Originally created for my Coulee Region forums, Advanced Forum builds on and enhances Drupal's core forum module. When used in combination with other Drupal contributed modules, many of which are automatically used by Advanced Forum, you can achieve much of what stand alone software provides. Because it uses the core forum module, it uses the node and comment system built into Drupal and is completely integrated, not a bridge.

Important Notes: Just a note to let people know I haven't abandoned AF or anything. I have a pile up of projects this fall and am trying to get everything done. Once I have a few things off my plate, I'll be devoting some time to AF and try to get us to a beta. In the mean time, I'm pretty much ignoring the queue unless it's something I can answer off the top of my head.

Also, I know it's been a long time since 1.1 was released but I want to strongly discourage anyone from using the 1.x dev snapshot. I'm trying to get 1.2 out ASAP and have someone that's going to help and the two of us actively working on it means the dev is more likely to be broken than normal. Just hang on for 1.2 unless you don't mind risking your forums being broken. :)

Features (for 1.x)

• Comes with fully customizable styles to make your forum look like more traditional forums.
• Integrates the display of many forum related contrib modules.
• Adds ability to mark all topics or topics in a forum as read.
• Adds views column to topic list
• Adds extra information and shortcuts such as pagers on topics, link to last post in the forum, jumps within topics, and more.
• A complete list of features can be found in the handbook.

Dependencies (for 1.x)

• Requires: Forum, Taxonomy, Comments, Author Pane 1.x, PHPTemplate based theme
• Recommended: Statistics (for views counter) and Flatcomments (to avoid issues due to the underlying threads when forums are visually set flat.)
• Others: For a complete forum package, see this list of other contrib modules.

Dependencies (for 2.x)

Forum, Taxonomy, Comments, Author Pane 2.x, Views 2.x, Chaos Tools, PHPTemplate based theme

Versions

If you are interested in helping or just want to know the overall status, see the Advanced Forum road map

• D5 1.x is no longer supported or maintained.
• D6 1.x is complete and getting bug fixes and minor changes only. I no longer use this version on any site and so it is difficult for me to support it. There will be a 1.2 release once I have completed the Author Pane 2.0 integration.
• D6 2.x is under active development. I am using it on Coulee Region Online and it works well for me but I have a small, risk tolerant site. If you choose to use it in production, make sure you test it and every upgrade thoroughly on a dev site first. Because it is alpha, be prepared for potentially large changes before 2.0. If you are planning on making extensive style changes, I suggest trying 2.x as there will be no automated upgrade of 1.x styles to 2.x and changes will likely need to be redone.
• D7 There will likely be some delay after D7 is released before AF is ported. Since I will be porting the 2.x branch to D7, I need to have the 2.x branch at least close to finished first so I'm not trying to finish two branches at once. If you want to see a D7 AF, help me finish 2.x in D6. :)

Demonstration

The demonstration site is currently down because I don't have time to properly care for it. You can view an example implementation on my Coulee Region forums but please don't make an account there unless you actually plan to participate in our community. You can also view the 2.x screenshots.

Themes with styles

If you offer a theme (free or for purchase) that includes an Advanced Forum style, let me know and I'll add you to this list.

Fever Ultra - Included in the pay version.

Share your site

If you are using this module on a publicly visible site, I'd love to hear from you. It's always fun to see your module used in the wild.

Donations

If this module has helped you and you'd like to donate, I have a Chipin to feed my photography habit. It's not development related but would give me a nice treat for all the time I spend working on these modules for free. :)