Drupal modules equivalent to phpBB2 features
Many people switching over from phpBB2 wonder if a native Drupal forum has the same functionality.
While a Drupal forum will never be the same as a phpBB2 forum, there exist numerous contributed modules who can do most of what phpBB2 does, and potentially more.
This page is aims to list such modules so that a former phpBB2 admin can find their way more easily within the maze of Drupal modules.
This list is not exhaustive. It will be completed progressively. If you have any question that you would like to be answered within this page, then open a support request within the phpbb2drupal project.
Thread splitting
This feature is not yet well supported within Drupal. There exist however a promissing module prototype that would allow an admin to move a comment from one place to another, either within a thread or to another thread, or to create a new thread (new node).
See the Comment mover module.
Private Forums
Currently, the best Drupal solution to have private forums (i.e. forums where only a specific 'role' - e.g. Moderators - can post and view the topics), is to use the taxonomy access module. Taxonomy access is a very complete, feature wise.
Concurrently, there is a feature request that would allow for the equivalent of private forums with the only the Drupal core. See the Make posting/viewing permission more granular issue.
Email notification
phpBB gives you the possibility to receive email notifications when a reply is posted to a thread.
Once again, a Drupal forum has no such feature out of the box, but a number of contribution module give you alternative ways to achieve the same:
- Comment RSS: This module adds comment RSS serving capabilties to Drupal, which is suitable for some tracking of comments for your users.
- Notify: The notify module allows users to subscribe to periodic emails which include all new or revised content and/or comments much like the daily news letters sent by some websites.
- Organic groups: Enable users to create and manage their own 'groups'. Each group can have subscribers, and maintains a group home page where subscribers communicate amongst themselves. Organic groups is a fairly complex module: it provides email notification of new content posted on each group, according to the user's settings, but it also gives you much more than that.
- Subscriptions: This module enables users to subscribe to be notified of changes to nodes or taxonomies, such as new comments in specific forums, or additions to some category of blog. Once enabled, all nodes will have an additional link that allows the user to change their subscriptions. This module is probably the closest to phpBB email notification feature.
Editing posts
There are scores of contribution modules that makes editing posts easier. Browse the contribution modules for the most appropriate filter/editor for your site.
In particular: