I've been toying around with the idea of creating a forum that runs completely off WordPress. This makes it theme-able and allows you to use all of the WP functions within your forum. Plus, you can use any plugins you want alongside it because it would be based solely on WP.
Here's something I put together this evening using WP 3.0's new custom post types:
http://justintadlock.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/forum-idea.png
It's just a basic front page like what you see here on the Theme Hybrid forums.
Runs off of...
It took only a few things to make this possible:
- Custom post type called "Forum Topic."
- Two custom taxonomies called "Topic Tags" and "Forums".
- A custom page template for the front page of the forums.
- Extra capabilities and roles added through my Members plugin:
- Capabilities: Several for each taxonomy and the post type.
- Roles: Forum Admin, Forum Moderator, Forum Member.
What do you think?
Right now, it's not a complete forum plugin. It's just the beginning.
I don't know if I'll fully develop it, but I want to at least provide the code at some point for those looking to do something like this or dive into custom post types. I'm not even sure this is a one-man job.
I just wanted to get everyone's thoughts on using a plugin like this as opposed to forum software.
