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By tounano on
Hi there,
Before I'll ask my question, I'll write a little bit about me:
I am not speaking English well, it's not my mother language, so don't laugh on my mistakes :). I am programming and web mastering for about 8 years, I am coding projects as a freelancer and working at respectable hi-tech firm as SysAdmin. In most of my web projects I used phpNuke as my CMS and tried phpBB, Invision Power Board and vBulletin as my forum gateways.
Well, there were times when phpNuke was "The thing", so I couldn't ignore it.
Recently I got nervous about the phpNuke and discovered Joomla and Drupal. Well, after playing with Drupal I was in love :).
After exploring Drupal, I've realised that the built-in forum is sucks for based community websites. I know that there are porting solutions to integrate Drupal with UIEForum, vBulletin and more... But from my experience with the phpNuke, porting external systems in to a CMS causing a lot of trouble later. If I were the only man who managing my sites maybe it's ok, but in most of my sites the community managers don't have clue in computers.
And now to the point, do you think that there is place to open team that will work on the development of the Drupal forum? I mean the core forum. How hard will it be to find developers to work on this project?
Thanks.
Comments
all anyone has to do is
all anyone has to do is begin working on this is to start supplying patches to be reviewed. To do so, navigate to the proper module via the issues page. There are already a few addons, (not integretions) that make the drupal forums better. the flatforum.module (found in the themes area) which helps. The flatcomments.module also helps found in the cvs downloads area.
UIEforum is actually a forum.module rewrite with added features. so this isnt exactly an integretion. I'm sure that developer could use some help and ideas for expansion.
Do you know if the UIEForum
Do you know if the UIEForum changes the core components of Drupal?
As far as I know, UIEforum
As far as I know, UIEforum does not modify any core components and the developer aspires to get it in core, replacing the current forum module some day.
An important drawback (except that it is still fresh) is that it uses its own database tables to store content and not Drupal's node system. In this respect it is not yet fully integrated, but they acknowledge it as something to be fixed in the future. More details in its "readme" and "install" files and of course in its project pages.
http://drupal.org/project/uieforum
http://drupal.org/project/issues/uieforum
About the current forum module, there have been several discussions, some of them heated. The bottom line is that, according to "the Drupal way", one can use a few existing versatile modules to provide the forum with the missing functionality, rather than integrate the functionality into the forum module. For this reason, I do not expect UIEforums to go into core (too "vertical") but it may live an interesting life like many other popular modules.
A very good writeup is this forum comment by webchick, which I have been using as reference/reminder whenever I want to set up a forum.
http://drupal.org/node/24639#comment-49630
Well, maybe the concept of "integration scripts" which create well-tested streamlined vertical applications out of existing components requires more attention.
handbook too
There are even some modules linked in the handbook page on the forum mdoule.
http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/forum
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Hi there, What do you mean
Hi there,
What do you mean is too vertical?
Best Regards,
tounano.
A complete solution for a
A complete solution for a single well-defined purpose, such as an accounting application for morticians which knows all about the logistics of gravedigging.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_application
On the other side, Drupal is often called a "framework" for building applications. It's usually up to its user to assemble a solution which uses concepts familiar to the end user.
Actually there are several popular rather vertical contributed modules, but they are generally kept out of core.
A forum as a concept is generic enough, but the point is to assemble it from parts which can serve multiple different purposes (which will keep the core code lean and mean). Not everyone is satisfied with how well this can be achieved today, hence all this discussion.
anyway, I think a
anyway,
I think a respectable drupal forum is needed thing.
So here is my plan:
http://drupal.org/node/92050#comment-168919
Have a nice day.
Hi there, After dedicating
Hi there,
After dedicating the last 3 days for exploring the forum solutions for Drupal, and reading lots of posts in here, I have one conclusion:
There is no respectable forum solution for Drupalers!
And that's why I've decided to develop extensions (I won't change the core module, its just extensions) to the existing forum!
My deadline is February 1.
Here are the features I'll try to include in the first version: (Please post yours)
And the most important things: Forum Admin Center (Just links that will make the forum administration easier) and Extended templating options!!!
Well, I think it will be good enough for the first version. As I already said, my plan is to release it until February (Why February? Because in Feb I need to update my site).
Please share your personal opinions and your feature requests.
Thanks.
Sounds great
That sounds like quite a plan. I hope you plan on building on the existing modules rather than re-inventing the wheel. You mentioned a couple, but there's more:
Michelle
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My site: http://shellmultimedia.com
...
You forgot about permissions http://drupal.org/project/taxonomy_access
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
I know most of the modules,
I know most of the modules, and I am going to explore the modules that I don't know.
I am going to use existing modules, but there are modules that I'm not satisfied with.
I am determined to complete this project, the main idea of it is to pack all the modules to one pack and to make centric admin panel for the forum.
But, I can't do that project without your help, please send me your wanted features.
Best Regards,
tounano
....
I will point out this handbook page Join forces with others. Please work with the module owners of those modules to supply them with improvements to their stuff that you see lacking. Drupal is modular. The point is that others can access the api's in other modules and leverage commonalities and build improvements together.
Contributing improvements to existing modules is a good thing. Building a glue module that requires and leverages the api's of other modules would be a good thing (and is possible with 4.7 and beyond). Building a stand alone one module to do all you've described has not been the nest approach long term for people and projects. (NOTE: I could have read your sentence wrong).
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Forum/Poll Integration
How would poll integration with forums best be implemented? I can probably add that into Advanced Poll if people are interested.
I'm interested
I like how the Ovusoft forums do it. You can see an example (picked a poll post at random) here. It looks just like a normal forum post with a top post by the original poster and replies but it also has the poll built in. Not being logged in, you'll only see the results at the top. If you're logged in and havent' voted, yet, you have the ability to vote right there.
Having polls that any user can create makes the forum more interesting and I'd love to see that feature available.
Michelle
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My site: http://shellmultimedia.com
Hi, My plan is that the
Hi,
My plan is that the forum will be a taxonomy vocabulary, with different submission UI, so after I'll finish that project (In february), it will be possible to post each node type.
It's Feb 5...
You don't have your contact tab enabled, so I'm jumping up this old post to see if you notice... We're 4 days past your self imposed deadline, so I'm wondering where you are with the project?
Thanks,
Michelle
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My site: http://shellmultimedia.com
The project is still a
The project is still a live.
Please visit http://groups.drupal.org/drubb for more information.
The pre-alpha version will be out on March.
Have a nice day.
Sorry, forgot
I remembered this post but forgot about the group that had formed farther down. Swiss cheese memory. :)
Thanks,
Michelle
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My site: http://shellmultimedia.com
I totally agree with your thoughts..
I was thinking today of writing myself a new forum topic which concerned the forum module inside Drupal core.
Totally agree with you tounano about your thoughts about the forum module.. I'm so sad to see such a big CMS and project like Drupal having such a lousy forum. Just yesterday, I'm an admin over at http://www.creativebits.org and I wanted to "move some comments" to a new thread.. In both PhpBB and Vbulletin that's an easy task and the feature has been in them since I guess stoneage. But in Drupal the feature doesn't exists. Not merging threads either and lots of other things..
Myself I'm not a coder, but I'm very willing to test out your work on the forum module tounano..
Keep the good work up!
Comment mover
http://drupal.org/project/comment_mover
new readme (for CVS, but parts apply to 4.7 as well) @ http://drupal.org/node/87736
--
The Manual | Troubleshooting FAQ | Tips for posting | How to report a security issue.
Which adds comment_mover
Which adds comment_mover (http://drupal.org/project/comment_mover) to the list of useful modules.
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*** Edit: Oops, I was a few minutes late.
Some thoughts...
Spiffing up Drupal forum options has been on my todo list for some time, ever since I had to build a hobby site on DragonflyCMS rather than Drupal because of the PHPBB thing -- see the link that CogRusty quoted (in fairness though, I didn't really know wtf I was doing back then ;)). I'd like to collaborate with you on this, although my time allotment is going to be something in the neighbourhood of like 2 hours per month. :P
The reality is that ultimately, most of the features listed here will never make it into the core forum module. They're just too heavy and/or too specific; Drupal core by design is focused on light-weight, easily extensible modules which can become whatever you want them to be but that don't bog your site down with cruft most people won't use.
Therefore, I think the best way to do this is to create an install profile for 5.0 that sets up a feature-rich forum for people out of the box.
The idea would be this:
a) The install profile would not hack core, which would keep core's forum module nice and light.
b) The profile would add whatever contributed modules were needed in order to add in rest of the necessary functionality.
c) If any of these contributed modules did not offer the requisite functionality, the developers of this profile would either improve those modules so that they did, or else add additional contributed modules to fill in functionality gaps.
Then, people just download the install profile, download the modules the profile needs, and run the installer. Boom. Done.
Now, once this get this up and running and people are using it, THEN it makes sense to take a look around and say, "What of this would actually make sense going back as a core contribution?" and submit patches against core to add this functionality in.
I think this is the "Drupal way" to getting a PHPBB-like functionality into Drupal -- done in a way that promotes a healthy, light-weight Drupal core, and small, specific contributed modules that can be used for other needs, and an easy setup for end users who want to run a Drupal PHPBB site.
Hi again, My plan is not to
Hi again,
My plan is not to rewrite drupal, I want to make a package of modules that will make my drupal forum look and behave just like vBulletin or phpBB. However, such big amount of modules will make my site's moderators confused (They don't have technical knowledge), so I think I'll write a module which makes centric admin panel for all the modules which affect on the forum.
Of course, there are some features that I can't get with the current modules, so I'll code them by myself.
One example is this issue which I've opened:
http://drupal.org/node/92871
And there is more small issues like that.
Anyway, now I am researching the available profile modules to decide which module I am going to use, any recommendations?
Node profile
Node profile looks to be a good one. By making them nodes, that opens things up to CCK.
Michelle
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My site: http://shellmultimedia.com
Ok, awesome!!
I went ahead and started a Drupal Group called "DruBB" for all interested parties to collaborate together on this, since that's much easier than a forum post:
http://groups.drupal.org/drubb
I didn't see you signed up over there, but once you are I'll go ahead and make you admin of the group.
Hi, Sorry for disappearing,
Hi,
Sorry for disappearing, I just had connection problem for the last 2 days. I've registered to groups.drupal.org and then suddenly the connection shit happend. Now it seems that hotmail is down, so as soon I'll get my password for groups.drupal.org, I'll join the group.
You can always login in
You can always login in groups.drupal.org using yourusername@drupal.org / password. The same user name you use here with @drupal.org added, and the same password.
It is that nifty Drupal feature which lets you use the same ID/password in another site with the drupal.module enabled.
Thanks. Iv'e joined this
Thanks.
Iv'e joined this group. :)
Cool, made you the leader.
Cool, made you the leader. :)
I'll still pitch in as much as time allows, and can help with any overall Drupal architecture things that come up.