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https://github.com/rubysherpas/forem

The best Rails 3 and Rails 4 forum engine. Ever.
https://github.com/rubysherpas/forem

Last synced: about 1 month ago
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The best Rails 3 and Rails 4 forum engine. Ever.

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README 

        
## No longer maintained



**I put the word out for people to contact me if they'd like to maintain this for me. Quite a few people contacted me, and I added those people as maintainers. No further work got done.**



**Therefore, I have no choice but to mark this project as unmaintained. I have removed all other maintainers as a result.**



**This project is no longer accepting pull requests or issues.**



If you would like a better maintained forum system, please use [Thredded](https://github.com/thredded/thredded).



----



![Forem - using Bootstrap](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/radar/forem/rails4/doc/theme.png)



*Forem, using the forem-bootstrap theme*



# Forem [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/rubysherpas/forem.svg)](https://travis-ci.org/rubysherpas/forem)

*"NO U!"*



Forem is an engine for Rails that aims to be the best little forum system ever.

The end goal is to have an engine that can be dropped into an application that

provides the basic functionality of forums, topics and posts.



# Demo



A demo application can be found at [http://forem.heroku.com](http://forem.heroku.com), and the source for this application can be found on the [forem.heroku.com

repository](http://github.com/radar/forem.heroku.com)



# Installation



Installing Forem is easy.



## Specify Gem dependencies



If you're using Rails 3:



```ruby

gem 'forem', :github => "radar/forem", :branch => "rails3"

```



For Rails 4, use the `rails4` branch:



```ruby

gem 'forem', :github => "radar/forem", :branch => "rails4"

```



And then one of `kaminari` or `will_paginate`

```ruby

gem 'kaminari', '0.15.1'

# OR

gem 'will_paginate', '3.0.5'

```



## Run the installer



**Ensure that you first of all have a `User` model and some sort of authentication system set up**. We would recommend going with [Devise](http://github.com/plataformatec/devise), but it's up to

you. All Forem needs is a model to link topics and posts to.



Run the installer and answer any questions that pop up. There's sensible defaults there if you don't want to answer them.



```shell

rails g forem:install

```



## Set up helper methods in your user model



Forem uses a `forem_name` (which defaults as `to_s`) method being available on your `User` model so that it can display the user's name in posts. Define it in your model like this:



```ruby

def forem_name

  name

end

```



Please note that if you are using Devise, User model does not have `name` column by default,

so you either should use custom migration to add it or use another column (`email` for example).



It also uses an optional `forem_email` method for displaying avatars using [Gravatar](http://gravatar.com). It defaults to `email`. If you don't have an `email` attribute on the model, define a new method:



```ruby

def forem_email

  email_address

end

```



## Require basic Forem assets



Add this line to your `application.js` file to load required JavaScript files:



```js

//= require forem

```



Add this line to your `application.css` to apply required styling:



```css

*= require 'forem/base'

```



## Specify formatter to use



If you want to provide users with an extended formatting capability, you should pick a [formatter](https://github.com/radar/forem/wiki/Formatters) to use. If you do not use a formatter users will not be able to insert newlines in their posts and do some other fancy stuff, however quoting will work fine.



And you're done! Yaaay!



For more information on installing, please [see the "Installation" wiki

page](https://github.com/radar/forem/wiki/Installing---Upgrading)



## Features



Here's a comprehensive list of the features currently in Forem:



* Forums

  * CRUD operations (provided by an admin backend)

* Topics

  * Viewing all topics for a forum

  * Creating of new topics

  * Editing topics

  * Deleting own topics

  * Locking topics

  * Hiding topics

  * Pinning topics

* Posts

  * Replying to topics

  * Deleting own posts

  * Blocking replies to locked topics

  * Editing posts

* Text Formatting

  * Posts are HTML escaped and pre tagged by default.

  * [Pluggable formatters for other behaviour (Markdown, Textile)](https://github.com/radar/forem/wiki/Formatters)

  * :point_right: :tada: [:emoji:](http://www.emoji-cheat-sheet.com/) :tada: :point_left:

* [Theme support](https://github.com/radar/forem/wiki/Theming)

* [A flexible permissions system](https://github.com/radar/forem/wiki/Authorization-System)

* [Translations](https://github.com/radar/forem/wiki/Translations)

* [Flexible configuration](https://github.com/radar/forem/wiki/Configuration)

* [Integration with

  Refinery CMS](https://github.com/radar/forem/wiki/Integration-with-Refinery-CMS)



If there's a feature you think would be great to add to Forem, let us know on [the Issues

page](https://github.com/radar/forem/issues)



## Auto Discovery Links

If you would like to add auto discovery links for the built in forum Atom feeds, then add the following method inside your <head> tag:



```erb

<%= forem_atom_auto_discovery_link_tag %>

```



Forem's default layout includes this tag.



## View Customisation



If you want to customise Forem, you can copy over the views using the (Devise-inspired) `forem:views` generator:



    rails g forem:views



You will then be able to edit the forem views inside the `app/views/forem` of your application. These views will take precedence over those in the engine.



## Extending Classes



All of Forem’s business logic (models, controllers, helpers, etc) can easily be extended / overridden to meet your exact requirements using standard Ruby idioms.



Standard practice for including such changes in your application or extension is to create a directory app/decorators. place file within the relevant app/decorators/models or app/decorators/controllers directory with the original class name with _decorator appended.



### Adding a custom method to the Post model:



```ruby

# app/decorators/models/forem/post_decorator.rb



Forem::Post.class_eval do

  def some_method

    ...

  end

end

```



### Adding a custom method to the PostsController:



```ruby

# app/decorators/controllers/forem/posts_controller_decorator.rb



Forem::PostsController.class_eval do

  def some_action

    ...

  end

end

```



The exact same format can be used to redefine an existing method.



## Translations



We currently have support for the following languages:



* Arabic

* Brazillian (pt-BR)

* Bulgarian

* Chinese (Simplified, zh-CN)

* Chinese (Traditional, zh-TW)

* Czech

* Dutch

* English

* Estonian

* Farsi (Persian)

* German

* Italian

* Japanese

* Korean

* Lithuanian

* Polish

* Portuguese (pt-PT)

* Russian

* Slovak

* Spanish

* Turkish



Patches for new translations are very much welcome!



## OMG BUG! / OMG FEATURE REQUEST!



File an issue and we'll get around to it when we can.



## Developing on forem



Forem is implemented as a Rails engine and its specs are run in the context of a dummy Rails app. The process for getting the specs to run is similar to setting up a regular rails app:



    bundle exec rake forem:dummy_app



Once this setup has been done, Forem's specs can be run by executing this command:



    bundle exec rspec spec



More information can be found in [this issue](https://github.com/radar/forem/issues/24) in the bugtracker.



If all the tests are passing (they usually are), then you're good to go! Develop a new feature for Forem and be lavished with praise!



## Contributors



* Ryan Bigg

* Philip Arndt

* Josh Adams

* Adam McDonald

* Zak Strassburg

* [And more](https://github.com/radar/forem/contributors)



## Places using Forem



* [Alabama Intel](http://alabamaintel.com)

* [Huntington's Disease Youth Organization](http://hdyo.org/)

* [Miniand Tech](https://www.miniand.com/forums)

* [Goodsmiths](https://www.goodsmiths.com/hub)

* [Now Novel](http://nownovel.com/bookwriting)

* [OrbsCCG](http://orbsccg.com/forums/)

* [Airesis](http://www.airesis.eu)

* [Lab Nation](https://www.lab-nation.com/forum/)

* [INRTracker](http://www.inrtracker.com/community)



If you want yours added here, just ask!