Diversifying IPB product line

[micron]

I am running an IPB forum with over 45k unique visitors everyday. I realize that I am a minority in that respect - the majority of IPB users tend to run much smaller forums. Accordingly I understand its Invision's best interest to listen to the majority of its customer base, who tend to think that packing more features into IPB is a good thing, since they aren't as constrained by the upper limits of hardware. However, for people like me, I tend to see more features as bloatware. I haven't fully tested out 2.1 yet, but knowing that just the JavaScript and CSS loaded into every page is over 80kB makes me cringe inside. That coupled with the 7mB code base, you can see why I will not be upgrading anytime in the near future.

Now Invision might shrug me off as just another customer - after all, I already paid them for the licensing fee. But let me try to convince that I am not just another customer, and many people like me who run larger forums. As customers, we collectively represent a significant population who will come in contact with the IPB software through our websites. This will in turn lead to familiarity of the software, which can only be seen a good thing when webmasters shop around to look for which forum software to install. Even within my community, there are a handful of people who asked me of the forum software I used, all of whom I referred to Invision.

Let me make clear that I love the quality software that Invision produces. Yet as my site grows, ever more rapidly, I find myself looking for alternatives. Moreover, in the long run, packing more and more features into IPB will only make the learning curve steeper, turning off potential new customers who never used the software before.

With that said, I recommend that Invision consider diversifying its IPB product line, one based on new features and one based on scalability. The feature based version will be the current build. The scalable version will only contain minimal forum features, and targeted for large websites who wish to integrate their user databases with a community forum. As said, the scalable version should be able to work with other user database systems, so that integrating the forum should be relatively easy. Sometime like Converge, but instead of a universal user database based on the forum, a universal forum that would work with most generic user databases, which will have the username, email, password, etc. Or even without that feature, just a minimal lean and mean forum with a smart user database system will make me a very happy camper.

Now for something like that, I would definitely be willing to pay premium dollars.

[beeman]

i know for the 2.0.x builds they used todo something simmilar i havent checked the dl manager properlly scince 2.1 was released but they used to offer a download of just the core ipb package ruther then the full bloatwere package

[Michael_C]

I agree with this. :thumbsup:

[Tim Dorr]

This topic page is 8.57KB in size. CSS, Javascript, and images are only downloaded once per user. It's not the 80KB you claim.

Also, the codebase is not 7MB, it's under 4MB and that includes a lot of code that is never touched. Every page view doesn't incur 7MB of code being loaded into memory. Only the files relevant to the current page are loaded.

[micron]

This topic page is 8.57KB in size. CSS, Javascript, and images are only downloaded once per user. It's not the 80KB you claim.

Also, the codebase is not 7MB, it's under 4MB and that includes a lot of code that is never touched. Every page view doesn't incur 7MB of code being loaded into memory. Only the files relevant to the current page are loaded.

Hi Tim Dorr,

Thank you for your concerns, but I am aware that JavaScript and CSS are cached. I never said they were downloaded, I said loaded. The difference between 7mB and 4mB is significant. In my rush, I included everythiing in the 'upload' directory to come up with that number. Regardless, 4mB is still a lot of code to process. When you are pushing close to 2 million page impressions a day, with a 4mB codebase, you are leaving a very large memory footprint. When I said lean and mean, I meant something less than 1mB.

[micron]

i know for the 2.0.x builds they used todo something simmilar i havent checked the dl manager properlly scince 2.1 was released but they used to offer a download of just the core ipb package ruther then the full bloatwere package

Hi beeman,

I believe that the larger package contained all the images while the smaller one contained only php source files.

[Tim Dorr]

When you are pushing close to 2 million page impressions a day, with a 4mB codebase, you are leaving a very large memory footprint. When I said lean and mean, I meant something less than 1mB.

And as I said, that entire codebase isn't loaded with every page view. Only the modules needed for a particular page are loaded. You don't need ACP stuff in a topic view, so that's not loaded there.

[cojo]

I would like to see the software designed to be more modular rather than just two versions. The IPB ultralite which you seek could be the core feature set. All the other stuff IMO ought to be separate plugins/modules which can either be activated or completely removed without modifying code files.

Some here want to add every feature they've ever seen in other forums or around the net. Do the majority of customers find new or proposed features beneficial? Our site doesn't use half the stuff the software has right now.

[micron]

And as I said, that entire codebase isn't loaded with every page view. Only the modules needed for a particular page are loaded. You don't need ACP stuff in a topic view, so that's not loaded there.

Tim Dorr,
Either you think I am really clueless or like pointing out of the obvious, both of which I don't particularly find amusing. But how is this proactive to the purpose of this topic?

I would like to see the software designed to be more modular rather than just two versions. The IPB ultralite which you seek could be the core feature set. All the other stuff IMO ought to be separate plugins/modules which can either be activated or completely removed without modifying code files.

Some here want to add every feature they've ever seen in other forums or around the net. Do the majority of customers find new or proposed features beneficial? Our site doesn't use half the stuff the software has right now.

Hi cojo,
A modular approach is an excellent suggestion! :thumbsup: