BurningBoard 4 is looking good

[dtdesign]

Asides WL BB4, what other applications are built with WCF 2?

I'm aware of at least two other applications currently developed for WCF 2.0, one of them is a Wiki software (https://github.com/WoltNet/WoltNet-Wiki). Besides these we're going to release our current other products Blog, Gallery and Calendar will be released as standalone applications. This way one can purchase them without being forced to buy the forum software and you can connect them with your forums (or other applications) and they appear to be one big website.

Could you expand on WCF in regards to its possibilities, functionality and limitations?
How does WCF compare to Django?

Django is an excellent choice for comparing, WCF 2.0 contains almost the same features, except for their object-relational mapping (and features tied to this). For everyone not familiar with Django, I'll try to give a brief overview of the most important features:

• Own template engine, Smarty-like syntax with physically compiled templates
• Filesystem- or Memcache-based caching system
• Built-in database support for MySQL and PostgreSQL (both with prepared statements)
• InnoDB (MySQL) with foreign keys + additional search table with MyISAM (MySQL, fulltext search)
• Routing-aware link handler (based upon ASP.NET MVC's routing system)
• Complete i18n support, both in templates and any kind of user input
• Built-in, independent Administration Control Panel (re-used by every application)
• Style system with LESS support (http://www.lesscss.org, compiled through PHP)
• Linux-like package management system, install anything with simple mouse clicks, automatic update support
• All API actions can optionally be invoked through AJAX, full CSRF protection

There are a whole bunch of other features provided by optional packages, all of them are LGPL based (like WCF itself) and can be freely obtained and used.

If someone is interessted in taking a look into WCF's code, feel free to browse through the public repositories at GitHub: https://github.com/WoltLab

 

[LloydM]

Looks like a new version of XeroForums, But It's good enough!

 

[Alpha1]

The reason why I asked, is that I have considered rebuilding my sites on Django, but found Django to be outdated.

I wonder if WCF2 has significant improvements of WCF2 over Django?

My main motivation for seeking a framework, is that I need to mix and match content from various content types and put that on the same page. Instead of having separated content types like blog, reviews, gallery, forum, wiki, etc, I need it all tightly integrated. So far no software offers this, so I might need to build it myself.

 

[dtdesign]

I wonder if WCF2 has significant improvements of WCF2 over Django?

I wouldn't make absolute statements on this case, as "significant improvements" are always a dependently on a person's needs. I would be happy to give you a proper explanation if you might want to give me a brief hint what's important for you

My main motivation for seeking a framework, is that I need to mix and match content from various content types and put that on the same page. Instead of having separated content types like blog, reviews, gallery, forum, wiki, etc, I need it all tightly integrated. So far no software offers this, so I might need to build it myself.

This is exactly the reason we've created WCF in first place. It was always designed to take multiple applications and connect them seamless with each other, without creating an unmaintainable monolithic piece of software.

For example, with WCF 2.0 we're introducing the Dashboard which could be compared to the well known idea of a "Portal page". Instead of just adding a simple page to an application, it is designed to collect data from any application you provide and shows them on a single page.

Even though you seem to have something bigger, than the previously mentioned Dashboard, in mind, it would be still possible, because that's the way the framework is designed and actually works. The most important point is, that you don't have to care on how to integrate it, because the frameworks does that job for you. Even if you remove a specific application afterwards, there would be no need to modify anything because everything is again done by the framework.

From our point of view a framework should do as much work as possible in order to ease your job, but on the other hand you are free to override everything the framework does.

Because of it's MVC design with event listeners you can easily modify every aspect of the software without touching the original source files. In fact, we highly recommend that no-one ever modifies the source files, because it is not required.

 

[Alpha1]

I wouldn't make absolute statements on this case, as "significant improvements" are always a dependently on a person's needs. I would be happy to give you a proper explanation if you might want to give me a brief hint what's important for you

Check your PM.

 

[LeadCrow]

New from twitter.

Introducing new [user]-BBCode. It gives you a quick view on the usercard and tracks users even when they rename! #WCF pic.twitter.com/srsFJydZ

 

[Alpha1]

Thats a nice original feature.

 

[TrixieTang]

Thats a nice original feature.

I thought IPB already had a feature like that.

 

[cheat_master30]

Yeah, that exact thing is Invision Power Board 3.4.1 I know, I use it all the time on my own forums to see things like when someone was last online and some of their profile info.

 

[HallofFamer]

Hows burningboard development been lately? The software is getting astoundingly impressive to me, if this continues Id seriously consider converting my vb3 forums to burningboard.

 

[dtdesign]

Currently fixing existing issues and polishing the user interface, next thing on our roadmap is a public demo version at the end of Q1 2013.