Organic Groups pseudo forums

Hmmm, interesting. So this going to be just one large 'general discussion' area?

Depends on your needs. If you have a group that needs multiple "forums" you could further filter the view, I suppose. I'll just provide the basics in AF to get folks started but, since it's views, it shouldn't be hard to customize from there.

Michelle

Awesome.

For comparison sake, how would this functionality be similar to / differ from og_forum? (aside from the fact that OGF would have to be rewritten to work with AF)

I often have to decide (sadly) to use one or the other module based on the clients needs. A short comparison could be helpful - it also might be appropriate, because you already have to give the OGF caveat on the project page - eventually if this works out we could link to a comparison page between OGF & AF regarding Organic groups / core forum integration. If you need help with that let me know :)

No idea. I don't use OGF and have no plans to use it. Once I get the view in place, someone who has used both could make a comparison of them.

Michelle

Changing the title a bit since this is more than just a view. I need to think through exactly what I am doing here.

First of all, to answer #3, I had a look at the screenshots / docs of OG Forum and I don't think there is going to be much overlap in functionality. They are two different approaches so it depends on which you like better.

This is still rough, but I'm thinking through how I want this to work and sketching out ideas as I go along.

• This will not actually be connected to core forum in any way.
• New view: "advanced_forum_group_topic_list"
  • Takes a group NID as an argument.
  • Filters to a particular set of node types.
  • Optionally takes a taxonomy tid argument
• Form alter the new view into an option for the RON on the home page. This allows formatting the main RON as a topic list but isn't very flexible.
• Use OG Panels to create a tab per pseudoforum
• • Each pseudoforum has the tid as an argument to allow for seperate, named pseudoforums
  • Need a way to make the "post topic" button on each pseudoforum automatically assign the correct tid
• #492794: Improve function for determining what gets the style applied will give the ability to style the actual pseudoforum topics in an OG to look like forum topics.

So, basically, the general idea is that you will have one or more tabs on the group page for "forums" and each tab will have something that looks like a forum topic list but is actually made up of group posts and not connected to the real forums at all. Folks who want real forum.module forums per group will need to use OG Forum. Folks who just want their group posts to be organized and styled more forum-like can use this.

Need to decide if it's worth converting these forum only features as well:

• Mark as read
• Search forums
• Search in topic
• My unread
• Unanswered topics
• Active topics
• Statistics

I started playing with this idea a while ago and had similar thoughts. I alluded to my problem in this post:
http://drupal.org/node/391466#comment-1319586

I was simply looking for one simple forum per group (so no Containers or Taxonomy to think about, just a flat forum per group).

I created a new node type "Group Forum Topic" and styled it to look like a forum post.
Sorted breadcrumbs.
Created a view with the URL: og//forum
In the header of the view I created a custom link to add a Group Forum Topic to the og.

All I needed was a way to make the view (i.e. the list of topics) be themed in a Advanced_forum way. I never got around to sorting this out and we're on D5 so I shelved it until we move to D6. It all works, it is just that the list of forum topics does not look pretty!

Well, then, you should be all set. :) A view to theme an OG topic list to look like the AF topic list is the first thing I did and all I have done on this issue so far.

Michelle

Just committed a form alter so you can use the group topic list view as a RON if you aren't using OG Panels.

Michelle

Hmm, do you think to have separate node type just for groups is useful ? It probably would create confusion to user where and how to post his topic - if you have both general forum and group-forums. It will get even worse since you can't display them together. I think it's major usability issue.

Probably in case of OG it would make sense to get rid of forum module completely and make separate "general" group as default forum. Then one would need to make every user member of "general" group automatically. Then you come to mentality where "forum container" == "group".

I have site where users can post blog posts and forum topics and they always mess them all together e.g. post private stuff in forums and start public discussions in blogs - so I would say difference should be clear enough for non-technical user, and in case where you have separate "forum post" and "group post" it's not.

Yes, I think it's very useful. I have no intention of mixing the normal forums and my groups' forums. They are seperate parts of my site. It's become clear since I started this that not everyone has the same use case as I do when it comes to forum-like groups and that's fine. The OG Forum module may suit those peoples' needs better.

Michelle

would it be possible then to use your pseudo forums as only forums on site ? I mean, in some reasonable way, like not having "/forum" page at all etc etc. Would just deleting all containers (thus clearing forum vocab) and using menu_alter to disable "/forum" path be enough ?

I'll explain: I have site in development and I plan to use OG extensively but not just yet. I want to have 1 nodetype for discussions (as I explained in my case less choice = better usability) and if I use "forum" nodes from the start I will have problems with transferring them to "group pseudo forums" later.
From looking at OGF issues it seems like badly supported module and it won't work with AF2.0 anyway which I'm using. So judging from that, it seems like I will have to implement your pseudo forum solution.

Well, AF has a dependency on core forum so you would at least need the forum module enabled. But you could just not define any forums and not put the forum link on any menu. Keep in mind that I'm coming from the perspective that groups and forums are two different things. I don't know how far, yet, I'm going to go to make the groups forum-like. I'm doing this for Coulee Region Online, so it's very tuned to my needs though I will consider feature requests as well. For my needs, I wanted to get rid of the default "river of news" teaser list and give each group a nice front page with a tab for "discussions" that has a list of topics themed the same as the forum topic list, which I can do with this and OG Panels.

Michelle

You edited your comment after I started answering, so I missed your additions in my response...

You can use the same forum node type in groups if you choose later. You can even crosspost a forum post into a group. Or you can make a new node type that goes in forums and groups from the start. Node types are pretty flexible.

OGF looks like it's getting a lot of attention lately and will probably be compatable with AF 2.x at some point so there shouldn't be a problem going with that if it fits your use case better.

Michelle

Just a note to anyone trying to use this... I discovered tonight that I had named the group topic list view file wrong and so I was running off the database, not code. That's corrected in CVS now.

Michelle

Also in case of nodecomments reply node should get same OG audience and other OG settings as it's parent node. Haven't checked if it does already though...Seems like stuff related to Nodecomments in general.

I tried your view and it works. Topic list indeed looks like forum :)
However individual forum topic isn't themed as forum, there's no author pane, no forum styles at all. Any idea how to make it work ?

That's waiting on #492794: Improve function for determining what gets the style applied

Michelle

Thanks! Will follow that