Drupal And Forum Integration (phpbb/smf) - Or creating new module for Drupal

I have been running a site for couple of months that is powered by Drupal. And I like the way Drupal handles everything. It is kind of lean and mean, when compared to the other CMS that I checked out at OpenSourceCMS.com. But it has one down side that I must accept.

It does not have a decent forum. I am sure, if I say this over at Drupal.org, I would be staked and asked what feature does Drupal forum not have. If I give few of the features out of the whole list, I would be given a module each to substitute for each feature. And in a way, what they say is true. A feature must be available site wide, and true to their UNIX like principle of do one thing at a time and do it best - I have to say, they have pretty much achieved it.

That still brings the issue of forums. Users have been using forums like vBulletin, SMF and phpBB and others, and they are used to all the juicy features provided by each of them. But as some said over at the Drupal.org 'forums', I have seen a lot many sites that use forums as many other things - directories, blogs, news websites and more. Forum software is attempted to be made like something else.

But, that said, I am at the start of an endeavor where a forum in it’s almost tradition sense is a must. I may start an RPG forum that has the modus-operand as play-by-post, and I would need a forum, that looks like a forum. And no matter what the Drupal.org guys say, Drupal 'forum.module' does not conform to my requirements.

I know there have been attempts to integrate other forums (phpBB and SMF), but a search through the Drupal.org forums, phpBB support forum, and SMF support forum, would show that it is a hard nut to crack due to the architectural differences. In case of SMF and Drupal, it results from the use of generic function names for database layers that go by the 'db_' prefixes. And with case of phpBB, its security systems seem to be lacking to go along for integration with Drupal.

And that leaves the option for us Drupal-ers to use the forum.module we already have, or try and code a better forum that has the flat forum look. There has actually been a development in this area too - with a person developing what is called the UIEForums. It creates a different set of database tables to maintain its own content information.

I find that undesirable, as the content is the basic element of any CMS and I would like the forum content to be used by the full website. Surprisingly, as I know, the present 'forum.module' of Drupal 4.7.2 stores only the first post - the start of the thread as node, and the rest of the replies are tucked under as 'comments'. I find this too as undesirable, as I think that all the replies to the thread starter should be categorized as node - it would be as any other content.

I would like to know, your opinions on this, as I am sure, there are few Drupal-ers here at AstaHost. I would attempt for such an endeavor though I definitely cannot give a deadline or schedule as all this is my hobby, and my day job lies in a bit different domain. But, if someone wants to have collaboration, I would love that too, and we could contribute to this pool of Open Source code.

 

 

 

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Well Vyoma, I'm already facing that problem with forums!
As you said the very concept of fprums takes a new quite undesirable dimension in Drupal. It'd so nice if we could embed a decent forum there. Since the new forum which is being developed for Drupal(UIEForums) uses different set of tables, for an existing user of built in forum module it is impossible to migrate! (That's the problem I'm facing with UIEForums, moreover we don't know if it'll be a part of the next Drupal release. If I remember it right, there's still an uncertainity there)

As far as the development goes mate, I ain't really sure if I can collaberate with you. You know I always want to. BUt looks like I have too many commitments. If you aren't putting any quick deadlines, I can work with you in this regard.

But one thing is for certain. Drupal badly needs it. I guess integration of phpBB would be better. WHat do you think?

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Well, the integration of phpBB or SMF forum engine with Drupal is badly needed, but there is a catch in it. Both the fourm and Drupal, use a database layer, that has functions and variables with the 'db_' prefix that are repeating in both. This brings up a problem, where you need to get your hands dirty and get into the code and replace all occurances of 'db_' with 'phpbb_db_' or 'smf_db_' or something similar. And that too, I belive in some places it is a non-trivial case, and one needs to analyze the code to get it done.

And even if we do these code changes, I am not sure, it would be easy to upgrade either of them as you would again need to do those code changes. So, it is quite the same problem you would face if you went for UIEForum module.

If you are starting a forum from the scratch, or your Drupal forum (or any other phpBB/SMF) forum has very few threads, you can install UIEForum module, if you are ok with the non-upgradability.

Else, development of a better forum module, and hopeful inclusion of it in the Drupal CVS and later into the core is the only way I can see. I think this is one thing, that we really have to take into our hands, because no matter how much we complain, I do not thing the rest of the folk would want to do it. (I got this feeling as I was looking through the Drupal.org forums.

 

 

 

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Hi folks I've only just seen this so sorry for the untimely reply

I'm one of the people that helps out with the UIEForum developement, though I'm more of a cheerleader than anything Zoro does all the actual work. I just thought you might be interested to know that there are plans underway to change UIEForum over to the drupal node system.

The only reason this wasn't done initially is because the forum software was already in existance before we made the move over to drupal, and the integration done was mainly to suite our own purposes. Since releasing the forum to the public there has been a huge interest in the module so we decided that to facilitate that interest a move over to the node system was a necessary next step.

There is as yet no date for this to be completed, but it's in active developement so shouldn't be too long I hope.

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Hey pug, this is your first post at AstaHost and already you have given a great information. If this were Orkut, I would have become your fan already.

Good thing that I did not start work on this. Is there any place where I could provide some contribution in the coding efforts? I have not yet created any Drupal module on my own till now, but have gone through the code enough to understand what does what.

So, a link would be helpful.

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Thanks for the offer of help it's always appreciated, I've sent a PM with details on how to contact us and we can take it from there if that's OK?

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Yup, I saw that PM and am responding to it at the moment.

Now, if I do join the effort (which I would give to the best of my ability), I hope you would understand that I have never worked as a team on web(PHP) programming over the net. So, I would be a bit shaky in the beginning. But I am sure, I would whatever smaller section I can.

Will send the details over in them mail. Thanks for that contact info.

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It was a long time back, and I had just worked on this partially.

Drupal though moved on, and a more robust and scalable effort is made to create an Advanced Forum module at - http://groups.drupal.org/drubb

Just thought, I would put this here for those 'old thread diggers' or someone who comes through search engine.

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i was playing with drupal yesterday comparing it to joomla.

id much rather joomla and their forum modules are way better than the drupal forum.

one thing i like about drupal is the default template, i love it! i cant belive they wasted such a good design that youre not exactly gonna see on anyone website. yet the actual drupal website is horrible, lol.

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Well, it seems like Joomla uses SMF integration (but I am not sure about that). If that be the case, then SMF does a way better job than Drupal or Joomla. And I guess, that is the reason for a drive towards the conceptual DrupBB in the Drupal community.


You mean to say, the Garland theme? That was like the crown theme of Drupal 5. And they have not bothered changing the theme of Drupal.org for ages I guess.

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