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List:       phorum-dev
Subject:    Re: [phorum-dev] I am making major modifications
From:       Morgan Christiansson <mog () linux ! nu>
Date:       2000-12-31 3:53:11
[Download RAW message or body]

This is my understanding of phorum4 and might not be exactly what the rest of
the development team thinks.

Citerat från  Agner Fog <agner@agner.org>:

> Hi.
> I am currently working on some significant modifications to version
> 3.2.11.
> I expect to be finished by the end of January. I will be happy to help
> you
> with the development, since I am doing this anyway, but I don't want to
> be
> permanently involved.
> 
> I wonder if I should rather use version 4 as my basis. What are the
> advantages of version 4, and do you have a stable package that I can
> work on?
Well yes as the phorum4 will be the stable version of phorum when it is
finished, your changes will live longer if you make them to phorum4 instead.

The advantage is as much abstraction as possible so that you will be able to
change much without changing the core. Using plugins and modules.

There's nigtly cvs dumps at http://dev.phorum.org/snaps/, there you can look at
the latest phorum4 code.

You can also browse the CVS tree on phorum's sourceforge page,
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phorum/

> 
> You can see what I am doing at http://www-student.eit.ihk.dk/agf/f/
> Feel free to post test messages.
> 
> (I also have a perl-based forum at www.agner.org/software/msgbrd/)
> 
> I am teaching a course in web usability this spring. Maybe I can get
> some of
> my students to work on the usability of the phorum.
> 
We'll be happy to accept and review any patches. If they are usable we will
problably also put them back into the main package.

> 
> The changes I am doing or planning to do are:
> * The form for posting a message always appears on a separate page.
> 
> Advantages:
>   Makes sure that it is always known whish message in a thread
> you are making a
>   follow-up to.
>   It is confusing to have the form when
> you don't need it.
> 
Yes, actually i made a "Reply to THIS message" in phorum4.
I thought perhaps a popup reply window or something.

> * Allows all HTML codes except those that are
> explicitly forbidden.
>   Automatically removes potentially dangerous codes,
> such as forms, scripts,
>   event handlers, etc.
>   Option to allow or
> disallow images.
>   Advantages:
>   The user can copy and paste from an HTML
> editor or a word processor with HTML capabilities.
Yeah, problably some multidimensional array to store what element/attributes to
allow/dissalow would be nice.

> 
> * Recognizes hyperlinks
> beginning with http://, www., or mailto:
>   Advantages:
>   Users can make
> links without knowing HTML.
Yes, just modify the regexp for recognising links in the <http://phorum.org/>
format.

> 
> * When posting a message, you always get a
> message preview with the option of
>   re-editing the message.
>   Advantages:
> 
>  User gets appropriate feedback when posting a message and can see what
> his/her
>   message will look like.
>   When copy-and-pasting a text from
> somewhere else you often get linefeeds where
>   you don't want them. The
> user gets a chance to fix the text to make it look nice.
>   User can check
> if hyperlinks are recognized and work properly.
>   A user that posts HTML
> code can check if it looks right.
>   Disadvantages:
>   User may forget to
> press POST MESSAGE after viewing the preview.
>   User can't bypass the
> preview. I have chosen not to allow bypassing the preview
>   for the
> following reasons:
>   - If the procedure for posting a message is not always
> the same then the risk
>     is higher that the user forgets to press POST
> MESSAGE after the preview.
>   - The quality of messages may be improved if
> the user if forced to read his/her
>     own message before posting it.
This is also good, perhaps a preview and a post submit button, that the admin
can remove if they don't like it.

> 
> *
> FAQ page added.
>   Contains instructions. Can easily be supplemented with
> answers relating to
>   the topic of the forum.

Some kind of phorum help?

> 
> * Profanity filter removed.
> 
>  The profanity filter is not effective anyway if the naughty user can
> preview his
>   message and re-edit it until he finds a profanity that the
> filter doesn't catch.
Yeah, or don't apply profanity filter until the message is actually posted.

> 
> * Host address or IP is visible only to moderator.
> 
> Advantages:
>   Protects privacy.
>   The normal reader has no use of this
> information.
Perhaps settable by admin.

If someone from phorum post's a message it's nice to see the ---.phorum.org
hostmask so that the user know's that it's really a phorum developer.

> 
> * Does not support uploads.
>   Binary uploads involve many
> security problems.
> 
This is already settable by admin.

> * include/post.php renamed to include/post1.php
>   To
> avoid the confusion of having two files with the same name
> 
Seems like a minor problem to me, and a more approperiate name would be
post.inc.php.

> * Uses style
> sheets
>   Advantages:
>   Makes code much simpler.
>   Makes it possible to
> change style without modifying software.
>   Disadvantages:
>   Doesn't look
> nice in old browsers.
Why not use both?

The old color's are already editable through the phorum3 admin.

> 
> ********** To do *******************
> 
> * Expiry date
> can be specified for each message.
>   Advantages:
>   Moderator doesn't have
> to purge old messages.
> 
With the search function it can be nice to keep old messages, i don't see why
theres a need so specify an expiry date for each message.

I think it's better to be able to purge old messages from the admin.

> * No special privileges for moderator when posting
> a message.
>   Advantages:
>   The illogical and possibly insecure method of
> putting a password into the
>   E-mail field is avoided.
>   Disadvantages:
This is handled by user login and registrations that phorum4 will support.
> 
> Moderator has to edit his/her own message to put in HTML code that
> otherwise
>   wouldn't be allowed.
> 
> *********** Happy Newyear!
> *******************
> 
> 
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> ____
> Agner Fog, Ph.D.                  www.agner.org
> agner@agner.org
> 
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> 


Morgan Christiasson, morgan@phorum.org

Phorum Developer

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