Then use drupal if it suits your needs better, or use plugins to get them into MyBB. A blog and chat isn't going to be added any time soon, it's not as if they're quick features to do. I'm 99.9% sure we'd never consider doing these anyway.
The 'problem' is the general progress. One have to include everything what the users want, even if it's very stupid, the programmers opinions dont matter. Otherwhise, simply nobody use your program / forum; the users dont want to know why certain things are absent or don't work. This is the reason why Windows survive but Linux don't go forwards.
Your foram program is nice, and in released versions it also may work correctly. However, this kind of forums are something of the 'old days'.
In the forum branche, exists the phenomen that many people have installed and running nice forums, working perfectly. However, they stay empty, almost without users.
Asking friends why this is so and what to improve, 90% answer just this: nowadays, users want to include their own photoblogs and want to chat.
Thus, I don't install other forums without these functions, and I'll transform my ~10 running forums (phpBB , qs , phorum ...) to such including these functions.
We can't add every feature under the sun and a setting for absolutely everything. It's impossible to include everything every single user wants. There's no point in having a setting to add a link and only have certain control over it, when you can just put whatever HTML you want into a template.
(2010-06-27, 08:50 PM)MattRogowski Wrote: [ -> ]We can't add every feature under the sun and a setting for absolutely everything. It's impossible to include everything every single user wants. There's no point in having a setting to add a link and only have certain control over it, when you can just put whatever HTML you want into a template.
You could include these features yes, but make it switchable on or off, by the administrater or even by the user. This then is good for everybody. On old / slow servers, one can switch it off.
Look how this is resolved in drupal. I using drupal just a few days (one day after I tried your ppBB). But everything is easy. One don't have to patch. Running 'status report', you even get a list of external files (such like media players) including a download link and exactly explained where to unfold / copy it on your computer. At the same time, it installs an empty folder with a message file that hereinto you have to copy / unfold the downloaded lib/prog . In this matter things are correct. I'm tired of phpBB (what I used since ~10 years) where one have to patch too much with html (f.ex., any security patch, there one have to do manually); this was OK 10 years ago, but not nowadays.
Thus, things like blog / chat should be included by default, on/off-switchable, and for all other things instead of by-hand-patchs this should be delivered automatized.
PLEASE SEE THAT SUCH PERSONAL-PHOTOBLOG-PAGES LIKE NETLOG ARE BE USED SUCESSFULLY BY THE MOST STUPID PEOPLE. There it's completely impossible that the users would have to make html patches by hand. From this you can see that these things have to work directly !
I don"t suggest to include every or any seldom feature. But
the explained features is just what, nowadays, all people want. Thus, include it !
See, how relutant Linux was with introduce hal. But finally, all distros (even Slackware) had to include it. I know that
many users are analphabets. However, even such people have a computer, and they expect that the system autoplays a video / audio CD by JUST PUTTING IT IN THE DRIVE. 99% of the normal users wouldn't get it managed, to type: mount /dev/sda /cdrom etc etc for watch their video. Nor they wanted to do this, if there exist more easy systems. ONLY BECAUSE ONE LACKED FEATURE LIKE THIS, people dump the whole Linux system, and gone back to Windows. And they are right !! Because, what's stupid is the mind of the programmers, which want to insist on what theyself want but not what the users want.
Right, put it this way. Say the developers have 100 hours of development time to get a new version done. What would you rather have done: spend a lot of that time on add a blog, meaning the forum is half assed and buggy because not enough time has been spent on it, or spend all the time on the forum, and have a plugin to integrate with an established blog software like WordPress, meaning time can be focussed on the actual forum itself?? And why, as I said above, would we spend time developing a forum, and then spend more time developing a chat feature that is going to reduce use of the forum that was written to begin with??
The problem is, that this the users don't want to know.
See me as a provider of any forum. All my forums are non-comercial, gratis. However, I want that's being used, not empty.
Potential users look, see that these nowadays normal features are missed, and go away.
Also Iself doing the same: I'm inscribed in total in some 5 general forums, but these I selected because of their features. It's better to be inscribed in 1 or few good-working forums, than in 20 bad.
I don't know, how you can resolve this; I only tell you that you have to resolve this for people use the program.
I dont know if and how Linux becomes one day more easy for be used even by very stupid people, but I know that they have to manage this anyhow, otherwhise people using Windows or something else.
The thing i can't understand is why you don't want to use plugins???
MyBB is a Bulletin Board, not "a social networking package with whatever you want installed as a core feature" bulletin board. If you want that, get IPB, vBulletin or use Facebook.
If all you're going to do is use Caps Lock and shout at support staff, we're not going to assist you ...