In short, yes, if you want a forum fully integrated with Drupal which takes advantage of all its functionality, you will have to build it starting with the core forum module and installing additional modules. This is what the advanced forum module does (not completely ready yet)
Notice that most of them are still Drupal 5 only. There are good forums which work this way.
The alternative is to use a dedicated forum application, such as phpbb or SMF, to have everything ready "out of the box" by the forum people. With the help of a "bridge" module you can connect their user accounts with Drupal's
but their content, permissions, theming and other functionality will be separate, and we have been seeing people converting forums to Drupal to make their sites more flexible.
Advanced Forum is excellent, and getting better all the time. Setting it up takes a bit of work, but worth it in the end (and the documentation page walks you through just about every setting, minus those on the add on modules, which tend to be self-explanatory). I went ahead and installed Advanced Forum, along with all the available "add on" modules on Drupal 6 for the first time tonight (have previously only tried it on Drupal 5), and besides a few minor bugs, it works great. It took under an hour or so to find the add on modules I wanted, install everything, configure the various parts, and make a few adjustments to a few template files to suit my liking. Theming (especially in Drupal 6) is now beyond simple. I'm very impressed :) I actually first learned about Drupal way back when while I was trying to integrate Drupal with vBulletin. Since then I've completely changed my mind, and would have nothing to do with vB and similar forum software on my Drupal sites.
These days the trend on the internet is swinging away from "everything but the kitchen sink" types of forums. Simple is better. In any case, keeping the user experience on your Drupal site clean, simple, and uniform is a good idea.
For kicks I demoed Vanilla forum tonight which is very popular... I didn't see anything there Drupal couldn't do.
In case it helps, here's what I installed: Advanced Forum (Drupal 6 version) Comment upload (allows file uploads to comments, common on most forum software) BUEditor (editor for easy insertion of HTML and/or BBCode) Quote (ability to quote previous comments) Smileys (of course) Signatures for Forums (overcomes various limitations in Drupal core's signatures) User Stats (post counts, how long registered, online status, etc) Flatcomment (non-threaded discussion) Forum Access (for private forums) ACL (required by Forum Access) Privatemsg (use the HEAD version for D6... not sure this is working yet)
For every one of these, be sure to visit the settings pages under Site configuration. There are also settings to be made at admin/user/settings and admin/content/node-type/forum ("Comment settings").
For Flatcomment, on the above "Comment settings" also check the Make all comments replies to the main post, regardless of the reply link used option.
Haven't decided yet between Subscriptions or Notifications, and Buddylist2 or User Relationships.
Not a big deal, but forum-related modules I'm still hoping for D6 versions on are: Comment Mover and User titles
Apart from the excellent Advanced Forum, there is also the Nodeforum module, which works with the Node comments module. That is, in this case, all comments and forum posts are nodes, which opens interesting possibilities. However, Advanced Forum seems better known.
And, also interesting, there is Drupal 7 core forum module - plan of attack (at the DruBB group), a full featured Drupal forum similar to well-known standalone forums (phpbb, vbulletin, smf, invision...), using pagination, flat type to find recent posts quickly, quoting instead of threading to reply old posts, etc. Advanced Forum is the precursor (and flatforum before), with the difference that probably forum posts will be nodes in Drupal 7 instead of blog-type comments, with separate methods for forum posts and (optionally threaded) non-forum comments.
The "plan of attack" post was quite interesting. However I haven't seen any Drupal 7 patches for "replies as nodes" in the issues queue, so a substantial discussion about this hasn't even started.
When that was written, we had no idea how busy merlinofchaos was going to be or that changes in core for D7 would make it so he can't run core on his OS. So that's put a wrench in the plans. I am still actively working on making Drupal's forums better and will continue to do so but the "replies as nodes" is beyond my skills at the moment so I don't know if that will happen before D8. It depends on when the code freeze is, really. If it ends up being next Spring or later then the chances are better.
I was running FlatForum on my 4.7 site for about 2 years, up until i upgraded to D5.1 a few weeks ago. when i upgraded I also went to Advanced Forum and I (and my 16,000 members) are very happy with it.. It's not perfect, and there were a couple of little issues, but nothing I wasnt able to figure out within an hour or so..
it looks way better in Firefox than it does in IE though..
Comments
Yes, I did find 'Advanced
Yes, I did find 'Advanced Forum'. However, I find it difficult to believe that is the only 'advanced' forum module for 6.x
In short, yes, if you want a
In short, yes, if you want a forum fully integrated with Drupal which takes advantage of all its functionality, you will have to build it starting with the core forum module and installing additional modules. This is what the advanced forum module does (not completely ready yet)
http://drupal.org/project/advanced_forum
and also the modules mentioned here, depending on what you need:
http://drupal.org/node/227121
Notice that most of them are still Drupal 5 only. There are good forums which work this way.
The alternative is to use a dedicated forum application, such as phpbb or SMF, to have everything ready "out of the box" by the forum people. With the help of a "bridge" module you can connect their user accounts with Drupal's
http://drupal.org/project/phpbbforum
http://drupal.org/project/smfforum
but their content, permissions, theming and other functionality will be separate, and we have been seeing people converting forums to Drupal to make their sites more flexible.
Thanks. Yeah, I'm a website
Thanks.
Yeah, I'm a website beginner so I'm keeping it all drupal easy.
Advanced Forum
Advanced Forum is excellent, and getting better all the time. Setting it up takes a bit of work, but worth it in the end (and the documentation page walks you through just about every setting, minus those on the add on modules, which tend to be self-explanatory). I went ahead and installed Advanced Forum, along with all the available "add on" modules on Drupal 6 for the first time tonight (have previously only tried it on Drupal 5), and besides a few minor bugs, it works great. It took under an hour or so to find the add on modules I wanted, install everything, configure the various parts, and make a few adjustments to a few template files to suit my liking. Theming (especially in Drupal 6) is now beyond simple. I'm very impressed :) I actually first learned about Drupal way back when while I was trying to integrate Drupal with vBulletin. Since then I've completely changed my mind, and would have nothing to do with vB and similar forum software on my Drupal sites.
These days the trend on the internet is swinging away from "everything but the kitchen sink" types of forums. Simple is better. In any case, keeping the user experience on your Drupal site clean, simple, and uniform is a good idea.
For kicks I demoed Vanilla forum tonight which is very popular... I didn't see anything there Drupal couldn't do.
In case it helps, here's what I installed:
Advanced Forum (Drupal 6 version)
Comment upload (allows file uploads to comments, common on most forum software)
BUEditor (editor for easy insertion of HTML and/or BBCode)
Quote (ability to quote previous comments)
Smileys (of course)
Signatures for Forums (overcomes various limitations in Drupal core's signatures)
User Stats (post counts, how long registered, online status, etc)
Flatcomment (non-threaded discussion)
Forum Access (for private forums)
ACL (required by Forum Access)
Privatemsg (use the HEAD version for D6... not sure this is working yet)
For every one of these, be sure to visit the settings pages under Site configuration. There are also settings to be made at admin/user/settings and admin/content/node-type/forum ("Comment settings").
For Flatcomment, on the above "Comment settings" also check the Make all comments replies to the main post, regardless of the reply link used option.
Haven't decided yet between Subscriptions or Notifications, and Buddylist2 or User Relationships.
Not a big deal, but forum-related modules I'm still hoping for D6 versions on are: Comment Mover and User titles
-- David
absolutecross.com
[new guide/lesson in progress: Creating a CCK and Views powered Drupal site - feedback welcome]
Interesting, thanks
Thank you, very interesting replies.
The example forums linked from Advanced Forum and from its Issues look also good.
Advanced Forum, Nodeforum, Drupal 7 Forum
Apart from the excellent Advanced Forum, there is also the Nodeforum module, which works with the Node comments module. That is, in this case, all comments and forum posts are nodes, which opens interesting possibilities. However, Advanced Forum seems better known.
And, also interesting, there is Drupal 7 core forum module - plan of attack (at the DruBB group), a full featured Drupal forum similar to well-known standalone forums (phpbb, vbulletin, smf, invision...), using pagination, flat type to find recent posts quickly, quoting instead of threading to reply old posts, etc. Advanced Forum is the precursor (and flatforum before), with the difference that probably forum posts will be nodes in Drupal 7 instead of blog-type comments, with separate methods for forum posts and (optionally threaded) non-forum comments.
The "plan of attack" post
The "plan of attack" post was quite interesting. However I haven't seen any Drupal 7 patches for "replies as nodes" in the issues queue, so a substantial discussion about this hasn't even started.
Delayed plan
When that was written, we had no idea how busy merlinofchaos was going to be or that changes in core for D7 would make it so he can't run core on his OS. So that's put a wrench in the plans. I am still actively working on making Drupal's forums better and will continue to do so but the "replies as nodes" is beyond my skills at the moment so I don't know if that will happen before D8. It depends on when the code freeze is, really. If it ends up being next Spring or later then the chances are better.
Michelle
--------------------------------------
See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out life in the Coulee Region.
Advanced Forum
I was running FlatForum on my 4.7 site for about 2 years, up until i upgraded to D5.1 a few weeks ago. when i upgraded I also went to Advanced Forum and I (and my 16,000 members) are very happy with it.. It's not perfect, and there were a couple of little issues, but nothing I wasnt able to figure out within an hour or so..
it looks way better in Firefox than it does in IE though..
Thanks, everyone. :)
Thanks, everyone. :) Especially the two of you with long posts. :)