TheDrunkenEpic

Hello, I'm Wilhelm, a PHP developer, and this is my little corner of the internet where I can discuss things that interest me and, hopefully, you too. :-)

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10Mar 2008

There's Something About MyTopix ...

Alright, as most of you might have guessed, I've lost a bit of interest in MyTopix over the past few months. I doubt admitting this now will surprise anyone who follows this board. I found that, while still a solid application, the source code has aged to a point where I don't even want to look at it anymore.

The way I wrote the software is so vastly different than the way I currently code, I have to, literally, regress back the skill set I had almost 4 years ago. I think it's time to move on from this endeavor and explore new options. I don't think forum software is dead and I don't think MyTopix is a crappy piece of software, but I do think the market has become quite stale.

Now, recently, whenever I think of recommending a forum solution I constantly find myself considering Vanilla. It's small, fast, free and decently-written. The only thing that stops me from using it most of the time is that I would much rather work with a forum solution that utilizes the technologies I've now become accustomed to. From the research I've done, I can't find a single free, well-written, forum solution out there that uses cutting-edge web technologies. I'm not talking about AJAX and neat little Scriptaculous effects, I'm talking about the very core of the software. What's under the hood so-to-speak. There is nothing out there that really captivates my interest. Vanilla is seriously the closest thing I can come up with to an almost perfect forum solution for most people's needs.

So, I suppose the question here is, if there was a forum solution similar to MyTopix that operated similar to Vanilla and used a framework similar to Cogsworth (XML/XSL), would there be a strong interest? Or should we just stop beating this dead horse and let forum software finally die?

Concerning MyTopix itself I'm sure you're all wondering what happens next. Well, the release is currently stable, so now is as good a time as any to probably end development. Does this mean MyTopix is dead? Well, yes and no. I guess that all depends on you folks since MyTopix is, after all, an open source application.

Next up: "WTF DID WILHELM GO?!?!?"

tagged with Rants and Raves, Code Monkey and MyTopix and has 9 comments

Your Commentary:

He's been trapped in a well by aussie fem-bots forcing him to rub lotion all over his naked body……..or not….

Douche!

Nick Shepherd spoke the truth on March 10th at 4:55 pm #

ZE GOGGLES! ZEY DO NUTSING!

Wilhelm Murdoch spoke the truth on March 10th at 4:57 pm #

Hmm, i'm not a fan of vanilla, it's to basic out of the box and lacks well written extensions to make it a comparative forum solution.

MyTopix is a good starting point with the features already there you'd expect out of the box for a 'light' forum.

Anyway, welcome back!!

Bob spoke the truth on March 10th at 5:29 pm #

A few people are considering writing a forum "Ensemble" for Symphony 2. I think this is the way to go because it encourages people to build an entire website rather than just a forum.

It's also a good way to do things because of Symphony`s extensible nature. For example, on busy sites specialized caching can be used which isn't normally required on smaller sites.

Still, if you're interested in this, you should drop into the Symphony IRC channel :)

Rowan Lewis spoke the truth on March 11th at 6:12 am #

This is actually something I've been considering since I wrote this article. All the mechanisms are in place as far as creating forums / post / thread / profile views. Might be a bit easier once S2 comes around with a member management utility. Then we can specify permissions and such.

If that's even necessary for an initial forum offering. Let's keep in touch on this.

Good to see you again, Wolfie!

Wilhelm Murdoch spoke the truth on March 11th at 7:08 am #

I've started working on my own, but right now its being ignored because I've got too much to do.

I'll definitely mess around with it some more when there's a solid solution for managing users.

Anyhow, I'll keep reading your blog :)

Rowan Lewis spoke the truth on March 11th at 5:44 pm #

One other bit of software with a similar feature set to MyTopix that I use on a site is MyBB – it's a great bit of kit, however I'm not sure about the underlying code and less certain about the security patches that keep cropping up.

I think that's where MyTopix kind of stood apart – you've had like, what, one security issue since it was initially released in beta?

Something to be proud of there.

I think the problem with people looking to do different things with forum software is that the majority of site admins are looking for a forum. That's it. Plain and simple.

My view is that when you try to do radically different things that give nothing to the actual purpose of the software, you've gone wrong. That said, I'm sure you can think of areas for improvement in this medium that could improve the user experience.

Pete spoke the truth on March 13th at 4:32 pm #

Oh we'll carry the MyTopix torch =)

thx for Open Source Wilhelm

Also your design of MyTopix has guided me to learn php, I'm able to modify MyTopix with my buddy more than any other script/scratch before I even got PostgreSQL version almost functional (Installer completely works even inserting data) now I'm moving all internal queries to files like /sql/pgsql/topics.sql.php

Chris spoke the truth on May 13th at 4:05 pm #

Thanks, Chris. :)

Wilhelm Murdoch spoke the truth on May 13th at 5:29 pm #
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