ForumNG
Caveat
This page is set up to centralise some of the discussion, information and help around ForumNG. In a sense at this stage this is an unofficial page, just an aggregation of information from the tracker, the forums and the plug in directory. Derek Chirnside 00:02, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
What is ForumNG
ForumNG is an alternative to the built in Moodle forum, and is installed as a plugin.
It was developed by the OU. The original discussion is here: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=110546
There has been some talk of this code replacing the Moodle forums in 2.1. See Comment in the Bug Tracker This is referred to in the original specifications.
The announcement post in the developer forum
Sam Marshall's blog posts on ForumNG
Official Notes
From http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/CONTRIB/component/10572
"ForumNG is an alternative forum for Moodle 1.9, developed by the Open University. It sits alongside the existing Moodle forum and is completely independent; you can set up new forums using either system. The forum has some additional features (and just a few that are still missing, such as most of the forum types). Here are some of the new features:
- Advanced DHTML/AJAX (dynamic web page) support in the discussion page, which allows you to reply to, edit, rate, and delete posts without leaving the page.
- Unique (single) discussion view which combines the benefits of 'nested' and date-related views; it is a nested view, so you can see the discussion structure, but except for unread posts (and their immediate parents), posts are 'collapsed' to a short summary, so you don't have to scroll through mounds of junk to get to the unread posts. Expanding a post is one click away.
- Administrative improvements such as the ability to merge discussions.
- The rating system has friendly star graphics and can be used for grading or without a grade."
Other features:
- Subscription at the discussion level Forum Post
- Export of forum postings into a document
- Save as draft option
- Ability to set up a discussion private to individual students and the teacher
- Flagging posts
- Sticky posts
- Ability to lock a discussion
- Ability to look at readers
What is not there in NG
- Integration with 'core moodle functions' like grading, notifications in Recent Activity block Forum comment on this
- Different forum types available in Standard Moodle
FAQ
Will ForumNG work in 2.0?
Yes, but not yet. The OU uses ForumNG on all courses, and the OU is moving to Moodle 2.0. Therefore, a version of ForumNG for Moodle 2.0 will be made at some point, but we don't currently have a date for that. Probably some months after the main Moodle 2.0 release.
What new features may be added in the future?
Probably best to check Sam's Blog
At the moment, the OU is doing all the development, and so naturally we are prioritising the things we need for our courses.
However, one of the things we would like to happen is to have ForumNG become the standard forum in Moodle, and that is only possible if ForumNG can do everything the old forum can do, so we are also aiming to re-implement all the existing features. (Except for course new forums, where Moodle HQ developers have been talking about developing a purpose-build solution for course news, separate from the forum module.)
What about 2.1?
(What exactly is the question?)
What does NG mean?
It stands for Next Generation, like Star Trek NG.
This may not be the best name ever, but we had to find something different from 'forum' that was not already used, and you are not allowed numbers in Moodle module names, so forum2 was out.
