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True to a degree, but a lot of users also get tied up and enjoy having access to forum usage statistics data, and for the web site owner I see this as being quite important for aiding in tracking site usage. I've really only looked at phpbb and newbb, and phpbb seems to accomodate a lot more statistical data than newbb. If newbb where to incorporate some of these features I'd have no desire to look elsewhere. As is, I think newbb is a perfectly functional forum, if only a slightly vanilla flavoured one.

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Thanks for that Tom, I plan at this stage on using the phpbb module unless I find any great reason not to. I only plan on upgrading XOOPS on major change releases, or on releases that directly address problems I have. As a work around to upgrading the non XOOPS supported modules such as these forums you suggested, couldn't you use one of the current migration tools for phpbb or IBF to convert to an older XOOPS version, then upgrade that via standard XOOPS upgrade path instead of migrating directly to the new XOOPS version? I'm sure there would have to be a catch with this idea ? But I'm not that smart .

Thanks for the theme suggestion too, I actually found a pretty nice XP theme on this very site .

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Thanks thepod, I actually ended up downloading the hack from http://www.jan304.org which is working a treat on 2.02 atm.

I say don't mess with a good thing!

Xoops Newb forum is good enough .. i certaintly wont be changing to some other half cocked module! im sticking with the one i have.. some people this is where they go wrong fiddling with a good thing UHUHUH

Kindest Regards
Nathan

I believe that most people are looking at this somewhat from the wrong direction...

XOOPS will only create trouble for itself by making future developments of one of its key modules (newBB) rely on future updates by third parties like phpBB, Invision, etc.

I would understand this line of thinking (that is, "chuck newBB and replace it with a more feature-filled BB") if newBB were grossly inferior or filled with bugs. It is not. It only lacks a few key features, and it actually has some very nice features that I haven't seen on many other BB's (like Threaded view on posts).

It seems to me (no disrespect to Koudanshi intended) that rather than focusing on hacking XOOPS to be compatible with 3rd party BB's, which creates many problems, especially when either XOOPS or the 3rd party releases a new version, we should focus our efforts on adding needed features to newBB.

The devs have clearly stated that their (rightful) first priority is the XOOPS core, not the modules. I agree with this 100%. By adding to newBB rather than hacking and splicing other BB's, we can help create something that may actually be useful to the XOOPS devs, since they have precious little time to tinker with individual modules.

In other words, we help bring newBB up to speed (not that I think it needs much, mind you) so that they don't have to.

I'm sick of phpBB. I don't have anything against it but I'm just sick of visiting forums to see that they're all running on phpBB2 (aarrg). Now, newbb is clean, fast, scalable and it works perfectly with Xoops, so why change it with some crippled, poorly-implemented board?

The Invision board on the other hand is much nicer but I've seen many people complaining about problems they were having with it. My suggestion is, just wait for something new, otherwise stick with newbb...

I also like the newbb very much, because it is well integrated into the core! By installing one of the other forums you always have to mess with the core files too.

Why not enhance the newbb or create a newbb2? Maybe this is a task for the xmdt ?

I have just read through this thread and a couple of things I need to point out to everyone regarding this subject.

First, the IBF forum for XOOPS is buggy as hell (Sorry kush) and the original forum was not released under GNU.

This means that kush had to get permission from the original author (thats why the was removed from modcentral) and even if the XOOPS core team wantd to use it instead of newBB, they can't.

So far, every forum that I have used that has been made into a module has issues, this is due to the changes to the core (come time for an update! Need I say more) and that has always been a problem for me.

Ok, So newbb is not the best forum out there and lacks many functions that other forums take for granted, but the one point about this module is the fact you do not have to hack at the core to get it to work.

As someone pointed out, it does use notifications which most forums would kill for.

At the end of the day, it is not about replacing newbb, but enhancing it with the features that people want or use third party hackons that require the author to update each time a new version of XOOPS comes out.

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I was halfway through enhancing newbb for XOOPS version 1 and I was thinging about continuing this for XOOPS version 2.

Most of the work is there and could be easily hacked into newbb for xoops2 but it would take me a while. I may try and get a few people to help me on this one.

Ah yes, I remember your newbb with IPB header Catzwolf!

I think this would make many people happy, if you could work on an enhanced newbb. In the end this module has a REAL chance to replace the origin newbb!

But .. with calm ..

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Spot on! If I knew there was an intention to enhance newbb to include some of the features it's lacking over the Invision and Phpbb boards, then I'd have no hesitation in sticking with newbb. But to my knowledge there are no plans to develop the newbb feature set further (I may well be wrong on this), and the fact I don't posess the skills to code it myself means that if I wish to have these added features my current options are somewhat limited.

I'm all for enhancing newbb

Catz and chapi have a point that I would like to further enhance and that is newbb doesn't need replaced but ENHANCED itself. I personally don't use newbb I use Koudanshi's IBF module because the features it provides are tremendous in the administration point of view. Unlike Catz though I would not go as far as saying the ibf module is buggy as hell. I've been using it since he's released it and I find it top notch. My only gripe would be the core updates. But it is not overly difficult.

So the list as to why I use IBF rather than newbb:
- The forum can have it's own design apart from xoops.
- There are key administration features that I use quite often like mod and admin logs and so on.
- Ability to add uploads to posts. Maybe this is in newbb now, I haven't checked lately
- I use the little bar that shows who's viewing the forums and what they are looking at quite often.
- Forum statistics are quite nice
- My users enjoy the birthday list
- Create user groups that can only view and use certain forums
- Exact control of what can be posted (mime types) and what size a post can be limited to

That's not everything, but is a few of things I could think of off the top of my head. As for webmasters relying too much on the forums. I beg to differ here. The forums are a vital point to a community based site, as was pointed out earlier. It's not only about making the users happy with the forums but also making things much easier for the administrators and moderators. IBF makes moderation and administration simplistic.

I'm kind of being long winded here but I find no reason for people to be getting kind of defensive which I do see going on here. It's ideas on how to make newbb a much better module. I can't agree with "time to say goodbye to newbb" cause I like said it's about enhancement NOT eradication. Maybe a few of users are happy with newbb how it is and you will stick to your guns that it shouldn't be touched but remember that there are users that are not happy with how newbb is right now and want enhancements and they will stick to their guns as well. Until then they will continue to look at other means to get what they want like the IBF or phpBB modules.

What do I think....the xmode team can grab a copy of 2.0.3 and further enhance newbb's ability. Granted some core code might have to be changed a little. So knowing that, when the xmode team is done with it, hand it over to the developers so they can check it out and see what they think and if they want to include this updated module and the core changes (if any) into the next xoops.