1 Topic by Simple Exploding Man (edited by Simple Exploding Man 2004-02-27 14:04)

  • From: Spain/Germany
  • Registered: 2004-02-27
  • Posts: 107

Topic: Multi-forum threads

I don't see it anywhere, neither in the website nor in the forums, so I guess it's not there, and somehow I miss it. That's, the ability of posting a single thread in different forums, so that is available from different places.

If you ask me, it's a very interesting feature, and quite nice to have when building communities or big forums, as long as its usability is restricted. I *think* that, so far, none of the other heavyweights (vBulletin, PHPboards, IPB) have implemented it. To be honest I 've only seen it in an ugly but functional forum a friend built from the scratch using perl, though I do not visit forums very often and may be wrong.

If it is not there, would it be difficult to implement? Obviously it is not trivial. I'm pretty new here and haven't even looked at the code yet.

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Edit. Forgot to mention that IMO it would fit very well with the idea of what PunBB is, and what I like of it.

  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2001-11-02
  • Posts: 9,167

Re: Multi-forum threads

It's a good idea. However, I can't think of a pretty way of implementing it.

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Rickard's Website

  • From: Spain/Germany
  • Registered: 2004-02-27
  • Posts: 107

Re: Multi-forum threads

I guess it would involve a lot of thinking and maybe a few major modifications, I'll take a look at it whenever I can.

  • From: Paris, France
  • Registered: 2004-04-11
  • Posts: 24

Re: Multi-forum threads

I've been having the same kind of self wondering with my gallery application : how to have a picture in different categories without duplication ?

In the database, instead of having images.category_id, I created a table image_category with 2 fields : image_id and category_id. Thus an image can be owned by more than one category. When doing the selection of images to show, instead of only requesting images table, I request images table joined to image_category table :-)

(Rickard, I'm not sure this is this basic way you can't think about, and so not sure I answer your questions...)

z0rglub's Website

  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2001-11-02
  • Posts: 9,167

Re: Multi-forum threads

Yes, that is basically the only way you can (and should) implement it to avoid redundance. However, joining in an extra table all the time when the feature will most likely be used quite seldomly doesn't feel all that great.

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Rickard's Website

  • From: Paris, France
  • Registered: 2004-04-11
  • Posts: 24

Re: Multi-forum threads

Well... an INNER JOIN doesn't take much time, but you're right, this feature may be used for less than 1% of topics but the queries will stay the same 100% of times :-/

z0rglub's Website