Do you want private and public forums and og?

I've seen a number of posts about the frustrations of using OG and forums, I've "suffered" too. I got drupal just over a month ago with the aim of building an e-learning portal type site for my students at college. I leapt at OG, it's ideal for splitting the students into groups of courses. Naturally, I wanted to use forums and I had the following needs:

• Each course has their own list of private forums.
• Tutors should have a totally private list of forums
• There should be some forums that are open to everyone.

Here's how I did it. I don't know how "legal" it is Drupal wise, but it works good enough until webchick or somebody else gets og_forum working how we want ;)

This method does not touch any of the core files, instead my approach was thru theming as it is part of the presentation... isn't it?..... You will need a template.php and a forum-list.tpl.php in your theme folder.

General logic

In the template.php I create an array ($ugrps) that contains the nid's of all the forums I want visible. Then in forum-list.tpl.php the line if (in_array($forum->tid, $forumgrps)) { checks if the current forum is the one I want to see.

This method can easily be changed to forums visible by role or quantity of post, points or whatever. I haven't tried to have for example a public forum inside a private container as I don't need it.

The Set up

Groups

I have the created the following og groups:

• HNC Graphics
• HNC Photography
• NC Design
• Staff
• The Commons

The Commons is the group for everyone, and I use og_mandatory to ensure everybody is in it. As the admin (user 1) of the site the only groups I shall be in are the Commons and Staff, so I logged in as other members of staff to create the other 3 course groups.

The Forums

For each course, I created a Forum Container (name of the group) and 2 forums (Assignments and Class Notes). For the Staff Group I did the same except the forums were named Student Matters and Misc. Finally, for The Commons group I created a container and two forums Announcements and Break Time.

Numbers....

Now we need to collect some numbers, specifically the node numbers for the groups and forums. The quickest way is to go into phpmyadmin and select the sites database. Select the og table and press the Browse button. The two important columns are nid and description. Write down the group names and then from the descriptions write the nid numbers next to the coresponding group. I had:

• HNC Graphics - 3
• HNC Photography - 5
• NC Design - 4
• Staff - 33
• The Commons - 2

Next, the forums. This could be difficult, especially if you have multiple forums with the same name like I have eg. Assignments. So what I suggest is that you log on to the site as the different group admins, go to the forum page and run the mouse over the titles of each container and forum. As you do so, look in the browsers status bar to get the number. For example, when the mouse hovered over Announcements, I saw http://localhost/forums/29. As I said, do this for each and every container and forum, and you should end up with a list like this:

• HNC Graphics - 15,18,21
• HNC Photography - 17,20,23
• NC Design - 16,19,22
• Staff - 30,31,32
• The Commons - 27,28,29

template.php

Using your favorite editor, open template.php in your theme folder, if there isn't one there create a new file, then copy and paste the following into it:

function _user_grps() {
  global $user;
  $grps = array();         // Holds the current user's group nids
  $ugrps = array();       // Holds the forum nids
  $sql = 'SELECT nid FROM {og_uid} WHERE uid = %d';
  $res = db_query($sql, $user->uid);
  while ($mem = db_fetch_object($res)) {
    $grps[] = $mem->nid;
    }

  $ugrps = array(27,28,29); // public forums
  if (in_array(3,$grps)) {
    $ugrps[] = 15;
    $ugrps[] = 18;
    $ugrps[] = 21;
  }
  if (in_array(4,$grps)) {
    $ugrps[] = 16;
    $ugrps[] = 19;
    $ugrps[] = 22;
  }
  if (in_array(5,$grps)) {
    $ugrps[] = 17;
    $ugrps[] = 20;
    $ugrps[] = 23;
  }
  if (in_array(33,$grps)) {
    $ugrps[] = 30;
    $ugrps[] = 31;
    $ugrps[] = 32;
  }
  return $ugrps;
}

Now you customise this to your use.

1. $ugrps = array(27,28,29); // public forums
   Those 3 numbers, are the numbers of the forums and containers that are open to everyone. Change them to your public forums.
2. if (in_array(3,$grps)) {
   $ugrps[] = 15;
   $ugrps[] = 18;
   $ugrps[] = 21;
   }
   
   The number 3 is the group nid and the 15,18 and 21 are the forum nid's. Substitute your numbers, adding or deleting $ugrps[] = xx; as needed.

Done that? Okay, save it now!!

forum-list.tpl.php

If you have been theming your forums you probably have this already in your theme folder, if not create it (if you don't know how visit http://drupal.org/node/65171 for instructions - this is already turning into war & peace ;) ). You will need to add some lines...

At the start change:

global $user;

if ($forums) {

  $header = array(t('Forum'), t('Topics'), t('Posts'), t('Last post'));

  foreach ($forums as $forum) {

to

global $user;

if ($forums) {

  $header = array(t('Forum'), t('Topics'), t('Posts'), t('Last post'));
  $forumgrps = _user_grps();  // visible forums

  foreach ($forums as $forum) {

Find

  if ($forum->container) {
    $description  = '<div style="margin-left: '. ($forum->depth * 30) ."px;\">\n";
    $description .= ' <div class="name">'. l($forum->name, "forum/$forum->tid") ."</div>\n";

    if ($forum->description) {
      $description .= ' <div class="description">'. filter_xss_admin($forum->description) ."</div>\n";
    }
    $description .= "</div>\n";

    $rows[] = array(array('data' => $description, 'class' => 'container', 'colspan' => '4'));
  }

and change it to:

  if ($forum->container) {
    if (in_array($forum->tid, $forumgrps)) {    // <<===== Added line
      $description  = '<div style="margin-left: '. ($forum->depth * 30) ."px;\">\n";
      $description .= ' <div class="name">'. l($forum->name, "forum/$forum->tid") ."</div>\n";

      if ($forum->description) {
        $description .= ' <div class="description">'. filter_xss_admin($forum->description) ."</div>\n";
      }
      $description .= "</div>\n";

      $rows[] = array(array('data' => $description, 'class' => 'container', 'colspan' => '4'));
    }      // <<===== Added line
  }

Finally, find

    else {
      $new_topics = _forum_topics_unread($forum->tid, $user->uid);
      $forum->old_topics = $forum->num_topics - $new_topics;
      if (!$user->uid) {
        $new_topics = 0;
      }

      $description  = '<div style="margin-left: '. ($forum->depth * 30) ."px;\">\n";
      $description .= ' <div class="name">'. l($forum->name, "forum/$forum->tid") ."</div>\n";

      if ($forum->description) {
        $description .= ' <div class="description">'. filter_xss_admin($forum->description) ."</div>\n";
      }
      $description .= "</div>\n";

      $rows[] = array(
        array('data' => $description, 'class' => 'forum'),
        array('data' => $forum->num_topics . ($new_topics ? '<br />'. l(format_plural($new_topics, '1 new', '%count new'), "forum/$forum->tid", NULL, NULL, 'new') : ''), 'class' => 'topics'),
        array('data' => $forum->num_posts, 'class' => 'posts'),
        array('data' => _forum_format($forum->last_post), 'class' => 'last-reply'));
    }

And change it to

    else {
      if (in_array($forum->tid, $forumgrps)) {       // <<===== Added line
        $new_topics = _forum_topics_unread($forum->tid, $user->uid);
        $forum->old_topics = $forum->num_topics - $new_topics;
        if (!$user->uid) {
          $new_topics = 0;
        }

        $description  = '<div style="margin-left: '. ($forum->depth * 30) ."px;\">\n";
        $description .= ' <div class="name">'. l($forum->name, "forum/$forum->tid") ."</div>\n";

        if ($forum->description) {
          $description .= ' <div class="description">'. filter_xss_admin($forum->description) ."</div>\n";
        }
        $description .= "</div>\n";

        $rows[] = array(
          array('data' => $description, 'class' => 'forum'),
          array('data' => $forum->num_topics . ($new_topics ? '<br />'. l(format_plural($new_topics, '1 new', '%count new'), "forum/$forum->tid", NULL, NULL, 'new') : ''), 'class' => 'topics'),
          array('data' => $forum->num_posts, 'class' => 'posts'),
          array('data' => _forum_format($forum->last_post), 'class' => 'last-reply'));
      }                        // <<===== Added line
    }

Done that? Then save it and you're all done and finished. All that remains is to go to the site and test it out as different group members etc.