Migrating from Discus

Discus is a message board software by DiscusWare. Migration from Discus boards to Drupal forums can be done in two or three steps. Some possible procedures are for example:

• Discus -> phpBB 2 -> Drupal
• Discus -> phpBB 2 -> phpBB 3 -> Drupal
• Discus -> vBulletin -> Drupal

Migration to Drupal via phpBB 2 or 3

For the Discus -> phpBB 2 step, see markus_freerela's converter on the phpBB discussion Discus 4 --> phpBB2 convertor, which also includes other converters. Markus' script has several versions that you can try, in order to find the most suitable for your board. Download links are: 2.0, 2.0.1, 2.0.2, 2.1.0, 2.1.1, 2.2.0, 2.2.1, 2.2.3, 2.2.4. To install the needed old phpBB2 version, see Download legacy release (phpBB, like Drupal, is open source).

For the phpBB 2 or 3 -> Drupal steps, see Drupal's phpBB2Drupal module, and the handbook section Migrating from phpBB.

Migration to Drupal via vBulletin

For the Discus -> vBulletin step, there are two modules for DiscusWare in vBulletin's ImpEx Import System: the older discus_file, and the more recent and probably more complete DiscusWare4Pro_tabfile. If Discus was using the optional database, you should export its data (users, etc.) to files with Discus Administration (Database Manager) before the conversion. Also, to export the posts to a tabfile (tab-delimited messages), see the Backup Manager. Two related threads are: 1, 2. If the Discus auto-archiving of messages was enabled, see this post for a workaround.

For the vBulletin -> Drupal step, see the vBulletin to Drupal module, and the handbook page Migrating from vBulletin.

Features and performance

For a Drupal forum with features similar to those of well-known forum systems such as phpBB and vBulletin, see the Advanced Forum module.

For good speed and performance similar to those of Discus' static html files, see Drupal's Boost static cache for anonymous users, and other performance modules.