Will phpBB3 have MODs?

[Mephistox]

i'm a wordpress and phpbb user for some time now... what i would REALLY love is that phpbb had MODs that worked like the wordpress plugins! it's like so awesome! wish phpbb would ever do that...

I'll second (or third) that.

Any chance we can get phpbb3 mods to work like wordpress' plugins system?

[Eelke]

The short answer: no.
The long answer: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=23678

[Bonk]

But there's no point since if a MOD for 3 was released today it might not work when 3 is officially launched.

Exactly, this is why all mods are evil. Even when 3.0.x is releaesed, there is no way to ensure that mods made for it will be compatible with 3.2.x, and when mods are made for 3.2.x there is no way to gurantee they will be compatible with 3.4.x... etc.

This is why feature requests are critical. Forums software should have features that users desire (within the practical limits of free software development of course). Mods are an easy way to say, oh we don't need to work on such a feature, someone will make a mod to do that. Of course neglecting the fact that using such mods this may lock you into outdated versions of the product or force you to make long and involved manual edits to update, with no guarantees that it will work or have the integrity of the original product.

Templates/styles/themes fall into this trap as well. The default style should be highly customisable with built in functions to avoid such problems.

I long for the day when there exists a forums software that is flexible enough not to require custom mods or themes.

MODS=BAD.

[MHobbit]

Exactly, this is why all mods are evil. Even when 3.0.x is releaesed, there is no way to ensure that mods made for it will be compatible with 3.2.x, and when mods are made for 3.2.x there is no way to gurantee they will be compatible with 3.4.x... etc.

That's just a consequence of MODifications being modifications to a codebase. With new releases there's always a chance of the code the MOD needs to modify has changed itself. This doesn't make MODs inherently bad.

This is why feature requests are critical. Forums software should have features that users desire (within the practical limits of free software development of course). Mods are an easy way to say, oh we don't need to work on such a feature, someone will make a mod to do that. Of course neglecting the fact that using such mods this may lock you into outdated versions of the product or force you to make long and involved manual edits to update, with no guarantees that it will work or have the integrity of the original product.

No. That would just make the new versions bloated, which I highly doubt the developers would do. Instead, MODs are meant to add and extend functionality to the core code.

A better thing would be to implement a plugin-type system or API that would make adding features easier and less painful in the long run, but not making it a default feature in the product.

Templates/styles/themes fall into this trap as well. The default style should be highly customisable with built in functions to avoid such problems.

Again, as per the above, it's an [unfortunate] consequence of MODifications modifying code. Then again, as it's already been said, new styles would probably be much easier to make with the same template set for the new Olympus style, as it's supposed to utilize CSS, making layout changes and the like much easier than what we have with our current phpBB2 subSilver.

I long for the day when there exists a forums software that is flexible enough not to require custom mods or themes.

Sure. There's vBulletin.

You're basically asking for a kitchen sink, which the developers won't do... at least, at this point. You must also remember that your needs are not necessarily anybody else's.

MODS=BAD.

Again, not necessarily. You must overcome your anti-MODs attitude simply because they alter the core code. The better-coded MODs are the ones that don't change the core code entirely (like Categories Hierarchy) but act more modular-like. The ones that do change the core code a lot are bad.

[Jeevan25]

Again, not necessarily. You must overcome your anti-MODs attitude simply because they alter the core code. The better-coded MODs are the ones that don't change the core code entirely (like Categories Hierarchy) but act more modular-like. The ones that do change the core code a lot are bad.

Sorry if I am taking this out of topic. I do agree that Categories Hierarchy MOD is great, but isn't that kind of the biggest MOD in phpBB MOD DB, and changes a lot of phpBB core code?

It would be better if phpBB enforces MOD authors to follow the new XML method from phpBB 3 onward. Looks really good.

[Lastof]

I believe it was stated that the MODX style mod files will be a requirement of 3.0

[MHobbit]

Again, not necessarily. You must overcome your anti-MODs attitude simply because they alter the core code. The better-coded MODs are the ones that don't change the core code entirely (like Categories Hierarchy) but act more modular-like. The ones that do change the core code a lot are bad.

Sorry if I am taking this out of topic. I do agree that Categories Hierarchy MOD is great, but isn't that kind of the biggest MOD in phpBB MOD DB, and changes a lot of phpBB core code?

Right, I didn't make it clear enough. I was saying that the CH MOD did change the core code entirely.

I believe it was stated that the MODX style mod files will be a requirement of 3.0

I don't recall that.

[Twillingate.info]

i'm a wordpress and phpbb user for some time now... what i would REALLY love is that phpbb had MODs that worked like the wordpress plugins! it's like so awesome! wish phpbb would ever do that...

I'll second (or third) that.

Any chance we can get phpbb3 mods to work like wordpress' plugins system?

I fourth, but doubt that. Features for phpBB3 are frozen now, I think...

[MHobbit]

I fourth, but doubt that. Features for phpBB3 are frozen now, I think...

phpBB 3.0.0 is feature frozen. Versions beyond that (ex. 3.2.0) may or may not be feature frozen; it remains to be seen.

[Aldenhier]

A plugin system would be tight.... who knows, someone may make a MOD for a plugin system. lol

anyways... I like mods because they're ways to quickly change the code of a forum to add a feature instead of you having to spend a ton of time doing a bunch of testing and such making your own mod. And you can add or remove features from mods to suit your needs. With a plugin system, you can't necessarily change the code as easily because the mod is just put in without you ever getting to look at the code. So yeah, there's advantages to both methods of adding features.