Yes. the permalink is going to be a bit of a bugger to sort out…. Oterwise it looks pretty straightforward once the database implications are sorted.

let me know when you get to a point in your development, where I can break something…

🙂
By the way fo you know of the stuff Steve has been doing is working out? Can I ship you an advance copy of 4.0.2?

andy, whats the status of this one?

Still on my list I think. I am getting back into the swiong of things at the moment after the quagmire of 4.0.3 (Why did that seem to difficult when it was really pretty simple bug fixes) and the shocking re0engineering of the admin pages…!

As usual (call me a downer if you like) I still think we ought to focus on the bugs and nasty stuff first so it;s on my list but not quite yet ready for it…

downer?  nah…  maybe a stick in the mud…    jk…  mostly my intention too once I wrap up the tags…

Actually it is the little things that keep getting in the way of the big things really!

Happy Memorial Day.

Now for some bizarre and slightly insane reason I sat down at 2am this morning and started to seriously ponder sub-forums and went to bed with what I think is a plan. By 11:00 am I had the front end rough coded and now have a working prototype. Have not yet, of course, touched the back end – I just rigged up some test data manually in the database.

The whole thing basically comes down to two issues. Nesting and Permalinks.

As to nesting I propose that we, at least for now, set a limit of only a single level of sub-forum. In other words a sub-forum can not own another sub-forum. I think as far as my code so far goes it would actually just work if we allowed deeper nesting but it just exacerbates the second issue of permalinks.

So – let's talk permalinks. You provided me with two links at the top of this discussion to Simple Machines and to Vbulletin. It is interesting to note that both of these platforms format their URL's basically like SPF used to do before we went ‘pretty' although they may have options to use alternative structures – I do not know.

The important point however, is that neither of them differentiate between a normal forum and a sub-forum. And I don't really see why we should. Our current structure serves both quite happily. I suggest that the important aspect, from the forum owners point of view, is in the organisational context.

The only pandering these two commercial products make to sub-forums is in the breadcrumbs and I propose we do exactly the same. Permalinks remain as they are – a forum is, after all, a forum. Breadcrumbs change to reflect the nested sub-forum level – or, to be more precise – they change to reflect the sub-forum's parent.

If we accept this proposal then the whole thing becomes a very simple matter of (1) a minor table change; (2) a small smattering of display routines and (3) some fairly simple modifications to a couple of database routines. And perhaps, with the exception of the Manage Forums work, I can have it up and working today.

agree on single level subforums…

I heartily agree on a forum is a forum is a subforum… with pretty permalinks, I see no other straight forward way…  breadcrumbs alone is exactly what I was thinking…

to my knowledge, the other forums products handle permalinks exactly the same way – or at least any that I have used/visited… an vbulletin example:  http://cruiselinefans.com/

really happy that you tackled this – was hoping it would get in 4.1…  great job!

And that vBuletin example behaves exactly as I have proposed so that's good.

Well, as I say, a rough cut of the group and forum views are done and so are the breadcrumbs. There wil need to be plentry of testing but it is all worryingly simple stuff!

I can try and fix up the Manage Forums tonight. Did I see that ou had assigned to yourself the adding permission issue because I guess I might need that fixed to be able to get things working…

Funny isn't it? The stuff that scares you you put off and it's easy. And then something comes alng that looks simple and it nearly defeats you!

permission issue already fixed and committed…  missed adding a global $wpdb in one area when I broke out the sfa-support file…

boy, do I resonate with you on the last issue… still cant for the life of me figure out why adding the users to a special rank is doubling up…

Yes – I sort of had that one in mind….

ready for testing.

looks pretty sweet!  played for about 10 mins last night…   better run through this weekend…