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Overview
Comment: | More feature rah-rah in www/forum.wiki, plus better formatting. |
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Downloads: | Tarball | ZIP archive | SQL archive |
Timelines: | family | ancestors | descendants | both | trunk |
Files: | files | file ages | folders |
SHA3-256: | cce5da1658e6ef90bb1c38beea4cd01f |
User & Date: | wyoung 2018-08-09 06:04:12 |
Context
2018-08-09
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06:13 | Tightened up the MTA point in www/forum.wiki, and added a bit about digest delivery. check-in: b51d6212 user: wyoung tags: trunk | |
06:04 | More feature rah-rah in www/forum.wiki, plus better formatting. check-in: cce5da16 user: wyoung tags: trunk | |
04:34 | Clarity pass on the forum capability names in www/forum.wiki to match nomenclature on the Admin -> Users page. check-in: 2490bfba user: wyoung tags: trunk | |
Changes
Changes to www/forum.wiki.
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<title>Fossil Forums</title> <h2>Introduction</h2> As of Fossil 2.7, Fossil includes a built-in discussion forum feature. Any project complex enough to be managed by Fossil can probably benefit from having a discussion forum. Even if your project has a discussion forum already, there are further benefits that stem from using Fossil's built-in forum feature: * Third-party discussion forum and mailing list software tends to be difficult to install, set up, and administer. Fossil Forums aim to be as close to zero-configuration as is practical. * Posts are stored in the Fossil repository using the same [./fileformat.wiki | block chain technology] that Fossil uses to store your check-ins, wiki documents, etc. Posts sync to cloned repositories in a tamper-proof fashion. * Because of Fossil's [./delta_format.wiki | delta compression technology], discussions add little to the size of a cloned repository. Ten years of the SQLite project's discussions — averaging 2 or 3 dozen posts per day — compress down to just 35 MB of space in a Fossil Forums repository. * Fossil Forums use [https://sqlite.org/fts3.html | SQLite's powerful FTS4 full-text search engine]. If your project currently uses a mailing list for discussions, this means you are no longer reliant upon third-party mailing list archive services to provide a useful search engine for your discussions. * Because Fossil is a [./concepts.wiki | distributed version control system], project members can search your forum archive while disconnected from the network where the central Fossil instance runs. Your past discussions are potentially just as valuable as a wiki document or checkin comment: there is no good reason why you should have to wait to get back on the Internet or back to the office before you can search for past posts. * When you search the forum archives via the Fossil web interface, you get only one result for each matching post. When you search a mailing list's archives using a standard web search engine, you might get a result from the project site's own mail archive plus one from Nabble, one from Gmane, one from The Mail Archive... * Because forum posts are normal Fossil artifacts, you can interlink them with other Fossil artifacts using short internal links: link to forum threads from a [./tickets.wiki | ticket], link to a wiki document from a forum post, etc. These links are internal and managed by Fossil itself, so links never become invalid simply because your third-party forum software or mailing list search engine changed its URL scheme. * The forum uses the same role-based access control mechanism as Fossil uses for all other accesses. * Since Fossil has an [./fileformat.wiki | open and well-documented file format], your discussion archives are truly that: <em>archives</em>. You are no longer dependent on a third-party piece of software or service sticking around. Should you choose to stop using Fossil, you can easily extract your discussion traffic for transfer to another system. * Posts can be marked up using Fossil's existing [/md_rules | Markdown] and [/wiki_rules | Wiki] markup languages. No longer must you choose to restrict your discussion forums to plain text only (good for security) or to allow HTML-formatted MIME email (good for complex discussions). Fossil Forums provide <em>enough</em> formatting without giving up security. * Fossil forums integrate with third-party [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_transfer_agent | message transfer agents] such as Postfix, Exim, and Sendmail. If you've got mail service configured on the server hosting your Fossil instance, it can send notifications of new posts to interested forum users, complete with message content for those that prefer to visit the forum only when they need to post something. * Because Fossil accepts forum posts only via the web UI, it is inherently [./antibot.wiki | protected against bots]. <h2>Setting up a Fossil Forum</h2> <h3>Permissions</h3> Fossil forums use the same role-based access control mechanism as for normal Fossil repository logins. There are several dedicated forum-related capability bits you can grant |
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<title>Fossil Forums</title> <h2>Introduction</h2> As of Fossil 2.7, Fossil includes a built-in discussion forum feature. Any project complex enough to benefit from being managed by Fossil and which has more than one user can probably also benefit from having a discussion forum. Even if your project has a discussion forum already, there are many benefits to using Fossil's built-in forum feature, some of which you cannot get by using third-party alternatives: * <b>Easy to administer:</b> Third-party discussion forum and mailing list software tends to be difficult to install, set up, and administer. The Fossil forum feature aims to be as close to zero-configuration as is practical. * <b>Malefactor resistant:</b> Because Fossil accepts forum posts only via the web UI, it is inherently [./antibot.wiki | protected against bots]. * <b>Distributed and Tamper-Proof:</b> Posts are stored in the Fossil repository using the same [./fileformat.wiki | block chain technology] that Fossil uses to store your check-ins, wiki documents, etc. Posts sync to cloned repositories in a tamper-proof fashion. * <b>Space Efficient:</b> Because of Fossil's [./delta_format.wiki | delta compression technology], discussions add little to the size of a cloned repository. Ten years of the SQLite project's discussions — averaging about 2 dozen posts per day — compress down to [/forumpost/9b6f3f36bdb | just 35 MB of space] in a Fossil forum repository. * <b>Built-in Full-Text Search:</b> Fossil forums use [https://sqlite.org/fts3.html | SQLite's powerful FTS4 engine] to handle searches. If your project currently uses a mailing list for discussions, this means you are no longer reliant upon third-party mailing list archive services to provide a useful search engine for your discussions. If you are running a private Fossil repository, you may not even have the <em>option</em> of delegating this useful service to a third-party; Fossil provides this service out of the box. * <b>One Result Per Matching Post:</b> When you search the forum archives via the Fossil web interface, you get only one result for each matching post. When you search for project information via a standard web search engine, you might get a result from the project site's own mail archive plus one from Nabble, one from Gmane, one from The Mail Archive... * <b>Search Off-Line:</b> Because Fossil is a [./concepts.wiki | distributed version control system], project members can search your forum archive while disconnected from the network where the central Fossil instance runs. Your past discussions are potentially just as valuable as a wiki document or checkin comment: there is no good reason why you should have to wait to get back on the Internet or back to the office before you can search for past posts. * <b>Contribute Off-Line:</b> Fossil forum posts work like any other insertion into the repository, so a user can create new threads and reply to existing ones while off-line, then sync their contributions to the server they cloned from when back on-line. Yes, you can post to the forum from inside a tent, miles from the nearest wifi router or cellular data tower. * <b>Interlink with Other Fossil-Managed Artifacts:</b> Because forum posts are normal Fossil artifacts, you can interlink them with other Fossil artifacts using short internal links: link to forum threads from a [./tickets.wiki | ticket], link to a wiki document from a forum post, etc. * <b>Durable Links:</b> Once you create a valid internal artifact link in Fossil, it <em>remains</em> valid, durably. With third-party forum software and mailing list search engines, your links are only valid until the third-party component changes its URL scheme or disappears from the web. * <b>Role-Based Access Control:</b> The forum uses the same [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-based_access_control | RBAC system] that Fossil uses to control all other repository accesses. The Fossil forum feature simply adds several new fine-grained capability bits to the existing system. * <b>Enduring, Open File Format:</b> Since Fossil has an [./fileformat.wiki | open and well-documented file format], your discussion archives are truly that: <em>archives</em>. You are no longer dependent on the lifetime and business model of a third-party piece of software or service. Should you choose to stop using Fossil, you can easily extract your discussion traffic for transfer to another system. * <b>Lightweight Markup:</b> Posts can be marked up using Fossil's existing [/md_rules | Markdown] and [/wiki_rules | Wiki] markup processors. No longer must you choose between two bad options: to restrict posts to plain text only or to allow wild-west HTML-formatted MIME email. Fossil's lightweight markup language formatting features give you a middle path, providing your users enough formatting power to communicate complex ideas well without providing so much power as to risk [https://wonko.com/post/html-escaping | security problems]. * <b>Easy Notification Emails:</b> Fossil's forum feature integrates with popular [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_transfer_agent | message transfer agents] (MTAs) such as Postfix, Exim, and Sendmail. It is easy to configure Fossil to send notifications of new posts to interested forum users via your Fossil server's existing MTA. Notification emails include the complete message content for the benefit of those that prefer to visit the forum only when they need to post something. * <b>Talks to Everyone:</b> Because Fossil delegates email handling to your existing MTA, it does not need to implement the [http://sqlite.1065341.n5.nabble.com/Many-ML-emails-going-to-GMail-s-SPAM-tp98685p98722.html | roughly two dozen] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_for_Comments | RFCs] needed to properly support SMTP email in this complex world we've built. As well, this design choice means you do not need to do duplicate configuration, such as to point Fossil at your server's TLS certificate private key in order to support users behind mail servers that require STARTTLS encryption. <h2>Setting up aFossil Forum</h2> <h3>Permissions</h3> Fossil forums use the same role-based access control mechanism as for normal Fossil repository logins. There are several dedicated forum-related capability bits you can grant |