Forum DB Structure

[Leeus]

Probs someone like Whammy could help out on this one, I have always wanted to develop an ASP version of VBulletin but can't be bothered to get the DB Structure, has anyone got a file of the structure, even if it is a screen dump of MYSQL Admin??

Cheers guys

[Mhtml]

He he.... It's not that hard. Currently I only have my mini forum (beta 2) working through access to get all the buggies out before I create an SQL version.

You just need these basics..

Boards > BoardId, BoardName
Users > UserId, UserName, UserPass, UserType, UserEmail, UserStatus
Posts > PostId, PostType, InForum, ToThread, PosterId, Status, DatePosted


Everything after the > is column names

Once you have all that you can make a message board.
BoardId = The id of the board, it should be an autonumber.
BoardName = The name of the board.
UserId = The autonumber id of users.
UserName = The name of the user.
UserPass = The users password.
UserType = In your script you could have 1 = normal 2 = admin.
UserEmail = The users email address.
UserStatus = You could have 1 = active 2 = inactive
PostId = The autonumber id of the post.
PostType = for instance 1 = Thread 2 = Reply
InForum = If the post type is a thread what is the id of the forum it is in?
ToThread = if the post type is a reply what is the id of the thread it is in reply to?
PosterId = The id of the user who posted it.
Status = If it is a thread then you could have 1 = open 2 = closed.
DatePosted = The date the thread started or reply was made.

That should help you with less thinking. If you need help to get you started you can get my mini forum beta 1 (failed lol) from here .. http://24.226.62.28/projectodyssey/quickboard_b1.zip

[Leeus]

Thanks for that, it will get me started, I work for an ISP so i'll use SQL, bit quicker and will come across less sharing of file problems, well none at all!

[Leeus]

Surely there are a few missing, i.e. forums table and the text of the actual post?

[Roelf]

perhaps a moderator table with the userID and the ForumID as foreign keys so a forum can have more than one moderator and a user can be moderator of more than one forum

[Mhtml]

You just need these basics..


Of course there are more, you'll have to do the rest of the thinking for yourself ;)

As long as you have those unique id fields you can expand into multiple other things like the moderator table which has been said. Then you have your configuration table but those things are not needed to get you on your way...

[whammy]

Actually, the best idea is to make a drawing, ON PAPER, of what you want to do.

You wouldn't believe how much a flowchart can help you acheive (not to mention immediately alerting to a problem in your program flow). :)

Just plan it all out on paper. Then think about it. Then plan it out again, and think about it again. Then, test it... and see what went wrong (hopefully nothing).

Make sure you also approach this from another perspective, i.e. people that are not good with computers - and if you can recruit some people you KNOW aren't good with computers to test it for you, that's even better!

If you can't represent what you're trying to do visually, then it probably won't work right.

;)

[BigDaddy]

Heh....

It's kind of funny how in college we were taught to do flow-charts and draw it out, and all. We get out into the real world and we forget--like we're all smart enough to just code on the fly for even the most difficult problems.

[Mhtml]

I thought everyone did that.. I find it hard not to do things like that. . :confused:

[oracleguy]

Originally posted by whammy
Make sure you also approach this from another perspective, i.e. people that are not good with computers - and if you can recruit some people you KNOW aren't good with computers to test it for you, that's even better!


Quite true. If you wrote it and designed it, then of course it will seem easy to use and have no bugs. Granted you can try to put invalid input but you can never account for everything someone who isn't familiar with the software will try to do to it.

And if you are real lazy, you could use the flowchart generator thingy that is in PowerPoint too.