Re: [libreoffice-website] choice of forum software

Hi Alexander, *,

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 1:40 AM, Alexander Werner
<alex@documentfoundation.org> wrote:
> Am 30.11.2011 00:19, schrieb Christian Lohmaier:
> [...]
> > The search in JForum seems fixed (works for me at least), but overall
> > the search options are a little limited compared to the advanced
> > search in phpBB (you can only select all forums, or one specific
> > forum, the UI doesn't allow to select a subset of the forums at once.
> > Not sure whether it is a pure UI limit or a functional limitation).
>
> I have a different view: I think both the default search in JForum and
> phpbb are way to complicated. I shouldn't be necessary to follow a link
> to get to the search form. The search field should be large or in an
> easily recognizable position (see the new wiki theme).

In both the phpBB as well in the JForum theme (no wonder, as JForum in
large parts just copies the phpBB theme) you got a "search this forum"
box.
http://forum-test.libreoffice.org:8080/jforum-2.3.2/forums/show/1.page
http://forum-test.libreoffice.org/viewforum.php?f=2

So I guess that point is covered, isn't it?

> > [...]
> > phpBB has the administration overhead, at least on initial setup, but
> > I don't know how relevant it is, for JForum no additional
> > modules/hacks/whatever they are called are installed, so it is easy to
> > setup and upgrade.
>
> Hm.... is there an easy way to extend the functionality of jforum? I
> haven't found any documentation on the website regarding anything more
> than basic installation.

What would you want to extend it with? (But no, I'm also not aware of
any plugins or similar, except the single-sign-on hooks)
But it has api to create posts from external tools (see
http://jforum.andowson.com/posts/list/17.page for short discussion) -
and also has a mail-interaction interface (but didn't look into what
stuff you could do with it).

So when we need something, we need to code it ourselves (so far I
don't miss anything)

> > So functionality wise JForum supports Karma and Avatars, on phpBB
> > those are not yet enabled/available. Question is whether we need
> > those.
>
> Karma: Only time will tell
> Avatars: I possible: gravatar

you can upload an image, or point to an URL (and that can be a
gravatar-URL) - but it is not set automatically.

> > What is not easily changed by the theme is the "niceness" of the
> > links. phpBB uses query-parameters
> > http://forum-test.libreoffice.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4 , while on
> > JForum they are "nice" (although not human-gets-info-from-the-url
> > nice) http://forum-test.libreoffice.org:8080/jforum-2.3.2/posts/list/6.page
>
> The phpbb URLs do look so ancient. Not something I like.
> Btw, is there a reason that its named 6.page?

The 6 probably because it was the 6th topic that was posted, and .page
is used as url-filter. No idea why they did choose *.page....

> > Unless someone reports bugs in JForum, I don't see a reason to look
> > for another alternative, i.e. JForum would be my "contender"/entry for
> > the forum-decision. (So far between phpBB and JForum).
>
> I have not yet looked at it in great detail, so may I ask some questions:
> - Is it easy to adapt the theme?

Easy/not harder than phpBB - uses Freemaker templating engine.

> - Is it easy to do some code fixes/expansions?

It's open-source and it's java - so you cannot just change a line and
see the results, you would have compile the sources and check.

> - Is there any documentation available?

Documentation is a little sparse indeed - but OTOH there isn't really
that much to document. There is a
http://jforum.andowson.com/posts/list/16.page Customization Guide
(that basically explains the theme directory layout/the Freemaker
basics)

> - Is there a plugin/mod/whatever api?

Not that I'm aware of (with the exception mentioned above). But then
again: What would you extend it with? It pretty much has all features
already :-)

And if not, the plus is that tomcat + jforum is super easy to run locally.

> - OpenID would be nice to have, any idea how hard it would be to get a
> connector?

If the one linked to in the other message works, then it shouldn't be
rather easy.

ciao
Christian

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