Thread

I want to bring out some thoughts about EE forums and EE, related to phpbb forums that are free to use and EE forums are not!

Scenario and truth
Ok, because of licensing you cant use EE as “community” site because users arent allowed to post their own weblog entries. Thats ok with me. You also cant create photogalleries with EE as “user unique” ways, ie. user cant have his/her own photogallery.

EE is ment to run your/your client own business and shops etc. These all are ok and understood.

But…Why then EE forums are only sold. What are the benefits of EE forums to your/your clients usergroups? Why you just go and use forums like phpbb, that now-a-days has pretty good system, attacmenthandling etc.

I dont mean that EE forums are not good but started to think few things and therefore i now have testforum whats phpbb-based and im thinking that i start to use it in one of my EE sites, cos i really dont see atm. any positive ways to use EE forums cos i dont allow new member registrations to that site because of the licensing of EE itself.

So what you think? Tell me all the good, positive things about EE forums and perhaps give me a hint if there is coming more specific user quide on “building and modifying EE forums”.

With MSM it does not work well because of the redirecting to mainsites, and other issues that (i think im only) i have with it. Templating is hard for me as “newcomer” and i have not tried to modify EE forum templates to suite my sites layout what so ever. phpbb has almos perfect “default” theme (prosilver special edition) that with minor graphical work suites nicely, at least for me. Photo inlining and clickable images etc. are nice jobs.

Well, before EEv2.0 is out i just wanted to start discussion and in truth, i want to hear all kind of groovy things you hopefully bring out, what are the best in EE forums. And what i hope in my humble silence is that i could have some eyeopening videotutorials that leads me for better trails in using, and making EE forums rock!

Shoot out and tell what you thing over there!

Im in love with EE but certaing things just keep coming to my mind because of various reasons with the EE.

Yours:
- Tuittu

PS. i dont want to mean any harm, more i hope to get right information and some “how-to’s” to maybe open my eyes here, thanks. ( and yes, sorry for my bad english if you dont understand all, lol).

So what you think?

I use the EE forums because they offer a simple, tightly integrated, no-nonsense approach to forums. To me this “bare bones” simplicity is about as appealing as the fact that it integrates with EE.

That said, the forum module is probably not for everybody. That’s OK. If it doesn’t serve your needs, by all means use something else.

To me this “bare bones” simplicity is about as appealing as the fact that it integrates with EE.

Same goes here. And If i make customer-based kinda “intranet” areas and build “support” forums to that area, EE forums are very good. In the first place i didnt want to cry about anything with EE forums.

The sad point for me is that, EE forums are yet difficult for me to understand what i could make out of it and it should integrate more and closer to ee modules and variables etc. to make it “huge”. The lack of good userguide is one that i wish to get better in docs. At the moment is way too short and does not tell much about forums!

Yeah same, we have used the forum module because it means that our client has just one control panel for everything. But phpBB is a great open source solution and we have used that for different solutions too. It depends what fits I guess.

The sad point for me is that, EE forums are yet difficult for me to understand what i could make out of it and it should integrate more and closer to ee modules and variables etc. to make it “huge”. The lack of good userguide is one that i wish to get better in docs. At the moment is way too short and does not tell much about forums!

You might want to contact Ceil privately. I know she was writing up some sort of docs for the forum. She might be able to share those.

In my case im the client cos all EE is about my company =) To be clear on my side of the pool here =)

I use the EE forums because they offer a simple, tightly integrated, no-nonsense approach to forums. To me this “bare bones” simplicity is about as appealing as the fact that it integrates with EE.

That said, the forum module is probably not for everybody. That’s OK. If it doesn’t serve your needs, by all means use something else.

If integration is important, EE’s forums are superb. If bells and whistles are important, then maybe Invision or vBulletin would be a better choice. If security is important, phpBB doesn’t have a good reputation, while EE does.

Well…

I have an Invision Power Board license but am selling it to so I can buy the forum module for EE.  I have seen how the forum module works and how it integrates with other content on the site and am sold.  If you’re looking to just build a community, get phpbb.  If you’re looking for bells and whistles, go for vBulletin. 

If you’re looking for a forum that has seamless and logical integration into a CMS (which is truely hard to find), then I would go with EE and the forum module. 

Kevin

Hi.

I’ve used phpBB and SMF forum’s.

Both are very useful and userfriendly.

ButI find the security quite low.
I’m running a EE forum for now 2 - 3 months, before an SMF forum for 8 months and before that a phpbb for almost 2years.

Now our phpbb forum has been hacked twice and the SMF forum 8 times in 2 months!.. (and it is a private forum)
This is quite annoying, and with the EE forum I’ve havent been hacked yet, and I’m hoping that it stays like that.
Other reason is also the templating.

For a novice webdesigner phpbb or SMF templating is very hard.
I’m a webdesigner as hobby so I’m not a specialist or so but I’m can work myself through a lot of things.

So the phpbb templating is quite hard for me because it’s little mix of php and html, I don’t know anything about php 😛

SMF is worse, 1 file for the whole design with the codes ... whell it took me a few days before I knew what code is what.
I took about 1 month to create a SMF design, 3 weeks for a phpBB design (all working in all browsers) with javascript and other features, and the EE forum design ... I made it in 1 day work (Photoshop included).

Since I change a lot of times the template of our forum, I prefer EE forum 😏

So personnally:

- phpBB very usefull with cool features, but pain in the ... for design (my opinion)and bit low on security.
- SMF ... a nightmare for me and allso our members, after 2 weeks there were asking to change back.
- EE forum .. nobody is complaining, they even say that it is better then before.
a friend of my does webdesign allso as hobby and he managed to create another EE forum template in 7 hours (1 hour faster then me)

Greetz 😉

You might want to contact Ceil privately. I know she was writing up some sort of docs for the forum. She might be able to share those.

Sue - Ceil who?  I’ve got questions…

Here you go 😉

Ceil

Just popped in here hope you don’t mind. I remember the original post where Ceil mentioned that.

Best wishes,

Mark

I run a site where the forum and main portion of the site are of equal importance and traffic. We were previously using Joomla + SMF and before that, Joomla + XMB forum software. I’ve also used PHPbb on another site and was a moderator on a VBulletin installation.

EE Forum module Pros:
*Best in class integration with main site CMS. This is important because you don’t have to worry about bridges or synchronization problems when one of the two software platforms upgrade.
*Simplicity
*If you have an issue with your site you only have to go to one place to find help.

EE Form module Cons:
*The first post in each thread (called a topic in EE speak) is handled differently than the subsequent posts. While this may seem insignificant it has some pretty huge ramifications. It means that you can’t create a “latest activity” list that displays all new posts (what EE would consider topics + posts). You either have to choose to display the latest topics OR the latest posts. This means that new topics can get lost in the mix if people don’t find them soon enough. It also means you can’t make a coherent RSS feed for your forum because you either have to choose to display latest posts (in which case new topics won’t be displayed until the second post) or you have to display latest topics in which case you don’t see the latest activity (just the most recent topic). It also leads to some confusion because EE’s terminology is different than any other forum I’m aware of and does not follow what is essentially a ‘best practice’ for forums but instead treats the forum as just an extension of a blog (where there’s a blog entry and then some comments underneath it). This creates some confusion as to what a new ‘post’ is and also why the links in the header “View New Posts |  Active Topics |  Pending Posts” don’t seem to return the desired results. There’s quite a few complaints around here about this issue and some of the confusion it can cause so look before you leap. 

*The integration still leaves a little something to be desired as it seems that the forum is just an ‘add on’ to the main installation rather than a complete part of it. I recognize that it IS an add on but I would like to see that in the future, things like templating, tagging, etc are handled in a more unified way if possible.
*The lack of out of the box WYSIWYG editor for the forum may bother some users. I personally don’t mind it at all.

Personally, I’m a little divided on the forum module. If it were possible to do it again I might go with EE + Vanilla forum platform. It seems to be very simple in nature and lightweight while still addressing the cons I mentioned above. The BIG drawback however would be bridging the 2 platforms.

Well…

I have an Invision Power Board license but am selling it to so I can buy the forum module for EE.  I have seen how the forum module works and how it integrates with other content on the site and am sold.  If you’re looking to just build a community, get phpbb.  If you’re looking for bells and whistles, go for vBulletin. 

If you’re looking for a forum that has seamless and logical integration into a CMS (which is truely hard to find), then I would go with EE and the forum module.

Pretty much amen to all that.

We put up one of the first EE sites back in 2004 and a year later wanted to add a forum. I asked Rick Ellis about EE’s not-yet-released Forums Module and told him I was looking at both Invision and vBulletin. He agreed that both were good, full of bells and whistles, and I wouldn’t go wrong with either choice. Then Rick said I would be surprised and pleased with EE’s Forums Module when it came out. In short, we waited a month or two, bought the EE Forum and have been more than very pleased. It’s rock solid dependable, has “enough” bells and whistles (though creating a custom theme could be easier), and works as advertised. The integration and management is superb.

Well done. Looking forward to EE 2.