[CDB] cmBB - Simple Content Management for phpBB

[Ger]

Extension Name: cmBB - Simple Content Management for phpBB
Author: Ger

Extension Description: A simple yet powerful content management system for phpBB.

Extension Version: 1.0.0-RC2

Requirements:

• phpBB 3.2
• PHP 5.4+
  
  Features:
  • Create article pages or news items alongside your phpBB installation
  • Auto-generate a menu bar in overall_header
  • Enable or disable this menu bar
  • Moderators can edit or hide any article
  • Abuse prevention
  • Specify permissions for posting articles
  • Use the phpBB style system
  • Use phpBB log
  • Tied into the phpBB breadcrumbs
  • Upload images
  • Use CKEditor with image browse system
  • Use the forum for article comments, a forum topic will be automatically created when posting an article
  • Use categories to place your articles
  • Define commenting forum for each category or disable comments for single articles or an entire category
  • Latest article excertps are shown at your index page and category pages
  • The username is displayed as article author, the user avatar (or default blank avatar) is displayed at category and index pages.
  • Left sidebar with login/logout, recent forum topics and user stats
  • Right sidebar with custom HTML (for advertisements or whatever you like)
  • Responsive design
  • Article counter for each user in it's profile, linking to a list with all their created articles

Screenshots:

Category listing


The edit form


ACP settings


ACP category management


Extension Download: https://github.com/GerB/cmbb

[Ger]

As described above, cmBB is in very early stage of development. I welcome any contributions through this topic and/or through Github. I'm pretty new at writing extensions for phpBB so I also welcome constructive advise at converting cmBB to a proper extension.

Please do not request any features at this time. I'll focus on stabilising the core functions and converting this into an extension first, so feature requests will be ignored anyway.
I'm open for feature requests now!

As mentioned, I'm developing this for phpBB 3.2. If anyone encouters bugs, please provide a full description of your installation and what you are trying to do. Please make sure the errors aren't related to phpBB itself, since phpBB 3.2 is still in RC and not stable.

Also, repeat after me:

I understand that both phpBB 3.2 and cmBB are not to be used at a live environment. If I decide to do so and loose any data, get hacked or anything else unpleasant, I will report here to be laughed at. I do not expect any support in such case.

[nero]

I'm excited for this!

[nextgen]

Nice extension, bookmarked for this...

[Ger]

Thank you.

I have started the rewriting process and after some struggling to get started, I'm no getting up to speed with the extension system. I hope I can get a working barebone on github later this week. So far I managed to put the entire database model into a driver within the extension, enabling me to use the DBAL from phpBB. Therefore it isn't only compatible with MySQL but with all phpBB supported DBMSs.

I also managed to put all the template stuff into the extension with the template events and have written the controller to show pages. I do have to figure out a way to "prettify" the URL structure though. In the "old" style it was http://example.com/article-slug, in the extension it's currently http://example.com/app.php/page/article-slug. I guess it will come down to URL rewriting and making that an option in the upcoming ACP module.

[potku]

Yup, bookmarked. Hopefully this will see the light of day in the future.

[zardos]

I'm also excited for this! thankyou. Used Extreme evolution for years, that was a great CMS.

[Ger]

Well, I've made some progress again. I'm now able to view, create and edit an article. I didn't make it as far as I wanted, there are several loose ends right now. I'll try and clean those up next week and also move my old installer to a proper migration.

I'm reconsidering the contact form I have. It's something I made because phpBB didn't have it in the 3.0 days and it was quite easy to incorporate it in my old system. phpBB has its own contact form now, it's just not capable of posting a message instead of sending out an email.
I guess it's better to remove my own contact form and just create a separate extension that modifies the current default contact form.

[JimA]

I guess it's better to remove my own contact form and just create a separate extension that modifies the current default contact form.

It might not be exactly the same, but Rich's Contact Admin extension already allows for that. It adds a separate contact form which can be set to post the messages to a forum.

Great extension btw, I think it looks very good and seems easy to manage.

[Ger]

Well, that's settled than.

[Ger]

I got the main stuff done right now, meaning everything is now working as a proper extension. All files outside ./ext/ger/cmbb are removed. As mentioned above, the contact form is removed as well. If the contact form is enabled through the ACP, a link to it will be provided in the menu bar.

Several other functions are merged as well, it seems to me the most stuff is working as it should. There is much to do still, I will focus on the image uploader and category management first.

I have tested cmBB on phpBB 3.1. It works, but has some style issues. Seems to me like some template events aren't there yet. I'll investigate that later. If it's not too much work it will probably be fixed. If it doesn't cmBB will only work on 3.2 and above.

See first post for overview of current features.

[DueLearner]

I got the main stuff done right now, meaning everything is now working as a proper extension. All files outside ./ext/ger/cmbb are removed. As mentioned above, the contact form is removed as well. If the contact form is enabled through the ACP, a link to it will be provided in the menu bar.

Several other functions are merged as well, it seems to me the most stuff is working as it should. There is much to do still, I will focus on the image uploader and category management first.

I have tested cmBB on phpBB 3.1. It works, but has some style issues. Seems to me like some template events aren't there yet. I'll investigate that later. If it's not too much work it will probably be fixed. If it doesn't cmBB will only work on 3.2 and above.

See first post for overview of current features.

Looking forward to see more of this extension!

[Anuj Dhawan]

Great extension and perhaps one of them which many of us are waiting for.

I'm open for feature requests now!

I have got it installed on 3.2.0-b2 and 3.1.9. For 3.2:

1. Extension adds a "menu bar" in the header, just like this website. I think it'd be nice to have 'controls' for it:

1. First if the users want to show the menu bar at all
2. If users choose to show, we need to have the control on menu/links we want to show in it.
3. If it would be possible to remove the rounded corners from the header bar above the menu-links, I think, that would make it look better like it is here on this site.

2. Extension provides a link to "Articles" and "News" in the menu-bar it adds. I think they symbolize different categories. If yes, it'd help to have ACP control on categories and multiple sub-categories underneath.

3. On "New Article" page, can users please show the categories, sub-categories or left or right-bar?

4. If the users can choose to put the link to "Articles" in breadcrumb or in the additional menu-bar, per their choice - it'll help greatly.

5. Is there a functionality to add draft posts in this; not sure if I might have missed that.

6. On "Articles" or "News" page (where the content is), having "views" will be a great addition.


PS.: Extension adds a "DEMO_PAGE" in breadcrumb bar. Not sure if it has got some future use as it's 'Dev'. Though clicking on it just bring back to index page.

Regards,

[Ger]

Thank you for your feedback

I have got it installed on 3.2.0-b2 and 3.1.9. For 3.2:

Anything special for 3.1? Or just that it looks horrible since the style gets messes up?

1. Extension adds a "menu bar" in the header, just like this website. I think it'd be nice to have 'controls' for it:

1. First if the users want to show the menu bar at all
2. If users choose to show, we need to have the control on menu/links we want to show in it.
3. If it would be possible to remove the rounded corners from the header bar above the menu-links, I think, that would make it look better like it is here on this site.

Good idea, I'll look into it.

2. Extension provides a link to "Articles" and "News" in the menu-bar it adds. I think they symbolize different categories. If yes, it'd help to have ACP control on categories and multiple sub-categories underneath.

The links consist of the homepage if configured, the board index, all categories (News and Articles default) and the contact form if configured.
As posted before, I intend to make categories configurable. As it is now, there is just 1 level and that's it. Haven't had the need for subcategories yet. I wonder how far that would need to go, also how to pull that into the menu bar. A dropdown with subs is easy, but sub-sub-sub-sub will get very messy IMO.
If you have any thoughts about this, please let me know.

3. On "New Article" page, can users please show the categories, sub-categories or left or right-bar?

The screenshot is outdated. As it is now, the content area is replaced by an editor. Header, footer, left- and rightbar are shown as is.

4. If the users can choose to put the link to "Articles" in breadcrumb or in the additional menu-bar, per their choice - it'll help greatly.

I'm not sure I understand. Can you elaborate?

5. Is there a functionality to add draft posts in this; not sure if I might have missed that.

Nope. There is an option to hide the article though (making it only accessible by moderators) but I understand that this a draft function would be nice. It won't be on the top of my list though.

6. On "Articles" or "News" page (where the content is), having "views" will be a great addition.

You mean like a counter? What would be the benefit of this? A tool like Google Analytics would be much better IMO. And would you want this to be visible for everyone, or just in the ACP like a statistics report?

Perhaps such things would be better off when I make this extension extendable for others, but that will have to wait until I'm quite a bit further in the development process.

PS.: Extension adds a "DEMO_PAGE" in breadcrumb bar. Not sure if it has got some future use as it's 'Dev'. Though clicking on it just bring back to index page.

Yeah, saw that. It's a rudimentary thing that slipped trough. I'll fix it.

[Anuj Dhawan]

I intend to make categories configurable. As it is now, there is just 1 level and that's it. Haven't had the need for subcategories yet. I wonder how far that would need to go, also how to pull that into the menu bar. A dropdown with subs is easy, but sub-sub-sub-sub will get very messy IMO.
If you have any thoughts about this, please let me know.

I understand that sub-sub-sub-sub is a debatable topic. I might have a personal choice of sub-menu depth but that would not work for everyone. May be choosing a number (say 9, and then call it feature freeze form subs' point of view) and then telling us (the end users) how to edit the extension files for more levels in sub-menu, will work. OTOH, there can be a different way of handling categories altogether. I think, you can get an idea about that from this abandoned extension, if you've not looked at that already. This is another extension of similar nature.

3. On "New Article" page, can users please show the categories, sub-categories or left or right-bar?

The screenshot is outdated. As it is now, the content area is replaced by an editor. Header, footer, left- and rightbar are shown as is.

I think, users would want to choose to-show or not-to-show the sidebars (through ACP) - if such a choice is available, it'd make it better controlled, I believe.

4. If the users can choose to put the link to "Articles" in breadcrumb or in the additional menu-bar, per their choice - it'll help greatly.

I'm not sure I understand. Can you elaborate?

As of now, "Board Index", "News", "Articles", and "Contact Us" is shown like this:



whether or not, as an end user, I like to put those links there. End-users don't have any control on their positioning. May be, someone just like to add a single link, say "Articles", in the breadcrumb, adjacent to "Quick Links" and no where else, not even in the "additional menu-bar". Such a choice would help. Also, I think "Board Index" is not that appealing as there is another "Board Index" just below the 'quick-links' unless it's for illustration only.

Hope it's clear now. Sorry, English is not my first language; sometimes I goof-up!

You mean like a counter? What would be the benefit of this? A tool like Google Analytics would be much better IMO. And would you want this to be visible for everyone, or just in the ACP like a statistics report?

Perhaps such things would be better off when I make this extension extendable for others, but that will have to wait until I'm quite a bit further in the development process.

It'd have same benefit as the "views" have for any post in a given forum. Nothing from analytics point of view, actually. But for the readers' per se, may be - yes. May be, keep it on lower priority but keep it, please.

Couple of other points, please see if they interest you:

1. Do you plan to have a 'subscriptions system'? Can the users subscribe to the cmBB posts?
2. If subscribed, will the users get notifications?
3. "view online" users.
4. Reporting system like for posts in phpBB3
5. permissions for guests and registered users
6. pagination for comments

Anything special for 3.1? Or just that it looks horrible since the style gets messes up?

As you've said this in your previous reply, so I thought to be patient - I was writing a lengthy post, already.

I have tested cmBB on phpBB 3.1. It works, but has some style issues. Seems to me like some template events aren't there yet. I'll investigate that later. If it's not too much work it will probably be fixed.

For 3.1 observation, I can make a separate post. I'm afraid we'll get lost in the length of the posts otherwise.


Looks like, I'm putting too much on your plate - hope it's not a bother.