[Dev]"TheVR" Cross-Posting Multi-forum Mod (inc. demo)

[yautja_Cetanu Jamie]

This is a mod for phpbb that will allow you to host multiple different ?sites? (including forums) with different domain names on one phpbb3 installation. Eventually this will be expanded to allow blogs/ portals/ profiles/ calenders, etc as seperate mods.

Main features

• Allows different websites with different domain names to connect to one phpbb3 installation and database
• Phpbb3 detects which sites you want to access depending on the domain name (or sub-domain) that you type in
• Each site can have a different set of forums and template so they can have a unique look and feel. You?ll only access those forums through that domain.
• One login and user allows access to all the sites on a phpbb3 installation (Though groups define what they can do)
• Extensive admin panel, allows individual site owners to manage their site separately from other sites on the phpbb3 installation (Though there are also controls for global administrators/ moderators)
• Global Forums ? Certain forums can be accessible by all the different sites on a phpbb3 installation (Though a site owner can turn off certain global forums via the admin panel)
• As little modification to the phpbb3 core code as possible so it will work seamlessly with other mods.

Download
This is version 0.1.0a, and includes the basic concept. The demo is well tested but there may be problems with the modx itself. Expect a change to permissions in a soon to be release 0.1.0b. 0.2.0 will have some form of portal integration.

The download:
http://www.thevr.co.uk/releases/thevr/0-1-0a/TheVR_0.1.0a.zip

The XML mod file:
http://www.thevr.co.uk/releases/thevr/0-1-0a/TheVR_0.1.0a.xml


Demo

A demo (and explanation of the demo) is located at: http://reality.thevr.co.uk/dev/thevr/vi ... p?f=14&t=2
These are the sites:
http://www.thevr.co.uk/dev/thevr/index.php
http://stpauls.thevr.co.uk/dev/thevr/index.php
http://reality.thevr.co.uk/dev/thevr/index.php
http://nmbc.thevr.co.uk/dev/thevr/index.php

However the websites http://www.runuo.com and http://www.connectuo.com are examples of something similar to what we are trying to achieve. Those two domains connect to the same database (but have different forums) so you only need one login for both sites (Certain scripts on that forum are linked to the profile).
We are developing it at: https://sourceforge.net/projects/thevr/

Where can I find more information?
Feel free to ask us question in this thread. However we also have a support board located here

How is this useful?
It allows two separate sites to keep separate ?corporate identities? whilst they able to share resources. It will be a useful platform for other mods. (For example different Half-life Clans forming an alliance and sharing a Knowledge Base of strategies (using a Knowledge base mod), whilst maintaining separate identities and websites).

We are calling this ?TheVR? as its specifically designed for our Youth Group?s Website where we have multiple Church congregations linked in one ?parish? (Area and building). We have different needs and want to look different but we share many members in real life, so want a site that shares users and resources. However, the mods we build for this website we hope will be useful for anyone.

Why post it here
Well any help anyone wants to offer would be greatly appreciated! If people do seem interested here I could post some questions but we are currently working out how to most effectively deal with the administration of individual sites whilst modifying the core phpbb3 code as little as possible.

[Handyman]

Very cool! I will use this when it comes out

[yautja_Cetanu Jamie]

O.k, as there is a little interest I'll put this question to you guys. Don't worry about replying quickly. I'm only posting like crazy today because I can we're pretty relaxed in our development...

Currently we are doing most things with Usergroups, so replacing guest and registered permissions with a Site1_guest user and a site1_registered group (Which you are automatically added to when signing up). The ids of these groups are stored on a "site table" which is checked when you type in each url.

Each Site owner should be able to administer their boards as if they ran their own board and also administer only the users that are in their group. This means extensively modifying the whole admin panel. Security is important, it shouldn't be too crazy (We're not developing this for commercial sale of phpbb boards, most admins should trust each other to some degree).

So we have come up with a number of possible solutions
1) Create a new column in all the databases so everything in phpbb3 is connected to a Site id. If you post in http://www.site1.co.uk it will store the integer 1, and site2.co.uk maybe 2, etc. This means if you are admin for site 1 you'll only be able to edit things that have 1 as their Site_id.
-This involves little modifying of the core files but extensive database changes, that means all future mods will need to be adapted slightly to fit in with "TheVR"

2) We Create a large number of new modules in the admin panel borrowing code from phpbb3's default admin panel. Creating new Permission roles automatically when setting up a new site so that members of each role will only be able to see the relevant modules. A Global Admin would be able to see the default modules.

3) We create an entirely seperate Admin panel from the ground up, not accessed via admin.php. This would only contain the modules and settings that we feel an individual site owner would need.
-Both these solutions don't involve any changes in the database and may be potentially easier to add future mods. Though will take a long time!

4) We don't make seperate admin panels. We make it so that all admins are global admins (though use phpbb's permissions just like normal to diffrenciate between owners, etc). - Very insecure, but also very easy and makes adding more mods to TheVR very simple.

[yautja_Cetanu Jamie]

I don't know if people are still interested in this but here is a fairly full feature list of what we're attempting with TheVR.

Some things are integral to TheVR, some stuff (near the end) is more like a "intergra-mod" thing and will be a long way off.

Feel free to tell me what you think:

Version 0.1
- Different domain names or sub-domains lead to different websites
- Different forums are displayed depending on the site
- Site specific forums and Global forums (using permissions at the bottom) are displayed on the specific site
- Ability to be part of 2 sites (using User groups)
- Automatic addition to a site group on registration depending on site registered through
- Guests should view specific sites correctly
- Ability to view all of the sites you have permissions through thevr.co.uk
- Make sure cookies work despite using different domains. (Probably need an advanced cookie management ACP, startrekguide have something going to this end)
- Admin panels to add new sites (including automatically creating a standard usergroup name for guests and registered groups)
-Admin panels to diffrenciate between Global Forums and Site Specific Forums
- Create Global Moderators/ Forums groups.


Probably a close version
- A Memberlist that displays Site members (But has drop down for other sites + Global Memberlist)
- Who's Online module displays all members on thevr.co.uk but only site specific members on each site
- A Portal similar to thevirtual reality that changes information and look depending on site
O- Displays News on the portal from site specific forums
O- Can display different Static Websites
O- Displays different site specific announcements
O- Uses a different style therefore can change colour, pictures, logos, etc depending on site
O- Version 0.2 has the same Blocks for all sites (Eventually that should be customisable)
- Easy panel for adding yourself to other churches
- Make it so that you have to "Accept" to be part of a church group (Group admin can't force you to join a group, although an administrator Can? maybe)
- Advanced Facebook esque friends mod
O- Make it so that you have to "Accept" to add a friend.
O- Make a "limited" friends group which can be later applied to profile permissions


Stuff that will probably be in long distance future versions
- Very simple Church addition wizard complete with full documentation
- FaQ about TheVR specific features
- Much more Portal stuff
- Site Specific Administration privillages
O- Site admins can only administer their users
O- Site admins can only administer their own Forums
O- Site admins can only administer their own groups and permissions
O- Site Admins can create their own "Roles" or use Global Roles
O- Site admins cannot create Global Forums
O- When a site admin creates a group or forum default permissions are applied logically (So what would normally apply to "Registered" now applies to "Site_Registered"

Extra modules for TheVR
- A Portal that is site specific - Addition of static webpages.
- Addition of Blogs probably using WP-United
O- Ability for Blogs of a certain tag/category to appear in a forum
- Podcast/ Talk upload and download complete with Tags/ Categories that can be site specific for viewing, editing and searching
- Site wide integration of tags. (So for example a Site Name Tag that is applied to blogs can also be applied to a podcast, these are both searchable across the site).
- Advanced search that takes advantage of tags and searches throughout our various modules (Podcasts, all the blogs, portal pages, posts, etc)
- Advanced Profile, possibly using Jadestone's My Profile Space mod (Though make it more like facebook, with the advanced friends)
- Advanced more secure friends mod
- Activity Mod integration with this?
- Downloads - Similar to the Podcast mod but a simple block for downloads that can be tagged/ categorised like everything else
- Links - Simple Portal Modules that can be tagged/ categorised and site specific.
- Calender mod that is once again Site specific and commentable, that can be displayed within the portal.
- A Music Review Mod
- A Small Group Feedback (essentially a Questionnairre mod, though with more advanced reporting and can be reaccuring)

Questions about features:

- RSS feeds- Is there a use for them within our mod?
- Mail2forum, How can we integrate e-mail and the forum more effectively? How does it work in site specific contexts?
- Can a Site admin add new smilies or BBCode?
- Can the posting form look different across sites (Different BBcode, different smilies?)

[Elias]

I am very much interested in this one!!

[l3it3r Chris]

Very cool. I had a similar setup with a couple sites when I was using phpBB2

[yautja_Cetanu Jamie]

Oh really l3it3r. Do you have any Mod files? We're still chewing over the best ways of doing things. So it would be cool to see how you did things with phpbb3. I've seen a bunch of multi-forum mods but they didn't allow cross-posting. We're more about multiple sites on 1 forum, instead of multiple forums. I think we want to try and get a really limited version out for RC1 and start using it live and maybe release it if people are interested.

If anyone is interested in helping out with this mod there are a ton of mini-mods and things to do !!!

[l3it3r Chris]

*phpbb2* not 3, and I only had a 'similar' setup.. Not EXACTLY like what you're looking to accomplish, but I think that it would have been possible had that been the goal. I linked certain database entries to each forum, user info, private messages, etc. Each domain (and this is where it differs from your idea) had a basic forum install, all using one database, each with a seperate prefix.

For example, lets use Photos.com Cars.com and Computers.com

photo_
cars_
computers_
and you have one central installation called phpbb_ for all user information, just install it in some innocuous folder like /12312312u4jfnf/phpbb
when you install photos.com forums, you just change the user information you want to be central to phpbb_
and then you can copy that file to the other domains and voila!
All posts will remain seperate, but users will be able to freely post on the other forums.

[yautja_Cetanu Jamie]

I've been trying to look at phpbb2 mods as much as possible as well just for general ideas. However I do think what we're doing seems generally different. Instead of multiple forums on one database we're multple sites on one forum (as you've said).

So that means you had different files for each site. Do you think you could see any benefit in keeping the same files for each site? We're thinking we'll have the same basic phpbb files for each site though each site is likely to have its own template files. This means installing mods across the site and installing updates will be alot easier. But it does means each site will have the same code so it will be difficult to have mods that only apply to one site. (We may build some method of switching off and on certain mods).

What do you think?

[l3it3r Chris]

That's the primary reason I did what I did. I was looking at trying to do everything off one installation for about 30 seconds before I realized all the code issues. If you use the same style for all the sites, customizing each site becomes a chore. It's easy enough to just modify the individual domain's files. I'd say go the multi-forum, one database router personally.