I consider good module integration to be one of the sore spots with both phpNuke and PostNuke. While modules are the way to go for adding features, they shouldn't take days to hack in, it should be just about drop-n-go (minus DB mods). This is whre myPHPNuke excels, at integrating modules from the get go, they come packaged with the distribution.
Just to appease everyone who might question my methodology, I went through and installed phpBB, phorum and Cyboards (using the ones listed on this site) and none of these forum modules installed without a major fight and they didn't feel integrated (phpNuke is in the same boat - maybe worse with all the bugs).
Lets take it from the top. My preference is phpBB, I don't know why but it is. The 1.4 integration from many of the great hacks out there is still, well, not that good unless your a php developer and the integration of admin is dismal. My next choice was Phorum and again, the same frustrations as phpBB.
Over time, I really started liking Cyboards but, development of this module has been slooowwww and you could never get a good CVS build that was later than 1.1, I wanted 1.25. Cyboards also has a seperate options area that should be mostly filled out by what's already captured in the system vs having users fill it out again on the options page.
I know this may seem nit-picky but, there are many of us who consider Forums as part of the base and shouldn't have to fight to get this functionality. The rest of the shortcomings with the other modules I can live with but, not with the forums situation.
I believe the road that the developers of myPHPNuke are taking makes the migration to a CMS much easier to tollerate for non developers. Yes, I'm not a developer and neither are the visitors to my site. They do good just getting their PC's turned on (LOL). To me, it makes sense to choose a set of base modules and make them work well with a distribution of Nuke. This may seem unfair to the other module developers but, if their module is best of class or it's easier to integrate, then they should be the beneficiaries of that hard work. If someone else creates a better mousetrap, then it will be discovered quickly and communicated within this tight and verbal community.
I can only hope that this post makes a difference in the thinking of either the module developers or with the developers of this version of Nuke. I'm not afraid of rolling up my sleves and contributing but, I don't want to custom hack every module to work correctly with the system. One idea that I will submit to the maintainers of this great Nuke variant for a forums idea is to use what you already have in the base system to develop a basic forums system. You already have most of the code within the news posting and comments code to cobble together a decent integrated forums system. It would just need some tweaking to operate within a forums framework and it would make a great addtion to the base code. If someone wanted more functionality then there is the modules approach with phpBB, Phorum, Cyboards and others.
Thanks for listening,
Eric
http://www.boardjive.com
P.S. Just to prove I'm not afraid of helping, I just release a couple of good hacks for myPHPNuke, a classifieds based off the Yellowpages in the distribution and hacking the Newsportal scripts to integrate well with this Nuke distro. One last thing, this may seem petty but another thing that made me switch back was that myPHPNuke supports (as an option) MD5 encryption of passwords which I prefer since that's portable between PHP on Linux and Winders. I asked for this MD5 feature in MPN about 6 or so months ago and these great guys hacked that into the base system. With PHP and Post Nuke, I had to go through and rehack this every time a new distro became available.
niceguyeddie writes -- Follow-up note -- I think you are going to miss out on the new users system then. It is MD5 based security. Think of it this way, would you want us to hack in the system just as a temp fix, or work on actually developing a permenant solution? That's why we haven't included MD5 based solution as of yet.
Also, our development is completely open. All it takes is to send me your SF users login, and join the mailing list. I always listen, albeit maybe not implement every idea that comes across.
Anyway, thanks for the comments:)
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