If you haven’t noticed already, we finally converted our forum over to something more integral with WordPress. Using a very nice piece of software called Simple:Press, we were able to make the move from SMF fairly smoothly. All existing data came over without a hitch, thanks to guys at Simple:Press and all of their hard work (which I am now a contributing member, although very little contribution has been made at this point). Here’s a highlight of some of the changes.
The sidebar is still visible. This may or may not change, but I like the idea of being able to have an accessible menu for the entire site while viewing the forum.
All new posts will be linked to a forum topic. If you’re not an active viewer of the main site, but still want to see what we’re up to, all of the posts are carried over to the forum as new topics. Also, any comments made, either through the forum topic or below a post on the main site will be synchronized. In other words, if you post a comment on the forum topic, your comments will also appear on the main site and vice versa. There’s still a little bug in the comment numbering that I need to fix, but I need to spend some time on the layout anyway.
Registration of new members can be done directly from the main page of the site OR from within the forum, as well as login. If you log into the main site, you will have access to the forums once you click on the Forum link at the top of the screen.
Recent forum activity is displayed in the sidebar, very similarly to how we display recent posts on the main site. This gives the user the ability to see whats happening in the forum without actually going or maybe intrigue them to visit the forum. There may be side conversations going on in the forum that we don’t post about on the main site.
We’re looking forward to seeing you in the forum, as there is a pretty good backlog of interesting conversations and topics (at least 5 years worth). Stop by and check out Greg and I’s little notepad of thoughts.