TXPhorum / A Textpattern Plugin / Forum solution

Installation

See footnote regarding upgrades¹.

• Install and activate all these plugins:

1. TXPhorum v0.3
2. mem_self_register
3. mem_form
4. ign_password_protect
5. asy_wondertag

• Visit the TXPhorum Help section. Click the “Install default installation” link. This installs the default PAGE, STYLE, FORMS, ARTICLES and LINKS. After clicking install it showed me a “restricted area” message after clicking install from the plug-in help (4.06). I tried it twice and got the same message and thought “oh well”. It turns out it does work and by pressing it twice I created duplicate articles/links etc. Perhaps it’s possible to catch this (both message and duplicate creation of articles/links/forms)? [from Jakob]

• Make sure the defined LINKS are correct for your setup (if you’re happy with “txphorum” as your section, and the full url is http://www.example.com/txphorum, you can ignore this).

• Change the email address in the “contact” link (at the bottom of the PAGE).

• Update the Guidelines and Help articles.

• Make sure that in FORM txphorum_login_form it reads: <txp:bab_link name="txphorum_manage_register" /> (i.e. with _manage added) [from Jakob]

• You need to disable commenting in template or else you get a reply form that’s not the correct one. [from Jakob]

Custom Field

Making sure the correct custom field is defined and named correctly is important. If you’re able to use custom field 1, then name it “custom1” and you should be totally set to go. If not, you need to do the following (somewhat complicated, annoying process which I couldn’t figure out how to avoid for you):

• Make sure your custom field is named “custom1” or change the preference in the plugin to the name of the custom field you want to use (around line 15).

'parent_custom_field'           => 'custom1',

• Make sure the <txp:article_custom /> tag at the bottom of the txphorum_post FORM calls the correct custom field name
• Make sure the plugin is checking the correct custom field (around line 71):

$thecount = safe_field('count(*)','textpattern','custom_1='.$txphorum_mem_Parent);

• Make sure the plugin is inserting $txphorum_mem_parent into the correct custom field (around line 100-109):

custom_1        = '$txphorum_mem_Parent',
custom_2        = '',
custom_3        = '',
custom_4        = '',
custom_5        = '',
custom_6        = '',
custom_7        = '',
custom_8        = '',
custom_9        = '',
custom_10       = '',

Known Issues:

• Textpattern search is one section only, or all sections marked “display search results” — I have it set to search “txphorum” but that leaves out any replies (which are in section “txphorum_replies”). It would work fine if in the admin I only made “txphorum” and “txphorum_replies” searchable, but then the search on your frontpage and the rest of the site would also not work. Geeze! There may be a plugin or I could possibly make one to give a new “searchall” parameter that accepts section names instead of all or none

Security

Everything is wrapped in ign_password_protect tags so it should be perfectly safe, but please let me know at TXPhorum Security rather than publicizing any security breaches (and thereby putting folks at risk).

¹ The upgrade from 0.2 to 0.3 should be fairly simple, but you may lose some of your previous effort on design (my apologies for this). My recommendation is to:

• move all posts and replies to a holding section
• delete the txphorum PAGE
• delete the txphorum SECTIONS
• delete the txphorum FORMS
• change your stylesheet name to “old_txphorum” (or something)
• follow the installation instructions
• move your posts and replies into their new sections
• port your style rules over from “old_txphorum” into the new stylesheet where appropriate