then I can start to think about making a general announcement about some start date and guidance about resetting passwords. It has to be said that this has been another colossal task the last 2 or 3 weeks. Probably 20-30 hours trying to unpick and repack all the data tables. The new forum uses bbcodes , which are much more secure. So I had to groom out all the problematic html tags from about 24,000 posts and comments. Anyway, the experience should be improved. Could you check it out and see if you can navigate and find things? I haven't ultra-tested the search feature.