The community forum is very important to users. It is a place where we can:
learn about the latest news, issues and updates
investigate and report problems/issues
help others with solving problems
I am aware that the forum was created using Discourse. It has its own:
normal web app version
installable progressive web app (PWA) version
These two versions were great. However, both of them consumes more memory than the traditional forum application (a typical characteristic for Discourse forums). Forums created with phpBB and/or flarum are better in terms of runtime memory usage, along with their own caveats.
Most modern computers can handle the load and memory consumption. However, the forum becomes slower when it’s going to be viewed from old devices. Given the right circumstances, a modern device will still experience delays and occasional sluggishness. For example, when a certain user who is currently busy opens up multiple applications, browser windows and tabs all at once, while suddenly encountering a critical error that needs to be reported to administrator/s.
A custom native application, depending on how it was created, could become more efficient than those previous versions. There are times where users prioritize performance over the eye candy. To avoid the existence of redundant features between PWA and native app version, the native app version should be simplified (similar to RSS reader or something around the corners).
It can be time-consuming to create one. And I think only marginal gains can be gained from it.
What do you think about it? Is it feasible? Is it really worth it?
Both PHPBB and Flarum are good options, but I believe Discourse is the best.
Why? Because PHPBB looks a lot less modern, and Flarum has a lot less features and is less smooth then Discourse. Discourse also has some of the best administration / moderation tools around.
I personally prefer the look of PHPBB, but as a denizen of the internet in the late 90’s there is a good chance that I have a preference for the older look and don’t realise it lol.
I’ll give you that discorse has the best admin\mod tools.
Although until today, I didn’t realise that you could change the view in discorse from latest to catagories, giving it a more traditional forum feel…
True, my opinion of PHPBB is just from screenshots and browsing, I’ve never been a regular user, nor have I been a mod or Admin of a PHPBB forum.
I can talk from experience about Flarum though, Discourse is better. Flarum is an amazing project and I love it, Discourse just has more of a head start and (from my understanding) more full time developers.
Thats fair, I have been a mod on a number of PHPBB forums. And it does take quite a lot of work to properly update the look, which is probably why it looks “old” in most cases.
From a mod perspective, I do prefer Discourse although my experience is limited
I’ve used quite a few different forum suites, and Discourse is my favorite by a very long margin. But I will say that I’m generally not a fan of the traditional bulletin board style layout. I strongly prefer just having a single list of topics to check instead of having to check many categories. I also love the post editor, WYSIWYG editors endlessly frustrate me.
And while the Docker deployment leaves something to be desired due to their launcher script, it’s not as openly hostile to deployment automation as Vanilla Forums was for example.
Some parts in Discourse are less customizable as you see in other places (no custom user groups, for example), but this is mostly the devs being opinionated.
Having a Discourse mobile app would be cool. But you have to understand that it takes a lot of effort to build, maintain and preserve feature parity with the web version. As any developer or developer team, you have to choose where to focus your effort. And improving the web version is deemed more important than replicating it on mobile.
There is also the branding aspect: the InfinityFree Forum is the InfinityFree Forum, and people don’t need to know about Discourse to use it. Setting up a Discourse forum is relatively easy, building and publishing your own app is not.
So basically, it’s cool and it’s not impossible to do (Discourse already has APIs for everything, so it doesn’t require that much modification to support an app version). But I’d rather see the devs build an even better web forum than building an app. So no, I don t think it’s worth it.
I think this is the marmite of online forums, and is highly situational. Somewhere like here, with relativly few threads, the single list works well.
Head over to the Raspberry Pi forum, that when I was a mod, we were getting over 300 posts most days, and a single list becomes unmanageable. Plus the topics are so varied, the bulitin board style works a lot better, allowing people to only look at topics that they are intrested in.
Either which way, you’re the boss, you deside what forum you want to run and to be honest, as long as it works, thats all that really matters
(at least you’re not trying to run a forum on discord, the last time i was involved in that it ended badly lol)
Docker is not blocked, it’s just not something that our service, or any web hosting service I know, is capable of.
Is a house blocked from flying? No, nobody dictates any rules that prohibit that. But that doesn’t mean your house can fly. Most houses are rooted quite firmly to the ground and cannot move, let alone fly. And then complaining to the government that your house can’t fly won’t get you anywhere.
So yes, you cannot run Discourse here or on any other web hosting service. Even a service that openly advertises hosting Docker containers for you won’t work due to Discourse’s launcher. You effectively MUST have your own, self managed (virtual) server to host it.
At least with blocking TikTok or Temu I can see the benefit of keeping out foreign companies from collecting data, manipulating people and whatnot. But Docker? It’s just technologies. Open source technology even!
With that in mind, how far does this Docker ban go? Is it only the commercial offering or the open source software too? What about other container software that can run “Docker” containers, like Podman? Or containerization software that does not work like Docker, like LXC?
To be clear, this Docker ban is focused on the repostories, mainly Dockerhub and the mirrors. The technology itself is still there, but the ban on Dockerhub effectively render the whole Docker technology useless to most people. Large corps may still build their own Docker images and deploy them.
So in this Discourse example, the idea of simplify deployment with Docker become an obstacle due to the ban on Dockerhub.
Hmm, now that you mention it, I do think I’ve seen some projects that have specific Chinese deployment configurations where they replace Docker Hub with a Chinese container registry instead.
And Docker Hub isn’t as ubiquitous as it once was either. Many images are now being hosted on quay.io, gcr.io, ghcr.io, etc.
I completely agree with your point! I’m also thinking about creating a medicine-focused forum using Discourse because of its modern design and smooth functionality. The platform’s powerful features, such as real-time discussions, easy moderation, and a user-friendly interface, will allow me to create an engaging and informative space for people interested in medicine. This forum could serve as a platform for professionals to share their knowledge, answer questions, and keep the community updated on various health topics.
What do you mean? You cannot host your own Discourse forum at Infinityfree. Not only is it resource-intensive, but it’s just impossible to host one due to its requirements. You probably need a VPS for that one.