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Advanced Forum

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Michelle - November 18, 2007 - 16:24

Originally created for my Coulee Region forums, Advanced Forum is a theme/glue module that enhances Drupal's core forum module. The included styles provide the look typically found in stand alone forum software and the code provides some of the functionality, mostly related to the end user experience. By adding other Drupal contributed modules, many of which are automatically used by Advanced Forum, you can achieve much of what stand alone software provides. Because it uses the core forum module, it uses the node and comment system built into Drupal and is completely integrated, not a bridge.

Make sure you read the documentation! Especially for 5.x, there is more to installing this module than copying it to your server and enabling it.

Features (for 1.x)

  • Comes with fully customizable styles to make your forum look like more traditional forums.
  • Integrates the display of many forum related contrib modules.
  • Adds ability to mark all topics or topics in a forum as read.
  • Adds views column to topic list
  • Adds extra information and shortcuts such as pagers on topics, link to last post in the forum, jumps within topics, and more.
  • A complete list of features can be found in the handbook.

Dependencies (for 1.x)

  • Requires: Forum, Taxonomy, Comments, Author Pane 1.x, PHPTemplate based theme
  • Recommended: Statistics (for views counter) and Flatcomments (to avoid issues due to the underlying threads when forums are visually set flat.)
  • Others: For a complete forum package, see this list of other contrib modules.

Version status / Roadmap

See also: Roadmap including individual issues

  • D5 1.x is done. If a security issue is found, I will update it but it isn't getting any other changes. I will offer limited support on it until D7 is released.
  • D6 1.x is complete but will still fix bugs in the dev snapshot and may do more releases if there are enough changes or a security issue. I will continue to support this version until the 2.x version has a full release and possibly longer, depending on usage stats. If you are on D6, you should be using this version!
  • D6 2.x is under active development. I had hoped to have a full release out by September but have fallen behind. I apologize to those whom I gave a rough ETA to a few months ago because I estimated badly. I don't recommend using this on a production site at this point. If you are building a site that won't go into production for a while and are planning on major style changes, you may want to consider starting with 2.x because the styles have changed drastically, but I can make no guarantees on when it will be stable. Also, 2.x has very limited docs. Most of the docs in the handbook are for 1.x.
  • D6 3.x will be created sometime after I release 2.0 to finish up any features that didn't make it into 2.x. I haven't decided, yet, if this will be D6 or D7.
  • D7 I will start porting to D7 sometime after CTools and Views are ported. Most likely it will be 2.x that is ported unless CTools/Views take long enough that I'm able to get a solid 3.x to port from.

More styles

There is a new module, Advanced Forum More Styles, that, as the name suggests, has more styles. Only one at the moment but hopefully that will grow. If you have a style you would like to share, file an issue there.

Want to help me?

If my module has saved you time, how about spending a little of that helping me out? My Coulee Region forums, the site this module was created for, is really struggling. I need people posting in the forums and I don't care where you live. I just need real content to get the forums moving. Please no test posts or Drupal support questions. Just real posts like you'd post in any general forum. Thanks!

Share your site

If you are using this module on a publicly visible site, I'd love to hear from you. It's always fun to see your module used in the wild.

Releases

Official releasesDateSizeLinksStatus
6.x-2.0-alpha12009-Jul-15171.98 KBDownload · Release notesSupported for 6.xThis release is supported but is not currently the recommended release for 6.x.
6.x-1.12009-Jul-01193.07 KBDownload · Release notesRecommended for 6.xThis is currently the recommended release for 6.x.
5.x-1.12009-Jul-01226.26 KBDownload · Release notesRecommended for 5.xThis is currently the recommended release for 5.x.
Development snapshotsDateSizeLinksStatus
6.x-2.x-dev2009-Oct-26276.23 KBDownload · Release notesDevelopment snapshotDevelopment snapshots are automatically regenerated and their contents can frequently change, so they are not recommended for production use.
6.x-1.x-dev2009-Oct-11201.81 KBDownload · Release notesDevelopment snapshotDevelopment snapshots are automatically regenerated and their contents can frequently change, so they are not recommended for production use.
5.x-1.x-dev2009-Jul-30226.36 KBDownload · Release notesDevelopment snapshotDevelopment snapshots are automatically regenerated and their contents can frequently change, so they are not recommended for production use.


 
 

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