Forum

[img_assist|nid=144|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=200|height=125]RAW Designers' Forum provides the look typically found in stand alone forum software and the code provides some of the functionality, mostly related to the end user experience.

Features

Note: This list includes only those features provided by Advanced Forum itself and is not a complete list of what is possible for forums in Drupal.

General

• Mark all topics in a single forum or all forums as read.
• Forum statistics including number of topics, posts, users, latest user, and currently online users.
• Interchangeable style system that allows you to create an entirely new forum style outside of your theme.
• Six included styles including a base style meant for customizing and a blue style ready for use and easily recolored.
• Optionally use buttons for links with common buttons included in the styles.

Forum listing

• Shows number of new posts in addition to core's number of new topics.
• Displays title of most recent topic in forum linked to the newest comment in that topic.
• Removes link to post new topic here and forces users to be in the forum they are posting to to avoid confusion.
• Icon for each forum that changes with new posts and includes legend.

Topic listing

• Option to hide created column for more compact listings.
• Includes a pager along with the title on each multipage topic.
• Shows last update as "time ago" for recent posts and switches to date posted for older ones. Cutoff is configurable.
• Shows number of views.
• Legend explaining icons for "hot", etc.
• Already includes new forum icons that will be a part of Drupal 7.
• Shadow topics link to actual topic rather than the forum it was moved to.
• Extra classes around sticky section so it can be themed separately.

Individual topics

• Makes use of Author Pane module to show avatar as well as stats and contact links for the post author.
• Option to turn off prev/next links (including not running slow query).
• If enabled, makes use of an imagecache preset for user avatar.
• Shows the total number of posts on top of topic along with links to the next unread and last post.
• Includes a post reply link (button) on the top (and bottom if form on separate page) of the topic.
• Changes "add comment" to "reply" on initial post for consistency.
• Uses one template for both node and comments for consistent look and easier styling.
• Build in support for the Signature for Forums module, including adding the signature to the initial post.
• Comment numbering with link and built in support for the Comment Page module as permalink.
• Each post has a link back up to the top.