Discussion Forum Add-On

• See TWiki:Sandbox.DiscussionForum for an example of the initial prototype
• See TWiki:DiscussionForum for brainstorming and alpha package

The DiscussionForumAddOn is not a magical Plugin - it is simply an ingenious implementation of TWiki templates and searches using patterns in order to create the appearance of a bunch of different discussion forums. In reality, hidden text is embedded into each Topic that is created in order to generate the different "forums".

NOTE: DiscussionForumAddOn has only been really tested in it's own Twiki Web, not as a part of a larger web. This is not to say it won't work, only that it has not been tested as of this update.

Add-On Installation Instructions

• DiscussionForumAddOn.zip Contains this topic plus a graphic file that goes into /public
• DiscussionForumTemplates.zip Contains the raw templates that need to be copied into the Twiki web destined to be the repository of your new Discussion Forum.

Note: You do not need to install anything on the browser to use this add-on. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the add-on on the server where TWiki is running.

• Install the TWiki:Plugins.CommentPlugin if it's not already installed.
• Download the ZIP files from the Add-on Home (see below)
• Unzip DiscussionForumAddOn.zip in your twiki installation directory. Content:

  File:	Description:
  data/TWiki/DiscussionForumAddOn.txt	AddOn topic
  data/TWiki/DiscussionForumAddOn.txt,v	AddOn topic repository
  pub/TWiki/DiscussionForumAddOn/edge.gif	edge image
  pub/TWiki/DiscussionForumAddOn/edge.gif,v	edge image repository

• Unzip DiscussionForumTemplates.zip into the data directory of the new web where you want the Discussion Forums to take place. Content:

  File:	Description:
  DiscussionForumOverview.txt	The root of your Forums, gives an overview of 5 articles
  DiscussionForumOverview.txt,v	topic repository
  DiscussionForumTemplate.txt	create and post new articles
  DiscussionForumTemplate.txt,v	topic repository
  DiscussionForumArchiv.txt	shows all posted articles in short form
  DiscussionForumArchiv.txt,v	topic repository
  DiscussionForumCreate.txt	create and post new articles
  DiscussionForumCreate.txt,v	topic repository
  DiscussionForumHead.txt	holds HTML tags for articles
  DiscussionForumHead.txt,v	topic repository
  DiscussionForumImages.txt	holds images for article-categories
  DiscussionForumImages.txt,v	topic repository
  DiscussionForumCategoryOptions.txt	holds the list of selectable article-categories, editable
  DiscussionForumCategoryOptions.txt,v	topic repository

• Upload the icon image for the article-categories into DiscussionForumImages as Attachments
• Configure/Create categories by editing DiscussionForumCategoryOptions with your category names. For every category there must be an icon image OF THE SAME NAME (see DiscussionForumImages).
• Test if the installation was successful:
  • Try to create a new Discussion Forum through DiscussionForumOverview
  • look in DiscussionForumOverview for the new forum.

Add-On Info

• Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Discussion forum with comments in a Slashdot like way

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.AndreUlrich
Plugin Version:	04 May 2003 (v0.900)
	06 July 2004 (v0.990) SteveRJones
Change History:
04 May 2003:	Initial version
07 Jun 2003:	general restructure of DiscussionForumAddOn, incorporate many ideas of TWiki:Main.PeterThoney
06 July 2004:	General updating. Re-wrote this document with more detail on how this AddOn works.
	DiscussionForumOverview is a tad bit more friendly in presenting options.
	Added DiscussionForumCategoryOptions so it is easier to add categories
	Tested with CommentPlugin version 3.0, 18 Feb 2004. Later CommentPlugin versions had issues.
	Added additional category icons
CPAN Dependencies:	none
Other Dependencies:	CommentPlugin
Perl Version:	5.005
	5.6.1
License:	GPL
Add-on Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/DiscussionForumAddOn
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/DiscussionForumAddOnDev

Related Topic: TWikiAddOns

-- TWiki:Main.AndreUlrich - 04 May 2003

-- SteveRJones - 06 Jul 2004