I'd like to integrate JForum in our website and contribute back

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

Hi All,

I was part of development team for directory listing website in Australia, London and Paris. I was envisioning our website to require a forum software soon. I'd like to contribute some man-hours and coordinate with Jforum development team. This way, it will be easier for me to integrate JForum in our website using maybe SSO technology in the future. Another motivation for me is I'm sure I'm gonna learn a lot in this project.

Our website is http://www.eatability.com and http://www.urbanpath.com.

I'm a Java developer, perhaps I can contribute some effort on Hibernate 3, Lucene ( not HibernateSearch but I can learn it ), JSP custom taglib/JSTL/EL expression, Spring IOC/Acegi/Quartz, maybe contribute Maven build stuffs also. I have few knowledge on Mootools/YUI/Prototype/Scriptaculous/DWR and may do minor work on it, but I would be better off letting the other Ajax experts handle this.

Biggest challenge for me would be the VRaptor framework (though it seems easy) but I've checked your latest code and I don't quite get the flow yet (Component stuffs.. not the same with PersonLogic stuffs in VRaptor tutorial). I'm used on the AppFuse architecture having DAOs, Service Layers, Struts action ( though I like Stripes better ).

I already have the codes and been reading it lately, unfortunately it doesn't have a build.xml or pom.xml that I can use to build and deploy but I understand it's been going a major refactoring. I had it imported in Eclipse, there are some minor errors as expected.

I would appreciate if you could point me to a mailing list or developer list that I could ask questions [ forgive me but I have to ask a lot of questions .. hehehe ]. My first goal would be to fix the compilation errors, maybe I could write the Ant script and Maven script (might need structure rework but very minimal and not really a must ). Once I fix this then I would start digging up and see where I can contribute my effort and be useful.

I've got some experience on working on Open source stuffs before (2+ yrs ago) but been inactive since then. This is again the only project that interests me, I've check some other open source forum software also.. but Jforum seems to be the better choice for me..

Thanks.

[originally posted on jforum.net by jruiz]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

Hi there, thanks for your interest.

So, A "PersonLogic" you see in vraptor's tutorial is exactly what we call "component" in JForum3 - package net.jforum.actions. The different name is just because I don't like the "Logic" suffix.

In fact, there isn't any build.xml yet, but it should be easy to get the one from jforum2 and customize. As I use Eclipse for development, which already does the entire compiling stuff, I usually don't use the build.xml (and please don't talk about maven ;))

The good thing about using Eclipse or any other IDE with incremental compilation is that it helps in the current stage of development, as there are around 200 unsolved compilation problems, most of them in classes that currently does not affect us.

The development process is incremental, and by that I mean that if something is broken but we don't need it right now, then leave it broken and focus on the taks that's important. Also, we're trying to cover everything with test cases (not always unit, though), as you can see in src/tests.

My usual approach is to put the forum to work with the most basic features working, and the proceed to incremental enhancement, most of the time based on the logic used in jforum2. Of course that doesn't mean that we'll use the exact same code of jforum2, but the business logic is there, we just need to refactor it in their own classes, make a good Separation of Concerts and etc.

Performance is not priority at the moment as well. The very first thing is to get things working fine, and the use the time to make it faster and nicer.

We sure need a lot of help with Hibernate and code migration from JForum2. Let me know any other questions you have, and I'll be glad to you assist you.

Rafael
[originally posted on jforum.net by Rafael Steil]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

Thanks . I just downloaded the source for 2.1.8, I'll setup my development/deploy environment today, read a little bit of the code for version 2 and 3 today and make myself more comfortable. I'll drop you a message here If I get stuck somewhere.
[originally posted on jforum.net by jruiz]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

I was able to setup my Dev/Deployment environment successfully for 2.1.8 and 3.0.

Everything went smoothly, except for 3.0, I encountered error in the create script (mysql_db_struct.sql). Below are the lines that caused me problems.

Original Code

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS jforum_users;
CREATE TABLE jforum_users (
  ...
  ...
  user_new_privmsg default '0',
  user_unread_privmsg default '0',
  ...
  ...
) TYPE=InnoDB;

Patched Code

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS jforum_users;
CREATE TABLE jforum_users (
  ...
  ...
  user_new_privmsg int default '0',
  user_unread_privmsg int default '0',
  ...
  ...
) TYPE=InnoDB;

Other than that, everything worked fine. I've read thru the code again.. but I think I will learn better if I do actual coding/tickets.

What do you think I can contribute? How do I get task allotment? Do we have a sort of issue/tickets that we need to do or we sort of volunteer on things that needs coding and then coordinate with all? Maybe I can start on small task initially ... and submit small patches until I get to know most of the important/big stuffs. By the way do I submit patches on any Issue tracking or I can simply attach it here in forum?

- JRuiz

I asked too many questions already..
[originally posted on jforum.net by jruiz]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

Thanks for the patch, it is in the repository already. I've also added a build.xml and a How to setup and build.txt file with some instructions, hope people find it useful ;)

I shall write some doc explaining where we need help, or at least add to Jira. Until then, a good place to start is the admin interface (/admin/index.page). For example, there is listing for forums and categories, but no editing or deleting. It's a sort of small task, but which is very valuable to get started in JForum's 3 source code.

My approach is to look at the source of JForum2 (you need to have it also) to know what needs to be saved / where / how. Of course we won't just do a simple copy & paste, as it's a very good time to refactor and "make things right".

Besides that, ask a lot. If you have experience about project coordination and would like to share your thoughts, feel free to do so.

Rafael
[originally posted on jforum.net by Rafael Steil]