A lot of people have been bugging me about the Discussion Forum WebPart I've created for SharePoint (WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 alike, of course). Therefore, I decided to give you some update as to what's going on.

First of all...

The main reason for me being a little more passive with the blog the last couple of (1-3) months is due to the fact that I've had a hell-of-a-lot to do, both professionally and personally.

Sneak peak of the Web Part

Following here, are some screenshots of the current layout of the Forum Web Part which people have been longing for.

Note (nice-to-have): The Web Part is 100% compatible with any theme you choose. If you alter or change the current theme, the Web Part will play along nicely with those changes - as seen in the last screenshot!

Note: The following screenshot is using the built-in "Petal" theme, with no further modifications to the Web part

Features of the Web Part

Everything is based on generic SharePoint lists! No databases needed!
Also, the authentication for the forum relies on the authentication-method you're using for your SharePoint installation. Hence you don't need any additional configuration of the Forum Web Part. Just add it to your site and you're done.

• Forum, Thread and Post sections
  • Any number of forums can be created
  • Each forum can contain any number of threads
  • Each thread can contain any number of posts
• Optimized for performance
  • Since a few upgrades in the underlying code, the Web Part now spins like a cat and have been tested for up to 120 000 posts in 10 forums and a huge amount of threads - no problem!
• Breadcrumbs
  • [Home] - [Forum] - [Thread] - [Post]
  • Exist in the header and the footer
• Stastistics
  • The footer on each page contains stats on the forums including
    • Total number of posts
    • Total number of threads
    • Total number of forums
    • Latest activity
      • Author
      • Date and Time
      • Thread (title with link)
• Forum Management
  • Create, Edit and Manage existing forums, threads and posts as Administrator
  • Management-permissions can of course be given to anyone, using your default SharePoint Groups
• Theming
  • The Web Part supports all built-in themes
  • The Web Part supports most custom-built themes, as long as you're using the default css-classes

SharePointForum.com

Part from being busy with all the aforementioned goodies, we're currently starting up www.sharepointforum.com - which will be the first site to really test the Forum WebPart beauty out before it's thrown into the hands of the people.

SharePointForum.com is an initiative taken by one of my fellow Swedish SharePointians, Daniel Bugday. I joined up with him and together we're bringing SharePointForum up front to be the new Swedish SharePoint User Group - with over 200 registered members already!

During the week to come (this week, and perhaps also the next week) is all about setting up the new hardware we've got for the servers. Once that's done, we're opening the doors to all your people who've already registered - and ofcourse to any number of new members.

Do I need to be a Swede?

Of course you do not need to be a Swede to join our User Group. We've opened the door for everyone, and everyone is invited. In fact, by reading this - consider yourself invited!

Sounds Awesome with a combined SharePoint Forum and User Group - Where do I sign up?

Hold your horsed a week or two, once the new server is up we'll be using a whole new and improved authentication system with a much easier way to manage members - as well as a much more intuitive interface for logging in etc. for you guys!

When we launch for real, I'll be sure to update you :-)

Thanks for tuning in, and as always - any questions per email will be answered, but I prefer you keep them to the comments here :-)

See you around