Hello. I'm just chiming in as a CB newbie (but old user of SMF back when it was YABBSE).
Based upon what I've read at the SMF home site, I'd strongly advise against pushing this issue any further. I went to the poll thread, and it's already degenerating into the same ol "CB is useless - go away!" mentality that seems incredibly pervasive and entrenched over there. Even the most intelligent pro-CB posts are being met with relative hostility, and it just seems to me the SMF team is not at all interested in CB integration of any kind. In fact, right now, I'm not entirely too surefooted as to their relationship with Joomla/$ambo at this point.
Ironically, it was the closer relationship with this extremely popular CMS that helped pushed SMF more into the spotlight.
I've started a thread over there regarding achieving CB features without CB. If nothing else, I hope that the SMF team understands that "plug and play" extendability is indeed an important issue for any interactive software producer to consider. CB is on the right track with the plug-in architecture. Right now, though it is indeed powerful and can be shaped to provide roughly equivalent functionality (which the team quickly claims), SMF simply is not easy for the
average webmaster to extend. THAT is the truth that the SMF team isn't getting right now for some odd reason. Sure, you can tell me I just need to create a special skin/theme - but then that assumes I have the coding skills needed to do so.
My personal spin on this situation? You either want a powerful forum or high level of interactivity/integration. At least until Joomlaboard is a more mature product (no disrespect!), sadly, you can't have both right now. I'm only concerned because I have a site that is heavily entrenched with SMF, and I really don't want to have to restart my forums. For sites in development, I can simply use Joomlaboard and be done with it.
Hopefully, Cowboy (who produces my favorite SMF bridge) will resolve the CB RC2 login issue. If so, then this will become a moot point for me. Whatever the case, whatever version of SMF works at that point may possibly be the LAST incarnation of SMF I use.
For what it's worth...
Regards,
Brat.
Post edited by: Brat, at: 2005/12/16 08:56