[Aplaws-patches] [ aplaws-Patches-1689988 ] Final version of Updated Forum - pre merge

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Patches item #1689988, was opened at 2007-03-28 15:28
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by pboy
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Category: None
Group: None
Status: Closed
>Resolution: Accepted
Priority: 5
Private: No
Submitted By: chris gilbert (cgyg9330)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: Final version of Updated Forum - pre merge

Initial Comment:
Current version of updated forum – we have been using this release for several months now and it seems to be stable (only issue is the auto expiry doesn’t always work – I need to find the bug, but I don’t think it’s one that I have introduced)

I am planning to merge this update to trunk soon unless anyone has any objections – please read the following information about the changes.

Example public forums can be viewed at http://wsgfl.westsussex.gov.uk/ccm/navigation/leadership/your-discussion-forums/

The patch is rather large – I’m afraid it is all or nothing with this one as many parts of the forum have been completely rewritten. Supporting patches in ccm-core and ccm-cms have already been merged individually with trunk (and tested to ensure they do not impact on existing forum)

Despite the large number of changes, implementing the patch has very little impact, as default configuration parameters are set to retain existing behaviour.

CHANGES THAT AFFECT EXISTING FORUM USERS………

I have tested the new implementation with Coventry’s theme. There is one theme amendment required (because of a bug fix). In current release, the drop down list for filtering threads by category has the same name as the drop down list for selecting a category when making a new post. This means that the selected value carries through – ie if you have filtered the threads then make a new post, the new post has the filter category selected as default. More importantly, if you make a post and assign a category, then the thread list is filtered after you complete the post.

To fix the bug, I renamed the drop down list in the post form from topic to PostTopic. This means the category drop down is not visible until the two references to @name=’topic’ in the forum:postForm template are changed to @name=’postTopic’

Only other visible changes if the patch is applied without changing config are –

Reply count only includes posts that have been approved

Posts are searchable from the main site search. This is a change from the current behaviour – if not desired then it could be made configurable. Following merging of the patch, any existing posts can (and should) be indexed by running ccm-run com.arsdigita.london.search.Reindexer –object-type com.arsdigita.forum.Post

Moderation form and emails are formatted slightly differently

recent forum postings portlet prevents users creating new forum application – only site admin can do this. Also filters forums to those that the user has read access on.

New portlet – my forums. Lists links to forums that user has read access to.

The other non-visble effect is that the wizard uses java session rather than hidden fields. This approach makes it much easier to include links in form steps (eg remove an uploaded file etc). The impact is that users in a load balanced environment need to consider session affinity. In our production environment, this is accomplished by the server that sprays requests to the various back end servers. It identifies each browser session and routes all their requests to the same back end server. Hence there is no replication of session - the user is guaranteed to end up at the server that holds their java session. As a result, when a backend server is stopped, there is a risk that a user with session on that server in the middle of creating a post will lose information entered up to that point. On our site we live with this small risk but mitigate it by restarting servers at unsociable hours where possible. 

I have put examle theme files in ccm-ldn-aplaws/web/__ccm__/themes/aplaws/forum-example: forum-index.xsl, forum-index.css and the contents of images/forum

To have a look at a forum using these files, copy the xsl and css to the top level of your theme and make a new forum directory in images and copy the images there. I’m afraid these files have continued the existing format of putting all the templates in a single file, so they are not the most easily maintained, and I make no guarantees about the content, but they do work. and if required they may be used as a basis for your own look and feel.

Some of the new features are enabled site wide using configuration parameters, others can be set on a per-forum basis. 

New configuration parameters are:

com.arsdigita.forum.disable_page_caching

true to disable client/middleware caching of the thread view and forum view pages


com.arsdigita.forum.maximum_image_size

Maximum size of image uploads in bytes – if images are allowed, this can prevent threads that take an age to open. If left blank there is no limit. If size is added, validation is added to the upload image step.
 
com.arsdigita.forum.maximum_file_size

same purpose as previous parameter

com.arsdigita.forum.show_all_forum_thread_alerts

in current implementation, within a specific forum the alerts page shows alerts for all forums. Though this is potentially useful, if you click the link to one of the threads in a different forum, it can be a bit disconcerting as it takes you to a thread displayed within the context of the wrong forum. A proper bugfix would be to switch the context when selecting a thread from a different forum, and also displaying a warning on the page that you may be redirected to a different forum. In the meantime, I introduced this parameter that allows restriction of the alerts page to show only alerts within the current forum. Default value is true to retain existing behaviour


com.arsdigita.forum.show_new_tabs

true to show new admin tabs – site admin and forum admin can then add fine grained permissions and access the other new forum settings (as long as your forum xsl in your theme displays these tabs and their contents.

com.arsdigita.forum.use_wysiwyg_editor

Default behaviour is to retain the text area and accompanying body type drop down. Change to true to use htmlarea or fckeditor instead (according to which you have selected with the waf.bebop.dhtml_editor parameter). I would recommend fckeditor as it includes emoticons which are always popular on forums. 

For fck, there is an fck config file in ccm-core/web/assets/fckeditor/config that is applied to forums. This includes emoticons and other toolbar icons, and disables link browsing (so public users cannot browse the back end content centre or the file system). To change the configuration you need to edit that file directly – there is no config parameter to specify your own custom fck config as there is in cms.

If you are using a wysiwyg editor, you should also set waf.mail.send_html_mail to true, as the mechanism that does a sterling job translating basic html into a plaintext version for emails is not up to the task of translating the html that is output by the wysiwyg editors.

com.arsdigita.forum.rejection_form_message

Optional message appended to the bottom of a moderation rejection email eg we add details about who to contact if you are unhappy about the decision to reject your post. I don’t know about you, but I can’t enter config parameter values with spaces in – even if I surround with quotes, so to set this I have to cdweb and vi conf/registry/ccm-forum/forum.properties then insert a new line eg com.arsdigita.forum.rejection_form_message=If you are not happy about this, tough

com.arsdigita.forum.thread_page_size

number of posts to display on a single page in thread view mode

com.arsdigita.forum.allow_quick_finish

For forums where several steps are included – image, file etc. our frequent users wanted to be able to jump out of the wizard early if they were adding a simple text post. If this is set to true then there is a finish button on each step of the wizard.


An additional application will be available soon that plugs into this forum and adds the ability to embed forums within navigation. The application adds a new tab for assigning navigation using the AJAX category tree, and then adds menu and path components to the forum pages to allow them to be viewed within the correct place in the site.


This patch must be applied to the latest version of trunk code. When I merge it, I will bump up version numbers and dependencies accordingly.


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>Comment By: pboy (pboy)
Date: 2009-08-08 13:57

Message:
Committed to trunk at 1628 (2007-09-17) by Chris

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Comment By: chris gilbert (cgyg9330)
Date: 2007-09-17 08:12

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=1069385
Originator: YES

merged at r1628

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: chris gilbert (cgyg9330)
Date: 2007-03-29 13:07

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=1069385
Originator: YES

File Added: forum2.diff

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: chris gilbert (cgyg9330)
Date: 2007-03-29 13:06

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=1069385
Originator: YES

File Added: forum1.diff

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: chris gilbert (cgyg9330)
Date: 2007-03-29 07:46

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=1069385
Originator: YES

Just to recap, and some additional information:

To test this forum version, use latest version of trunk, then

ccm upgrade ccm-forum --from-version 6.5.0 --to-version 6.5.1
ccm upgrade ccm-forum --from-version 6.5.1 --to-version 6.5.2
ccm-run com.arsdigita.london.search.Reindexer --object-type
com.arsdigita.forum.Post

cdweb

cp webapps/ROOT/__ccm__/themes/aplaws/forum-example/forum-index.xsl
webapps/ccm-ldn-theme/__ccm__/themes-dev/{my-theme}
cp webapps/ROOT/__ccm__/themes/aplaws/forum-example/forum-index.css
webapps/ccm-ldn-theme/__ccm__/themes-dev/{my-theme}
mkdir webapps/ccm-ldn-theme/__ccm__/themes-dev/{my-theme}/images/forum
cp webapps/ROOT/__ccm__/themes/aplaws/forum-example/images/forum/*
webapps/ccm-ldn-theme/__ccm__/themes-dev/{my-theme}/images/forum

ccm set com.arsdigita.forum.show_new_tabs=true


(optional)
ccm set com.arsdigita.forum.use_wysiwyg_editor=true
ccm set waf.bebop.dhtml_editor=FCKeditor
ccm set
com.arsdigita.cms.dhtml_editor_config=cms-fck,/assets/fckeditor/config/fckconfig_standard.js

restart and republish theme.

Create a new forum at ccm/portal/admin/sitemap.jsp 
Click the 'view' link next to the entry for Portal Homepage. 
Select 'Discussion Forum Application' from the Create New Child
Application drop down. 
Give the forum a url eg forum1 and a title and save.
Forum is accessed at ccm/portal/forum1

Set up the forum - first permissions:

By default, public users can create threads (this is the inherited
behaviour), though this privilege just means they have access to the create
new thread link. When pressed, they are prompted to login unless 'allow
anonymous posts' is checked under the setup tab. Change permissions under
the permissions tab - privileges cascade, so any user only needs to be in
one group to inherit all lower privileges.

Now settings, under setup tab default options preserve default behaviour.


Moderated - posts are only visible and searchable once approved, unless
posted by someone in the moderation or admin group.

Noticeboard - disables replies, so posts are all single notices.

Allow file attachments/images - adds these steps to the new post wizard
when checked

Automatically Subscribe Thread Starters - an alternative approach to a
noticeboard. If checked then when someone puts up an advert, others can
respond via the forum, and the poster is notified of all responses by
email. This means that everyone can see responses to an advert, while
ensuring that the advertiser doesn't miss any responses. We like this
because we are nosy and like to see who has replied to adverts :-)

Allow Posts with no topic. On some forums, we wanted to avoid
uncategorised posts. Chheck this and 'none' is removed as an option from 
the category drop down on a new post.

Allow anonymous posts - To be any use, public users must have the create
new posts privilege on the forum. Note that anonymous posts cannot be
edited by the author, as that would allow any member of the public to edit
any other public post.



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Comment By: chris gilbert (cgyg9330)
Date: 2007-03-28 15:29

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=1069385
Originator: YES

File Added: forum-aplaws.diff

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: chris gilbert (cgyg9330)
Date: 2007-03-28 15:29

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=1069385
Originator: YES

File Added: forum-core.diff

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: chris gilbert (cgyg9330)
Date: 2007-03-28 15:28

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=1069385
Originator: YES

File Added: forum2.diff

----------------------------------------------------------------------

You can respond by visiting: 
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=531527&aid=1689988&group_id=71505