DruBB

I know that I will most likely be wrong about this, but with the advancement of CCK, Views, OG and Panels, is the forum module really necessary anymore? My idea being is that with all these "practically core" modules, isn't it feasible to create a forum with just these modules?

I can create a content type called "forum post" manually, set the taxonomy for the forums (granted containers would be an issue) and use views to custom tailor the data shown to the users. I can already create 8/10th's of the forum functionality with just that scenario. Unless I am missing something.

I hope this is the right area for this question which refers to the 'thread' field of the table 'comments'. I provide a non php solution to convert Wordpress data to Drupal. I recently became aware that the thread field is not a string of decimal numbers but is in fact a string of base 36 (Vancode) numbers. I've created the necessary functions to convert to and from base 36 format but I'm a little confused re - the leading digit/character.

Here is an excerpt from http://api.drupal.org/api/function/int2vancode/5

<

blockquote>

Hi folks. I am working with Advanced Forum on Drupal 5.7, a really great module, BTW.

I've easily figured out how to adjust the advf-forum-list.tpl.php page to make "Topics" and "Posts" into clickable links to the topic list page

Now, on the topic list page, I'd like to make both the icon and "replies" link to their respective topic in advf-forum-topic-list.tpl.php

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask. I'm just trying to figure out how can I insert line "You are viewing a wiki page. You are welcome to edit it. Be bold!" on every Wiki page automatically?

I'm implementing Wiki content on my site and can't figure out how the line gets inserted at the top of the page.

Thanks for your input.

Howdy all,

I'm considering writing an analysis on a few forum systems, with the aim of identifying what features "make a difference" when using the environment. Not so much as a feature list, but more a conceptual list. I intend this to be focused towards a document that can be reviewed by all and sundry when it comes to establishing the technologies we use to build core/modules.

Or something like that ;)

I've just been looking through the issues in the forum module queue, thought for a laugh I'd have a look at the last one: http://drupal.org/node/9729

Is it alright to mark ancient stuff like that fixed? I checked and Drupal 6 adds a unique id to each forum row, so using CSS to attach an icon would be trivial. Just wanted to check that old stuff like that isn't there for a reason. :)

From the wiki:

Most of this will be dependent on Views core going into D7 core.

This wiki page is for discussing the plan of attack for D7 core forums.

NB. Please try to keep discussion to concrete tasks and ideas on how this can be accomplished. There are plenty of threads for feature requests elsewhere in the DruBB group, so feel free to read and add to those.

Last update: March 13, 2008

KNOWN ISSUES
5/6 Last post doesn't recognize shadow posts (core forum issue)
5/6 Bleed-thru from theme makes unthemed forums look funny
6 _is_forum needs to take into account node types other than forum.
6 Mark all read needs to work on node types other than forum.
6 Mark all read needs menu code implemented
6 Make caching work on last post fetching

DOCUMENTING
http://drupal.org/node/201057 - Explain how to specially size avatars for forum posts

NEW FEATURES

Forum listing page:

Currently it is to my knowledge not possible to show with icons if a subforum contains new comments - it's only possible to show new topics.
This is pretty standard functionality and a feature a lot of users have asked about on my sites.

It's just nice to have a quick overview of activity in all forums on the foum listings page.

I asked around for a long itme in forums and on irc, but nobody had some ready-to-go code snippets, so I eventually set upon doing it myself.

We've got a /tracker menu item to show new forum posts. Great. Only problem is it doesn't show the forum the topic is posted under, my first thought is that this could easily be fixed by using a view instead of the tracker. Problem with this is that views can't show whether there are new posts in a topic. So should I:

<

ul>

I apologize if this is not the right place to post this message, but I thought that here I may find Forum module experts that can answer my question.

This wiki is intended to be a spec document for the new advanced forum module. The goal of the wiki is to gather together all the module lists, wishlists, hacks, etc that are scattered across both g.d.o and d.o into one place and organize them into a "to do" list for the module. It is a work in progress, so please feel free to add to it.

To do (incomplete list)

Show whole thread when replying
Put link to tracker on top
Change "add new comment" to "reply" to match others (Update: Done)
Jump to first unread
Add view counter to topic list
Add last comment to forum overview

So many people have said they are going to improve forums and then we never hear from them again. I finally had enough of waiting for someone else to do it and I'm taking up the job myself. I started working on it yesterday, basing my code on flatforum. This module is intended to replace flatforum, which I think has reached the end of life.

NOTE: I have no idea who these people are, just found them on a thread on drupal.org.

Some folks have come up with an installation profile and downloadable fileset of what they call a DrupalBB.

LINK: Distribucion-drupalbb

Here's the installation instructions: LINK

For people who like the look of forums like phpbb, flatforum is a great leg up on the theming. Unfortunately, the maintainer has gotten busy and is unable to continue with it. See http://drupal.org/node/165915 . I don't think I'm a good choice to take it over because my php and theming skills aren't that good, so I wanted to post this and see if anyone out there is willing to step up.

Just as another plan of attack, i decided to get a sexy table to list the differences between forum software so we can then draft up a complete list of features we require. So, please -- edit this page to add in a DruBB column so we can see EXACTLY what we need! :)

Last week I created a module that's popular with forum communities; it allows titles to be assigned based upon post counts, as well as arbitrary overriding of the titles by administrators.

It requires work at the theming layer to expose these titles, though I saw some mention that flatforum may offer automatic integration with the module if it exists. If so, that would be really handy.

See http://drupal.org/project/user_titles

With all the work going into fixing the core forum module, you might not be interested, but...we're working on a new og_forum module. The dev version of the 2.x branch is available now, though the latest tarball won't be ready until late Friday/early Saturday.

I look forward to all of the work you guys are doing on the core forum module and can't wait to modify og_forum to work with it.

David Strauss started a great discussion on the development list about one-to-one tables this week that could impact comments and potentially forums... since, as Dries points out, forums is one of the 5 core modules that use the node_comment_statistics table David wants to eliminate.

The issue is at: http://drupal.org/node/20295

It's the most awaited one after flat forums(coming soon!), and posting this one so that we can move on to flat forum one asap! Now, for this one, imagine you want polls to appear in your forums, this patch gets any content type in there, and likewise the possibilities to push any content into forums by choosing related category. Hopefully this much makes enough sense what the patch does. Will also post a port for Drupal 5.x, as requested by Michelle.

Issue link again: http://drupal.org/node/20295

Okay,

I've been mulling this over for a long time now, Drupal's current forums simply aren't adequate. But what do WE as the community want from DruBB? What is it we need?

Personally:

Look and Feel - the forum needs to look and feel more ... natural it needs to be easy to use, let's face it forums are community tools, who has a community which contains users who can code HTML? Who can navigate confusing multi-level hierarchies? I certainly don't.

Let's face it. There will be no more forum improvements in Drupal 6 any more.
Let's get our act together and get truly organized, and that way, Drupal 7 can be an awesome forum machine.
I suggest we can organize ourselves into sub-groups, and that way more stuff would get done.
Some ones could be:
- Forum Studying: studying different forum packages, and see what they do well. (I would be willing to lead this)
- Bug Team
- Etc.

Let's get started now.

I recently struggled to get a poll into my forums and gave up. The other day I listened to the lullabot podcast that was deprecating half of Drupal. Then, today, I wanted to write a post and couldn't decide whether to put it in the forum or as a story. I decided to put it in the forum because it's easy to show a forum node elsewhere but impossible to put a story in the forum if I change my mind.

This springs from the discussion on Drupal regarding integration with Vanilla. One developer asked what Vanilla used that Drupal didn't, and while most of the responses are theming-oriented, one thing stands out: Vanilla's unique whispering system. Simply put, this is the reason that I wouldn't ever use a Drupal forum as opposed to a Vanilla one. It's also why I've recently stopped using vBulletin, which is big considering how much those guys charge for their stuff.

Hi guys,

The beginning was at this node http://groups.drupal.org/node/3504#comment-10382, however, I think that the results should be on a seperate node.

UIEForum is a complete forum system, that is intended to replace the existing drupal forum module. I test this module before, and its a better solution for me, it still in dev version, the developper is very friendly helper (zoro)

For more information:

http://drupal.org/project/uieforum

Hi friends,

As I stated at one of my comments, I am on holiday now, so I hope to make some progress. But first I would like to hear your opinion on my DruBB implementation ideas.

The main component of the module will be a new node type, let's name it "DruBB Topic". This node's only purpose is to act like a container. So, for example, if you would like to post a poll, you actually post new node of "DruBB Topic" that contains the "Poll" node. The "DruBB Topic" module will make all the permission checks and only then it will invoke the needed hooks of the "Poll" type.

This is the result of some brainstorming with merlinofchaos regarding core forum improvements for 6.x. I made it a wiki page so people can sign up for taking on things, post relevant issues where they exist, etc.

This is what looks like a do-able plan for 6.x. The stuff that would be cool, but might not be doable is listed under "nice to haves." There's some great stuff in there though, so if anyone wants to take a stab at it (particularly outline module), feel free!

As a point of discussion, what would everyone say are the bare minimum features that core forums need to implement in order to be, if not a viable competitor to PHPBB and the like, at least be usable for most forums?

This is my list, all of which I intend to work on but would of course appreciate any help. :)

• Fix signatures: actively working on this. See The signatures debacle
• Private forums: I think that getting Forum access module in core would be a huge help. Not sure if I have the chops to pull this one off, but I'm going to try...
• Forum moderators: The ability to assign roles or users as forum moderators. Forum access takes care of this, too.
• Better theming: Forums by default look just like blogs or stories. We should make core's default output for forums similar to that of Flatforum.

So, my holy war ever since I started with Drupal has been to Fix signatures.

I'll try and sum this up as best I can. ;)

There are three main complaints about signatures from people with a phpBB background:

1. Signatures don't show up on forum topics, only on forum replies.
2. The signatures show up in the comment text box as you're creating (and editing) your reply.
3. Signatures are not dynamic; when people update their signatures, they expect it to update on all of their old posts.

So, my goal is to make three patches to core to solve these problems:

1. Allow turning signatures on/off per node type. If they're on, you see signatures on both nodes and their replies. - I'm not sold on this anymore, and neither is Dries. Doing a different approach now which is to make forums the exception.
2. Take 'em out. :P Make 'em themable.
3. Render signatures on output. Might need to put a toggle in here for this.

That's my plan. Any thoughts?

Update: http://drupal.org/node/130366 is an initial patch that attempts to solve problems 2 and 3. Reviews appreciated! Success! :D This patch will be in the forth-coming Drupal 6!

Update: http://drupal.org/node/132446 attempts to address issue 1. Reviews appreciated!

I've been searching through the forums looking for stuff to help me customize my forums. I've found some snippits and hacks and thought I'd gather the links here. Warning: Some of these hack core, which is really not recommended.

Add pager to top of page:
http://drupal.org/node/79352#comment-148773
http://drupal.org/node/79352#comment-223909

Replace text links with buttons:
http://drupal.org/node/56127#comment-111222

Change "add new comment" to "reply":
http://drupal.org/node/78562#comment-145094

Moving the forum header:
http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/node/913#comment-253

Hi,

I know that there are thousands of topics like that on the net, but I would like to know what's the status in our group.

Please type your favorite BB software, and please write why you like it, and what you hate in it.

I personally use Invision Power Board 1.3, but I hate it. There's nothing good about it, the only reason that I use it the all my moderators like it, and don't want to deal with phpBB. (I can't wait to surprise them with DruBB) :)

Please share your experience,
Have a nice day.

What is the current status of the module developement project of tounano? Also have there been more updates regarding the 'module distibution'?

I am really interested in taking the Drupal forums to the next level, both on a personal level as well as possible business level.

-Thanks
Greg Holsclaw

Now that phpBB3 has been released, can we figure out who's interested in Drupal/phpBB integration and where things are at with arkepp's phpBB module. What still needs work? Who's willing to do it?

A new thread on Webmasterworld may be worth a read for further thoughts re enhancing Drupal forum.

Initial post re a guy enhancing his forum software for SEO; at its heart, post says:

Simplify, simplify, simplify
Really, if there is no real need for it get it out.

(So often good practice when you're creating; Strunk n White on writing being quoted here)
A key thing being, it seems, to aim for only only the info in posts, plus titles, maybe meta tags, to be seen and indexed by search engines.

Some of the discussions from before about which access method to use led me to doing some research into this question. Here are my findings:

http://www.lullabot.com/articles/private_forums_in_drupal_forum_access_v...

Based on that, I think Forum Access is the way to go, since it is specifically tailored to our task. People with more advanced needs can drop in another solution.

hello world,

drupal.org infrastructure can now be used to host installation profiles:

1) there's a "/contributions/profiles" directory in the contrib repo.

http://cvs.drupal.org/viewcvs/drupal/contributions/profiles/README.txt?v...

2) there's a new Project type, called "Installation profiles":

http://drupal.org/project/Installation+profiles

two critical points i wrote in the README.txt:

A module has been released that lets Drupal handle user- and session-management for phpBB 2.x. In practice it takes things from the Drupal database and updates the phpBB database each time a user logs in. The result is that users can be registered, maintained and login through Drupal.

See here for a demonstration and full instructions.

Have somebody tested the new SMFforum Integration module? It claims to be with fantastic features.

Amnon
_{-
Professional: Drupal Search | Drupal Israel | Web Hosting Strategies
Personal: Hitech Dolphin: Regain Simple Joy :)}

Will DruBB continue to use the "comment" module for replies, as the core forum module does? Because that's been one of my pet peeves for quite a while... or is there a good reason not to use full nodes for each post?

I'm looking for the longest running threads (a post with replies) with several hundred (or thousands) of reply posts that use the standard Drupal forums. I know there are thousands of posts categorized at "Post installation" on Drupal.org, but most of those "topics" end after 20 posts. An unscientific guesstimate is that 75% end after 2 or 3 responses.

Hi, This Q may belong over in the support forum, but since I'm extremely interested in this group's goals, I'll post here first.

Why use Forum Access?

Taxonomy access does the job, is more general (can also allow content privileges for books, pages, stories, etc), and I've been using it since 4.7 to set access to certain forums and moderator privileges on others based on role.

I think that the best and most flexible approach to a phpBB-like forum from Drupal is a combination of existent modules around the default forum module. So, the best way to get DruBB realized as a "module package" would be to help improving these modules and porting them to 5.x. This is my list of needed modules, with suggestion notes and status for 5.x (those fully ported to 5.x are underlined):

ESSENTIAL MODULES FOR A BASIC PHPBB-STYLE FORUM

Hi,

I am still developing the extended forum module, but I have now big project at my work so the forum module project won't be ready by February, but I hope that I'll release the pre-alpha version by March. And I hope to post screen shots as soon as I can.

Anyway, I got an issue that I would like to discuss with you about.

While Drupal specializes in simplicity, competing with forum software like phpBB or Invision requires more depth in terms of individual pieces. One of the most underdeveloped modules is, without a doubt, the private messaging module. Compared to other types of PMing, this module can certainly be expanded. What do you think could make PM-ing more interesting for users on a site?

My ideas:

Folders: Letting users create folders for their PMs would certainly add a needed feature. On some sites (no Drupal ones I use, but certainly on forums), I receive a ton of messages, so letting me sort them is certainly a convenience.

Hi,

I am interested about your favorite way to post your forum topics/comments.

I'll classify it into 3 categories:
1. The way it done in Drupal/IPB, simple text area maybe with BB Code/Html
2. The way it done in vBulletin. Cool plain text editor, with user friendly BB Code/Smileys buttons and wysiwyg option.
3. Using advanced wysiwyg editors like TinyMCE or FCKEditor

Link to fckeditor demo:
http://www.fckeditor.net/demo/

Link to TinyMCE demo:
http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/example_full.php?example=true

Which of the wysiwyg editors you like more? TinyMCE or FckEditor?

I think my favorite way is like it done in vBulletin, but what's your favorite option? What will fit best the DruBB project?