Re: The File Section
Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2026 7:51 pm
Gone but not forgotten...
Page 2 of 2
Re: The File Section
Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2026 9:25 pm
Funnily enough, I just published a new version of KM too. The old version kept erroring out under the modern Excel, so I changed the name of some of the named items and saved it as a .xlsm file, so version 9.23 is out there.
https://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/app. ... le_id=1888
Re: The File Section
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2026 7:12 pm
When I try to download it I get an empty dload.txt file...The Robman wrote: Tue Jan 20, 2026 9:25 pmFunnily enough, I just published a new version of KM too. The old version kept erroring out under the modern Excel, so I changed the name of some of the named items and saved it as a .xlsm file, so version 9.23 is out there.
https://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/app. ... le_id=1888
Re: The File Section
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2026 9:03 am
I just fixed it, try it now.
Re: The File Section
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2026 12:55 pm
Thanks Rob! That's a lot of work.
Re: The File Section
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2026 5:33 pm
I wrote this up for a friend, so I thought I'd share it here too...
If you're interested, here's the backstory for what's gone on with the website this last year. I first created the forum around 2003 approximately and I probably used what was the latest version of PHPBB at the time, which is version 2.0.17. I knew that I needed a file section, so we could move all of our files over from Yahoo Groups, so I searched and found a "mod" called PaFileDB. "Mods" were what they called these modifications that you could make to PHPBB to add new features. The mod author would write a detailed description of how to add the mod, stuff like "go to line 1234 in somefile.php, which says 'protected $php_ext;' and after it add the following block of code:". The PaFileDB mod was quite extensive, modifying lots of files. This made it quite difficult to accept new versions of PHPBB, so I didn't. At some point, I think in 2014, I added the Wiki. I didn't even think about new versions of that, so I just left it. Then, fast forward to 2025, my ISP host (GoDaddy), tells me that my site is using PHP version 5.4, but the latest version is 8.3 and they're cutting off free support for all of the old versions. So, my choice was to either start paying an extra $300 or so a month for them to support 5.4, or upgrade. I knew that upgrading would kill the site, but it's what I had to do. The choice was made easier by the fact that the old server was becoming so unreliable. That's when the site went down. Then, in the background, I started installing PHPBB 3.3.15 but was having trouble because it required a more recent version of MySQL that what my server was using, so I talked to GoDaddy and they said that I'd have to migrate to a new server, but the good news is that they did that work for me, so the site got moved, and the new server is SO much better. Next, I successfully installed PHPBB 3.3.15 and used their tools to load the old database content over to the new version, which meant the forum was restored. I installed the latest version of MediaWiki, I had been using 1.19 and now it's 1.44, but they don't offer any conversion utilities, so with Copilot's help I was able to get the old version running locally so I could do an "export" and then use the resulting file to do an "import" on the new version, and that worked. Then I did some database manipulation to recreate all of the userids and to edit the history so it showed the actual userid of the person who made the edit all those years ago.
If you're curious what I mean when I say I got the old version of the Wiki running locally, Copilot had me install a program called xampp, which lets you run a php website and MySQL database, locally, so now I have a test environment, which I never had before. I had to find an old version of xampp from the archives that used php 5.4 in order to get the old wiki running to do the export. For the file section, as I found it wasn't possible to have both versions of xampp running on one computer, I installed the old version on a 2nd computer so I could get the old version of the file section running, so I could see how things were supposed to work and take screenshots to give to Copilot. Then I used my main computer to start creating the new file section.
When I started searching for solutions for the file section, I discovered that phpbb no longer uses mods, they now use extensions, which makes upgrading your phpbb version so much easier as they are completely separate entities. I also found that somebody had written an extension version of pafiledb, so I thought I was all set, however it turned out that they never finished it. Copilot assured me that people did have the new version up and running on websites, but I doubt that that is true, as this extension needed SO MUCH work to get it usable.
For the first pass, I gave Copilot each file, one at a time, and asked what needed changing. This was basically checking for deprecated code. Next, I had to load the database, and there was no conversion tool this time, so I had to go through each table and document what new columns had been added and then ask Copilot how they should be populated. The main difference was how they added "left" and "right" columns to all of the categories, but Copilot knew what they were for and told me how to populate them. Now, with the database loaded, as the actual files were already on the server, I had Copilot help me write a temporary php script that I could load that would make any links posted to files in the forum work. The only trouble I had with that was, the new forum uses https whereas the old forum used http, and the links wouldn't work, using my new script, if it was called using http, so I had to run a database update looking for all forum posts with file links using http and update them to https, but that did the trick and now the direct links to files worked, even though the file section itself wasn't working.
Then, once that was done, we tried running the code and I told Copilot what went wrong, usually php errors and warnings, and it suggested fixes, which I would try and then report back if it worked or not. I would often have to check the old version on the 2nd computer to see what should be happening and then advise how I wanted the new version to work.
After a few months of this, I finally got it working well enough to release it to production. It was still a long way short of perfect, but it meant that people could search for files, download them and upload them. Most of the ACP (Admin Control Panels) screens weren't working yet, but the normal user would not be impacted by that. At this point, I took a break, as I'd been spending every single spare moment working on this for the last 3-4 months.
Every so often, I'll spot something not working properly and get Copilot to help me fix it, like recently Mr Mod was trying to update his Sony spreadsheet and it wasn't working, so I spent a few days with Copilot to figure out why and what the solution was, and we got it working. The guy who wrote the extension never even got started writing a search option, so we had to write that from scratch and that took about 2 weeks of work. I've spent a lot of time with Copilot since then trying to get the ACP screens working and while they all display properly, some of them break down when you try to do an update. Copilot has had me go right around the block and we ended up right back where we started, so I think I have reached the limit of how it can help me with these. I may need to reach out to the experts on the phpbb forums for this.
If you're interested, here's the backstory for what's gone on with the website this last year. I first created the forum around 2003 approximately and I probably used what was the latest version of PHPBB at the time, which is version 2.0.17. I knew that I needed a file section, so we could move all of our files over from Yahoo Groups, so I searched and found a "mod" called PaFileDB. "Mods" were what they called these modifications that you could make to PHPBB to add new features. The mod author would write a detailed description of how to add the mod, stuff like "go to line 1234 in somefile.php, which says 'protected $php_ext;' and after it add the following block of code:". The PaFileDB mod was quite extensive, modifying lots of files. This made it quite difficult to accept new versions of PHPBB, so I didn't. At some point, I think in 2014, I added the Wiki. I didn't even think about new versions of that, so I just left it. Then, fast forward to 2025, my ISP host (GoDaddy), tells me that my site is using PHP version 5.4, but the latest version is 8.3 and they're cutting off free support for all of the old versions. So, my choice was to either start paying an extra $300 or so a month for them to support 5.4, or upgrade. I knew that upgrading would kill the site, but it's what I had to do. The choice was made easier by the fact that the old server was becoming so unreliable. That's when the site went down. Then, in the background, I started installing PHPBB 3.3.15 but was having trouble because it required a more recent version of MySQL that what my server was using, so I talked to GoDaddy and they said that I'd have to migrate to a new server, but the good news is that they did that work for me, so the site got moved, and the new server is SO much better. Next, I successfully installed PHPBB 3.3.15 and used their tools to load the old database content over to the new version, which meant the forum was restored. I installed the latest version of MediaWiki, I had been using 1.19 and now it's 1.44, but they don't offer any conversion utilities, so with Copilot's help I was able to get the old version running locally so I could do an "export" and then use the resulting file to do an "import" on the new version, and that worked. Then I did some database manipulation to recreate all of the userids and to edit the history so it showed the actual userid of the person who made the edit all those years ago.
If you're curious what I mean when I say I got the old version of the Wiki running locally, Copilot had me install a program called xampp, which lets you run a php website and MySQL database, locally, so now I have a test environment, which I never had before. I had to find an old version of xampp from the archives that used php 5.4 in order to get the old wiki running to do the export. For the file section, as I found it wasn't possible to have both versions of xampp running on one computer, I installed the old version on a 2nd computer so I could get the old version of the file section running, so I could see how things were supposed to work and take screenshots to give to Copilot. Then I used my main computer to start creating the new file section.
When I started searching for solutions for the file section, I discovered that phpbb no longer uses mods, they now use extensions, which makes upgrading your phpbb version so much easier as they are completely separate entities. I also found that somebody had written an extension version of pafiledb, so I thought I was all set, however it turned out that they never finished it. Copilot assured me that people did have the new version up and running on websites, but I doubt that that is true, as this extension needed SO MUCH work to get it usable.
For the first pass, I gave Copilot each file, one at a time, and asked what needed changing. This was basically checking for deprecated code. Next, I had to load the database, and there was no conversion tool this time, so I had to go through each table and document what new columns had been added and then ask Copilot how they should be populated. The main difference was how they added "left" and "right" columns to all of the categories, but Copilot knew what they were for and told me how to populate them. Now, with the database loaded, as the actual files were already on the server, I had Copilot help me write a temporary php script that I could load that would make any links posted to files in the forum work. The only trouble I had with that was, the new forum uses https whereas the old forum used http, and the links wouldn't work, using my new script, if it was called using http, so I had to run a database update looking for all forum posts with file links using http and update them to https, but that did the trick and now the direct links to files worked, even though the file section itself wasn't working.
Then, once that was done, we tried running the code and I told Copilot what went wrong, usually php errors and warnings, and it suggested fixes, which I would try and then report back if it worked or not. I would often have to check the old version on the 2nd computer to see what should be happening and then advise how I wanted the new version to work.
After a few months of this, I finally got it working well enough to release it to production. It was still a long way short of perfect, but it meant that people could search for files, download them and upload them. Most of the ACP (Admin Control Panels) screens weren't working yet, but the normal user would not be impacted by that. At this point, I took a break, as I'd been spending every single spare moment working on this for the last 3-4 months.
Every so often, I'll spot something not working properly and get Copilot to help me fix it, like recently Mr Mod was trying to update his Sony spreadsheet and it wasn't working, so I spent a few days with Copilot to figure out why and what the solution was, and we got it working. The guy who wrote the extension never even got started writing a search option, so we had to write that from scratch and that took about 2 weeks of work. I've spent a lot of time with Copilot since then trying to get the ACP screens working and while they all display properly, some of them break down when you try to do an update. Copilot has had me go right around the block and we ended up right back where we started, so I think I have reached the limit of how it can help me with these. I may need to reach out to the experts on the phpbb forums for this.
Re: The File Section
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2026 7:24 pm
Got it downloaded but keep getting errors about ActiveX when I open. No time to fool with it now (maybe when I'm snowed in this weekend).
To be honest, I just wanted to take a trip in the way back machine!
Re: The File Section
Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2026 8:53 am
I needed to get it working so that I could use it as part of the process of converting the old KM files into RM files, because not all files would open directly in RM. But I'd still like to know that 9.23 is a fully working version, even if it isn't really needed anymore. So please do try to figure out what the ActiveX issues are. As you may recall, we used a lot of named items in it, like: dev1, dev2, dev3, etc and bin1, bin2, bin3, etc and none of those are valid in the newer versions of Excel, so they all needed to be renamed to dev_1, bin_1, etc. Plus, as it has macros in it, I needed to save it as .xlsm rather than .xlsx. But like I said, it was working fine for me during the conversion process.Mark Pierson wrote: Thu Jan 22, 2026 7:24 pmGot it downloaded but keep getting errors about ActiveX when I open. No time to fool with it now (maybe when I'm snowed in this weekend).
To be honest, I just wanted to take a trip in the way back machine!
Re: The File Section
Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2026 8:28 pm
Have the GitHub files been ported here, or are you just restoring your local, archived files?
Re: The File Section
Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2026 9:47 pm
If anybody added new files at Github, they should now load them here.
Re: The File Section
Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2026 9:42 pm
So, we cannot rate the upgrades anymore?