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Another madness crisis – A multisite fancy forum

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Well, here is my point.

For now in terms of forum we have :

1 – The future bbpress plugin.

Seems that it WONT be activable on a per site basis. Tried it with no sucess. And bbpress is definitly a mess for something “fun and fancy” : no editor, no smileys. Not an option.

2 – The Industrial Gaz engine : Simple press.

Well, needs Google Datacenter to run on an important network. Very complex to use, but nice. Neither an option on large networks, and definitly not user friendly.

3 – The nice, simple and efficient Mingle forum

Works very fin but 2 issues :

– Not “blog user selective” on multisite

– Theming is simple, nice but cannot be changed by user. Only the choice available is usable.

4 – The Monster Zingiri forum

Just a mybb integration, efficient but not multisite usable. NO WAY in terme of security (the css download in admin interface specificly)

5 – the very simple wpmudev forum

Works absolutly fine, but definitly too simple for a fancy, funny, smiley forum.

My definition of User Friendly :

The incrédible admin interface of Forumactif.com. At this time (it uses phpbb) this is THE one. But definitly too complex for a multisite enable-able forum.

What we need ?

Something simple as Mingle Forum

Something nice & traditionnal as Simplepress (categories, forums, sub forums, public/private/hidden/group access)

Something ultra customizable and user friendly as forumactif.com (all theme option modifiable, colors, fonts, logos, well, all the css in a nice an simple admin interface)

Something funny as should be any forum : easy add smileys, embed enable (video/images/avatars/ and so on)

Something stable and multisiteable as wpmudev forums with respect of specific site users access.

Well, for this one there should be some plantation of

– coffee

– chocolate

– beer

– vodka

– and a racoon :slight_smile:

Wed, 8 Jun 2011 15:14:42
  • Timothy
    • Chief Pigeon

    I’m personally holding out for bbPress, initial tests look good and I believe there will be some integration with that and BuddyPress considering the the developer works on both. I did see some bits and bobs about it.

    That said, if there was a new forum which worked well with Buddy, that would be great. Nothing overly complex. I have always liked PHPBB though. :slight_smile:

    I agree though, something multisite ready is much needed.

  • Aphrodite
    • The Reaper

    I am speaking of the plugin now in beta 2. it is clearly mentioned it WONT be multisite unable.

    Still not a forum to me, no editor, no smiley, no categories… Its another concept. Good for technical purpose, like here, not for funny / communotary forum as any.

  • James Farmer
    • Founder & Chair (honest)

    Lol, I want the racoon!

    It *is* a tricky one though, essentially competing with bbpress might not be the best approach here.

    Rrather, bbpress plugins / making it multisite usable etc.

    My main concern is economic (yawn) in that the reason bbpress has struggled so is that there’s not really that much demand / interest for great forum-y things.

    I mean I’d like them, clearly you would too, but I think we’re in a bit of a geeky minority?

  • Aphrodite
    • The Reaper

    Well, geek minority I dont know.

    For now, Forumactif for example have millions (not thousands !) of forums.

    The target is global. Offering a forum service on a multisite is just essential for me in fact.

    For example. I am building now my last network (in fact the one because I came here, but not yet built !!)

    Target : gamer comunity. Any game team needs a forum. For now, they are ALL going on forumactif or xooit.

    Other one : my horse network. Almost each site will need a forum.

    Any subject that needs discussion needs a forum. bbpress is a “geekery”, offering essential functions in an efficient way but sincerely too geek for common users. The goal is different. And something as a fancy forum will not compete with bbpress. Is a totally different approach. The competition is simplepress, that only have simple its name….

    Sorry to be a little selfish perhaps, but none of the existing solutions are really usable as professionnal service on a multisite.

    For example, Zingiri have integrated mybb.

    A good compromise would be fluxbb. Works fine, not heavy, easyly customizable, and few few modification for theme modification would be enough.

  • Ovidiu
    • Code Wrangler

    hm, there was another pretty good approach, gonna try and find it :slight_smile: *digging through my bookmarks**

    ** shuffling***

    found it: it was called wp-united and integrated phpbb into wordpress or the other way around. sadly it seems dead but if anyone’s interested in checking it out, here are a few links on google:

    http://www.example.com/#hl=en&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=wp-united&cp=7&qe=d3AtdW5pdA&qesig=D0c1WvQPoOuJpBK38XPLrA&pkc=AFgZ2tlLl_HqgI6h0Z6phwHdynAidstYVWkJ-mcWWt5P8dtH7PVJIf_0PDTNMW31Iwymzwe1g_oPSkHLkxqwYVdYbqYV9-7ddA&pf=p&sclient=psy&site=&source=hp&aq=0&aqi=&aql=&oq=wp-unit&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=8ca77b315e4dbe3d&biw=1366&bih=667

    on the other hand, I really like bbpress if only it were usable as a normal plugin for every blog that would be awesome…

  • Mason
    • DEV MAN’s Sidekick

    Hiya folks,

    I tested it. It does NOT work and it is specified it must be activated on the MAIN site in case of multisite…

    @Aphrodite I ran a test on this with the 2nd beta and everything seems to work fine with bbPress and multisite.

    I created separate forums on different sub-sites with different topics and replies etc. There’s no issue there that I can find. I think this will be the best wordpress-based solution going forward. What issue are you having with it?

  • Aphrodite
    • The Reaper

    just it dos not appear anywhere, neither with a manually created page with the integration shortcode. The forum is just unvisible.

    But even if it works my point is the same. bbpress is soooooo pooooor it does not correspond to a large part of forum users target.

  • Ovidiu
    • Code Wrangler

    honestly, the forumactif.com that you so much like, does offer these forums for free: phpBB2 | phpBB3 | punBB | Invision – so which one do you like?

    also, there are so many plugins for bbpress, I really think it is up to par with most other forums solutions. or at least it was. lets see how many old plugins will still be compatible :slight_smile:

  • Aphrodite
    • The Reaper

    The admin interface is the same in all cases.

    BBpress IF there is a rich text editor, IF a smiley enable, If If If If and many IF…

    The structure, the concept of bbpress is not traditional and does not correspond to a classica forum with cats, forum sub forum, right acces management etc.

    Mingle forum does but the author does not seem to want to enhance it for multisite, Fluxbb has no “integrator” as mybb

    Forum actif also offers a blogging solution (not wp) with almost the same interface. They have done a great job…

    Wanna do something similar on 3 niches, BUT with the forum integrated on the site….

    Moreover, bbpress is now developed for… years, and as buddypress i am very surprise about this incredible delay. I dont like that.

  • Timothy
    • Chief Pigeon

    Just to comment on what James said, I have noticed in two of our long established forums (one is about 10 year old) The activity over the last few years has been incredible low but that would depend on who they are targeted to I suppose.

    I did test BBPress on a multisite install (the new beta) and it seems to work well although I have not tested it extensively. I believe but could be wrong that it will be pluggable like its predecessor and so once stable we could ask the guys here to kindly make plugins for BBPress to give those extra features, if demand was about of course.

    In BBPress you can have forums with parents which are in essence categories, not sure to much about access rights though, not tested enough.

  • Mason
    • DEV MAN’s Sidekick

    @aphrodite – did you activate the bbPress forum theme? (it’s a child of twentyten) Then create a custom menu with nav items to the forum pages. It honestly does work pretty well.

    Also, the bbPress plugins will be extensible by other plugins. So if it doesn’t have something you’re looking for by default, components can be added on – same as BuddyPress.

    Thanks!

  • Timothy
    • Chief Pigeon

    I’ve tested it with a few themes and it seems to work well for me. Part of their work on BBPress is to make good theme compatibility.

    If you go into “Settings” –> “Forums” All the permalinks are in there. Click “Save Changes” then those permalinks will work.

    Note if you are running BuddyPress then I think the forum in BuddyPress also uses /forums/ for base as well thus a conflict if not observed.

    I’ve tested on the Network theme and Blogs.MU theme both appear to work fine for me. :slight_smile:

  • Aphrodite
    • The Reaper

    Lucky you.

    tested on 5 networks included my test one wihtout success. I cnnot even imagine what about a user setting taht hp.

    Anyway, working or not, there is still no editor, no widget, no advance admin tools… and so on. It does NOT fit many purposes :slight_smile:

  • Timothy
    • Chief Pigeon

    Anyway, working or not, there is still no editor, no widget, no advance admin tools… and so on. It does NOT fit many purposes :slight_smile:

    I never said it did, but I did say its extendable so it would not take much to add all those bells and whistles we all want…

    I’m not sure what issue you are having. But if it works on our installs then perhaps something is missing or configured differently, not sure what though.

  • Aphrodite
    • The Reaper

    nope does not come out. Moreover this is not the point. The goal is to have a forum pre installed thanks to blog template, and MUST remain whatever the theme choosen byt the user. This MUST be simple as ABC.

    I have many difficulties to lunch my networks because WP is almost too complicated, compared to overblog or othe very poor and simple blog plateforms.

    If there is no forum simple to use, and must havec pages, shortcodes and so on dont event think about it. This is NOT user friendly, just DEV friendly…

    Back to first question….