MyBB Community Forums

First, I'm new here and not sure this is the right spot for this discussion, if not please let me know

Also, forgive my lack of knowledge around these questions, as internet facing application/web development and e-commerce oriented development is not my forte (clearly when you read below)!

So, I'm working on a community oriented forum, which is currently implemented with myBB. The forum is gaining traction and becoming well used (for it's targeted audience) in it's early stages. I want to build an entire community driven site around the forum, but have the technology path to consider.

The main question is: Is it better to go with individual best of breed products or try to target an "all-inclusive" community software package.

Individual BoB PROs:
- Obviously getting the best of breed, niche focused software developed by that specialize in exactly that type of product

Individual BoB CONs:
- Integration with other BoB products
- Upgrade impact across other BoB products
- May require heavy customization to achieve what you want out of the site, mainly in integration/blending between Bob products

Community Software PROs:
- Simplified and unified integration
- Upgrades will apply across the software base

Community Software CONs:
- May not be as robust or feature rich as a BoB product
- May require heavy customization to achieve what you want out of the site


Next question: Depending on your direction, what product(s) would you recommend to address the following interface goals?

1) Forum
- most heavily used site element, diversified topic and user base
- currently using myBB here and it's doing great, very well accepted with the users.


2) Media Galleries
- photo and video storage, management, and sharing


3) Blog
- content sharing model between site elements
- unified integration with site elements such as blog-to-forum, meaning a blog can be posted as a thread in a forum, not merely shared a link, nor duplicating content. Almost as if the storage model/data is the same, but just the presentation medium changes.
- ease of use/tooling to achieve the above and make it easy for users to generate blogs/threads from their media area (photo and video)


4) Storefront
- Site oriented product line
- Sponsor oriented product line(s)
- Sponsorship package product line(s)
- Software the allows for my site acting more as a retail store pass through for physical goods, not handling any packaging, shipping, or distribution...just providing the product display and ordering medium...acting as a front-end for sponsor products.


5) Event management
- Coordinate and view events
- Link relative site media to the event
- Maintain attendee lists, invite users, etc.


6) Advertisement/Sponsor management software
- Ease of integration into any of the above site elements
- Very well defined segregation based on site elements, i.e. can sectionalize (that isn't even a word, but it sounds good to describe this goal) the site for very specific advertising purposes and enrollment from sponsors.



I know this is a lot to digest, but if any of you have any experience with the above and can provide recommendations, please let me know.

Likewise, if you think this is a little over the top and too much to tackle on this forum, that perhaps I need some professional guidance, I am open to that as well.

Actually, i am in teh middle of building my wife's new project and it won't be using MyBB. It's currently using Oxwall social program. Learning curve for setup/admin is a little steep but out of the box it has forum (as a plugin, but fully integrated), media support, blogs, basic ads, events/invites, profiles, etc.

I don't know about a storefront though, I have not looked into shop plugins, though thier main site has a storefront.

I was looking into both Oxwall and Dolphin for community oriented software. My only concern was how feature rich and robust they would be. I also saw the Oxwall plug-in system was pretty much pay to play without much of a preview (unless I am mistaken). The cost isn't huge to invest in the plug-ins and maybe it will garnish longer term support for them, but it isn't easy to "preview" functionality there. Even their demo is pretty basic.

How customizeable is it? I assume being open source you have access to everything code wise? Have you done any enhancements lately?

Forum wise...what have you found to be lacking (or surprisingly better?) compared to myBB? The forum without a doubt is going to be the most utilizes aspect of my site, what users are most comfortable with and how they prefer to communicate/interact. So that has to be a BoB solution.

The forum is extremely basic, but well integrated with the software. Modifying Oxwall is not real easy, but I am not a fan of MVC frameworks like they use. Maybe not a fan is a bad choice, but definitely not very familiar in order to make changes.

Themes are a little confusing and templates even more. But I am not used to the system. They support base conditionals in the templates, but its only two templates and the rest are output standard components. Think Wordpress, but even more complex in layout of the MVC components.

For what my wife wants to be able to do, its a manageable product.

I was going to go with PHPFox but the price was high for a startup site

I just installed it on another site of mine last night but haven't really played around with the configuration or code yet. I'm very familiar with MVC frameworks, so that will decrease my learning curve if that is how it is designed. Always a learning curve with the UI and code when it comes to any new product.

One thing I noticed last night that I couldn't intuitively figure out, was that although I had Admin control panel rights on there, I couldn't see my account "type". I was listed under the "Free" members and had the ability to add Moderators, but when I added myself it said I was already a Moderator...yet I couldn't find anything in my profile or profile settings that indicates where I am. And nothing in Admin CP that does...it just showed me as part of the Free user group.

The myBB Admin CP and overall forum is very intuitive and easy to figure out, I haven't even needed to read the help docs really yet. But Oxwall isn't quite as clear/explicit/intuitive...at least not immediately.

The other big part of this equation is if I wanted to port from myBB to Oxwall forums...I'd imagine there isn't a utility out there to do it yet and if Oxwall is limited in comparison, it begs the question why would I want to do it anyway (other than to have uniform software, but potentially with less features).

Still have to dig around more...I'll keep you posted on what I find.
Thanks for your input thus far!

I agree that migrating a working forum may not be the best solution, however the social aspects of the way its all integrated within Oxwall is really clean from a user standpoint.

the admin side is a little tougher I admit. The piece you are looking for is Roles and Roles Permissions. However, please note that permissions are not the same as with MyBB, there is only one admin account in Oxwall from what I can tell.

If you need good integration and forum stuff still, there is Joomla+JomSocial. I believe you can still bridge MyBB and Joomla and JomSocial is now preferred of CommunityBuilder.

Issues/sites like yours and the one I am building for my wife are good reasons that MyBB should make it easier to expand into non-forum areas. Yes plugins and add-ons work, but I do think they need to be more forward thinking

Yeah I think you are right...whatever default account you set up is an implicit Admin, even though you wind up under Free users by default?

You can add moderators and control their permissions...seems like there is an "Admin" checkbox to give them access to the Admin panel. Just not sure if it has the flexibility of a Mod CP like myBB has for the forum (which is where I really need moderators).

I have to agree with your thoughts on myBB integration. I really like the forum model, but feel like I'm being put to a tough decision on a more comprehensive and easily maintainable suite to address all my needs.

The plug-in approach to products is really only as good as the developers and support on those plug-ins moving forward. I've seen a number of plug-ins lose support over time here on myBB. Fortunately the better ones are getting integrated by the myBB team in future releases, but it still has the potential to leave gaps and prevent upgrades if your forum/site is hinged on that functionality.

I'm not in a great rush to make a decision because whether I go away from myBB today or next month, I still have that porting effort to consider for my users and data.