I was checking out the control panel for EE 1.3 and it looks great.  I see I will have my work cut out for me in modifying my forum templates, but I am relieved to see that it should be much more simple than modifying my PHPBB forums.  One item that I am wondering about is creating multiple forums for different domains.  I am leveraging the EE ability to control more than one domain which is great and I would like that functionality extended to the forum.  In my initial fumbling with the forum control panel I do not see a way to create a different forum for each domain.

This is what I have found that I believe I can do…

Have the forum accessible from any domain such as somedomain.com/forums and anotherdomain/forums.  This is assuming the forum triggering word is forums and that both of the domains are controlled by one installed instance of EE.  This would allow me to at least have the illusion that the forum exclusively belongs to whichever URL the user visits.  I can further this illusion by creating categories that are only visible to members of the group that belongs to that certain community.  What I can’t do (or at least I did not see a way to do this) is create a different look for the forum based on which community you belong to.

Am I wrong here?  Is there a way to make different forums for different communities?  As it stands right now it appears the only way I could do this is to get more EE licenses and purchase separate forum modules.  I am not against doing this but I have fallen in love with the ability to control all domains on my VPS from one control panel.

Thanks in advance for any discussion on this.

manofsteel - 24 June 2005 09:16 PM

I was checking out the control panel for EE 1.3 and it looks great.  I see I will have my work cut out for me in modifying my forum templates, but I am relieved to see that it should be much more simple than modifying my PHPBB forums.

Amen to that. I’m in much the same boat, so I’d also love to hear if this is possible…

And it looks to be almost identical to modifying IPB templates which is a mixed blessing, I find it hell but at least I’m used to it.

It looks like there is basic support for different skins so I’m sure it won’t be long before it’s possible to define when/where a skin is used if it’s not there already (even if it requires a hack).

The forum tags look like regular EE tags so maybe it’s possible to use them in existing templates? That would be a killer feature.

Otherwise I was thinking it might be possible to duplicate the forum module, change any unique identifiers and install it again. Trick EE into thinking you had two separate modules installed and they can run alongside each other. So you’d have forum module and forum2 module installed perhaps? (Maybe more trouble than it’s worth? Against license terms?).

Something tells me the official line will be along the lines of if you need two forums you need two licenses. But even still I can see instances where it would be useful to display different parts of a forum in different places on the same website.

Something tells me the official line will be along the lines of if you need two forums you need two licenses. But even still I can see instances where it would be useful to display different parts of a forum in different places on the same website.

I am not against getting a separate license for each domain this but I did not see how this could be setup either.  When you click on general preferences you get one box for a forum URL.  There is nowhere to specify where more forums would appear. 

I also don’t see how you would make forum posts appear anywhere else in your page templates.  An example of how this might be used is a “most recent discussion” or “most active discussion” area on your front page.  This might be available with tags that I do not know about.

There is only so much that you can see by clicking around the control panel.  Wait for the docs. =)

Thank you Lisa! 

Clarification: that wasn’t a promise, it was a suggestion. =)

Well it makes sense, there is much that we will not be able to figure out until the final version ships with all the documentation.