SharePoint Forums Updates

I haven’t got the site for submitting bugs, discussions, etc. for my SharePoint Forums Web Part but that should be along shortly. Some of you might be wondering where some of the features of the Web Part are (like RSS feeds). These are coming but due to time as I got into building it, I went for quality over quantity.

Here’s a list of the features that are being worked on and those that are planned (my wishlist).

Currently Being Worked On For Future Release

  • Import tool to read in and convert existing discussion list messages (not sure how the mapping to categories will go here)
  • Ability to sync a forum up to an external NNTP server and newsgroup(s)
  • Language support for more than just U.S. English
  • Topic/message search

Wish List
These are items that have been requested, were planned, but have yet to be scheduled or decided on.

  • RSS feeds (web part, forum, topic)
  • Email notifications from topics, replies, etc.
  • Locking of topics (so nobody but admin can add posts)
  • Password protect forum (not sure if this is needed)
  • Sticky topics/announcement type posts
  • Active topics list (return a list of all topics with replies)
  • Inactive topics
  • New topics (show topics since your last visit)
  • Print topics
  • Supports smileys/emoticons
  • Todays topics
  • Jump to forum feature (a small drop down box on the page to quickly navigate around)
  • Mark all unread messages read (messages don’t have a read/unread state now so this will be a large change)
  • Paged navigation of topics

Some of these features will come automatically (like RSS and Email) with version 2.0 which will ship with SharePoint 2007 (and is being actively worked on so you’ll have a release as soon as the product is ready later this year). If you have any more feel free to send them my way.

Expect a new release every 3–6 weeks (depending on my schedule). Once the new site is up, you’ll be able to add your own items, download the source code, etc.

4 Comments

  • Bill



    Cant wait to install and test the Forum webpart.



    some of the features that you have mentioned that are not yet implemented would be of great value to me:



    Locking of topics (so nobody but admin can add posts)

    Password protect forum (not sure if this is needed)

    Sticky topics/announcement type posts

    Active topics list (return a list of all topics with replies)

    Inactive topics

    New topics (show topics since your last visit)

    Paged navigation of topics



    Keep up the excellent work.



    Many thanks



    Kevin

  • Not sure about password protection, but we definately have to have user and group level security per forum. E.G. a "Pending Lawsuits" topic that only "Senior Managment", "Legal" and "Bob Jones" can access. That's in the same forum with "Watercooler" that everyone can access.

  • @Jim: group and user security is already there. Create a new group that has read/write/whatever access to a forum of your choosing, remove all permissions for other users, and put the users you want into that group. Voila. Security. I'll be posting a more detailed blog/wiki page on how to do this later.

  • When I click on a category heading, it displays the default view (all the categories). The only change is that the breadcrumb has the category attached to the end.



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