SUCS Forum
Discussion for Swansea University Computer Society members
You are not logged in.
#1 2006-09-28 00:39:28
Features you want to see in a forum
Arthur is in the process of writing a forum web interface for the Milliways BBS. Once it's working sufficiently well, it could replace PunBB, which isn't really suitable as a plugin component for the SUCS site.
What features should the Milliways forum have?
Offline
#2 2006-09-28 07:31:07
- saya
- From: Swansea
Re: Features you want to see in a forum
Well, it would be nice to be able to go back and edit posts within the already posted posts, as opposed to being directed to a new page. It's something I've seen on a few forums and it makes things a lot less confusing. Also on another forum they would put who you were replying to in the title of your message, but if you can quote messages I guess that would be redundant now.
Offline
#3 2006-09-28 08:27:52
- wedge
- From: Swansea, UK
Re: Features you want to see in a forum
Edit buttons! Avatars back! Postcount warz! A clear and useful set of rules (not really a technical aspect, I know, but useful regardless)! Buttons to click for code/quote/colour/italics/smilies/etc. ! These are all things that most forums have. If we really intend this place to be used seriously, I think we might need to use some of them.
Saving the world so you don't have to.
Offline
#4 2006-09-28 18:49:55
- saya
- From: Swansea
Re: Features you want to see in a forum
Ooh, and the "quick post" function, you have to keep that 
Offline
#5 2006-09-28 21:00:24
- foshjedi2004
- From: High Wycombe
Re: Features you want to see in a forum
Why don't we just get one of the free IPB or phpBB forums?
SUCS Publicity Officer
Materials Engineering Level 2 Course Rep
Engineering and Science Faculty Rep
Offline
#6 2006-09-28 21:15:52
Re: Features you want to see in a forum
foshjedi2004 wrote:
Why don't we just get one of the free IPB or phpBB forums?
Coz they're likely to be fairly unpleasant code-wise too. I recall hearing of a number of gaping security holes in phpBB. Whatever we use has to conform to XHTML 1.1, accept external auth (provided by our own custom session library) and be easily integrated into the new website (which was also written in-house). In order to achieve these things with PunBB, we've hacked the code a bit which of course creates issues when new versions get released.
Plus there's the fact that we've been using Milliways since 1992 and adding a new web interface to that makes more sense. Milliways did have a web interface about 6 years ago, but it didn't really get used (anyone who was likely to use it was using the term-based version anyway) and was ditched when the site design last changed.
Now we have site-wide authentication using the system's password db, I hope it will make the site more attractive to people and so get used more.
Offline
#7 2006-09-28 23:22:44
- foshjedi2004
- From: High Wycombe
Re: Features you want to see in a forum
On my forum here for my Mod I have IPB 2.1.6 (unregistered)
http://legacy-of-war.com
SUCS Publicity Officer
Materials Engineering Level 2 Course Rep
Engineering and Science Faculty Rep
Offline
#8 2006-09-29 08:12:05
- saya
- From: Swansea
Re: Features you want to see in a forum
I quite liked IPB, my boyfriend had one too. But there were times when they would find major security holes that the people responsible for IPB didn't know about, so had to fix them themselves. Plus having the Milliways one means all the older members "too cool" for forums can still stay in the loop 
Offline
#9 2006-09-29 09:34:55
Re: Features you want to see in a forum
saya wrote:
Plus having the Milliways one means all the older members "too cool" for forums can still stay in the loop
Think about what you just said - are you *sure* that's a good thing? 
Offline
#10 2006-09-29 10:17:15
- saya
- From: Swansea
Re: Features you want to see in a forum
I didn't necessarily imply it was, more a reason why the older members are doing this ^^;
Offline
#11 2006-09-29 16:59:12
Re: Features you want to see in a forum
wedge wrote:
Edit buttons! Avatars back! Postcount warz! A clear and useful set of rules (not really a technical aspect, I know, but useful regardless)! Buttons to click for code/quote/colour/italics/smilies/etc. ! These are all things that most forums have. If we really intend this place to be used seriously, I think we might need to use some of them.
Edit buttons, possibly, but not in the first version.
Avatars: no, i dont think so, just wastes screen space
Postcount warz: sigh
Buttons for code/quote/etc: comes as part of things like htmlarea anyway, which i assum we will use
To field in the title: mw already has this in its folder structure, so yes.
Offline
#12 2006-09-29 17:23:55
- saya
- From: Swansea
Re: Features you want to see in a forum
Why not avatars? They don't have to be big (in screen size or terms of disk space).
Offline
#13 2006-09-29 19:24:25
- bogglesteinsky
Re: Features you want to see in a forum
put a size limit on, 50 by 50 or something. They can always be optional. Could you make it optional to see other people's avatars? That wouldn't waste screen space for the people who don't want them, the people who want them can still see them, and I don't think it would be all that complicated. Ok, it would be a bit of extra work, but everybody would be happy
#15 2006-09-30 02:46:55
Re: Features you want to see in a forum
Well the mw db _is_ a mysterious format (afaik) so it might be tricky.
Marvin on the other hand uses sqlite so it wouldn't be too much hassle...
*runs for cover*
Andrew Price | http://andrewprice.me.uk
Offline