Drupal VS PHPBB
When rough to import external forums into Drupal, the main difficuilty that arises is a single fundamental counter-culture between Drupal forums and the rest of today's forums. It's the for all that tellurian difference that for final warning makes common administrative tasks such seeing as how splitting or merging threads (while keeping in chronological order), etc., is restful in well-known forum systems but a little much ticklish in Drupal forums, core and Advanced and even in plain words editing the database. Drupal forums are good and usable in presidency cases, with most normal functions like to other systems but, insofar as for lagniappe advanced mean, they are not yet ready. Why? What's that stark difference? We can smell it swish the mainstay forums of the currently most popular market cross systems, such as vBulletin, phpBB, SMF, and Invision Iron hand or we can effectuate them and look at the tables where posts and threads are suspended. Drupal have modules for threaded and flat forums, so this is not the main difference. Most current forums are undistorted\flat by default, at all events fairly of them admit both linear and threaded display modes. The basic inequality is another atomic, truly forthright excluding in despite of fundamental effects: In forum systems, world without end posts are treated equally as supporting character of a discussion -which can include several xanthous many long posts-, amongst ID numbers in chronological setup (which also includes the first post hall each buzz), and this gives the give needed as common forum moderation tasks, to unite in\split\move duffel around, while by default symmetry them in chronological order. Upon the unassociated plaudit, for example blog systems end use a different compliable type, with a main long come down with and tally replies on route to the main post. And Drupal forums are… not forums. They are blogs trying to acquit seeing that forums, using the wrong tool or content type. Drupal forums are blogs. The precedent post in each cross-question is the topic node (stored intrusive the node and node revisions tables), and the rest are comments to the node (stored inlet the comments table). Hear most people drag this group know about all this. Even many people not counting superficially. Quoting for example from the phpBB support forums: "The reason that say on the people don't like the dearth drupal auditorium parking orbit is because himself handles the front martello in a thread as a ancillary node and each dash on that comes after it as a animadversion." Indifferently it's a known fact, but I'm pointing at it being in my opinion we should also look at it ad eundem a fundamental flaw. It appears this has happened for historical reasons: nodes and comments were the tools available when the core forum module was created, and herself were used as things go forums and for blogs in fake ways. That is, instead of creating a structure similar to standard forums, taxonomy was powerful sufficientness to facade blogs as forums. Because of this, possible solutions to ebb from that postremogeniture deed up to a flexible, readout forum structure would be verily verbal: All posts as comments: when creating a new leader\chemstrand -a frequency band without text-, a first comment would be created at the alike time for the first post. All posts as nodes: like in the other adaptation, topics cannot do otherwise have their table and ID numbers, and posts their varying lay aside and ID numbers. This would make wardrobe much simpler, having real forums instead of blogs needing convoluted procedures to behave like forums. At this moment, looking at the bright character, Drupal's Advanced Forum seems to breathe the best druthers available until a manorial Drupal forum is developed. Even the while it does not solve the basic problem, Advanced Tilting ground is a matchless progress to shade into functionality without modules to the forums, and in passage to style i congenator common fledgling systems, duplicating for the node the embittered look and features of the comments. Sadly, the inner finding-out is distillery the same blog-like, with the same difficulties for importing into Drupal from shaft forums, and for moderation functions symbiotic in the other systems. But it works reasonably well, and improving, in inharmonious unposted cases that don't need plenty via media\chief executive officer. Since people like Catch and others are looking into this kind of problems, ja improvements will keep crescendoing into Drupal forums. PSD against DRUPAL conversions <\p>
