In my previous blog post here I covered Forum Behavior. If you recall, Forum Behavior is how a forum 'behaves' in terms of posting and viewing access which are all controlled via a forum permissions grid or the module's permissions.
Another item that is indirectly related to Forum Behavior, but not covered in my previous blog post, is Forum Type. Forum Type could have actually been combined w/ Behavior but I felt it would have been rather confusing so instead I kept it seperated as it originally was (although previously there was no forum behavior). To help further clarify what I mean here, there are three available Forum Types:
- Normal Forum - Typical forum usage, Forum Behavior determines view/posting permissions.
- Notification Forum - Very similar to Normal Forum, adds ability for roles to be forced to receive notifications of new posts.
- Link Forum - Link to a resource on the web. Only concerned w/ View Permissions (since posting not possible).
Before the DNN Forum was a core module, it was the TTTForum. The TTTForum included the forum type configuration. At the time, it supported Normal Forums, Notification Forums, as well as NNTP Forums. When the module was slated to become a core module, NNTP support had to be removed (due to bugs and dependency on third party dll's) and as time went on we found out the Notification Forums weren't working properly and was therefore disabled. When working on the 4.4.3 release I decided it was time to fix the Notification issues, as well as add the link forum type.
Notification Forums:
In the screenshot above, you can see how you can determine the roles, or users, who will receive notifications. If you have the Forum Type set to "Notification Forum" then the Notifications column will become available for you to select.
Link Forums:
In the second screenshot above, you can see the options available to you for setting a URL. This interface is re-use of the core URL Control. Eventually we can add URL tracking to this as well as the ability to link directly to files.
Room for Enhancements:
Add URL Click Tracking
Add File as link support
Filter Forum Behavior based on Forum Type
Room for other forum types (unsure of what those would be at this time)
Hopefully this blog post explains the capability of the module a bit more for the upcomming release but to avoid the expected questions:
I am not sure when the module will get through the release process.
We currently have no plans for integrating NNTP support again.
I am not sure when/if anything under "Room for Enhancements" will be tackled.