Anyone still working on a Forum system?

[eluser]tobefound[/eluser]


Isn't it quite remarkable that the CI community, with its huge user range, cannot produce a simple forum lib?

On the other side, there seems to be no "standard" auth lib for CI either, making it hard for forum developers to build a generic system without caring about secure and bulletproof (!) user authentication.

If these two projects were picked up AND completed AND maintained, lots of CI sites could benefit from this; heck, lots of CI driven sites could very well be paying for a GOOD forum lib and a GOOD auth lib.

Anyone interested in picking this up? I'm so close to doing it, but my hands are full. And so are everybody else's it seems.

Cheers,

/T

[eluser]Phil Sturgeon[/eluser]
What exactly would a "Forum library" be?

Plenty of people have made forum systems (I have written two) but they are never generic enough for release for the very reason you have pointed out; there is no core Auth library.

We have several very good Auth libraries, but that is the problem. Because there are several, which should a Forum system use?

Rick Ellis from EllisLab is working on one at the moment which will end up being in the core no doubt, then things might be a little different.

[eluser]tobefound[/eluser]
I believe a generic forum can be crafted. And if crafted wisely it is a self-contained lib avoiding name clashing and other non-OO procedural crap. This lib would meticulously announce what it needs in order for it to function properly. It must of course come fully functional out-of-the-box, but all or several parts must be optional (like the auth lib) allowing developers to integrate this forum to an existing full-blown website with its own auth system and login routines.

As long as the lib is clear on what kind of input it needs and how this input is delivered, I think the forum will be generic enough. And I'm pretty sure we already have such forums out there somewhere. I only hoped they had found their way to CI.

Auth lib in core CI? Great!!! Do you know the timeframe?

Update: I gave phpBB a spin. Not for their procedural and messy codebase, but rather for their attempt of doing something similar to what we're talking about. It actually supports arbitrary auth libs and much more maing it possible to inject almost everywhere. But it is not very clear on how to do it so I gave up. And judging by the massive code base and an active community, it seems to be a monster to maintain if you have made your own modifications to it.

/T

[eluser]Phil Sturgeon[/eluser]
One probably could be made generic enough with a few layers of abstration but nobody bothers as they only need it to work with one system, the one they are working with. :-)

Feel free to make something, I would be very interested to see it.

Rick Ellis has just mentioned he is working on one in a "by the way" tweet, so no idea.

[eluser]tobefound[/eluser]

One probably could be made generic enough with a few layers of abstration but nobody bothers as they only need it to work with one system, the one they are working with.

Sure, but there must be literally thousands of mature websites that could benefit from a modular well-written extensible forum lib (once they feel a forum is what they really need). I only speak from my personal experience and right now I could really use such a lib. I can't rewrite an entire site just to inject a forum - that must always be wrong!

Rick Ellis makes me interested!

[eluser]tobefound[/eluser]
Btw, tried to login to pyrocms demo but the demo user credentials didn't work...?

/T