Discuss: native threaded forum for MODx Revolution

29 Posts

wilcosky Reply #11, 14 years, 2 months ago

I guess making this compatible with Evolution would be asking too much. tongue

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sottwell Reply #12, 14 years, 2 months ago

That would be like putting a Mack truck transmission in a Subaru.

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2,314 Posts

anonymized-26931 Reply #13, 14 years, 2 months ago

I guess making this compatible with Evolution would be asking too much.

if you’re desperate for an Evolution forum solution, i recommend looking at this new snippet (Vanilla-Forum Integration / also login with weblogin or webloginPE ): http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,45105.0.html

289 Posts

Compeek Reply #14, 14 years, 2 months ago

splittingred, this looks like some amazing work!

I do have to say that for a full-fledged forum solution, something like SMF integration always would appeal to me most. Like they say, don’t reinvent the wheel.

However, when a more basic forum solution is needed that still has valuable features, something like this could be perfect.

I'm learning more about MODx all the time and loving it.

MODX Staff
12,272 Posts

Ryan Thrash Reply #15, 14 years, 2 months ago

The solution that Shaun has created (and Jason helped architect) is actually incredibly scalable. SMF doesn’t currently offer an API for external authentication, few forums do sadly. Discuss is also a reference example of how to create and package a pretty robust MODx Revo Add-on—I suspect that some things available in the near future will blow you away once contributors grasp the Package Transport system.

Ryan Thrash, MODX Co-Founder
Follow me on Twitter at @rthrash or catch my occasional unofficial thoughts at thrash.me

289 Posts

Compeek Reply #16, 14 years, 2 months ago

I’m not at all discouraging this project, but as much as I love MODx, I don’t want to lock everything down to it. I’ll still use WordPress for blogging, phpBB or SMF for forums, etc. I like the idea of making systems work together (even if not seamlessly) rather than having one central system that everything has to be based on. Know what I mean?

I'm learning more about MODx all the time and loving it.

4,149 Posts

splittingred Reply #17, 14 years, 2 months ago

Quote from: Compeek at Feb 12, 2010, 06:03 PM

I’m not at all discouraging this project, but as much as I love MODx, I don’t want to lock everything down to it. I’ll still use WordPress for blogging, phpBB or SMF for forums, etc. I like the idea of making systems work together (even if not seamlessly) rather than having one central system that everything has to be based on. Know what I mean?

Definitely. For most people, SMF would be fine for a forum.

However, if you’re wanting SSO with the rest of your site...SMF is not an option, usually, for that. Discuss, however, is integrated with the user system in Revo, and therefore is SSO by default.

shaun mccormick | bigcommerce mgr of software engineering, former modx co-architect | github | splittingred.com

289 Posts

Compeek Reply #18, 14 years, 2 months ago

Mhm, that’s a very good reason to have and use something like Discuss. I may even end up using it someday. Actually, though, I haven’t even needed to set up a forum on a website except for one, and in that one, the entire site is a forum, so I didn’t need a CMS.

When I have the need, I’ll determine that best way, and Discuss sounds like a great option.

I'm learning more about MODx all the time and loving it.

MODX Staff
10,725 Posts

opengeek Reply #19, 14 years, 2 months ago

Quote from: Compeek at Feb 12, 2010, 06:03 PM

I’m not at all discouraging this project, but as much as I love MODx, I don’t want to lock everything down to it. I’ll still use WordPress for blogging, phpBB or SMF for forums, etc. I like the idea of making systems work together (even if not seamlessly) rather than having one central system that everything has to be based on. Know what I mean?

I would know what you mean if all those systems used MODx templating, or at least had web services to access functionality and content to pull into our own layouts in MODx. No offense, but templating in those systems is IMO primitive at best. A framework like MODx is meant to be a platform for bringing together common services with disparate dynamic views, and to make it possible for front-end designers to make changes to the markup/style of each view without having to touch the common services. Stand-alone applications with no SOA access make such integration and customization next to impossible, and never optimal.

Ultimately the goal is to make MODx a platform where developers can provide a variety of add-on solutions to end-users that are easy to install, upgrade, manage, and customize. Discuss is a great pioneering example of how that can be done.

Jason Coward
Chief Architect @ MODX
http://www.jasoncoward.com | http://twitter.com/drumshaman | https://github.com/opengeek

289 Posts

Compeek Reply #20, 14 years, 2 months ago

OpenGeek, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree then, somewhat. I’m not really in favor of the idea of a central system for everything. What always happens in a situation like that is that some features are far above other systems, and some features are simply lacking and far behind from other systems. Ideally, sure, it’d be great to have one base for an entire project, with all the different parts working together. But unfortunately that isn’t realistic. Look at Evolution. Its codebase has been around for how many years now? Yet it doesn’t have a full-fledged forum solution, a blogging solution that "just works" without a lot of coding. I’m not at all complaining, either. In my opinion, the most valuable feature of MODx is it’s flexibility. The possibilities are truly endless, and you can make your site however you want. Yes, that requires more coding and less preconfiguration, but you get something a whole lot more useful.

So in an ideal world, I’d love to have the MODx framework as the base, with all the different parts working together with one authentication system, one templating system, one caching system, and so forth. But that simply isn’t realistic. The ultimate goal of MODx that you mention is noteworthy, but "ultimate" is always over the horizon. I therefore have to think practically and go with what works the best, even if it’s not what could work the best.

You are certainly right about most other software systems. MODx blows them away in many areas, including templates. And, yes, they all have their own authentication systems that don’t really leave possibilities open to other options. But we can do our best. I’ve been working on a WordPress blog that needs to look like part of a site running MODx. So I found some topics on the forums here and on some websites, and now I have code in my WordPress theme that connects to the MODx system and gets the chunks for most of the template. WordPress is an excellent blogging platform, so what real motivation would a person like me have to just ignore it? The same goes for forum software.

I’m not trying to argue with you. I completely agree with what you’re saying. I’m just trying to point out that ideals aren’t realistic.

If Discuss turns into forum software that does all I could possibly want, then I will certainly give it a shot. Again, I’m not trying to discourage work on this project; I think it’s great that Shaun is making this. But when you have projects with tens or hundreds of contributers (phpBB) and a project with one (Discuss), it’s pretty difficult for the latter to compare to the others, especially at first.

So, what I’m saying, is that until this can completely fulfill every need I would have for forum software, in my opinion it’s more feasible to try to make something like SMF work with MODx as much as possible so as not to sacrifice a lot of functionality, rather than use Discuss when it’s not (yet) going to do everything I need.

I'm learning more about MODx all the time and loving it.