87 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
87 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
Main new features included in this release are:
|
|
|
|
Fine grained forum permissions
|
|
Allow file attachments and images in posts
|
|
Contents of posts are searchable
|
|
New portlet type lising links to all forums user has read access to
|
|
Allow automatic thread subscription for thread starter (useful for noticeboard type forums)
|
|
Forum admin can prevent posts with no topic
|
|
Expiry can be specified for all types of forum
|
|
Reply count calculation fixed
|
|
HTML Editor can be used for posts
|
|
Subscription emails can (and should) be sent as html emails)
|
|
|
|
Other minor changes, fixes and configurable features are also included.
|
|
Check new config parameter descriptions in com.arsdigita.forum.ForumConfig_parameter.properties
|
|
|
|
After deployment, to install new features, either get rid of existing forum app, and load new version, OR
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When developing this, I tried to ensure that a basic deployment will not affect the XML
|
|
that is produced by the current forum application.
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
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/themes/static/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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
There is a separate application - ccm-categorised-forum that adds category path and menu components to the front end,
|
|
and adds a categorisation tab for admin users. Load this application if you would like this functionality.
|
|
|
|
When a forum is created, only site admin can access the admin tabs,
|
|
until you assign users/groups to the forum admin group under the permissions tab.
|
|
|
|
Next things I plan to do are:
|
|
|
|
list pending and reapprove posts under the moderation tab
|
|
create a user info page so users can write a bit about themselves
|
|
allow thread branching so administrators can split long threads or threads that have strayed from the point.
|
|
Allow different thread views - paginated full details, or tree of titles with one post visible (a la sourceforge)
|
|
|
|
chris.gilbert@westsussex.gov.uk
|