Clever Technology Inc.

building on
your imagination

coming soon: Discussion Forums for Mura

So forums ... a much, much requested plugin for the Mura CMS. As you might guess from the title, they will be arriving shortly.

Code named "Cormorant" (please don't ask why, as we'll have to make something up on the spot), our forums application will be a fully integrated Mura Plugin . That means permissions, groups, users and all other related functionality will be tied to core Mura services. In other words, a Cormorant user will also be a Mura user, with all the same assignable rights and privileges any other Mura user might have. This gives site administrators the great advantage of leveraging the Email Broadcaster, site permissions and any other plugins available the ability to work with Forum-created users. It should also make working with the Forums plugin much friendlier, as the layout and administration will already be familiar to users.

features

There will be two versions initially: Discussion Forums followed soon after by the enhanced Support Forums version. The former will behave like traditional forums, with conferences, forums, threads etc. We are initially focusing upon control and administration, giving site managers the ability to assign a wide range of configuration options on a per-conference or even per-forum level. These "configuration" packages can be shared by multiple conferences/forums, and will add a great deal of flexibility to how users can view, post to and use a particular forum.

Support Forums will be designed to help software developers manage support issues. While we haven't finalized the entire feature set for this version, suffice it to say we have been working closely with Sean, Matt and the rest of the Blue River team to create a useful, well-rounded system.

discussion forums

Discussion forums will be launching with the following features:

Unlimited Conferences with unlimited Forums
Configuration files which contain settings like permissions, avatars, attachments, and notifications
Configuration files can be applied to Conferences or Forums (by default, Forums inherit from Conferences, which in turn inherit from the default Configuration
Subscriptions
Badges or "Ranks" for tracking and rewarding users
Full administrative control down to editing/locking posts
Moderators
Stickies
General reporting and dashboards
Site-based permissions, so super administrators can lock down features like attachments or avatars on a per-site basis.

support forums

As the date for release of Support Forums nears, we will post a list of available functionality.

release date

Soon. When it is ready, and not a day before. I will say that the time frame can be measured in weeks rather than months, but that is as close as you're going to get.

pricing

Ah yes, pricing. This is something we haven't quite finalized yet, but I can promise it will be very reasonable. What I can announce is that there won't be an "Enterprise" version that locks down features unnecessarily, and that it will be licensed on a per-install basis (Mura CMS allows a single install to host multiple websites). Support Forums will be priced higher than the Discussion Forums version, but upon release we will will offer a straight-across credit for people who wish to upgrade.

questions

As this is an in-development product, we won't be fielding any questions at this time as to "will it do this/that", since this will only slow our release date. Upon release we will be making a forums area available where people can request specific functionality in future versions.

Comments

Sean Schroeder: Awesome!!!! BTW, you should upgrade your dsp_comments...down with CAPTCHA's!; August 18, 2009, 4:47 PM

Grant Shepert

Shhh, go away Sean ... we're busy working on Forums.

Oh, darn CAPTCHA's.

August 18, 2009, 5:05 PM

Jonas Eriksson

Totally and absolutely, positively awesome! I will be buying both :-)

Thank you for adapting the same "small-business developer friendly mindset" which I found in MURA CMS. I.e. to not overcharge developers or play silly games with reduced functionality (that being said, if it ever made sense to have various levels, I'd far more prefer it to be based on "user account limitation" than "feature limitation" (hint, hint, Adobe ColdFusion marketing dudes!), simply because by the time a project has 1,000 users the developer/company using it should be able to find a way of getting some money in through the larger user base).

But by applying small prices you obviously have a good chance of grabbing a wider, happier, customer base and ensure they will be picking up future plugins too, thus allowing small projects to grow.

Whilst some people seem to want everything for free and don't understand that small companies need a profit to breathe and grow, I am more than happy to support solidly developed software with a (reasonable) financial contribution, as this usually speeds up bug-fixes and stability significantly, so I am very pleased to see this being in advanced stages of development!

Uhum... whilst you are at it, maybe you can look into a future plugin to port an existing Galleon-Forum-DB into the new system? :-) I could easily live with having to enter the passwords of all Galleon users manually if that's what it takes as I understand the user profile system might be totally different (my main forum only has about 140 users, so "someone" can be found to do this, but telling an existing user group that their old messages are to be found ...here... from now on and they need to re-register etc. is a bit steep).

But I don't want to keep you from getting Cormorant ready, there is a huge demand from new projects wanting for precisely what you are developing now!

Good luck & thanks for working on this!

Jonas

August 19, 2009, 5:20 AM

Jeff Pierson

This is great news, would have been hugely helpful on my last project. I am excited that there is finally a great ColdFusion CMS product that the community is getting involved with.

I am hoping that I can contribute to Mura soon.

August 20, 2009, 10:06 PM

Tony Garcia: Sounds cool. Will this plugin be based on Galleon Forum?; August 23, 2009, 2:06 PM

Grant: @Tony no this is a completely new product, designed from the ground up for Mura. We decided that was the best way to take advantage of the existing CMS architecture.; August 23, 2009, 10:34 PM

Ronnie: Is it soon yet? hehe; September 1, 2009, 3:12 PM

Nicolas: Grant, this sounds *very* exciting. Any news on the ETA of the plug-in? Is it soon already?; September 16, 2009, 8:34 AM

Grant

Hi all,

Glad to see the interest, as it has been a piece of work so far!

We're in the alpha testing phase right now. Forums are proving to be a pretty process-intensive application, so we're working on optimization through user caching, reducing database calls and improved searching.

You can count on news update early next week on the exact details of Meld Forums for Mura, as well as try it out on our demonstrations site.

Grant

September 16, 2009, 10:27 PM

Ken Auenson

I am very interested in this new plug in. How is the development going? any updates?

Thanks!

October 1, 2009, 9:20 AM

Nicolas: Just a friendly (and impatient) ping: PING?; October 7, 2009, 1:54 AM

8riaN: Let us know if you need any beta-testers, I'm sure you'd see a lot of hands go up immediately for this very exciting, and much needed project.; October 16, 2009, 11:00 AM

kamera stative: It will be quite useful when ready. Lets wait for it to get ready.; October 24, 2009, 1:37 AM

Jonas Eriksson

We're still with you in thoughts guys - can't wait :-))

As I will be porting a Galleon Forum to "Codename:Cormorant" very soon after this module is released, count me in as a beta tester if need be. Happy to write up a short "transition blog entry".

Regards,