Hi all
I just saw that some kind of “mod”-stuff has been added. But just from
reading the tickets I didn’t got it. Is that for rendering based on
“themes” ?
Roberto wrote:
Hi all
I just saw that some kind of “mod”-stuff has been added. But just from
reading the tickets I didn’t got it. Is that for rendering based on
“themes” ?
Hi there Roberto.
Most everything you see displayed in RForum using CSS, so that will
probably be the easiest way to change the look/feel of the application.
I am working on a mod-system branch for RForum. What is the mod system,
you ask? It will be plugin-type system for people to add new features
to RForum.
I’m fairly new to the RForum team, so I don’t have a great idea about
what sort of feature set they have in mind, but here is an example of
what a mod might do:
Lets say that someone wants to have an “avatar” type system where each
user can have small image/avatar that shows up just below their name
when they post. Such a module would require modificaton of the
underlying database, and extending the existing functionality of the
controllers, and updating the view templates.
They can create an “avatar” module/plugin (or perhaps use one someone
else already developed) that will enable this functionality. These
modules sit completely outside the RForum core, thus allowing the
plugin’s to operate without ever having to modify the RForum code (thus
making installation and removal a breeze).
My goal for the module system is to make it easier to install/remove
than any other BB mod system out there. For example, phpBB2 mods
require you to go in and manually edit all the necessary template files.
We are hoping to avoid this completely. It is because RForum was built
with Ruby and Rails that this type of approach is even possible.
An idea of what other functionality might be enabled through mods
(again, some of these might end up in the RForum core, I just don’t know
what they have planned):
Code syntax highlighting
Avatars
Smilies
Extending user profiles
A user ranking system
Creating new user roles
etc.
Hope that clears things up.
Matt
An idea of what other functionality might be enabled through mods
(again, some of these might end up in the RForum core, I just don’t know
what they have planned):Code syntax highlighting
Avatars
Smilies
Extending user profiles
A user ranking system
Creating new user roles
etc.Hope that clears things up.
Matt
Matt, thanks very much for clarification. This is very interesting for
me, especially the avatar thing, because right now I have written a
Browser plugin which aims to be a P2P/Audio/Video/DOM-Injector Engine
based on aaLib (see http://www.wigiwigi.com). Right now all it does is
avatar-realtime-capture by taking a snapshot from a Webcam and uploads
it (HTTP-Post) to my simple RubyOnRails controller. Next Step is to
integrate that into a RoR Forum, and rforum is the only one ! So I think
I will soon start to play with the stuff you are adding for my avatar
integration !
btw. I can’t log into the forum anymore (maybe I forgot my password ?).
Matt can you be reached by e-mail or IM ? My email is rsaccon at gmail
dot com.
Roberto
Roberto wrote:
Hi all
I just saw that some kind of “mod”-stuff has been added. But just from
reading the tickets I didn’t got it. Is that for rendering based on
“themes” ?
Hi there Roberto.
Most everything you see displayed in RForum using CSS, so that will
probably be the easiest way to change the look/feel of the application.
I am working on a mod-system branch for RForum. What is the mod system,
you ask? It will be plugin-type system for people to add new features
to RForum.
I’m fairly new to the RForum team, so I don’t have a great idea about
what sort of feature set they have in mind, but here is an example of
what a mod might do:
Lets say that someone wants to have an “avatar” type system where each
user can have small image/avatar that shows up just below their name
when they post. Such a module would require modificaton of the
underlying database, and extending the existing functionality of the
controllers, and updating the view templates.
They can create an “avatar” module/plugin (or perhaps use one someone
else already developed) that will enable this functionality. These
modules sit completely outside the RForum core, thus allowing the
plugin’s to operate without ever having to modify the RForum code (thus
making installation and removal a breeze).
My goal for the module system is to make it easier to install/remove
than any other BB mod system out there. For example, phpBB2 mods
require you to go in and manually edit all the necessary template files.
We are hoping to avoid this completely. It is because RForum was built
with Ruby and Rails that this type of approach is even possible.
An idea of what other functionality might be enabled through mods
(again, some of these might end up in the RForum core, I just don’t know
what they have planned):
Code syntax highlighting
Avatars
Smilies
Extending user profiles
A user ranking system
Creating new user roles
etc.
Hope that clears things up.
Matt
Matt, I just downloaded and instllad the svn branch with your mod stuff,
but I couldn’t find out how to “activate” your feed, rank or avatar
module. Is this possible already ?
Roberto wrote:
Matt, I just downloaded and instllad the svn branch with your mod stuff,
but I couldn’t find out how to “activate” your feed, rank or avatar
module. Is this possible already ?
Thanks for taking an interest in the mod system. I have setup an
installation script to for managing mods, but you can install them like
this (it won’t always be this complicated):
- Copy the mod tar.gz to the RAILS_ROOT (/path/to/your/railsapp).
- tar -zxvf modname.tar.gz
- Unfortunately, I haven’t been consistent with this part yet … I
think the rank and feeds modules will unpack the template files to
modules/views/, but for avatar you need to copy modules/avatar/views/
over to modules/views. All modules must share the same template space
so that A) Rails has a central location for looking up mod templates and
B) Some mods modify the same template, so those changes must be merged
somehow. - For each installed module, add the necessary require statement to
modules/modules.rb. For example, for feeds, add “require
‘feeds/feeds’”. If you are in development mode, and are having
problems, try changing the “require” to “require_dependency”. - Edit the module configuration file as you see fit. These are found
in modules/modulename/modulename.rb - Create the directory public/images/modules/avatar/ for storing
images. - You need to add a column to the users table in your database if you
want to use the Avatar plugin. If you are using MySQL, login to mysql
and do this:
mysql> alter table users add avatar varchar(255);
- Restart your webserver
I am working on a script to manage installation/removal, which will
basically do everything described above for you.
The last caveat is that module Rank and module Avatar modify the same
template file, views/topic/_post.rhtml. If you want both, start with
Avatar’s views/topic_post.rhtml and add the necessary 1 line needed in
Rank’s template. Again, I hope to make this sort of thing easier to
manage with a script.
Module support is very alpha right now, so I can’t make any promises.
Feel free to email me at belorion at gmail dott com, and drop [rForum]
in the subject line to make sure I see it.
Matt
p.s. The avatar module does not, at this time, allow you to upload an
avatar directly from your desktop. You can however give it a URL to an
image you want to use. Or, likewise, just drop any images into the
public/images/modules/avatar/ directory. If it pulls down an avatar
from a remote URL, it will automiatically resize it based on the
dimensions specified in modules/avatar/avatar.rb. Unfortunately, this
requires you have the ruby library RMagick installed (this, again, will
eventually be handled by the installation script). If you don’t have
RMagick, that’s fine, you just can’t use the remote image download (and
just manually upload to the aforementioned images directory). Hope that
helps.
It is now Wed Aug 10 17:06:07 GMT 2005. On the forums topic listing it
say that this topic’s last post was “yesterday”, but clearly it has been
longer than that.
wrote:
It is now Wed Aug 10 17:06:07 GMT 2005. On the forums topic listing it
say that this topic’s last post was “yesterday”, but clearly it has been
longer than that.
sdf;kjlsjdf
lkjsdfl
wrote:
Thanks for taking an interest in the mod system. I have setup an
installation script to for managing mods, but you can install them like
this (it won’t always be this complicated):
I meant that “I still have to setup an installation script” … cause I
don’t have one yet 
Matt