What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Terradon — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 19:13:02 -0600

Quote
Thomas Seifert
and pushing the module concept to its limit by having a really lean core.

I am playing with the Twig template engine for my own project and start liking it.
Other people may like other template engines:)

Maybe it is possible to use an own favorite template engine? I think it would be difficult,because i really do not know in what way to deliver data for more then 1 template engine.

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

rchecka — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 13:08:19 -0500

Ability to embed Soundcloud and mixcloud must be worked into the new version. This is a feature of ALL paid bbcode forums and for a music forum such as mine those two now mainstream players must have the embed code function.

It doesn't function with the html embedding module enabled either so perhaps an Embed Souncloud and Mixcloud module should be built in complete with bbcode buttons.

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

salmobytes — Sun, 01 Mar 2015 08:49:20 -0600

This is a follow-up to my last suggestion about an "embeddable" version of phorum. I have a buddy who works in E-commerce. He makes good money (big money) setting up interactive shopping carts, often for interactions between retailers and distributors, rather than for the retail public at large.

He reports to me that interactive "product reviews" on shopping cart sites are the number one selling tool. More important than any other single consideration. When people see others have tried product-X and like it. They are far far far more likely to click the "Add to Cart" button.

Phorum could not be used in this context because it insists on making its own page. Someday one of the open source forum projects will make their project "embed friendly," in a way that does not use an IFRAME. A few already make that claim. But that's where hot demand is right now.

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

salmobytes — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 09:38:15 -0600

I'd like an embeddable forum--so I can put the display pages and post editing displays inside a DIV inside my CMS. Admin pages can be their own thing. I don't want an Iframe. I don't understand how exactly but it seems this is sometimes done with complex Javascript.

Can't there be a simpler way? If all incoming post and get parameters (to phorum) had a well-recognized prefix (phorum_page=xxx) the enclosing CMS could filter all incoming posts and gets through a plugin filter. A plugin plugin. Posts and gets belonging to the enclosing CMS jump out of the plugin case statement and proceed as per the normal way. Writing a plugin filter for any given CMS would be a relatively minor project.

Posts and gets belonging to a plugin (phorum_page=xyz) would use a special *.tpl that includes no enclosing html head or body elements. And that would get stuffed into a buffer or variable first, before subsequent handling by the enclosing CMS.

Embeddable cloud-based forums are popping up like rabbits. This attests to a need. But those cloud based embeddable forums come with a monthly fee.

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

nikos — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 01:19:54 -0500

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Steve H — Thu, 09 May 2013 14:20:33 -0500

Have you tried the Mobile template that is already available?
[www.phorum.org]

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Scott Finegan — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 14:45:19 -0600

What I would like to see is a Meta Data Driven, N-Tier Design
* N-tier and MVC are not mutually exclusive, nor are they the same.

UI / Presentation

Access Centric
..Security / Business Rules

Data Centric / Access / Permissions / Data Integrity / Data Validation / Create, Modify Table(s)
..Data translation classes (for different storage medium)

Data Store (whatever flavor/medium)

--------------

What follows are my thoughts, not necessarily complete, or in the correct category/tier.

UI, User Controlled (things not in control of developers)
..JS not absolutely required
..Cookies not absolutely required
....Public
....Mobile access

..Impaired User Friendly
....Screen Readers
....Screen Magnifiers

..Translations (some browsers support directly, some don't)

UI, Presentation
..Provide options that enhance usability.
....Phorum
......Templates
..........Internationalization / Localization
........Social Media
........Translations
........Impaired User Friendly Considerations
........A way to track and flag edited messages and attachments (different than "New")
....Web Site Integration
......Other content management ;)

Business Rules / Security / Permissions
..Modular
....Connection Types Spported (HTTPS, HTTP, Console)

....Early hack / spam detect
......Hook at beginning of common.php (or equivalent). For running third party script, without a hack. < ?php $path/script ? >< ?php "common code" ...

....Force better and safer passwords
....bcrypt for passwords
....Anti Spam
....Event Logging

......Public User
........Registered User

........Hooks
..........User Controllable Translation For Any Template (Google, Bing, Others)

....Moderator Features
......User Approval (Needs to be combined with other modules listed to give moderator all of the usefull information for a decision.)
........Block User
........User List
........StopForumSpam
........Related IP Events from event logging.
..........Sorting + Filtering

......Moving messages, leave a placeholder for moved message that allows for removing message fron middle of tree, without requiring moving child replies (doesn't need to display).

....Admin Features
......Prevent deletion of messages by selecting an Admin general settings checkbox, message is hidden, not deleted.

......Debug Specific Problems
........Ability to single step through messages in a topic without loading the whole topic/thread into an array which triggers the error.
//(For example I had a message in a topic with an unserialize problem that took many hours to locate because the actual message with the problem was not individually identified. The error turned out to be a corrupted link to an attachment.)

....Developer Super Access
......Program Flow (order in which modules are used)
......Variables available for different access permissions.
......Test scripts
......Debug tools
......Hook list and where available
......Console (Brings up a list of programs that may be run "local", and allows running them from a console screen)

Data Centric / Data Access / Data Integrity / Data Validation / Create Table(s) / Modify Structure

..DB Search
....DB Full text search using the best available option for the current data store, and Regular Slow Search available from the search interface at all times.

....Choice on number of months to search. (Currently 30 days, 90 days, One Year, then All)

..Database Access
....mySql Class
....SqlServer Class
....ODBC Class
....PostgresSQl Class
....Other Storage Class

..Event Logging
....Improved Sorting + Filtering
......Ability to sort by count of ip decending among other things.
....Improved Logging Possibilities.

..Backup Database
....Full -exclude list for non critical tables
....Incremental (by date, which picks up edits, and changed attachments whether stored in tables or not)

..Orphan Message and Attachment Finder
....I still have orphan messages that don't get located, so there must be more than one way to have orphan messages.
....Moving messages may leave orphan attachments. (reported on phorum by at least one person, unproven?)

..Registration IP, Login IPs (so we can force a manual login when a new IP is used)
....Separate User Name screen from Password Screen (If UN doesn't exist, no password screen)

Data Store (Database) beyond what Phorum currently uses.
..Registration IP, Login IPs
..IPV6 storage

..Data Dictionary (Not the built in schema over which we have little control.)
....Data and meta-data (structure, indices, relations, variables, permissions, features)
....Program code

..Data Driven where it makes sense.
....I would put everything in tables (code, variables, permissions, docs, data dict.), even if it is not used for data driving. If performance may become an issue, the data dictionary may be used to create scripts files that don't require database access, and don't contain unused options.

..Internationalization / Localization

Documentation
..Program flow
....Variable list and where they originate.
..Document which tables and fields are critical, and which may be rebuilt from existing data, or ignored, even though they may cause minor inconvenience temporarily.
..User Docs

Testing
..Tests that should succeed .
..Tests that should fail.
..Debug code

Cache
..Structure gets too deep for client browser clearing.
....Create a cron job that runs on the server.

--------------
Modules (Other)

..Review all modules to determine if there is common code that may be reused. Move to class(s).

--------------

Further reading.

Two of the following sites belong to -- Tony Marston.
Besides a framework, he explains the "why" of many of his design decisions used in the framework. Well worth reading even if you don't like his way of doing things.

Data Dictionary
www .tonymarston.co.uk/php-mysql/data-dictionary.html

RADICORE -- Rapid Application Development Framework
www .radicore.org/

----

Jakob Nielsen's 457 essays on web site usability.

www .useit.com

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Voltius — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 00:20:19 -0600

In order of highest importance first:

1) To GET RID of those annoying confirmation screens, "your message has been posted", "you have been logged in", "thread has been deleted" etc.... Man that crap's from 1993. Back in the day when we had dial up and weren't sure if submitted commands went through. It's time to get rid of it.
2) DO NOT redirect a mod back to the list of threads after he/she delete a post inside a thread. I feel that's very improper.
3) Ability to allow users to post in a forum but not read or view anything in it. This would be perfect for all sorts of websites and communities, allowing everything from "contests" to an "anonymous tips" or "feedback" forums to be easily made.

=== Wild Wish List ===
3) to be able to sort a list of threads,
4) for an unregistered user to be able to report inappropriate posts

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

MXnewbie — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 21:47:22 -0600

Priority number one: Mobil phorum

Everything is growing around cellulars. So, the next obvious step is to have a phorum that is a native mobile platform. Probably the same functionality on his core, but easy to adapt to mobiles.

Cellulars and tables are replacing laptops and PCs. In order to have an exponential grow, we need to reach all that audience in an easy way. Phorum is the tool. What changes are needed?. Layouts, layouts, layouts.

In addition, a couple of tools to take advantage of cellulars: a map functionality, live chat, and more visual tools such a module integrated with the cullular camera.

Finally, on this days everything is around "the cloud". So, why not to include a couple of simple tools to offer phorum users the possibility to experience the cloud from a phorum platform?.

Thanks in advance for all your efforts. I´m sure there is no limits on the future of phorum.

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Benny — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 13:29:16 -0600

RTL Theme support full.
will be great!

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Thomas Seifert — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 05:40:54 -0600

The consensus in this thread seems to be that we should just keep the current phorum and fix something here and add something there.

Just to make my personal opinion clear:
There will be something new, the question is with which content.
We are currently just 2 people left in the core team coding on Phorum when we got time and motivation to do so while in the same time we have moved on and got a family to care for.
Opening Phorum on Github brought just one pull request and no further commitment by other coders.
Also, in our opinion, the current codebase is tough to handle with future enhancements up to a state where its nearly unmanageable.

Therefore we'd like to get some fun again into coding phorum and make it manageable at the same time - fun with working on some better concepts like MVC and using (finally mature) stuff like exceptions and OOP in PHP, making it manageable by working with a bit of TDD (maybe not completely but with far higher test coverage) and pushing the module concept to its limit by having a really lean core.
This will also allow a lot of features requested over time.

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

rfc — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 01:58:21 -0600

Fix outstanding bugs, like [github.com] :-)

I tried to come up with a vision of Phorum for the future but I just can't. IMHO it will never be more than that; but it won't be less because once you get into it, it's OK as it is.

Yes, there are issues when working in more organized development environments; like the generous usage of globals and stuff like that. Makes software testing and isolating things quite ... unexpected (but it's doable).

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

dholeman — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 13:38:44 -0600

Be very conservative. The current version gets a lot of things right.

A great strength of Phorum has been portability. This means sticking strictly to relational database for data storage and avoid data types within the database structure that are not easily transportable.

Maintain separation of data and presentation. You finally managed to get this right, don't mess it up as you start to get into mobile.

You need better presentation formatting for mobile devices (I do have the mobile template installed). I know it is getting to be a nightmare because of the sheer number of platforms but many of my users are now parsing their messages through their iPads or cell phones.

Whatever you do to accommodate the requests for integrating social media and web analytics do not do anything that jeopardizes user privacy. Make any integration opt-in on a per-user basis and keep it all out of core code.

Build an admin tool for automating backups. There seems to be some sort of philosophical bias among the star developers against doing this but it is really long overdue.

This things being said, imho Phorum is in a state that needs little further development for now. I think efforts of the star team should be devoted to expanding the adoption of Phorum. The single biggest barrier to adoption is a lack of integration modules for mating it to other software. Amember is a good example. Nothing fancy, mind you, just the basics of shared cookies, shared user database and a simple, stable integrated template.

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

agentabstract — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 08:17:59 -0600

Sorry I reposted my topic in the Hack/Mods request forum. I felt this was a response to your initial question, but I see you have a forum that is better suited for such things. You can delete my post and our replies here if you like. Thanks for a great product.

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Thomas Seifert — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 05:31:29 -0600

@agentabstract, please make new topics for new questions which are not related to this thread

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

agentabstract — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 01:00:19 -0600

I'm getting requests from my users for a quick chat mod. I've been digging around in the forums here, and older discussions from previous versions and it doesn't seem that anyone has ever found a good solution.

What I want is a simple chat page that automatically uses Phorum accounts. When I say simple, I mean that too. Nothing fancy whatsoever. A box to type in text and a window where that text scrolls up.

I've personally moved from trying to find this solution, to trying to create this solution.

Does anyone have anything like this on their site, or has anyone integrated an available product or script to Phorum logins?

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Thomas Seifert — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 06:51:14 -0600

Quote
sheik
s. Lemonstand also has a dedicated procedure for module writers to alter the database semi-automatically (you just add your SQL to a config file).

Well. we got module database upgrades too which hook into the regular phorum upgrade process but I guess it just lacks documentation ;-).

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Thomas Seifert — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 06:48:15 -0600

Quote
Phil Connolly
Make Google and Bing anaytics/webmaster tools ID's configurable to the Admin as part of the core, not dependent on a module/template. Also make population of forum and topic page titles / descriptions configurable (also part of the core) rather than up to the template designer or a module writer.

These webmaster tools stuff also loudly asks for a module in my opinion. It actually is just a simple HTML snippet which is added in the header. Also if it changes, a module can be easier updated.

Quote
Phil Connolly
Social media sharing needs to be really fleshed out. It does not belong in the core, but a really robust and API-rich extension is needed. There are so many ways a forum integrator could use it beyond the simple Like buttons and tweet this post and such. There are too many use cases for a developer to anticipate and create "features" to please every Phorum admin. I like the idea of a social media extension defining object models and APIs available for module developers to build on top of. If Phorum shipped with a social media extension module, I believe module developers would use it to add more actual social features. Without the extension module, the learning curve, not to mention the amount of code that has to be written, is too much.

Hmm, I'm wondering what exactly that base module should provide. What kind of object models and API's beside some Posts-API and Users-API are we talking about?

Maybe you want to join the effort alltogether? ;-)

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

agentabstract — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 10:23:08 -0600

Correction I see you can move entire topics around. So it really would just be moving replies to a topic, which you can split off then move.

So what I want is a split off, move, then merge. In one action.

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

agentabstract — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 10:14:15 -0600

I want a move button on a message that I can either create a new topic in a different forum, or move the entire topic to a different forum.

A classic example from my site www.indestructibleclans.com (shameless plug):

We have a forum where people can apply to our clan. Once that application is approved we want to move that reply message to a topic inside the clan forum.

Another case would be that a string of general discussion forum posts will spark an entirely new forum. So after I manually create that forum I would want a quick way in the gui to move those topics into that new forum.

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Thomas Seifert — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 08:32:08 -0600

Quote
agentabstract
I would really like to see a better ability to move messages around in the forums.

Care to give some examples?

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

agentabstract — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 08:28:49 -0600

I would really like to see a better ability to move messages around in the forums.

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Terradon — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 14:54:21 -0600

Several years ago, when i had to choose an email class, I read a lot of articles about phpmailer versus swiftmailer.
In that time, phpmailer had no active developement anymore. Now googling again, it seems phpmailer is in active development status again.

The first article i read today about swiftmailer:
[forums.phplist.com]

reading even more articles today, i think both classes are good, so it would be a waste of time to change this. No reason to change a winning horse:)

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Thomas Seifert — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 04:50:20 -0600

Quote
Terradon
Apperently, you dont know what to improve in next versions, so you ask the users. It just means, you did a really good job!

Well, we also have many ideas but we want to know whats important for the users :).

Quote
Terradon
Low priority:
Mail system: i do like very much, the Swiftmailer class for sending mail.
This could be in core, or via an intermediar function, in which i can choose a mailclass? Hard to imagine, but other people may prefer another mailclass:)

What for exactly? What would you gain with using this class for mailing? The smtp mail module uses phpmailer for sending email which has a similar feature set to swiftmailer (we even used swiftmailer before in the smtp mail module).

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Terradon — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 16:07:35 -0600

To be honest, in my opinon the core shouldn't be changed, it works perfectly?? Only code improvements for newer php/mysql versions, keeps phorum core clean and future-proof.
Please, dont upgrade because of upgrading, don't create another phpBB forum:)

The module system and using hooks, took me a while before i did understand the basics of it. Untill that moment, i did not realize how powerfull Phorum really is.
Apperently, you dont know what to improve in next versions, so you ask the users. It just means, you did a really good job!

For me, i just can think of 2 things to think about:

High priority:
Extend the documentation in a way, less experienced scripters can understand better, with howto code-examples.
I myself, have spent many, many weeks to get things done. I have got perfect support here, but i really think that most answers i got, belong in the documentation.Could save the developers team a lot of time.

Low priority:
Mail system: i do like very much, the Swiftmailer class for sending mail.
This could be in core, or via an intermediar function, in which i can choose a mailclass? Hard to imagine, but other people may prefer another mailclass:)

This is just a very personal point of view, i dont know if many users will be pleased with this.

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

sheik — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 05:55:08 -0600

I personally wouldn't make any 3rd party analytics part of the core. That kind of functionality screams "module" to me.

I like the idea of a Phorum-approved social media module to show the rest of us how it should be done!

Returning to the idea of upgrades via the admin, I was recently impressed with how Lemonstand (an ecommerce product) accomplishes this. So far it's seemed very painless. Lemonstand also has a dedicated procedure for module writers to alter the database semi-automatically (you just add your SQL to a config file).

/\dam

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Phil Connolly — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 13:57:45 -0600

OK, totally random free-form thoughts from a developer perspective:

Although I am not huge fan of MVC, a platform like Phorum would actually greatly benefit from it. I would agree with your other post that Phorum could go in that direction (maybe I would elevate "could" to "should").

With more investment in MVC, I would do away with the silly template language and just work in views coded in PHP with a much richer API, and with an investment in OOP, the subsequent object model. It would not be overly difficult to write conversion scripts that could translate legacy templates into views.

Create a more intelligent module registration and installation system that does not require admins to create profile variables or actually do anything accept agree to install the module. Along the lines of what Sheik discussed about table creation and/or meta data definition, I would suggest a way more complete process in the core that defines a declarative method for developers to specify their storage needs. Module developers would then be discouraged from module code that creates tables or otherwise changing the DB layer themselves, because they can specify in a manifest what table(s) are required for their module, and in addition introduce a higher level concept such as an extension to a user profile, which is handled as an actual field (with data type) rather than meta data. There are probably a number of other similar higher level data storage concepts that could be supported similarly (partial list: Application, Forum, Thread, Topic, Event, etc.). An API available to module developers would allow us in our code to interact with our storage, rather than rolling our own DB code or using Phorum's DB interaction code (which IMO should be considered core and off limits). So storage specified in a module manifest, created by core during module installation, and interacted via module-specific API in our code.

OK, this is way out there, but here goes: most module and template (in the future views, right?) development can occur in essentially a glorified text editor (my favorite for these purposes is Komodo). That being the case, a developer UI provided in the Admin section would be very useful. It could provide lists - organized by core section - of hooks available to the developer with function prototype info, and I just select the one I want and the spiffy editor places a function block in my code, updates my info.txt (or the new improved manifest file) and I type merrily away in the code block. Same thing for core and module-specific API calls, and as well object model core objects. I know the core code very, very well, not because I really enjoy reading PHP by the fireside, but because I constantly search near and wide for useful functions and hooks in the core. Not everyone is as OCD as me :). This idea kind of eases the burden on API/hook documentation by the way. Let the system self-document and expose these things to us developers in this fancy editor.

Elevate event logging to the core and provide an API that can be used by modules to display their own events in their own settings pages.

Feature ideas

Make Google and Bing anaytics/webmaster tools ID's configurable to the Admin as part of the core, not dependent on a module/template. Also make population of forum and topic page titles / descriptions configurable (also part of the core) rather than up to the template designer or a module writer.

Social media sharing needs to be really fleshed out. It does not belong in the core, but a really robust and API-rich extension is needed. There are so many ways a forum integrator could use it beyond the simple Like buttons and tweet this post and such. There are too many use cases for a developer to anticipate and create "features" to please every Phorum admin. I like the idea of a social media extension defining object models and APIs available for module developers to build on top of. If Phorum shipped with a social media extension module, I believe module developers would use it to add more actual social features. Without the extension module, the learning curve, not to mention the amount of code that has to be written, is too much.

You did say dream wildly.... (Where's korsakov??)

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

sheik — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:16:15 -0600

...and, from an admin maintenance point of view - upgrades to core and modules via the admin interface would be awesome.

Having said all of the above, a complete rewrite would worry me, as if it were too radically different then it could take module writers years to port existing modules. I'd hate to see our project community fracture between old and new versions.

/\dam

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

sheik — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:06:10 -0600

The main thing I'm hoping for is a database design that can support metadata for each post or thread, allowing users to rate, like, +1 or whatever you want to call it. The core rating system should be able to be overridden by modules for maximum flexibility.

[Speaking of which, I'd like a module interface that can create a table in the DB for its own data]

If Phorum can nail capturing this data in an efficient manner, then we'd be able to write modules such as "recommended threads" based on User A liking a lot of User B's posts, therefore User A may like some of the posts User B has liked. etc etc.

It also means Phorum communities can foster their own "reputation" metrics, especially if there is provision to downvote, unlike etc.

If the design for the ratings were made a bit more complex than just a numeric value then tagging could be implemented too.

If this is of no interest to the developers, then I would just ask that the bare bones be put in and module writers will do the rest. The current offically approved mechanism of storing metadata against users / posts etc is via a serialised field, which is no use for SQL queries. (that was the situation the last time I looked into writing a rating module anyway - maybe things have changed?)

I sincerely believe a flexible rating / tagging system built into the Phorum core would yield a host of genuinely revolutionary online communities - it would just make the ordering and filtering of posts so much more sophisticated.

/\dam

Re: What do YOU expect from the next major phorum release?

Thomas Seifert — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 07:26:41 -0600

Obviously beyond.
I'm referring to Phorum 6, 7 or whatever the next major version will be ;).