Thread

Hello,

I’m very interested in using ExpressionEngine in a commercial site, I have a few questions relating to forums functionality (the site will be heavily biased towards community), apologies if these have already been answered - I’ve had a look around and not found clear answers to the ones below:

1) Is it possible to show the “smileys” in the editor when I’m typing a post? I really don’t like it being a seperate pop-up window.
2) Can I assign an icon to a thread? For example assign a question mark to this thread?
3) Can I assign an icon to a forum group?
4) How do the forums handle users uploading images? Specifically phpbb can stop users uploading images and only show linked to files from image hosts.
5) Is there a WYSIWYG editor for the forums to allow for bulleted lists etc (may have helped with this post!)?
6) I believe the forums exposes “Hot Topics”, does that mean I can have something on the front page showing the most active topics?
7) Is it possible to change icons for topics that are “hot”? I’m guessing the folder with a little flare coming out of it is the default icon, this is a bit subtle really.
8) Is it possible to use a CAPTCHA to stop spam on posts?
9) Is pruning supported to remove old posts?

I think that’s it for now.

TIA,
Paul

Good morning, Paul! Welcome to the forums!

1) Is it possible to show the “smileys” in the editor when I’m typing a post? I really don’t like it being a seperate pop-up window.

The editor is a textarea, and I’ve not seen anything that has accomplished this.  That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but I’m honestly not sure if it is.

2) Can I assign an icon to a thread? For example assign a question mark to this thread?

There is no out of the box feature for this.

3) Can I assign an icon to a forum group?

In ExpressionEngine, you can have forum categories with their own forums.  There isn’t an out of the box way to assign an image to each forum category.

4) How do the forums handle users uploading images? Specifically phpbb can stop users uploading images and only show linked to files from image hosts.

You could try to attach an image to a reply to this post to see how it’s handled.  You could also set the max number of attachments to 0.

5) Is there a WYSIWYG editor for the forums to allow for bulleted lists etc (may have helped with this post!)?

I have not seen one released that works with the forums, but it’s possible there is a third-party one for this. If not, you could develop an extension for this.

6) I believe the forums exposes “Hot Topics”, does that mean I can have something on the front page showing the most active topics?

I would recommend having a look at the developer theme for a way to present different forum views.

7) Is it possible to change icons for topics that are “hot”? I’m guessing the folder with a little flare coming out of
it is the default icon, this is a bit subtle really.

Yes, you can use your own forum icons by naming them appropriately and uploading them to your forum theme’s image directory.

8) Is it possible to use a CAPTCHA to stop spam on posts?

Not out of the box, but the forums do require membership to post, which is in itself a safety measure.

9) Is pruning supported to remove old posts?

Yes, there is a data pruning utility included in EE, and when the forums are installed, it allows you to prune posts older than X days (you set X).

I’d recommend trying out EE via the hosted demo for access to the forum.  For the custom development mentioned above, here is a link to our development documentation. =)

Thanks for the prompt reply Lisa, I’ve just signed up for the 30 day trial to see what it can do. The forums look so close to being perfect but I suspect it’s going to fall short which is a shame.

I had another question actually: is there a published roadmap for ExpressionEngine? Even if I find the forums aren’t sufficient if there was a roadmap available that showed some of the required features were coming in the next version that would be a great help.

Thanks,
Paul

Have a look at the KB Entry: Is there an ExpressionEngine roadmap? =)

Thanks again. You seem to have all the answers!

Just my two cents but I find companies that refuse to indicate any kind of product direction somewhat worrying - especially when it’s a commercial offering. Given that a good number of your free and commercial competitors publish a roadmap (even if it’s fairly highlevel) I’m surprised that you don’t.

My company won’t purchase software from companies that can’t provide a strategic direction for their software as we perceive it as reflecting negatively on the vendor. Anyway, not trying to start a debate (honest) just though I’d share my thoughts.

I’ll carry on digging.

Cheers,
Paul

Like functional specs earlier in the development phase, product road maps are fraught with trouble. The due diligence process is usually twice as shallow, which means that you’ll inevitably end up promoting illusions of agreement. When all we have to agree on is a slogan, like “Meetings Tab, 4th Quarter”, it becomes an empty imagination box that’ll fit wildly different expectations. Disappointment, however, is sure to ensue when only one set of expectations can actually be met.

The above is a quote from a great blog post on product roadmaps from 37signals. It expresses how I feel about roadmaps and I don’t really feel the need to expand on what David expressed in his blog post further. Bottom line, a roadmap is deceptive.

Its been my experience, both as a consumer of software applications and as a people specialist, its always best to purchase based on what’s available. Otherwise you are purchasing software based on features that don’t exist, that may not meet your needs, at a price (both time and money) that you don’t know. That’s a very poor way to make software decisions.

The “product direction” for EE is really simple, one that we’ve stuck to from the very beginning. Make the best web publishing system we can. That’s the direction for ExpressionEngine.

Instead of comparing our competitions roadmaps versus our lack of a roadmap, why don’t you compare our competition’s code, security record, and customer service against ours? They may make promises about the future, but we absolutely stand by the quality of our products and services as they exist right now.

Our Changlog is a good place to start.

Best to you on finding a solution that meets your needs.

The lack of a public roadmap for EE was something that bothered me, too, originally.

But as I’ve seen the product evolve from 1.0 to 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, all the way to 1.6.1 today, I’ve seen that each time features and brand new modules that are implemented, thy are done extremely well, securely, and they keep EE ahead of or on par with the competition.

While a roadmap would seem to give new buyers peace of mind (I’m not denying that), I get even more peace of mind from looking at the road already taken, and where EE is right now today.

If there’s a particular feature you need that EE doesn’t have yet, a roadmap won’t help you—a developer who makes custom modules could, though! Many folks on these forums could add the functionality you’ve listed above.

TTFN
Travis

We clearly won’t agree on roadmaps so I’ll move on!

I’m sure this has been answered before but I seem to struggle to find what I want in the forums or knowledge base so I’ll apologise up front. How does the forum handle SEO? I can’t find any native support for formatting the URLs nicely.

Thanks,
Paul