archive feature

[sallam]

Greetings

It would be great if IPB has an archive system. Admin can then set a date in ACP, before which all topics are made into static html pages, and then deleted from the databse, leaving only some kind of linkage to their new location. This would be a very helpful feature for big forums that suffer from bulky databases, keeping it always nice and slim. After all, who would want to reply to a 2 year old topic? and even if they do, it would look ugly when it suddenly shows up and takes over the top.

The layout can be same as the lofiversion pages, but in static html, without using the database.
I hope Matt considers making this feature in a future release.

[tomek__w]

I would like to expand on this suggestion somewhat as I think this could be a very good idea.

Perhaps a db extract/archive/copy of all posts older than a specific date into another db (read only??) BUT also have a means of accessing this db from the main board, especially a facility of being able to search it.

How difficult would it be to be able to select which db to use? Maybe have a simple selection screen/menu to allow a member to select/switch from a list of available db's, for instance:-

1. Current posts - 2005 to today
2. Old posts - 2003 to 2005
3. Old posts - 2001 to 2003

We can, after all, select which skin to use..........

I am sure that this would be very useful for large boards who do not want to 'lose' their older information but gain the efficiency of a smaller db.

Going one stage further - would it be possible to have two or more (several?) db's associated with a single board. i.e. A db associated with a specific forum or category etc.

Just my 2 pence worth.