New forum software: lookin' for some beta testers

[Toby]

Hey ^_^

So I've been working on this web app for a couple of years and I'm looking for some extra feedback before I launch it. It's an open-source web forum called esoTalk. Kinda takes a different approach to vBulletin and the others - this screencast (2 mins) probably explains it better that I can write.

Anyway, if you're interested in this kinda thing (or if you're bored) then have a play around with it and please let me know if you can find any bugs that have slipped through. It should work in Firefox 3, Safari 3, IE7, and IE6. And maybe Opera 9, though I haven't checked that recently.

Source code is available here if you're able to check that out or install it on your own server (PHP4/5, MySQL5).

 

[e]

You could add Chrome considering if it works in Safari, it probably does in Chrome too. I'll be messing around.

Looking at the source code, it's a weird style of OOP programming, seeing as how you still use globals...otherwise it looks good enough (better than some of the commercial solutions around...!).

The overall idea looks good too, having a tag cloud and a better search function, but have you tested it on a really, really big forum? i.e.: one with a lot of different conversations, members, etc...how well would it fare?

 

[Surmuck]

This looks very nice. It's generally clean, and simple - which is what I like out of a forum software. I can tell it's pretty well done, but what etheon said; I'd like to see it on a large forum.

I registered, so I hope to see some stuff going on. :thumb:

 

[Toby]

Yep, it will work in Chrome too.

Looking at the source code, it's a weird style of OOP programming, seeing as how you still use globals...otherwise it looks good enough (better than some of the commercial solutions around...!).

You're right in that it's not a conventional style of OOP, but we've found it works very well for us in this project. It is based off of the MVC system - just without the model, I guess. I'd be interested to hear you elaborate on what you think of the code; not having seen it before, do you find it easy to follow, etc.?

 

[Surmuck]

Also, some things unrelated to the software that I'd like to see is a complete website. Your current one, if I remember right, has some broken links that would be much more attractive if you got at least some sort of page up on them ASAP if your really starting to promote your software.
It really is nice though.

 

[e]

There's a tiny bit in your license which irks me:

...Simon Zerner grants you a non-exclusive license to use this software, on one installation to be accessable by one domain...

One installation accessible (by the way, it's accessible, not accessable) per domain is low for a non-commercial use. What happens when I want to have a test, a development and a production version? Do I buy several domains just for that?

While I'm on the installer, what's the really advanced information?

After installing, I got this error:

Invalid use of group function:
SELECT tag FROM et_tags GROUP BY tag ORDER BY COUNT(tag) DESC LIMIT 40

First impressions of the source code:

There's a lot of global functions and as you said, it's very loosely based on the MVC model...all in all, without really solid documentation, I personally wouldn't commit to writing plugins/skins for this. The code isn't that easy to read and generally would need some more formatting: one-liner functions are nice when you're the one writing them, but a pain for someone who doesn't know anything about your source code.

 

[Toby]

You're in luck; alpha 3 and onwards will be released under the GNU General Public License v2. That'll be very soon.

The really advanced information is just that; it's so advanced that I don't even know what it means. Or it could just be a lame joke. Who knows, if you look carefully you might find something cool in it!

What version of MySQL are you running?

Thanks for the feedback on the source code. I'll take it into consideration.