Continue the legacy...

[Ram]

[~Cowboy~]

[Ptirhiik]

Changing such a core functionality as the forum list on a board will imply what you are calling "incompatibility", eg you will have to review any mod implying the forum list, for display or usage. You have obvious incompatibility, eg insert points not found, but you have also "snaking" incompatibility, eg problems that will only pops after a period of time or/and in certain cases. None of these subforums mods will do better regarding these issues, but some will push the first case ones to the second case, what is really worst.

Once you will have figured what is the logic behind the one you choose, and where things are settled, adapting the mods to the new context will for most of them require no extra time.

On a side note, you were mentioning the last topic title in your wish list: as far as I remember, it was actually implemented in subforum plus, but the fields were not output to the template, to minimize the index.tpl modifications. To be checked though, as I don't know how the mod has evolved since I gave it.

[Ram]

I read a bit fast. OK just forget what I said

[~Cowboy~]

@Ptirhiik,

What are the names of the mods that we should stay away from when using Subforums Plus?

[drathbun]

Let me ask another question... do you really need subforums? In many cases subforums (in my opinion) add unneeded overhead to the board. As Ptirhiik has said, any time and any where a list of forums is presented you have to consider how to represent the subforum structure. This includes (obviously) the index page, but also the forum jumpbox, the search input screen, the search results screen, and many others.

Permissions also have to be considered. If someone does not have permissions to view or read a parent forum, do the permissions cascade to the sub-forums or not?

Depth is a consideration. Most "simple" sub-forums only allow one level of nesting, while a true sub-forums implementation (like what is found in CH as well as phpBB3) allows unlimited depth. I believe that in phpBB3 the concept of a "category" is gone; the category is simply another forum in the tree.

Extreme Styles is very easy to install. However, it is also not the fastest template engine out there. I did extensive benchmarks on Extreme Styles and generally it was next to last in all performance testing. If I am not remembering incorrectly, there is a security risk that was discovered not too long ago related to the phpBB "root" not being set properly. And there is a bug in the cache clear routine.

I wrote a subforums MOD for my other board but removed the code from this board as I did not believe it was required. What we have here instead is the Topic Labels, which you can see in the MOD Development forum. Topic labels are very simple and very efficient and allow a poster to specify the status of their MOD as a part of the topic title. It also allows a board visitor to filter the forum to show only MODs in a specific status, which is one of the functions of a sub-forums MOD.

I am not saying that subforums are never needed. It is one of the most requested MODs out there, and clearly was a feature that was implemented into the core code in phpBB3. But again, given all of the issues, do you really need them? I would carefully consider that before installing any of the subforums MODs available.

[~Cowboy~]

I did not see a "Topic Labels" mod in the mod development section. I would like to check that out..

I agree that the extreme styles does slow things down a bit. If your willing to deal with that it is a nice mod though. I was unaware of the security problem with it though .. I have elected not to use that though. In fact I have not even considered a styles mod yet other then a logo mod.

I am still struggling with single level or multilevel subforums, Most people want the multi level forums but I don't want to trade off to much mod compatibility when selecting a subforum mod. I understand some subforum mods such as CH will seriously impair mod installation while others do not.

I guess my goal here ultimately is to decide which one is most suitable for my application.

What is the name of the subforums mod you wrote Dave?

[drathbun]

The Topic Labels MOD has not been written up yet. It's on the list. The name of my subforums MOD is "Dave's Crappy Unreleased Subforums MOD" ... I don't have any intention to release it at this time.

[~Cowboy~]

@ Ptirhiik,

If I choose to use Subforums Plus will you be around to help me if I run into a mod installation issue?

At least until I get the hang of installing mods around it?

I really do like Subfurums Plus.... I don't really know why .. its just calling out to me ...."Install me! Install me!" LOL

[Sylver Cheetah 53]

You should keep in mind that Simple Subforums is far more popular and is much easyer finding help. Some MODs, like Keep Unread Flags for example, even has instruction for people using Simple Subforums.

[~Cowboy~]

I would like to installsubforums plus.

But I have several road blocks with this installation

1. In the thread on phpbb.com it says there is an install program.. I don't see that in the zip file.. I hope I can install this by hand and not with a installer...

Does anyone know anything about this installer?

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=489014

2. With multi forums the contrib folder is not used. This mod has many folders to add to the contrib folder.. If I cant put them there do I make a new contrub folder or what?..

Can this even be installed on a multiboard?

[Ornette]

Sub-forums....

I needed sub-forum functionality on my board, and I also did not want to be bound to Extreme Styles for that. So I decided to plump for the 'Easy Sub-Forums' route in the end, a mod that came about from the works of others, that being firstly,
Attached forums or pseudo sub-forums mod 1.0.0, and then
Improved pseudo sub-forums MOD 1.0.6

I then done a couple of changes to that, and decided to rename as Über Sub-Forums v1.0.9... heh heh It's the same mod, more or less, but with a couple of incompatibilities fixed and a extra couple of herbs & spices to make better.

One thing that I wanted to do but did not have the time spare to investigate, was to somehow get the mod to reuse index.php and viewforum_body.tpl to display the list of sub-forums within viewforum.php. I have got a feeling that this is something that Subforums Plus has indeed already implemented. It could well be that Subforums Plus is out & out the superior option, but its good to have other options and so I recommend:

Über Sub-Forums v1.0.9
http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=361683&start=30#p5623965

*** NOTE TO SITE ADMIN: BBCODE CODE TAGS DO NOT WORK!!! ***

A couple of other things that are to be done:

1. I figured out a better / cleaner way to improve the styling of the sub-forum links on index.php - and that is to use the CSS class "genmed" along with "font-weight: bold;"
   
2. The forum jump-box could do with some attention - mostly, i did not have time to figure out away of listing the sub-forums correctly (underneath their parent forums) and, I didn't get chance to make algorithm to check whether the user even had permission to see that sub-forum. Another thing I wanted to do was to also make use of the HTML 4.0 optgroup tag.

[~Cowboy~]

Thank you for that but I think you need to put it in a code tag, It seams to be longer then the character limit in the post

[Ornette]

Hehe yes something went wrong there.

Have a look at my link to phpbb.com for the MOD code

[Ornette]

I just posted the updated pseudo subforums / Über Sub-Forums mod over here now, if you wanted to try that one out.

http://www.phpbb2refugees.com/viewtopic.php?t=406