Forum update

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Moodle Forum Revamp
Project state	Specification
Tracker issue	MDL-39707
Discussion
Assignee	Jason Fowler & Andrew Nicols @ Moodle HQ

Project goals

• Improve accessibility of the Moodle Forums
• Make the forums more modern in appearance
• Make the code in the forums module more manageable
• Make it possible for themers and developers to over ride aspects of the forum layout easily

Considerations

• Backwards compatibility
• Creating sub-plugins for "Forum Types" (Q&A etc) and "Forum View"
• Subscription management
• Editor Light - a cut down version of Atto for "Reply inline"
• Make use of Renderables and Renders

Details

At present the Moodle forums are the oldest part of the code base, and lag behind the rest of Moodle in a big way.

We hope to implement a new interface for the forums, based on the accessible view from MoodleRooms' HSU Forum, and add some new functionality over time.

Current issues

• Forum can not be over ridden by themers or developers.
• Difficult to add new core forum types.
• Impossible to add contrib forum types.
• Forum is difficult to use as an accessible service.
• Forum is not even close to WCAG compliant.
• Forum look awful compared to modern areas of Moodle.
• Missing features
  • Thread level subscription
  • Post locking
  • Post hiding
  • Time locking
  • Anonymity
  • Discussion sorting
  • Private reply
  • Sticky posts
  • Inline reply
• Forum code does not match the current coding guidelines.