BlestaForums Development

[Michael]

I've been working with @GosuHost all night and so far this is what we've got:

If you would like to be a Beta tester when it's live please post below and we'll PM you a trial key when it's usable and working as it should.

[Joseph H]

I have spare time these 2 weeks , count me on board 

[Michael]

36 minutes ago, Joseph H said:

I have spare time these 2 weeks , count me on board 

Perfect will do mate  just still got a bit to do but we want to do a QA and beta when we have something which works at the moment I've managed to get the admin area up and running a bit need Mike's help to get the Category name from the ID and then try and get the threads working on the frontside so we can get it all connected.

 

[timnboys]

you have got me interested mike, this is something I felt like was missing so you could use both blestacms + a forum on blesta as well integrated with blesta+blestacms so I would like to be a beta tester as well or buy the license when it comes out if it isn't too expensive.

[Michael]

So I've got the edit pages up and running as-well as creating forums and categories. I just need @GosuHost to allow us to grab the categories from the database automatically so we don't have to edit and add every category to the add and edit pages :D.

Video teaser: https://screencast.com/t/bzYFSCB1GKn

[Paul]

2 hours ago, BlestaStore said:

So I've got the edit pages up and running as-well as creating forums and categories. I just need @GosuHost to allow us to grab the categories from the database automatically so we don't have to edit and add every category to the add and edit pages :D.

Video teaser: https://screencast.com/t/bzYFSCB1GKn

Nice video! Looks like there's plenty more to do, but looks like an excellent start and the UI is looking good

[Michael]

6 minutes ago, Paul said:

Nice video! Looks like there's plenty more to do, but looks like an excellent start and the UI is looking good

Thanks mate need @GosuHost to help me get the forum id's now as I'm lost haha I know I need to get it working in the main controller as it's /forum/{id}/ so hopefully when we've got that sorted we can do the threads

[MineHarvest66]

This is quite interesting indeed. I will surely look into this when the timing is more appropriate. As it will has to be a decent customer base in order to open and maintain a successful since a dead one won't works lol. 

[Michael]

5 minutes ago, MineHarvest66 said:

This is quite interesting indeed. I will surely look into this when the timing is more appropriate. As it will has to be a decent customer base in order to open and maintain a successful since a dead one won't works lol. 

Haha very true in deed, I'm hoping to have special permissions built in so you could use it as a support area as-well as tickets, as you could set a forum to staff and the poster can view the threads.

[Michael]

Thanks to @cyandark and @timnboys I've got the Alpha 2 in dev: https://screencast.com/t/vdQEiwbfUe

Just have an issue with my index but that's down to routes. the dropdown for Categories still haven't been sorted so they show the text I've set at the moment will be working on it when I'm back from work tonight.

[Michael]

Evening update.

Myself and Beav @GosuHost have been hard at work on the hard parts I've been stuck on and helping me with my cockups.

Live Video: https://screencast.com/t/sUBbD3xqPm

Previews:

Forums now show the parent category in the admin area. (still 2 bugs on the admin edit we'll need to look into further though)

 

Now you can view the threads in each forum:

If there isn't any threads they show an error:

And we've got the Add new thread form sorted (just need to get the actions working and linking it up with each thread so it's posted to the correct forum, with the thread owner):

[activa]

Good word. But in my opinion  adding forum community to a billing system is not ideal specially when the database is shared with it. It might be open to any exploit or xss attach , i prefer a bridge to already good forums apps like vbulletin phpbb smartbb invisionboard rather than adding one from scratch .

Any way is a good addition to blesta and keep the hard work .

[Michael]

56 minutes ago, activa said:

Good word. But in my opinion  adding forum community to a billing system is not ideal specially when the database is shared with it. It might be open to any exploit or xss attach , i prefer a bridge to already good forums apps like vbulletin phpbb smartbb invisionboard rather than adding one from scratch .

Any way is a good addition to blesta and keep the hard work .

Very true and thank you for your support mate. But Blesta's core is securer than VBulletin which had a bad exploit before. so we're building on top of that secure(r) core and we'll have it tested soon for anything which may happen and even if I can afford it get Rack911Labs to check it but the code will be open minus what we need for licensing purposes like the CMS. We'll also have an open-source license which doesn't include licensing.

I do hope one day that there will be a XenForo and IPB bridge soon but this will have a much better connection with Blesta's clients. so if you want to limit forums to certain client groups / products this plugin will be able to do it one-day .

----
Alpha 3:

Finally got the threads viewing and the forum looks cool at the moment, just need to do the forms to add threads and make a comment section, as-well as the User information instead of the user's id at the moment

 

Video: https://screencast.com/t/NX1BQX5mMe

Previews:

Added forum title to the threads page.

Added the thread content:

Hi = Thread content

Hi there & Boo = Posts / Comments.

[Paul]

So, the question everyone is waiting for... when is it going to be released?  

[Michael]

3 hours ago, Paul said:

So, the question everyone is waiting for... when is it going to be released?  

hopefully soon mate  just need it all connected and then do a beta .

[Michael]

Just got the post bit working just working on the uaergroups and then need to link the add thread and add comment / post.

Back to category takes you to the category with the forum threads.

[Michael]

Alpha 3 update 4. I will work on the forum threads add feature next and the comments but this is what we have at the current moment in time. I will update this post today after the update so I don't spam the thread too much but this is so the people following it can keep up-to date on the progress and our dedication :).

Live preview: https://screencast.com/t/FxlIVMsxAqwV

--------

Afternoon Update!

With the help of my mentor @GosuHost we can now create threads! 

 

Video: https://screencast.com/t/4RIBmNaqtAY

Evening Update:

Mobile view:

 

Highlighting works (but not supported until later on unless you edit DB):

 

Not logged in = no new thread button:

 

Also not logged in if they view the url to post: /blesta_forums/thread/add/forum-id/

Another teaser: https://screencast.com/t/DkatJkXv

[MineHarvest66]

29 minutes ago, BlestaStore said:

Alpha 3 update 4. I will work on the forum threads add feature next and the comments but this is what we have at the current moment in time. I will update this post today after the update so I don't spam the thread too much but this is so the people following it can keep up-to date on the progress and our dedication :).

Live preview: https://screencast.com/t/FxlIVMsxAqwV

Love those "test messages" haha!

[Michael]

We've finally got most of it done just need to sort the users out and staff bits and we should be ready for Beta.

Live video: https://screencast.com/t/QaNUALTwPe

Road map updates: https://atlantis.plutio.com/p/blestaforums

[timnboys]

1 hour ago, BlestaStore said:

We've finally got most of it done just need to sort the users out and staff bits and we should be ready for Beta.

Live video: https://screencast.com/t/QaNUALTwPe

Road map updates: https://atlantis.plutio.com/p/blestaforums

great! this means I can move back to blestacms soon to have my own forums I had to move to modx for.

[Michael]

5 minutes ago, timnboys said:

great! this means I can move back to blestacms soon to have my own forums I had to move to modx for.

Just to clarify mate it's a different plugin to the cms but I hope it's cool feel free to see the demo: http://demo.blesta.store/client/plugin/blesta_forums/main/index/

If you wish you can have an account: http://demo.blesta.store/order/main/index/pre-alpha

[timnboys]

Just now, BlestaStore said:

Just to clarify mate it's a different plugin to the cms but I hope it's cool feel free to see the demo: http://demo.blesta.store/client/plugin/blesta_forums/main/index/`

If you wish you can have an account

I know it is a different plugin to the cms but it is something that I thought was missing to start with since if you have the cms but no forum you are missing something important in my opinion considering not every host wants to have a external forum to have to work out SSO with blesta for especially if you are using your cms mike as I have found out with modx integrating SSO with blesta is harder than it looks and at this point would rather just have it all integrated and not have to build custom SSO bridges,etc to make modx and blesta talk to each other. since with the cms and this forum plugin it would share logins with blesta and therefore make SSO(single sign on) even easier which is why I said at this point I am looking for easy solutions not having to build both a modx plugin for SSO to integrate sharing logins between modx<->blesta. 

[Michael]

So myself and @GosuHost have been working on the user management system today so we can get users to sign up to the forums with their Blesta account. 

Video: https://screencast.com/t/vmSwQp4BvJf

Check it out for yourself: http://demo.blesta.store/order/main/index/pre-alpha (Don't need real information as it's a test).

 

Afternoon update:

So today me and Beav have been working on the Staff users. So as long as you have a client account you can post on that account just by using your staff account. 

Video: https://screencast.com/t/BrCjHQLmeR

[Michael]

I ended up creating a bug when doing that last update and it's took me 2-3 days to get this working to my standards, the create account kept failing as you had to be log in as a client to create an account or logged in as a staff member. I couldn't get it to work simultaneously but now I have :D. 

Video: https://screencast.com/t/fASOltOpuBr

So that's one of the main functionalities done we're so close to the beta I can smell it. 

[Michael]

Beav is ill so I've been doing small bits I can do, so we've got these two Sweet settings:

• Set profile to public / private.
• Set avatar url or gravatar email.

Video: https://screencast.com/t/QDnkRGaAOzOz

Afternoon update:

• Tidied up the profile page.
• If a user hasn't had time to set-up a username it now shows the first name.

Username:

No username:

 

Evening Updates:

So tonight I've made the avatar settings easier to use and then decided to smart up the My account settings page to make it user friendly and not bloated: