With all this talk of vB and IPB, etc...I'd really like to know, what would your Ideal forum software be like? What features would you like to see or not see? (like blogs, photo galleries, etc) How would it be templated (I do happen to like vB's 3.8 template engine)? How would the code be formatted? Let's assume we're working with PHP and MySQL here. I think Drupal is on the right path, tho I don't think they're there yet, where the whole site is basically made up of a basic core system, and all other features are plugins. vB kinda has that with their plugin system, but too much code is still in the core. I'd love to be able to edit "core" functions through the plugin system! What are your thoughts?
Re: [!] - Your 'Ideal' Forum Software With my faith and trust in vB gone down the tubes, I guess I don't have an "ideal" software any longer. I know nothing about IPB - or any other forum software for that matter - so I kind of feel like I'm floundering.
Re: [!] - Your 'Ideal' Forum Software Let's see... My ideal forum software would be vBulletin, managed by a company who knows how to be productive and isn't after everybody's money, and with these features: New products/plugins you would like to see developed by IB
Re: [!] - Your 'Ideal' Forum Software I love 3.8, but it's still not my "ideal" forum software. I was thinking about it earlier when I wished that I could have changed some of the core code in a plugin. I like 3.8's template engine, but it's still not perfect. I like vB's interfaces, but I think that's because I'm used to them. I can't tell you the number of times I've had to search and search for a setting. I am kinda dumb that way, tho. :o There are ALWAYS improvements that can be made, or else we wouldn't be waiting in such anticipation for a new version of a script to come out, and be so disappointed when it's not all we had dreamed of. So my question above is not really what your favorite existing software package is, but what your dream package would contain, what it would look like, and how it would work. BTW, I had three hours of sleep last night and I have no idea what I was thinking with that title. Mind cleaning that up for me, Nick? Sorry. :o
Re: [!] - Your 'Ideal' Forum Software LOL to be honest, it has been bugging the heck out of me since I saw it. I didn't want to step on any toes and change it, so I left it. Will fix it now.
Take Vanilla Forums, make the plugin/theme architecture similar to how wordpress handles it (so that plugins can be installed via one click without the worry of breaking a site). Having lots of canonical plugins that are supported and work well. Basically, a simple "out-of-the-box" forum, with plugins (preferably some large ones by the same devs) that are able to be installed so you can basically make your forum as simple or complex as you'd like very easily.
either free or fairly cheap, but with lods of mods you can install easy for members to use, but also easy for admin to customize.
User profiles like what facebook has. The profiles that vbulltetin has are "ok" at best. I would like profile youtube integration. So that when I posted a video on youtube, its embedded into my profile automatically. A video directory so that people can post their youtube videos to the forum, but in a special "video" section. Ability to upload videos, a customized flash video player, with my own watermark. A better downloads section for members to share files. People are moving towards social networks and forums are falling to the way side. Unless the people at vbulletin and IPB realize this and adapt, forums are in for a rough road ahead.
I think I'm fairly biased. All this talk about people who want a forum which does what they want it to do... and here I am actually living that dream. I'm constantly on the lookout on admin forums, such as this one, for ideas that people really want but other software either refuse to add, or take forever in doing so. And I push to have them added. It's a bittersweet dream though. A lot of stress is involved... usually associated either with the other members of the team or some epic bug that you can't quite figure out.
I think MyBB 2.0 is going to be my ideal forum software. Already, MyBB 1.4 has most of the features I want. Just a few things are missing, like soft delete, and a few more things that are getting added in 1.6, like thread prefixes. MyBB 1.x isn't my ideal forum software, however, because of the interface. It's severely lacking. There are countless design inconsistencies, quite a few outdated pages, and most of it uses tables. Fortunately for me, I am in charge of developing the new theme for MyBB 2.0, from the ground up. It isn't going to be just a new style tacked on top of the old theme; I'm rebuilding the entire user interface. I have a set of guidelines which I follow when creating the mockups for new pages, which helps keep everything consistent and orderly. The markup is much more semantic and is entirely CSS-based, and it's all very clean. I'm honestly excited about what I'm doing with MyBB 2.0.
Every platform has it's positives and negatives. My ideal forum, would be one that reads my mind and does what ever it is I'm thinking of no coding required.
I want a forum thats similar to vBulletin, but with Wordpress' simplicity, and a lot of their features.
To me, it's impossible to say how the ideal forum software would look. I use SMF for very different forums. In one, our gallery and AEVA media embedding from +200 sites is essential to the forum. In another these things means nothing. SMF 2 also doesn't have all the features I need, but those few I miss, I simply find a mod for or do my own. In some way, I would like to see some features added to the next SMF version, not as much because I need them, but because they are often asked about. But I can also understand why the developers don't want to put to many features in the default installation. Every addition takes even more power and slow down the forum. And as easy it is to install mods in SMF, I don't need the software to be filled with a lot of new features.
