I can't believe there's no working forum solution

I prefer a forum like fluxbb than Vanilla but since it’s not my project only, i will go with the majority.
A Vanilla like forum would take MODx on par with BBpress for example, and i wanted to go further...

I would love to have a custom MODx forum... everything else round here is custom so something like a forum would be super to be made for MODx. Think of the possible extendability if it was custom to MODx! Like all the custom work for MODx, you can easily modify it to suit your needs, however code written for other platforms or self sufficient is far more difficult to customise and integrate in to MODx.

The talent is most certainly here... draw in to one and then a forum will be born.

If it can separate control logic, from presentation logic and one could style it like MODx then
it would ROCK!! xPDO is cool!

I’m more leaning towards Flux than Vanilla honestly. I just brought up Vanilla as another example of a simple forum.

I did just remember that MODx Revolution’s chunk will be able to execute snippets.

Which mean that any "plugin" could be just put in the templates and even work as standalone (i’m thinking about a private message snippet) without even touching the forum module.

Interresting thread !

So far, the best native forum I have run into is TYPOlight’s "helpdesk" module (see http://www.typolight.org/extension-list/view/helpdesk.90009.en.html for features). That’s what they use for http://typolight.org/forum.html by the way.

My take on a native MODx forum is that it should remain simple (no private messages, no profile pages) but retain at last key moderating features (this is often where native forum lack : Drupal is a good example of this. You must a last be able to split a discussion IMHO !). If inline moderation can be achieved, it would make it even better and avoid adding another layer of admin features to the manager (ideally, the way I see it configuration and set up options would be the only items of the forum module).

Now about community features such as private messages, polls or profile pages, I think the benefit of a native forum module versus a bridge is re-using and pluging into MODx features. One of those aspects is handling users and permissions.

I’d favor other addons to handle advanced features for those who need extended profiles or private messaging. Ideally those addons could be used separately from the forum module. One thing I crave for in MODx is a notification system, and typically it would be awesome if a standalone addon was developped and then used by the forum module. I think it would be more valuable than having a notification system built in the forum module.

Last question : will this project be developped for Revolution (could be a good example of its power) or Evolution / 0.9.x ?

Effectively, the typolight forum module is really good!

Concerning moderation, we could have a part on backend for forum move/split/close/trash and another part on front end similar to jot moderation tools.

I would like to see something for 9.6x myself... If Rev is not going to be completely ready for more than 6 months I would hope 9.6x would be supported.

Rev doesn’t support key snippets that I can remember... one of which is webloginPE (I MIGHT BE WRONG)

WebloginPE has become a key component on my sites, the extendability of profiles has really made things come to life for my ideas... I can imagine that it would be of great use to a forum based project for MODx as well.

I know REV is what some people want but if it’s still a long way off from being as well supported and feature rich as 9.6x snippets, modules etc then I personally would like to see it covered for 9.6x. I for one have been worried about converting my 9.6 sites to REV, my php skills are extremely limited so I’m dreading trying to port over the bad hacks and custom snippets i have made. A lot of people might be the same and could take them 6 extra months or what ever to take the plunge. If there was a way to cover both releases with out too much hassle that would be great.

I know no ETA can be put on REV but if there was even a ball park ETA then that would help narrow which releases to support.

Yes webloginPE is a great snippet (and we have a Polls module too), though it’s not without it’s problems... From what I have gathered, it won’t be that hard to modify existing snippets and resources to Revolution (it shouldn’t be a complete rewrite). And I think there is (or will be) an upgrade path with a script to jump to Revolution.

I might be wrong but I really think Revolution might boost the development of addons, since it’s more of a framework than 0.9.x was, and that should open many doors and speed up development. If Revolution reaches a "critical mass" of developpers joining during beta, we could end up with as many addons for Revolution by the end of next year that we have for 0.9.x (call me an enthusiast / optimist but I really wish this happens and also think this is the key aspect we should put our efforts on. Revo’s documentation is a testimony that things are on the right path. Activity in revo’s forums is a nice indicator too).

Now it sure would be nice to have a native forum for 0.9.x / Evolution too, but I’d favor doing it for Revolution and make a case study of it and turn it into a promotionnal asset   If resources are sufficient, let’s do it for 0.9.x and port it to Revo but I think building it with Revolution would give more room to an innovative solution (then again, pure speculation on my part since I am no dev).

I do think a forum in 0.9.6.3 is really important. There are an enormous number of sites out there using it, and most of them won’t be converting to Revo just yet. (I suspect I won’t even try until Revo has been out for a while and I’m sure I really understand it).

Obviously, it makes sense to have forums for both branches of MODx, but in purely practical terms, 0.9.6 is what people are using right now and where the need is right now.

But from what Opengeek was saying, I thought that much of the work might be the same for both branches if we use xPDO. On the other hand, I only understand about 1/4 of what Opengeek says, and I know nothing at all about xPDO.