One of the most requested features on the Orchard User Voice is a Forum module. Internet forums in the conventional sense is just a discussion site where people can post a question, receive an answer or merely to strike up a conversation.
Forums have a large and varied vocabulary which can be very confusing to a user, i.e. a Thread can be referred to as a Topic, A Post maybe a Reply, so on a so forth. For the Orchard Forums module I have used this vocabulary.
- Forum: A board to start your journey i.e. Asking a question or striking up a conversation. These contain a collection of Threads.
- Thread: A collection of Posts.
- Post: A user submitted message.
I am going to walk through below how to get started.. but first you need to clone the Repo at orchardforums.codeplex.com (Make sure the Directory name is NGM.Forum)
Enable Feature
To start seeing the Forums module you need to enable the Forums feature… FYI: This demo is done in ThemeMachine and is not styled.
Create Forum
Once installed there will be a Forums button on the Admin menu. Click that to create a Forum. 
Now lets create a new forum. In my demo below I am creating a Discussions Forum.
Hit save and Vola… You have just created a Discussions Forum. (Obviously with no threads…)
Going to the permalink that has been generated through the AutoRoutePart… in this case http://localhost:30320/OrchardLocal/discussions you will find your self at the UI for the users to interact with.
Create Thread
Now let now create a Thread.
There are a few things to note on this page.
1. Categories and Tags. These are delivered though the Taxonomies module.
2. The Permalink and Home page button. These are there by default when you create/edit a Thread. You can remove them with the Placement.info file in your theme.
3. Where is my Rich Text Editor? I am NOT using the BodyPart for Posts. Instead I have implemented my own version of what BodyPart does because it does not cater to the needs to anything outside of the Admin Screens.. i.e. Media Management. So How can I have a Rich Text Editor? Implement one.. Just copy the code from TinyMCE. I have added a flavor to the part so creating your own is easy.
Now hit Save….
Moderation
By default all users are moderated. This is done two fold.
1. A Part called UserForumPart: This is a part that is attached directly to the user.
2. ApproveUnapprove Permission: Allows a user in a role to approve or un-approve Posts and threads.
To Approve or un-approve Posts and Threads you need access to the admin screens, so head to your admin screens and click on ‘Manage Forum’
Here you have a Thread awaiting approval. A Thread or Post can live in 3 states.
1. Approved: Content is okay. 
2. Awaiting Approval: Content needs to be reviewed
3. Not Approved: Content is Rejected. 
In this case I will approve. You can now see your thread on the front screen.
View / Reply Post
A few things to note from the screen above.
1. You have the taxonomies being displayed.
2. Quick reply. This is the edit box displayed. The Forums module DOES support multithreaded posts, but have not implemented from a UI perspective.
Okay so that is the end of this demo. Please clone the Repo at orchardforums.codeplex.com
But Nick, Functionality is starting to come together… but where is the theming!?
Hold on there busta!, So I have been speaking with Ryan Drew Burnett around the theming side of things, and he has produced the first mock up of a themed Orchard Forums… Check it out! (I think is look great!)
CORRECTION: Fixing naming of folder form NGM.Forums to NGM.Forum (Thanks Volody)
25 Comments
Rick said
Hey!
When I install the forums module, it doesn't show up in the left navigation of the administration area. What am I doing wrong? I'm using Orchard 1.6
Would be awesome if you could reply, because I really need a forum! :)
NickMayne said
Hey Rick, can you drop me an email at Jetski5822 at gmail dot com ?
Damir said
Great stuff, finally something really good on forum front ;)
And that styling is also really nice.
Well done everyone involved, it'll be a pleasure to get i installed and test it.
Now, if everything goes well, we can start putting together some kind of import functionality so we can start converting all those ugly old community sites to Orchard based communities.
Oh, btw... While I'm at it... Is there a possibility to include some kind of @mention script (like the one at: https://github.com/podio/jquery-mentions-input) with functions for mentioning both @users and #tags. Now that'd be really cool and practical to have out of the box...
Again, great work guys (and gals?) this is what make Orchard so good :)
Have a good one,
Damir
volody said
Looks realy promising
Just was trying to install forum on 1.6 version but does not show in admin menu. Not sure how to push it to work
Ivan said
Forum? come on. not now! far away from it. the upgrade of .net framework 4.5 crashed all my websites. please do some decent work on the upgrade n house management before going any further.
Mirko said
Have the same problem as rick mentioned before. And yes i need a forum to ;)
I cloned today Orchard 1.6 and also NGM.Forums...
NickMayne said
Hmm It seems that a'lot of people are getting the issue that once installed it does not show in their menu, I cannot reproduce locally.
It may be due to the act that I have the tip of taxonomies installed. I will check and get back to you.
volody said
Hi Nicolas,
You have made a typo in your instruction.
Instead of (Make sure the Directory name is NGM.Forums)
You should have
(Make sure the Directory name is NGM.Forum)
I made it working with Orchard 1.6 by taking latest code
Tony said
Hi Nick, Im having the same problem. It does not show in the admin menu. Using orchard 1.6.
Tony said
You are a star volody! I got it working by renaming the directory.
Great work Nick!
Mirko said
the renaming of the folder was one step for me to bring it to life. Additionally after i added Voting and Taxonomy via orchard dashboard i build the two modules in visual studio.
NickMayne said
@Volody - Thanks I have update the post accordingly.
@Ivan - Sorry you are having problems, but niether Orchard not my forums module uses .net 4.5
@Tony - Great you got it running. Let me know what you think. I have just pushed sticky threads.
Abhishek Luv said
Looks Cool will try it.
The above forum layout looks impressive
flint said
Forum dont work.
Error: Type name or namespace "Routable" is not in the namespace "Orchard.Core"
Orchard 1.5
Please help me.
NickMayne said
@Flint - You need to grab the latest from the repository. Do not use the one on the gallery
flint said
Thanks, forum work.
Where can I find themed Orchard Forums?
Lee said
Hi Nick,
I have developed an OS MVC forum.
http://www.mvcforum.com
I'd really like to speak to you about how we might be able to integrate it in Orchard as a package? v1.1 is due out in a week or so, and now its stable I'd like to start looking at integrations.
My email is on this post, so please get in touch if you are interested :)
Ashok Salve said
I just wanted to know about ORCHARD, that can i mix transaction forms in Orchard CMS
And also Advantages and disadvantages of ORchard CMS.
Thanks.
Ashok
Philip Senechal said
Hey Nick,
I'm having the same problem with getting it installed. I fixed the 2 old references in Taxonomies and recompiled the module, compiled NGM.Forum and Voting and uploaded all of them to the server. The Forum module says it installs and enables fine, but nothing. I checked the database and the tables aren't being created, so the migration doesn't appear to be running. NOTHING in error logs.
Here's the weird part. I installed locally on Orchard Source and it works fine, but when uploading it where Orchard Web is use...that's what doesn't work for me.
Any suggestions? Is there something from Orchard Source I can upload to where I'm using Orchard Web to see if I can get it to startup?
Thanks!
Philip Senechal said
Oh ya...local Orchard Source is running off SQL CE while my hosted Orchard Web is running of SQL Server 2008.
Any chance that could be the issue?
Daren Nkomo said
I am looking for a stable forums module as well and I absolutely love the MVC Forums so I eagerly await the orchard integration.
When it comes to getting the Orchard forums working on my site (Orchard v1.6) I am able to enable the module but it never shows up in my admin section.
The folder that the module resides in is already named 'NGM.Forum' so I'm not sure what to do.
Thanks in advance if anyone can help me out!
Deepa said
Please elaborate on how to clone the repository. What do you mean by that?
Thanks,
Deepa
Philip Senechal said
Hey Nick, I'm getting an error in PostPartDriver.cs when I try to compile: "No overload for method 'Process Content' takes 1 arguments"
The problem is here: filter.ProcessContent(text)
It's looking for (string text, string flavor)
any ideas on how to correct this piece?
Thanks
mirko said
use this code snippet
filter.ProcessContent(text, GetFlavor(part))
RCG said
Hey Nick. I'm using Orchard 1.6 and I'm having the same problem as a number of individuals above; "forum" options will not appear in the administration panel.
I've installed all of the dependencies including Taxonomies, and I've taken the liberty to pre-compile the project before uploading it. All folders are correctly named.
I simply cannot get it working. Do you or anyone else have a solution to this problem? Thank you for your time and effort in creating this. In the future 1.6 users can hopefully see and use what you've created at some point in time without so much difficulty.