This forum

Guys,

what are the most important features you need from the forum script here?

I see now that the search is absolutely necessary. I sometimes have trouble myself finding previous posts. Hopefully I will be able to add search over the next few days.

I was also thinking of RSS feed. Does anyone use them, is it really useful?

I don't have capacity to build full-featured forum with user registration and other bells & whistles and frankly I don't really see the need for it. My main requirement was to have forum fully integrated into the site and I was not able to find ready-made one where I can easily understand and modify the code. I ended up building the new one :-)

Search would be a big help. And perhaps you ( as moderator ) being able to sticky a post at the top of the list so that your most important or continually asked questions can always stay at the top ( Like a "Look Here First" kinda post. )

Hi Alex,

Try www.codecharge.com . It is great tool. With this tool you can generate forum in one hour.

May be - http://thej2ee.com/x2/modules/newbb/index.php?cat=5

I think a RSS feed would be great.

I also miss means to search for postings for a given name. The current search does not return my postings for example if I type in my name used for my postings.

The top things for me would already have been mentioned, but my top three would be:
1. searching on the text including complex searching with logical operations.
2. searching on names (original poster, not original poster, or all)
3. Organizing into various topics. I feel like some, even simple, questions get absolutely lost in the piles of postings. I am not sure of each of the topics, but think that separating would help . . . maybe specific ones to the grid (formatting, extensions, etc.) and ones indirectly related to the grid (javascript, xml, csv, etc.).

If you could filter messages to categories ("browse by subject") that would even be better than a free search mechanizim (ex. expert-exchange);

A a good way to define categories is by the type of searches done on this site, usually we all look for the same stuff and post the same messages from different view points.

Also as the "Project Leader" you don't give yourself enough credit as to boldy identify for users messages you gave answer or think a good answer has been given.

A rating mechanizim for messages used by your users would also be the first thing a user will look at.

You can also build extra documentation ("quick help") based on all the messages you find usefull, example:
{
For sorting problems I (Alex) recommed reading:
http://www.activewidgets.com/javascript.forum.356.6/this-forum.html
http://www.activewidgets.com/javascript.forum.357.6/this-forum.html
http://www.activewidgets.com/javascript.forum.358.6/this-forum.html
http://www.activewidgets.com/javascript.forum.359.6/this-forum.html
}

I know its easy (for me) to give suggestion but hard to implement when resources are low (especially time), the solution for that (and i really think your missing a great opertunity) is developing your community - like given user ranks ("jhon (Expert)"). ranking posters. ranking problem solvers. etc. people will might start doing the job for you...

You should look at this problem from a usability point a view and not technology. As I've learned to know your skills from the site implementing a solution is the least of your problem, thinking of the
right way is...

Free beer is always good.

I also have always found it odd in a forum like this that someone like you does not build a complete cross reference guiid to threads. You do it on a small scale, but I am going to guess over the years you have read every post in here a couple of times, maybe months later - but sooner or later - it would take little extra time, even if done manually, to build put a reference to each post in pertinent cats.

For example, in your documentation, at the end, or on the side - for further information, these forum threads might be of use.

Someone say free beer?

I would definately like the category idea to go forward, it's hard sometimes finding stuff if you're first language is not english. We (normal) human beings think in other ways than the english :D

I would like to see functionality that emails me when someone responds to a post I am participating in. It makes things easier and speeds up the whole discussion. I have seen it work well with the support forum for the CRM we use from www.vtiger.com.

I'd like to have a threaded discussion. I find good the scheme used by phpBB (forums grouped by categories, then threads inside each forum). E-mail notification and topic watching is also really useful. Search is of course needed :-)
Sometimes I can't find my posts here to see if someone has answered :-(

Count me as another vote for phpBB. It's really easy to set up, and free.

Hello Alex,

i think i good improvement would be email on topic reply. which means when someone replies a post everybody that posted on it before would receive a notification email. this is very useful becase sometimes i forgot to look at my post because it was left behind in the listing.

Thank You.

Hi Alex,

Count my vote for simplemachines.org, I think it's the greatest open source forum script. phpBB usually has securtity bugs...

hello alex,

problem for read clob in grid for php!!

why not look at http://www.phpbb.com/

as an alternative solution, used by alot of java framework providers.

I actually emailed Alex a while ago about customizing phpBB for this website for free and converting all current posts/topics to the phpBB system. Sadly enough, I didn't got a reply... (could be that he simply didn't received the email of course).

I would like to comment on Jose's reply to this topic though... of course, any piece of software has some sort of security flaw. The problem is, however, that since phpBB is so popular and open-source, people put a whole lot of time into finding these exploits and posting them on public security lists, instead of helping us and reporting them to our security tracker at phpBB.com. Therefore we brought the Audit Team to life which has the task to go through the code, hunting for potential security issues. The phpBB 2.0.18 release was the result of this security audit :-) We do care about security of course ;-)

Vic (phpBB Team)

I second the phpBB, and agree with Vic about security issues. Every major company has exploits to software much worse than script kiddie php script exploits. As long as you have your server set up properly, even a simple php exploit can't really do too much to your system.

I want to let everyone know that I am personally putting together another site that we can all post to that will be a true forum with 'watch' ability etc. I am hoping to have it in place by the end of the week. This will also be a place where we can post components that we make to augment the AW framework. I do not want to replace the current Forum here but instead offer an additiona resource for everyone to use. It will be a free site but will require registration to use the system as I do not want to go through the problems Alex has seen with bogus posts.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

(I already have the URL but will not post it until I am ready to open it to the public)

Good work Jim. Let me know if you want/need any help or ideas. I think this will be a huge help to all of us.

Email <anthony><at><drpimp.com>

Tony, I tried the e-mail address you posted and also you earthlink address but they both got returned as undeliverable. You might want to check to see if your e-mail server is up and running.

Yeah, the earthlink addy is no longer good. Hmmm my email server is up, I just rebooted just incase, you can try again or you can also use <nicedreams242><at><gmail.com>

Great free forum pre made, exactly perfect for AW

www.forumer.com ipb1.3 :)

Forumer hosts phpBB or Invision Poser Bords sites for free. They are both typical phpBB type sites, nothing special here except that Forumer will host the site and since I own a hosting business that's not much of a draw for me. Mine will have phpBB of something very similar.

Jim,
I would suggest that for all examples on your new site you create a new basic data-set that is based upon authors and books or artists and albums.
The reason being that version two contains a tree control and 2.1 will have a tree table and these data-sets lend themselves more easily to multi-level examples.
In addition it will make it obvious from which site a particuler example comes from.

If you want help putting this together I'm willing to help.

I could provide a database of books if needed. Post here and let me know

A standard set of data files sounds like a good start. It is what M$ and Borland do for all their languages. I have been staring at the same set of data files used in Delphi examples now for 10 years. I think some day they might change the data, but if it works don't fix it. I did notice that M$ has changed to a new set of data for thier latest set of demos for the launch of VS 2005. I wonder how long it will take me to get sick of Whidbeyrocks? lol

Once I get the forums set up I'll let you know and we can continue this conversation there.

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