Shared Forum Mod -- latest version: 0.2.5.4

[Dragooon]

This is kind of what happened IIRC,
SMF Smileys uses $user_info['query_see_board']  to load up the smileys, now this mod was altering it to limit it to 1 category and only smileys which were being shown to 1 Category was being shown.

I duplicated the $user_info['query_see_board'] in Load.php in paste it above the functions of manage smileys and it made them all load.

It was also giving the Unknown table c in Edit Smileys order

Soon once I get my localhost up I might try to re-create it. This happen sometime in Mid Jan.

[Hj Ahmad Rasyid Hj Ismail]

The function Show FORUM button in default template? (TinyPortal) is not functioning. Though I ticked the box the button is still missing. How do I fix this?

Fixed.

Shared Forum Mod 0.2.5.2

This is a bugfix release. No new features are added. Package is attached.

Changes from 0.2.5.1:

• Fixed a bug with the FORUM button not showing in the homepage.
• Fixed a bug with forum-specific themes not being used.

Procedure: Uninstall the old version before installing the new one.
Download: http://www.albwebmaster.com/index.php?topic=20.0

Ooooh... Great! Just in time with Ortio's new plugin for CB.

Cant wait to test.

Thank you very much.

[Hj Ahmad Rasyid Hj Ismail]

After reading your thread and goosemoose for several time, I now understand some differences between yours and goosemoose shared forum mod. It is about the url. I prefer goosemoose mod better but surely with some improvement that you have contributed. I will do the mod manually then.

[Sarge]

After reading your thread and goosemoose for several time, I now understand some differences between yours and goosemoose shared forum mod. It is about the url. I prefer goosemoose mod better but surely with some improvement that you have contributed. I will do the mod manually then.

Goosemoose's mod is for Joomla+SMF, using Orstio's Bridge. Mine is for SMF+TP (with plans to release it for plain SMF as well).

Some of the differences in URLs are there because of the base platform. When SMF is integrated with Joomla/Mambo, URLs are set up according to Joomla/Mambo standards, not SMF's.

I haven't tested my mod in SMF when integrated with Joomla/Mambo, but I'd love to hear about it.

[Hj Ahmad Rasyid Hj Ismail]

Goosemoose's mod is for Joomla+SMF, using Orstio's Bridge. Mine is for SMF+TP (with plans to release it for plain SMF as well).

Yes. I am intending to do the same with mambo 4.6.3. I am awaiting for sfmod simply for smf without tiny portal as well. Hopefully the bridge will also provide support for sfmod as well.

Some of the differences in URLs are there because of the base platform. When SMF is integrated with Joomla/Mambo, URLs are set up according to Joomla/Mambo standards, not SMF's.

Correct me if I am wrong. IMHO the url is important not because of item id for smf in mambo but rather category id to make sure that users in specific forum (category/ies) remain in there without knowing they are sharing part of a big forum. With mambo or not, Goosemoose's mod have the capability of hiding other category/ies.

Say I have 5 sites to share one forum. I can point all 5 sites to one forum without the users actually realize they are going to the same forum. The main category/ies remain visible for all 5 sites' users but they will have specific category/ies on their own. With the url (eg. forum=cat) setting, all button will not allow the users to go to (eg. forum=dog) though they may share some category/ies (like 1 & 2).

Thus you can build a lot more users for your forum with variety of sites or you can simply use the original Goosemoose's idea of using 3 forums in one site.

I haven't tested my mod in SMF when integrated with Joomla/Mambo, but I'd love to hear about it.

I have tested it but failed to get the wanted result as I've described above. The best thing is still using Goosemoose's mod (with yours improvement of course).

Just my 2 cents.

[Sarge]

SFMod uses a session variable to keep track of the (sub)forum the member is visiting; so, the reason why there's no forum parameter in the URL is because it's not needed. Categories are hidden and/or shared just like in Goosemoose's mod.

SFMod is still in beta and development is a bit slow, due to me being busy with other things as well. I do plan to start a separate branch for "plain vanilla" SMF (without TinyPortal). Read my previous posts in this topic for more information.

FYI, there's another mod, similar to Goosemoose's and mine, but it supports subdomains: Multidomain SMF forum

[perplexed]

hi Sarge

I was reading this topic multidomain mod where you mentioned you might look at adding multidomain option to your mod.

Any advance on that yet?

[Sarge]

I was reading this topic multidomain mod where you mentioned you might look at adding multidomain option to your mod.

Any advance on that yet?

No, not yet. I'm actually working on the next version (doing the database stuff now), but I haven't arrived at the multidomain part yet. I'm not sure if I will be able to add that feature, but I will try.

[perplexed]

ok thanks,  I really just want to mirror my existing forum on two different domains and was hoping this might do the trick easily for me

[Hj Ahmad Rasyid Hj Ismail]

Categories are hidden and/or shared just like in Goosemoose's mod.

What do you mean that categories are hidden here? Can you describe this further? So far I only see categories are shared but not hidden using SFMod.

[eaglesoars]

I'm currently testing my mod on both localhost and an online site I've set up for testing purposes. When I'm comfortable releasing a beta, I'll let you know here.

Do you have any idea or comment about the features or maybe about something I've missed out?

I'm using this mod on a forum and really love it!
http://chromehorn.net/foyer/index.php [nofollow]
This is NOT a test site so everyone is welcome to look it over and check out the mod but please respect my members.

Anyway, I'm getting ready to use it on another site because of how well I like it.

If I could improve it in anyway My wish for it would be for each forum to have it's own completely different Home page and to have each forum have the option of showing ALL new posts across the forums, or just the new posts for that particular forum.

My intent was to have the Grand Foyer be the front door to my site with All new posts showing and the front page showing things for the whole community while each forun showed only stuff to the specifics of that forum.

But I do love the mod even as it is, keep up the great work

[Sarge]

Shared Forum Mod 0.2.5.3 is released

Changes from 0.2.5.2:

• Fixed an incompatibility with some mods.
• Fixed a bug with the FORUM button (again) that was not showing even when the mod was disabled.
• Fixed a bug with categories showing up using the forum name in the linktree.
• Added support for SMF board-specific themes; the "Override Member's Theme" option in SMF needs to be selected (this limitation will be lifted in the next version).

[Sarge]

Categories are hidden and/or shared just like in Goosemoose's mod.

What do you mean that categories are hidden here? Can you describe this further? So far I only see categories are shared but not hidden using SFMod.

Example: Your forum has 5 categories, with IDs 1, 2, 4, 7 and 10. You have created two subforums: the first with categories 1 and 2 and the second with categories 7 and 10. Because you haven't included category 4 in a subforum, it will not show up anywhere -- in effect, it remains hidden.

However, every member with proper permissions can access that category from its direct URL (/index.php#4). Just because it's hidden doesn't mean it can't be found

[Sarge]

I'm using this mod on a forum and really love it!
http://chromehorn.net/foyer/index.php
This is NOT a test site so everyone is welcome to look it over and check out the mod but please respect my members.

Anyway, I'm getting ready to use it on another site because of how well I like it.

Your site is nice I'm glad my mod has helped with it.

If I could improve it in anyway My wish for it would be for each forum to have it's own completely different Home page and to have each forum have the option of showing ALL new posts across the forums, or just the new posts for that particular forum.

My intent was to have the Grand Foyer be the front door to my site with All new posts showing and the front page showing things for the whole community while each forun showed only stuff to the specifics of that forum.

This can be, in part, achieved with forum-specific articles. I added this to the "To Do" list (see first post). The next major version of SFMod (0.3) will feature this, but I may add it to the 0.2.5.x branch as well. Also, both branches will have the TinyPortal recent posts filtering available soon.

[eaglesoars]

Please keep up the great work, this is really one of the best mods there are.

Last year I had 4 separate forums for these, but members wouldn't join all 4 to participate in them so this works great.

BTW, Tick from Tiny Portal Hosting is the one that showed this to me when I told him what I was trying to do.

My new forum is a community site with forums  for #1 the homeowners and families. #2Homeowners Assn. Members & #3 Board of Directors.

Do you know if anyone using this mod is also using SMFHacks Store or Classifieds mods? He said he didn't know if it would work with the multiforum mod. I'd like to add them to the sites too.

[Sarge]

Do you know if anyone using this mod is also using SMFHacks Store or Classifieds mods? He said he didn't know if it would work with the multiforum mod. I'd like to add them to the sites too.

I don't know of any forum that uses both Shared Forum Mod and either SMFHacks Store or Classifieds. I guess it shouldn't be much of a problem having all of them co-exist in a forum. SFMod deals primarily with categories and it does so mostly by modifying the value of $user_info['query_see_board'] (an SMF global variable); if the mods you mentioned don't modify that, then you should be fine.

On the other hand, adding (sub)forum-specific support from SFMod for other mods, or vice-versa, would probably need a bit of extra work, but it shouldn't be much of an issue either. To aid with this, I plan to add some generic support for other mods in SFMod 0.3 (still in development).

Note that, to avoid confusion with other mods and packages that offer various multi-forum capabilities, I'd like my mod to be called Shared Forum Mod (like Goosemoose's mod) or SFMod.

[Hj Ahmad Rasyid Hj Ismail]

Example: Your forum has 5 categories, with IDs 1, 2, 4, 7 and 10. You have created two subforums: the first with categories 1 and 2 and the second with categories 7 and 10. Because you haven't included category 4 in a subforum, it will not show up anywhere -- in effect, it remains hidden.

However, every member with proper permissions can access that category from its direct URL (/index.php#4). Just because it's hidden doesn't mean it can't be found

I understand this one. But clicking Home will lead to TP frontpage, then... I also understand that you are trying to mod the menu so it will go to respective desired forum one just need to click the menu so the other forums are not available for them. So is this your suggested way (i.e. quite similar to goosemoose only he use mambo / joomla to make the menu)?

As I have said before this it could work even greater if it is combined with membergroups mod.

Great mod! Really it is great! A great thank you to Sarge and Goosemoose.

Your mod could work even greater if it used with default membergroups mod during registration. User have to choose a group when they register and they can only view and access the registred group (allowed category) but no others.

Any further comment on this?

[Sarge]

ahrasis, that's why I have so far released my mod for SMF+TP and not for plain SMF. You can use a TinyPortal block to create the list of forums, so members can go to the forums from there. I'm not skilled enough in CSS and/or JavaScript to convert the FORUMS button into a dropdown menu, although I'm working on that.

On the other hand, creating a second menu just for forums seems a bit crude to me. If you have any idea or a working example about the forums menu (for the default theme, please), by all means let me know

As for the default membergroups mod, you can select in SMF which boards is each membergroup allowed to see. Then you can add some code to fetch the categories of those boards from the database and then filter out all subforums that don't contain those categories. Is this what you need?

[Eliana Tamerin]

Sarge, what about simply inserting forum names into the menu? Make a for each loop and insert a forum name where the normal "Home" link is.

Then the links would go "Forum1 Forum2 Help Search..."

[Sarge]

Sarge, what about simply inserting forum names into the menu? Make a for each loop and insert a forum name where the normal "Home" link is.

Then the links would go "Forum1 Forum2 Help Search..."

That would be easy, wouldn't it? But if I have 10 subforums with names like "Main Site," "The Chronicles of Narnia," "Star Wars Legacy," "Star Trek Enterprise,"... you can see that the menu can become quite long and it would break the site design.