Forum development

This is a working group for developing Drupal discussion/forum modules. "Forum" is interpreted loosely to allow for modern interpretations as well as traditional forums but is aimed at providing a space for longer lasting discussions rather "instant messaging" or status updates. Currently covered modules are Forum (in core), Advanced Forum (contributed module that builds on core Forum), and Artesian (new forum module) but other modules are welcome as well.

Anyone with an interest in creating forums in Drupal is welcome to join in the discussion. This is not, however, a support group so please use the issue queues and Drupal.org's forums for support requests. Also, please do not post jobs in this group unless you wish to hire someone to work on forum development that will be contributed back to the community.

Forum deprecated? ;)

Posted by michelle on May 4, 2007 at 5:30pm

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.

Whispering - Better than Private Messages?

Posted by ronoxQ on April 18, 2007 at 9:52pm

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.

Comments as Nodes lab results [UPDATED: 08-Apr 22:00 GMT +2]

Posted by tounano@drupal.org on April 8, 2007 at 3:43am

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.

UIE Forum for drupal 5

Posted by toma on April 5, 2007 at 7:29pm

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

DruBB architecture discussion.

Posted by tounano@drupal.org on April 4, 2007 at 11:21pm

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.

Plan of attack for Drupal 6.x core forum module

Posted by webchick on April 2, 2007 at 8:01pm
Last updated by michelle on Fri, 2008-02-01 19:45

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!

Critical features missing from core forums?

Posted by webchick on April 1, 2007 at 4:09am

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.

The signatures debacle

Posted by webchick on March 24, 2007 at 8:45pm

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:

Signatures don't show up on forum topics, only on forum replies.
The signatures show up in the comment text box as you're creating (and editing) your reply.
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:

~~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.
Take 'em out. :P Make 'em themable.
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!

Hacks Listing

Posted by michelle on March 23, 2007 at 7:04pm

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

phpBB vs IPB vs SMF vs vBulletin

Posted by tounano@drupal.org on March 20, 2007 at 5:54pm

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 status here?

Posted by Gman on March 19, 2007 at 4:28am

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

phpBB3 released

Posted by kreynen on March 19, 2007 at 2:28am

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?

Forums and SEO

Posted by DocMartin on March 16, 2007 at 2:35am

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.

Private forum access methods

Posted by webchick on March 12, 2007 at 5:10pm

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.

Installation profile projects now hosted on drupal.org

Posted by dww on March 8, 2007 at 8:02pm

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:

Which do you prefer?

Posted by rconstantine on February 23, 2007 at 8:20am

Integration of existing BB into Drupal as addon module (maintains its own databases with minimal interaction with Drupal)

3% (2 votes)

Tight integration of existing BB into Drupal

3% (2 votes)

Drupal-native BB that can stand up to the popular BBs

93% (55 votes)

Total votes: 59

Alternative: new phpBB module

Posted by Xabi on February 12, 2007 at 5:19pm

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.

How will DruBB be effected by the new SMFforum Integration module?

Posted by druvision on February 11, 2007 at 8:57pm

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

Amnon
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Professional: Drupal Search | Drupal Israel | Web Hosting Strategies

Personal: Hitech Dolphin: Regain Simple Joy :)}

Question regarding comments

Posted by cburschka on February 9, 2007 at 8:16am

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?

Longest forum threads in standard Drupal forums

Posted by kreynen on January 25, 2007 at 10:13pm

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.

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