Thread

I just purchased a commercial EE license with an Engine Hosting account and I’m debating on whether I’m going to purchase the boards so I just had a few questions.  My members wanted to be sure that all of these features were in EE forums:

- The ability for the admin to create custom profile fields.
- Check latest posts (a convenient list of things that have been posted since you last visited).
- Can have different skins applied (is it easy to import a format from your main site?).
- Sub-forums.
- Can implement ads within the boards.

I also wanted to know if I get a 20% discount off of the boards like I did with the software for using Engine Hosting, I didn’t see an option to purchase it with the hosting.  Thanks!

Let’s see if I can hit a few of these.

1.  Custom profile fields are no problem- the member management is actually shared with base EE- so your member settings in your current copy of EE?  Will apply to the forums.  That said- you can’t necessarily display all of the custom field data just anywhere- but it will show in their profile and such by default.  Assuming you set it that way.  Basically- the forum uses the same user settings as the rest of the site- with the ability to allow forum access rights based on member group.

2.  It’s the forum in use here- so you can try checking the ‘New Topics’ link on this board- is that what you’re going for?

3.  Sure- different skins aren’t a problem- it ships with several.  You can see this in action here- go to the bottom of the page and flip out the skins under ‘Theme’.  That said- it may/may not be easy to ‘import’ a format.  Well- you can’t import one.  But you can create your own.  How hard it is will depend on how much you want to change things up.

4.  No sub-forums (assuming I understand correctly).  Pretty much what you see here is the standard ‘depth’ of nesting.  If that makes sense.

5.  Yes- though there isn’t a ‘switch’ to do it.  But you can edit the templates, so if you want ads in a sidebar or such, you can just add them in when skinning.  PHP can be turned on for the forum templates- so that’s an option, as is js.  Or hard coded- but I don’t think many folks do it that way.

I’ll have to check re: the discount.  Will get back on that one.

H, Shadow,

Please .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) about your desire to purchase the Discussion Forum module, and they will help you to get the forum and the 20% discount.

Thanks!

Let’s see if I can hit a few of these.

1.  Custom profile fields are no problem- the member management is actually shared with base EE- so your member settings in your current copy of EE?  Will apply to the forums.  That said- you can’t necessarily display all of the custom field data just anywhere- but it will show in their profile and such by default.  Assuming you set it that way.  Basically- the forum uses the same user settings as the rest of the site- with the ability to allow forum access rights based on member group.

I’m starting a gaming site, so I can’t have a profile field called “GamerTag” then opt to display it next to their posts (similar to how my join date and post count are to the left of my post)?

4.  No sub-forums (assuming I understand correctly).  Pretty much what you see here is the standard ‘depth’ of nesting.  If that makes sense.

This isn’t a big deal since I generally don’t like them, but it’s a pretty basic feature that is strange not to have so I’m expecting that in the future…

Thanks for the help.

H, Shadow,

Please .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) about your desire to purchase the Discussion Forum module, and they will help you to get the forum and the 20% discount.

Thanks!

Thanks for the info.

I also forgot one important question:

Does this forum have spoiler tags, and if not, are there any plug-ins/mods you can get for the forums?

What is a spoiler tag?

I’m starting a gaming site, so I can’t have a profile field called “GamerTag” then opt to display it next to their posts (similar to how my join date and post count are to the left of my post)?

Not in the default templates.  You may be able to do so by running the templates through the main template parser and using a query or custom profile data tag; alternatively, you could enable PHP and use PHP and a query to pull that into the forums.

So it is possible, but will take a bit of custom work.

What is a spoiler tag?

I’m starting a gaming site, so I can’t have a profile field called “GamerTag” then opt to display it next to their posts (similar to how my join date and post count are to the left of my post)?

Not in the default templates.  You may be able to do so by running the templates through the main template parser and using a query or custom profile data tag; alternatively, you could enable PHP and use PHP and a query to pull that into the forums.

So it is possible, but will take a bit of custom work.

Since my website is going to discuss a lot of gaming (and some movies) we always use a tag on our current forum that is [spoiler]Spoilers go here.[/spoiler]  We had downloaded a mod for IPB before but now it’s officially supported.

Basically (it can be done a few ways) it hides text so that people who haven’t beaten a game don’t see major plot points, but those plot points can still be discussed.  Some make you click to reveal the spoiler text, and others make you highlight it.

That’s a pretty cool idea, Shadow, but there isn’t a current way to do that. I’d imagine it could be accomplished with an extension, though.  If you do write one/have one written, I hope you’ll share it with the community. =)

That’s a pretty cool idea, Shadow, but there isn’t a current way to do that. I’d imagine it could be accomplished with an extension, though.  If you do write one/have one written, I hope you’ll share it with the community. =)

Can I find forum extensions in the Add-On Library, or do the forum extensions have a separate section somewhere where I can view/submit/download them?

I may have been unclear, Shadow.  There is not, to my knowledge, an existing extension that meets this need.  You would need to create one from scratch.

There are extensions in the Add-On Library, as well as some listed on our wiki Extensions page. =)

I may have been unclear, Shadow.  There is not, to my knowledge, an existing extension that meets this need.  You would need to create one from scratch.

There are extensions in the Add-On Library, as well as some listed on our wiki Extensions page. =)

I understood that it would likely need to be created but I wasn’t sure if the Add-On Library had just extensions for the CMS or also for the forums, but I see that you answered my question. 😊

If I can’t find one on the net my friend can likely create one easily as he did for IPB.  I’ll definitely post any progress I make since I MUST have these one way or another. 😊