This group was originally "drubb" and aimed at discussing making a forum install profile. When that effort fizzled out, I repurposed this group to be "Forum improvements" aimed at making Drupal's forum offering better. While it was never explicitly core (AF is contrib but builds on core), it had a definite "core leaning". Because of that, I started a new group for Artesian.
Now, though, I've found that I'm really not using Artesian's group enough to justify its existence as a separate group. Also, this group is mostly dead. So, I've changed my mind and am going to move Artesian development back in here. I also changed the name to be clearer.
I don't know how much "reviving" will be going on. I'm going to be using the group but am not really a prolific poster so hard to say how much. At any rate, I wanted to post this so people know what the heck is going on and why they are subscribed to this group they never heard of. :)
Michelle
Comments
Totaly great idea. Following
Totaly great idea. Following this group.
drupal+me: jeweler portfolio
Me too
This will be an interesting one. I'm following :)
Thanks Michelle for taking on the 'Forum' plight of Drupal, it's a huge area but one that Drupal can benefit form
Still active?
I am very interested in finding out how to make the Drupal forum module a full-fledged module on par with the best forum software. Is this forum module stilll being actively developed?
sorta
I believe Michelle is still working on artesian when she finds time ( http://drupal.org/project/artesian ) but It's probably safe to consider it borderline abandoned... haven't seen an update in quite a while.
Forums is still the biggest pain point for me with drupal, currently I just have a vbulletin forum and don't even have the user accounts linked. I've been looking at vanilla forum lately though, they seem to have some decent drupal integration.
But man would I love a full featured drupal forum system! that ties in with views and rules... that would be amazing.
Sadly it is
Sadly it is abandoned. I have followed some talks about native forums in Drupal and found some small-to-medium problems, which are holding fully featured "DruBB" sites. The parent problems seem to be those:
1. Organic groups 7.x-2.x is PERFECT solution for forum "containers", it allows just a bit different attitude and a bit more serious permission levels - membership, field and other than common forum scripts, but it has one simple flaw: there is no built-in statistics module. You need to write complex logic and make additional fields in entities just to get views count, replies count, last reply, last post, members count etc. There is http://drupal.org/project/og_statistics, but it is more or less unmaintained
2. It is total pain to manage different entity types in one list/view/structure: node and comment. It is a disaster of tremendous magnitude, because you need to think out of the box (and out of mind) just to get view with for example 5 latest posts AND replies. http://drupal.org/project/nodecomment was the solution for D6, but nobody is considering D7 version of this. There are some modules, like Reply which almost got to the point, but they are creating other than "node" entities.
The other problems are solvable and will be not a problem if those two above are solved.
Subscription: with Message + Flag + Rules
Bookmarks: Flag + Rules
User ranking: Userpoints and similar
Hot content: Radioactivity (amazing module!)
PM: there is wonderful module for that
Connection with social networks: there are many modules
and much much more.
Right now I am working on OG site, more or less groups.drupal.org clone on D7 and will do some custom logic to overcome "1" problem, but to rewrite nodecomments for D7 is above my coding level
drupal+me: jeweler portfolio
No it isn't
It is not abandoned, as I've said repeatedly.
It does look like
Posted by Michelle on May 28, 2011 at 7:13pm - with no releases made me think so
drupal+me: jeweler portfolio
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It isn't anywhere near a fit state to have releases. That doesn't make it abandoned.
Of course, but at this moment
Of course, but at this moment we are simply looking and using alternatives
drupal+me: jeweler portfolio
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That's fine, though completely off topic for this thread. But please refrain from making declarations of fact based solely on your opinion. Artesian has had a bumpy start, yes, but is not nor has it ever been abandoned.
Where can we start to get back on track?
Doesn't sound very hopeful, if you look at it from one angle. Yet, from another angle, this means there's a lot of potential. So where can we start to get back on track? Is there something very, very small that we can work on first?
I think entity comments (a D7
I think entity comments (a D7 or D8 version of node comments) would be the roadblock. Being able to pull comments into a view using a relationship to their parent node with some special fields to store some forum specific info.
I think if we had that, the rest could be packed up into features ( http://drupal.org/project/features ) to create a features forum module.
I'm willing to contribute, but I think a project like entity comments is above my coding level.
there is also the "why invent
there is also the "why invent the wheel?" argument that I can't really defend against. Maybe a better and potentially easier path is working with someone like vanilla forum to expose the content of the forum to drupal.
Something like a views custom field module that lets you pull vanilla forum threads into a view would be WAY more doable.
I guess the question we have to answer is: Other than single sign on, what are the use cases for the forum information. When we know what we want to do, we can decide how far we have to take it.
Vanilla forum post as a node?
There is a problem - you cannot make vanilla forum post a drupal node. I personally am against those type of bridge modules, because they usually give just part of both worlds but twice the headache.
drupal+me: jeweler portfolio
I couldn't agree more
I couldn't agree more... Just trying to come up with a solution that seems doable with the resources we have available.
The super coders needed to fix the things we need fixed for this don't really seem interested :P
I already wrote a post about
I already wrote a post about that
http://groups.drupal.org/node/287553
drupal+me: jeweler portfolio
Looks like this subject is still very much alive
This is getting better and better.
I am happy that there is still a lot of interest in this subject. What I am going to do now is to set up a Drupal Forum Test Lab. I have already downloaded all the modules that I can find which are related to forum. Then I am going to install them one by one and see which ones work and which ones don't. Plus which ones don't work together. After that I am going to compare with the features of dedicated forum software and see what we are still missing. Then we can go from there.
Oh yes, I agree that we should not be spending time trying to make a bridge. Making a bridge doesn't make a Drupal forum module. And as to the question of re-inventing the wheel, all I can say is that if that's the attitude we are going to take, then why use Drupal at all in the first place? Surely there are other software out there which can do what Drupal does.
However, I am working on Drupal because I like the philosophy behind Drupal. Correct me if I am wrong but my impression of the Drupal development ambiance is that, one, don't touch the core and, two, why do it alone when you can get things done faster working as a group.
Right?
@PlayfulWolf
I have read your post. I will be able to better understand what you are talking about after I have set up and started using my Drupal Forum Test Lab.
my view
My personal opinion is drupal is all about not duplicating effort. Instead of 1000s of people trying to produce the functionality of views, we have a small team sharing views with 1000s of people.
When drupal needed the functionality that Jquery offers... they didn't say.. "Lets re-create Jquery"... they said "Lets figure out how to leverage Jquery in a drupal way.
that's what my opinion (for whatever it's worth) is on this situation. We shouldn't be re-creating the forums, moderation, UI, etc... that vanilla forums provides already. We should use vanilla forum as a framework (just like we already use jquery, shadowbox, etc..) and find ways to integrate vanilla 100% with drupal, rather than just an SSO solution.
Agree with this post except
Vanilla forum part. You told exactly what you need NOT to do if you want to build Drupal forum-community-socialnetwork-whatever site.
Drupal is powerful because it has magic "node" concept, which now got even better and is called "entity".
Probably members reading this post were mistaken about meaning of "bridge" modules - I was talking about bridge/helper modules to connect OG, Views, Fields and other heavyweights to extend their functionality, but not about integrating external CMS/BB to Drupal.
I have almost 10years experience in various CMS (xoops, wordpress, *nukes, various bb's) on the side of webmaster and project manager and I can say that none of them which I have tried has such flexibility. Why? Because node can be unit of everything - you can have text post, reply to that post, video data, audio data, user data, even reference (link) to other piece of content or another reference and if we are adding entities: even taxonomy term can be piece of structure AND content and so on. It is hard for me to explain, but this "node/entity" concept is the same as file system on hard disk instead of cluster/sector raw 010101 data. Yes, it is so much ahead of the ideology most of the other cms use, it is like an first iPhone/Android to Nokia dumbphone, it is just different level.
Ok, enough marketing BS, now the single and argument against using Vanilla or another forum bridges:
-You cannot make Vanilla forum post a node. Period.
(If there is a way to make it a node - I am taking back this post)
That means: all the forum posts are used as 1 piece of content, no matter if there are 5, 100 or 1 000 000 posts.
If you are using Vanilla forum, it has its OWN structure - you should not use Drupal at all or at least do not integrate between them if you want single data structure.
The automotive community I am currently working with will have most of the normal forum features available only with Drupal modules with very little custom coding. Yes, it takes enormous time, efforts, headache and so on, but at the end - It will be much easier to extend it to: news portal, social network, eshop, q&a site or whatever.
So, if you want quick results: use phpBB, SMF, MyBB, Vanilla Forum, vBulleting and other dedicated software.
If the Drupal node structure of Advanced Forum functionality is enough - use it! Probably 50% of the features you need to extend it to phpBB-like are already available as separate modules and documented. Extra features to one single module will make it unmaintainable bloatware with duplicate functions. Of course, in my opinion you should start Drupal forum with OG in mind, not Adv Froum.
If you DO NOT need "entity" magic - then yes, use Vanilla forum, vBulletin integration modules.
drupal+me: jeweler portfolio
why not nodes?
Why not have vanilla forum make nodes? a node is nothing more than an entry in a database table. A vanilla forum post is nothing more than an entry in a database table.
What I'm suggesting finding a way for a module to treat vanilla forum posts as nodes. Whether that means making clones of vanilla data as nodes in drupal, or extending drupal to include the vanilla forum's data when utilizing nodes, or hell, writing a vanilla forum plugin that uses drupal nodes as the database instead of it's own table.
Would this be easy? no. Would this be easier than recreating an entire forum application that is maintained by a team of people and having it turn out as good or better? Definitely.
Tables: node (core)
I haven't needed to add a forum to a site for a number of years so I haven't really given this a lot of thought but I've observed the conversations with interest.
This idea of including Vanilla Forum (which I know nothing about) and treating it as native to Drupal is a very interesting one. I wouldn't suggest getting Drupal to duplicate VF posts as nodes because it would very quickly get messy but rather, I would suggest building an integration layer that makes Drupal think that Forum posts are just another content type and all of the forum fields are Drupal fields.
I think the easy part (easy is relative) will be making Drupal think the forum content are Nodes. I'm sure the 'Tables: node (core)' documentation will hold the keys on that: http://drupal.org/node/70591
Andrew
That's the perfect solution
That's the perfect solution IMO. You get all the benefit of having forum data be native to drupal, without having to duplicate the efforts of the TEAM of people that make vanilla forum.
The idea of Doctor
The idea of Doctor Frankensteining separate forum software into Drupal is something which maybe seems like a good idea, but as a long-time Developer I can tell you that it's just not going to work well on any technical level.
I've started thinking of forums again ever since Discourse was announced and its associated hype started kicking up around Twitter; I like the idea of re-thinking the forum for the modern world, though Discourse does too many things wrong (Ruby, infinite scrolling, too JS-heavy). I think a forum install profile would be a great project… if I could get someone to pay me to make it, alas, but currently I can't justify working on much non-work-related work at the moment. Still, all of the pieces are there for Drupal to be used as a good forum system, and indeed I myself have used it for a couple simple forums with success in the past… it just needs a little love.
The Boise Drupal Guy!
@Garrett: "The idea of Doctor
@Garrett: "The idea of Doctor Frankensteining separate forum software into Drupal is something which maybe seems like a good idea, but as a logn-time Developer I can tell you that it's just not going to work well on any technical level."
I've heard this argument before and I understand the desire of having a native Drupal forum but to say that it won't work on any technical level is not true. It won't be a stroll in the park but if someone has the skills and motivation, it can be done and it won't have an adverse effect; especially if they wrap their conduit in a module. That's kind of why we have the API. Everytime you create a complex module and integrate it with Drupal you are achieving the same thing.
The most successful example that comes to my mind of this sort of thing is civiCRM. It is extremely complex and can either have its own database or share Drupal's however it is very tightly integrated with Drupal.
It won't work, that is until someone does it, period.
Funny you should mention
Funny you should mention civiCRM, since (at least any time I've tried to use it) it's a pretty good example of poor integration of a stand-alone project and Drupal; the civiCRM parts look and work quite differently from the proper Drupal parts, and the whole thing just feels not bolted together very well. I would have no interest in working with a forum which was hacked together like that.
You're going to have two separate systems with different structures both in code and in the database for very basic concepts like users and permissions and posts. A developer could spend the time trying to integrate the two systems successfully and end up with something which technically works but still feels ganky, or they could spend the time using what Drupal and its ecosystem provides to build something that works similarly to what the stand-alone forum system provides and feels much less hacked-together. It puzzles me why you think the former would be a better idea.
The Boise Drupal Guy!
So as not to go too far off topic...
@Garrett: I don't want to stray too far from the topic but I've had nothing but success with the Drupal/Civi combination and have several sites running with it in production. If you're having difficulties with Drupal/Civi, it's likely a problem with the hosting environment or lack of experience. I'm no Civi "zen-guru" but I've been developing with the combination for the past three years know it very well. If you need a hand, ping me and I'll be happy to help you out any way I can.
Andrew
Well, it seems there is some
Well, it seems there is some recent activity, which is a great sign. Drupal needs a NATIVE forum solution. Bridges or whatever you want to call them are horrendous, and put you at the mercy of 3 pieces of software. The three are: Drupal, whatever forum, and the bridge. While technically almost anything is possible, it should not be done "just because it is possible". The node way of doing things is what makes Drupal powerful, and having the ability to push any forum post to any other part of the site would be great. You don't get that with a bridge.
What Drupal needs is a native solution that any high school teen can upload to a cheap hosting site and have a community/forum running in a weekend. Any other solution would be too complex and destined to fail. Take phpBB for example, I can d/l the latest phpBB version, login to a cpanel host, setup the database user, upload the forum package, install and have a running forum in less than 30 minutes. It's a bare forum, but functional, and feature rich! As opposed to installing the same forum, installing Drupal, installing a bridge, and fudging with all the configs to get them to talk to each other, and still have a mess of trying to get it to look like one package.
So, what about the existing forum, and advanced forum. Advanced is ok, but very basic compared to today's forum standards, and is still a "node - comment" type of structure. And I haven't found a way to move, merge, split, attach in replies (I haven't looked in a while, and don't want to either.)
I think Michelle, and a few others, have the right idea. Move to an entity based forum. I would structure it like this: Every forum post is an entity, a forum topic is an entity, with a different structure, that holds all the post ids for the topic, and some other housekeeping data. Similar topics are grouped (OG Maybe) to form a forum, of similar topics, and finally categories are groups of similar forums. So the tree kind of looks like this
category-A
-> Forum-A
---> Topic-A
-----> Post-1
-----> Post-2
-----> Post-n
-> Forum-B
---> Topic-B
You get the point.
Anyway.... I am all for pitching in where I can, even if it is just brain storming. Please let’s keep this going.
John
Perfect World
In a perfect world, I would agree with you 100%. Here's the problem:
https://www.phpbb.com/about/team/
Phpbb has about 30-40 people working full time on this project. We have Michelle selflessly donating her spare time when she can spare it.
It is simply not a sustainable model to expect to get enough developers to spend enough time to be able to make a competing product.
What we need is someone to make a remote entity module instead of a bridge. Let the phpbb or vanilla or vbulletin store it's posts however it wants to in the DB, then let us turn on a remote entity module, enter the information, and them boom. Every php forum post is automatically native in drupal.
I understand how grossly
I understand how grossly simplified I'm making a remote entity module sound, but that's the perfect *achievable solution imo.
.
If you guys want to get a team together and do something, don't let me hold you back. My life has taken some unexpected turns in the last couple years and I am not able to make any sort of promises aside from I haven't abandoned it. If other people have other ideas, go for it. I'll just keep doing my own thing and see where it takes me.
Michelle
phpBB has 30-40 devs, cause
phpBB has 30-40 devs, cause they need to develop [i]everything[/i]. And there is only a handfull of leads at phpBB. Drupal has most everything developed, except decent threaded discussions.
Drupal has a module for just about every forum feature; PMs, Polls, Gallery(sort of)etc... It's not like we have to build an entire model from scratch. The only major issue I see, and I may be missing something, is the permission system is lacking in Drupal. Most forum software is "No/Yes/Never" Where Drupal is "No/Yes".
If I am missing something, please point it out so we can discuss.
This is what you're
This is what you're missing:
"What Drupal needs is a native solution that any high school teen can upload to a cheap hosting site and have a community/forum running in a weekend"
I've done what you're suggesting. Drupal actually isn't missing anything if you want to piecemeal together a forum. Myself and another guy worked together for two months between module installation, applying patches, configuration, making themes for all of the modules, etc...
And the end result was "usable" but not anywhere near as slick as what we could have had after a 15 minute phpbb or vanilla forum install... and DEFINITELY not something a novice could make happen over a weekend.
Again this is just my opinion... but leveraging phpbb (or vanilla which I prefer) is -no different- than using jquery, or shadowbox, or symphony, or any other framework. The Drupal way is to reuse functionality that already exists, instead of trying to recreate it.
Thats why my opinion is finding a way to make a current forum system work NATIVELY with drupal is a FAR better and more drupal-y solution than trying to create an entire forum from scratch.
This is going rounds.
This is going rounds. Again.
Please, read this post http://groups.drupal.org/node/287553
drupal+me: jeweler portfolio
The problem, I see with using
The problem, I see with using a phpBB, or SMF, or Vanilla is there is no guarantee they will be around tomorrow. And if they are, who is to say their structure will stay as it is now. It is still another full software package to maintain. I think by time you have a decent application that can access the phpBB database, and pull forum posts into Drupal, and promote those to other parts of the site, you are well on the way to a native solution.
As far as piecemeal-ing a forum together with modules, Features could be used to stage several packages that could add requested features such as PMs, Chats, Galleries, But to use that method to actually build a forum adds a lot of links to a chain, and it is only as strong as the weakest link, and would still be behind the major players.
There's no guarantee jQuery
There's no guarantee jQuery will be around tomorrow, but it's part of drupal core.
No guarantee that Symphony will be around tomorrow but it's part of drupal 8 core.
No guarantee that CKeditor will be around tomorrow, but D8 ships with it as it's native text editor.
If you want to start a project creating a new forum module from scratch, more power to you... hell I would even contrib some to it... but I feel like you're underestimating the amount of work involved to even get into the same ballpark of the already made forum systems.
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"but I feel like you're underestimating the amount of work involved to even get into the same ballpark of the already made forum systems."
I am well aware of the amount of work involved. I've been doing this (aside from not much activity in the last year or so) since 2006. No one has said it would be easy and, frankly, I get tired of people bringing up the "just integrate" argument. If people want to write bridges, go for it. There is already a group for PHPBB's bridge. Start a group for whatever bridge you want to write. Coming into this group which is for discussion of native Drupal solutions and telling us we should be making bridges instead is just annoying.
(This post is not entirely aimed at the one it replies to; it is mostly a general response to all the "bridge advocates".)
Yeah, but jQuery and Symphony
Yeah, but jQuery and Symphony are used by a lot more then just Drupal. it's like saying lumber or bricks might not be available in the future to build a house. Where phpBB is like an entire house, but a house that is not big enough, so somehow we should park a Drupal house next to it and live in both houses. Makes a lot more sense to extend Drupal :)
Integrate mybb
Integrate mybb forum software. - http://www.mybb.com
This endless "hacking" of a crappy forum module to begin with is pointless. You ppl will never learn....stubborn.
The default "forum" module is complete crap. Feature - Less should be the motto here.
Why is MYBB so much better? Feature list here - http://www.mybb.com/features
Mybb cannot be beat for FREE software. If we are talking paid solutions then IPB would win. Since it's free....Mybb destroys all.
Don't believe me?
Install it yourself and then try smf or phpbb.....bet you never use them again.
Pc gaming team - http://teamfod.com
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If you want to write a Mybb integration have at it. But please respect that other people have other opinions and refrain from treating us like fools because we have chosen a different path.
uhm...
When did I say your a fool? I simply stated the obvious here....the default module for drupal is junk and you tried to extend it. I appreciate the time and effort you put in don't get me wrong. But all this could be easily solved by 3rd party integration. Setting all the Drupal permissions to use the Mybb permissions system would be ideal....but development would be slow and drawn out.
At no time would I ever dis someone for trying. I only stated the brutal truth : forum module for drupal is bad. Extending it will do nothing in the long run. The amount of time and effort to bring a feature list mimicing vbulletin / xenforo would be gigantic. Integration is the key.
You have done great work michelle...you've tried....i have not :)
Pc gaming team - http://teamfod.com
Obvious?
Have you seen how many modules Drupal has? Have you used at least 500 of the most popular ones? Which *bb can beat that?
drupal+me: jeweler portfolio
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"You ppl will never learn....stubborn"
That sure sounds like you think we're foolish to continue work on a native Drupal solution. There is nothing to "learn" here. We are well aware of the options and what 3rd party software can do but a bridge will never be the same as a native solution.
"I only stated the brutal truth : forum module for drupal is bad. Extending it will do nothing in the long run."
The forum module in core really has nothing to do with this. Advanced Forum builds on it, yes, because that made the most sense back in Drupal 4.6 when I started working on it. Artesian, though, is completely independent of core forum as would any other effort to make a new Drupal forum. There would be no point in a new module being based on core forum because AF already has that covered.
As for "this could be easily solved by 3rd party integration" I can assure you that bridges are not an easy solution. If they were, there would be more of them and the existing ones wouldn't be so full of problems.
"The amount of time and effort to bring a feature list mimicing vbulletin / xenforo would be gigantic."
I agree. It's an overwhelming project and that's part of why I haven't made more progress on Artesian. I'm not getting paid for it and don't actually have any need for a forum for my own websites so taking on a massive project like this "just because" is kind of nutty. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the scope of it and push it down the priority list in favor of easier items. Even so, I think it is something Drupal really needs and I'm trying to get back into it again.
"Integration is the key."
No, integration is one possible path people may choose. For many of us, it's not a viable one.
Michelle
I've got an idea... How about
I've got an idea... How about instead of trying to convince each other what's best, why don't those who believe a native solution is best join forces and lend Michelle a hand and those who believe a bridge is the solution actually build one.
I don't particularly care which approach is best; both have merits and none of the arguments for or against really make a lick of difference and the arguments today are starting to get absurd.
Those who have made arguments that a bridge allowing 3rd party software to integrate seamlessly make a lot sense but talking about it won't make it happen. Same goes for the people who want a native solution. Michelle says she doesn't have the time to work on the project right now but she's not giving up on it. Who's going to step in and keep it moving until she's able to come back into the fray?
Awasson: I don't personally
Awasson:
I don't personally care who likes what or how they like it. Nor will I try to convince anyone to do anything. Simply stating my opinion.
I could care less if anyone listens or not.
Pc gaming team - http://teamfod.com
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While I appreciate the sentiment, I'm not in a position to have people help me right now. The problem there is it puts me in the project management role and I just can't do that with the way my life is now.
If there are people who want to actively work on something, don't let me stand in the way. If you start a new project, I'm not going to call foul about duplication because I clearly am not delivering my solution in a reasonable amount of time.
I'm going to continue to work on Artesian as I can because it gives me a way to get my head back into Drupal and because I want to finish what I started. If another forum solution takes prominence in the mean time, so be it. I can't expect people to wait for my noodling around to come to something useful, especially considering I haven't been able to devote much time to it in nearly 2 years.
If no other forum solution becomes viable before I'm ready to make Artesian more of a community project, then I will certainly be looking for help then. For now, though, I think it's best to not factor Artesian into any decisions. It's not abandoned but I have no clue on an ETA and it could still be years away.
Michelle
Hi Michelle, Yes, I thought
Hi Michelle,
Yes, I thought that there was the risk of piling more work on top of you as a "project manager" but I wonder if interested parties can fork the work you've done so far so that it continues on the path you've envisioned without drawing you into the mix?
Anyway, I'm glad to see the discussion veered back on course about moving forward one way or another.
.
Well, I suppose that's possible but I suspect they are going to want to follow their own vision, not mine, if they are doing their own project. It's probably better that way, anyway, because it's a bit silly to have two projects following the same path. :) There are many ways to build a forum and I'm hoping the path they choose is different enough that Artesian will still have some use some day.
Michelle
Update: Artesian Forum development, opening to the community
Michelle wrote:
Two months after this, there has been a significant change of situation, and Artesian Forum maintainer Michelle, who also created Advanced Forum, has announced on the Artesian project page (June 13, 2013) that it's currently not possible for her to dedicate time to continue this new Drupal forum development as an individual project.
This is being discussed in the Artesian Forum issue Planned Features and Getting Other Devs Involved, where Michelle has also announced that the source code of Artesian Forum is now available for community development, to build on the work already done.
The appropriate details on how to do this have not been discussed yet: whether just patch contributions, or maybe later new co-maintainers, or new projects, or other possible ways.
As it's well-known, Artesian Forum is a new kind of Drupal forum, different from the old core forum in that the new forum architecture designed by Michelle follows much more the inner architecture of the most successful standard forums such as vBulletin, phpBB, SMF, Invision Power, etc., which opens all the possibilities for flexible and complete forum administration and functionality.
Let's hope the community will build an outstanding forum in Drupal, which can be at least in the level of the best standard forums given the limitless extensibility of Drupal.
juan_g, if you are
juan_g,
if you are interested, we (myself and one other) are working on another forum module called Colloquium. It is very early but some progress is being made. However as usual, other obligations do come up and we can't always dedicate time to work on it. If you, or any other person would like to help out, you are more than welcome.
John
Not sure what the point of some posts is
I understand the desire to lobby for one approach or another. However, if one is going to lobby for something, why not do it in a way that might be effective. Does anyone think that calling an approach "crappy" is likely to change someone's mind?
For those who are "simply" stating opinions and don't care if anyone listens, what's the point? What are you trying to achieve?
I suspect that most, if not all, of those who are willing to actually code something have an approach in mind. If they are on the fence, they might actually ask for input. Arguments along the line of "you shouldn't volunteer your time to be doing X, you should volunteer your time do be doing Y" might not be terribly effective, especially if not followed by something like "let me know how I can help" and/or if communicated confrontationally.
While we can all choose to ignore comments that don't seem helpful, if there are too many of them, the discussion becomes less useful.
Jonathan Sibley
Personal & Executive Coaching and Psychotherapy
Helping people to do better, be better, and feel better
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This entire thread is a mess. The thread is a "heads up" that I changed the group (which was quite a while ago) and has nothing to do with most of the discussion on here. Unfortunately, one of the features Drupal lacks is the ability to split threads so I'm not really sure what to do about it. I don't want to simply delete all the off topic posts and there's no way to move them. If you folks are going to continue to go round and round on what "someone" should do, though, it would be really nice if someone would start a new thread for it.
Not sure what the point of some posts is
I understand the desire to lobby for one approach or another. However, if one is going to lobby for something, why not do it in a way that might be effective. Does anyone think that calling an approach "crappy" is likely to change someone's mind?
For those who are "simply" stating opinions and don't care if anyone listens, what's the point? What are you trying to achieve?
I suspect that most, if not all, of those who are willing to actually code something have an approach in mind. If they are on the fence, they might actually ask for input. Arguments along the line of "you shouldn't volunteer your time to be doing X, you should volunteer your time do be doing Y" might not be terribly effective, especially if not followed by something like "let me know how I can help" and/or if communicated confrontationally.
While we can all choose to ignore comments that don't seem helpful, if there are too many of them, the discussion becomes less useful.
Jonathan Sibley
Personal & Executive Coaching and Psychotherapy
Helping people to do better, be better, and feel better
OK, so we can move forward
OK, so we can move forward with this, in a positive way, can we get a group of people who want a native solution to put their heads together. I am willing to help out. I am not great, but I am learning. For those who want a bridge, it is probably more effective if they get their heads together and brainstorm separately.
For those who want a native solution, do we use this group to discuss, or do we start a new group and leave this group for the built in core Forum?
John
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You can use this group. If you read the starting post in this thread, before it was taken completely off topic, you can see that my intent was to make this group more generically about native Drupal forum solutions rather than specifically about core forum.
Once you have a name for your project, just add a new taxonomy term for it and tag your posts with it.
People building bridges should form their own group, though, as that isn't about developing a Drupal forum but rather developing connecting code and is off topic for this group.
Michelle
It would seem using this
It would seem using this group is a good way to keep forum development - even two or more different approaches - loosely connected. This group has almost 500 members already and it would seem there is a chance other people will join force once they see things are moving forward in a organized, professional manner.
Personally I am interested in seeing a native forum solution as I have been tinkering around with the phpbb bridge for a while now and I am not quite happy with it.
Michelle touched on something
Michelle touched on something earlier; that she doesn't have a personal use for a new forum system, and nobody's paying her to build one, so she feels unmotivated. I can certainly relate.
With regards to the former reason, it's sort of a chicken-and-egg system; someone who wants to start a new feature-rich forum is probably unlikely to choose Drupal, but if nobody with the required development expertise (or time) is using Drupal to build a feature-rich forum, it will never be built or improved. (As much as I want to see a great forum solution for Drupal, I don't actually have much use for one at the moment either.) For the latter, well, I guess it goes without saying that clients with the time and money to bankroll a project like that are going to be rare.
Can anyone think of how we can get over these two hurdles? All I can think of is launching Yet Another Forum Hosting Service and then let other people sign up and build their own communities, "paying" the developers via on-page advertisements and/or monthly subscription fees to remove the ads - but even just getting things bootstrapped to the point where that works well and is a compelling choice for would-be forum admins would be a good amount of work.
The Boise Drupal Guy!
Well, I can relate for sure.
Well, I can relate for sure. It is definitely difficult to build something that may or may not ever get used. It is even more difficult think of options to build in without seeing how these would work on a live forum.
As far as 'chicken-and-egg', I see it as something like this. If all you ever want is a discussion forum, there are plenty of open source programs that do a far better job of a discussion forum than Drupal. They are lighter, super feature rich, plenty of mods, and most have a basic 'portal', either native or as a mod, that does a pretty good job of faking a CMS style front page. Many sites can thrive off of just this. Even things such as Articles and For Sale Classifieds can be done pretty well with 'just' a forum. And for the past, what 15-20 years, has been the norm for users. It wasn't until maybe 5-6 years ago I started seeing the more mature forums start morphing a little to include some sort of blogging system, or CMS, and Wordpress has the lion's share here. Almost all forum scripts have WP integration as an add on.
How do we get over the hurdles of bringing Drupal to the table of serious forum programs? I am not completely sure on this. One major hurdle I do see, and ironically is one of Drupal's strong points, is there are many ways do do something. A forum admin does not want to have to assemble a laundry list of Drupal modules to get something as simple as a photo gallery. What Drupal needs is to have some developers assemble some Drupal 'Features' of commonly requested forum features. Example: A forum admin wants to add a photo gallery for his members, it would be nice to have 2 or 3 'Features' all set to go, and just install the one that appeals to you. The Feature and the required settings, fields, rules, dependencies, etc are handled. I really have not seen this yet, maybe I am missing it??
As far as free Drupal Forum Hosting? It might help, but a decent forum package is a must.
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Actually there is a Features Module (http://drupal.org/project/features) doing exactly what you describe - it allows site admins to bundle node types, dependencies, views, permissions and a whole lot of other things into 'features' which can be shared as modules.
From what I know most developers do not usually share the features they create, rather they use them to add the same or a similar functionality across several of the sites they maintain, at least thats how we do it here.
I agree though - while there are a lot of modules which could be used to cover common forum functionality (like private messages) there have to be a few prepacked solutions which you just activate with a simple click. If you have to create every single view from hand and configure 20+ modules it might be too much work for the average user.
Yes, I was talking about
Yes, I was talking about using the Features module to create features that can be shared.
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A big problem is that the companies with enough spare cash to fund building a forum are also ones that are likely to just use vB. Most Drupal forum users tend to be people with small forums, personal projects, ones with not a lot of cash. I've gotten some money here and there in ChipIns (RIP) over the years but it's just fun money, not a real income.
At the moment, my motivation for working on Artesian is that it's a way to get myself back into Drupal again. This is a fairly flimsy motivation, though, and has a couple of serious issues: 1) It caves easily to the pressure of everything else on my "to do" list and 2) doesn't fit well with the whole "team effort" idea. I'm still optimistic that Artesian is going to happen some day but it's looking more and more likely that it will be done for Drupal 8.
Regarding vB... vB is a mess
Regarding vB... vB is a mess right now. they have NO viable CMS solution. vB 3.x IS their best branch and was EOL long ago. vB 4.x is what most are calling the best option if you absolutely have to use vB. It 'kinda' works, but many promised features are no more than vaporware. vB 5.x is a steaming pile of ####. It was released 'out of Beta' (no one wants to call it a release or gold, but they are charging for it) a few months ago, and long time vB fans are saying it should not even have an Alpha tag to it, thats how bad it is. AND ony the forum portion of their suite is functional. The CMS is 'promised' but they don't say when. To further describe how bad it is, vB is thinking of patching the 3.x branch to keep up with the updates in php5, probably because Internet Brands (the parent company to vB) still has hundreds of their own forums running on vB 3.x. So much for faith in your own product.
vb4
I run a vb4 forum and its terrible. Theming sucks, configuration sucks... You pretty much have to use it exactly as VB designed and swap in your logo for it to be useful.
That being said even as terrible as it is, its still light years better than anything drupal can offer. It has in place editing, ajax user editing and post moderation, etc..
But if you're looking for a product to emulate, look at vanilla forums, they're doing a lot right.