Forum application with multiple forums, topics, answers, comments, supporting Wysiwyg and Votes

Description

This forum application is a complete redesign and rewrite of previous existing forum applications: (Bulletin Board Application and SimpleForumApplication).

It boasts the following features:

• Multiple Forum creation
• Topic creation
• Answering to topics
• Commenting on topics
• Voting
• Ordering topics by number of comments or votes
• Editing all fields (topics, answers, comments) in Wysiwyg including Images and Macros
• Admin or Topic Manager forum/topic/answer/comment deleting
• Flagging innappropriate content with Flag queue for moderators
• Slick UI

Here are some screenshots:

Forum Template

InformationSince v2.1.1 A Forum Template is displayed in the page creation wizard.

This application lets you flag inappropriate content on an answer, comment or topic. Everytime you want to flag one of the previous items, you just have to press the flag icon inside each element. 

Here are some screenshots:

Flag creation

Flag list

The flag list provides you information about the:

• Reason - a motive why an user thought that conversation should be flagged
• User - current user that flagged the conversation
• Date - date and hour at which the conversation was flagged
• Moderator - user that created the conversation that is flagged
• Status - flag status (open/ resolved/ in progress)

To receive an email when you flag a topic/answer/comment you need to have the mail sending configured ( MailApplication ) and also, in XWiki Preferences, go to edit mode ( http://localhost:8080/xwiki/bin/edit/XWiki/XWikiPreferences ), then Edit Objects, under Objects of type XWiki.XWikiPreferences open the Object and add an email address to Admin email.

Panel 'Most active topics'

Among other functionalities, Forum application offers you a simple way to visualize the 'Most active topics'. You can also order them ascending or descending, regarding creation date, number of votes or number of comments, with a simple click on the sorting arrows.

Macro 'Recent Forum Discussions'

Starting with the version 2.0 the Forum Application includes a new macro to display the recent panel discussions

Social media links

It is possible to share forum topics on social media using the integrated AddThis jquery plugin.

This feature is configurable from the Forum's administration section.

Migrations

Some upgrades need a migration script to be executed manually by an administrator. Each script is a page that first lists what it will change and applies the changes only after clicking Start. The scripts are independent: they can be executed in any order, and executing one again does nothing once there is nothing left to migrate.

2.2.1: Make topics and answers searchable

Page: ForumCode.Migrations.2.2.1 (/xwiki/bin/view/ForumCode/Migrations/2.2.1)

Needed when: the wiki contains topics or answers created with a version older than 2.2.1.

Before 2.2.1, topics and answers were created as hidden pages with generated names such as Topic_1508480809329_23. Hidden pages are excluded from the search results by default, so the forum discussions could not be found by searching (see XAFORUM-144).

The script goes through the forums that still contain such topics and:

• marks the topics and their answers as not hidden
• renames each topic page after the topic title
• renames each answer page after the first 50 characters of the answer text

The old page names are kept as redirects, so existing links continue to work.

2.3.14: Restore the text of old answers

Page: ForumCode.Migrations.2.3.14 (/xwiki/bin/view/ForumCode/Migrations/2.3.14)

Needed when: the wiki contains answers created with a version older than 2.2.

Version 2.2 renamed the property that stores the text of an answer from answer to description, without converting the existing answers. After the upgrade those answers are still listed in their topic, but without their text, although the text is still stored (see XAFORUM-261).

The script finds the answers that still have the old property, moves the text to the description property and removes the old one. An answer that was edited after the upgrade keeps its current text.

While such answers exist, the administrators see a warning on the forums home page, with a link to the script. The script must be executed by an administrator and the page needs programming rights, which it normally has when the extension is installed by an administrator.

This application has been sponsored by XWiki SAS, Curriki.org and Opcalia. 

Prerequisites & Installation Instructions

We recommend using the Extension Manager to install this extension (Make sure that the text "Installable with the Extension Manager" is displayed at the top right location on this page to know if this extension can be installed with the Extension Manager). Note that installing Extensions when being offline is currently not supported and you'd need to use some complex manual method.

You can also use the following manual method, which is useful if this extension cannot be installed with the Extension Manager or if you're using an old version of XWiki that doesn't have the Extension Manager:

1. Log in the wiki with a user having Administration rights
2. Go to the Administration page and select the Import category
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to upload the downloaded XAR
4. Click on the uploaded XAR and follow the instructions
5. You'll also need to install all dependent Extensions that are not already installed in your wiki

InformationSince 2.1, the Forum application requires XWiki 7.4+ in order to use Nested Pages feature. The Pre-Nested Pages version of the Forum application is kept in the stable-1.x branch and only bug fixes will be applied to it.

Versions

Dependencies

Dependencies for this extension (org.xwiki.contrib.forum:application-forum-ui 2.3.14):

• org.xwiki.contrib:application-tour-ui 1.3.8
• org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-ratings-ui 12.10.3
• org.xwiki.platform:xwiki-platform-display-macro 12.10.3