Mark:

Somebody asked this on an earlier entry, but how is this different from the MT Community Solution forum, and why should people use this over that?

Also, if you don't already have Entry Post, the cost of this feature is $99, because you have to buy the license for both plugins. Is that correct?

Culture Snob,

Here are a few key difference between MT Forum and the forum features of the MT Community Solution, as I understand them:

• MT Forum uses a familiar, conventional forum layout, whereas the MTCS forum presents a novel layout. In my view, since people are familair with the conventional forum layout, it will generate more participation. There has been much confusion about the forums at http://forums.movabletype.org/, but I have not checked it out lately to see what may have changed (although someone recently posted a laundry list of issues to the Pronet email list)
• Sorting: With MT Forum, the topic listed first is the one with the most recent post: either comment or new topic. So when some replies to a really old topic, it floats to the top of the list. This is consistent with conventional forum behavior. MTCS sorts like a blog, based topic creation date -- so it is difficult to see what conversations are active. (Also note that the "last reply" column on forums.movabletype.org is simply wrong, which must be a bug that will presumably be fixed at some point)
• MT Forum enables OpenID authentication for posting new topics -- I don't think this is supported in MTCS. MT Forum also supports new topic posting without authentication (optional).
• -With MTCS, you have to create a new blog in MT to house the forum. With MT Forum you can create forums as part of an existing blog if you want. This saves admin effort, you don't have to admin two blogs, update design/CSS in two places, etc.
• MT Forum is much more affordable

There are other differences, these are just a few of them.

Regarding pricing, I assume you are referring to non-commercial licenses. For non-commercial licenses, the total cost is $66, and that includes both MT Forum and Entry Post. If you already own Entry Post, then you only need to buy a license for MT Forum, which is $33.

Mark:

Thanks for the response. That clarifies a lot of the differences.

Regarding pricing (and yes, I was talking about the noncommercial license), the current post says that the requirements are:

"* MT 4.1+
* Template Installer 1.2 plugin (included)
* IfAvailable plugin (included)
* Entry Post 2.6 plugin"

Because Entry Post 2.6 plugin doesn't say "included," I assumed it had to be purchased separately. I was confused by that.

Thanks for the feedback. The thing is that Entry Post is either included or not included, depending on which purchase option you choose. Later in the page, those options are laid out: "Use the links below to purchase licenses for both plugins together. Click here to buy a license for only MT Forum." Please let know if you have any suggestion to make things more clear, as I would like to reduce any potential confusion as much as possible.

Hi im install MTForum but how i can change to blue templates?
Run perfect ;) im very funny with forum static, the others scripts of forum the server is very load

nevado,

Go to the plugins settings and choose "mt-forum-prosilver" for the theme, and then save. The remember to rebuild your files, including the "Forum Styles" index template (which is *not* set to rebuild automatically with indexes).

Mark: This is fantastic! It's stuff like this that really helps get the community all fired up. I'm heartily recommending to anyone looking for a forum solution. Keep up the great work!

Mark: I guess I didn't read carefully enough. Shame on me! I guess it's as clear as it can be.

Simple amazing Mark! Now all I really need is a plugin that will help my users register to all blogs at once (right now I have to do it manually :(.. ) and my site will be based completely off of MT4!

Carlo, I recently noticed that in MT 4.1, there seems to be a new feature that if a user has registered for one blog, they will be able to comment on any blog. Behind the scenes, when they comment on the second blog, MT automatically creates a new commenter role for them for the second blog. The bad news is that the default site javascript template doesn't seem to be aware of this, and users may (in some cases), get a message saying they don't have permissions for this blog, even though the comment will go through fine. So you have to do a minor edit to your Javascript template to avoid this false message. Look for this:

|| commenter_blog_ids.indexOf("'" + blog_id + "'") > -1

and delete it. That should work. Play with it...

Hey Mark, I found the code you asked to remove.. but it appears twice in the Javascript template. I removed it in both locations but now when I go to an entry page with the comments form this text is displayed: "You are not authenticated to comment... ...(sign out)." I CAN comment but that text shouldn't be there anyway. I added the code back into the template and the text won't appear anymore. I'll just keep testing.

Mark, I have a question about the Comment Response Template. The portion of the code where it gives the choice of:

If name="$type" eq="Topic"
Return to the {a href="{MT-Entry-Link}"}original entry{/a}.
{mt-:-Else}
{p}Return to the {a href="{$MT-EntryLink -archive_type="Topic"}"}original topic{/a}.{/p}
{/mt:if}

I had to change a bit for it to show up properly but you'll get the general idea.

When someone posts a comment to any entry they are given the "original topic" link rather than the "original entry" link and the url is something along the lines of:

http://www.shadowscope.com/archives/movabletype/news-feeds.php

Where news-feeds.php IS the entry basename however /movabletype is nowhere in any of the paths on my server. The path of the entry should be something like:

http://www.shadowscope.com/archives/2008/03/news_feeds.php

I don't know enough about the template tags unfortunately yet to fix it, at least off the top of my head. I'll dig in and see what I can find and if I fix it before you answer, I'll let you know.

Mark, I have problem about XML declaration.

I have changed output file type to php and put following line on Header template module;



html

'); ?>



But "'); ?>" is displayed on "mt-entrypost.cgi" page. How can I make it undisplayed?