I'm building a forum and I'm not sure of something

apzer0

I'm not sure if this goes to the coding forum or the sql forum so I stuck it here 😛

As I sayd i'm building a forum, well acctually i've already build one but as I look at my code to add some stuff I suddenly understand how un-effeciant my whole database structor/code is.

I have two tables, one for topics and one for posts. The topic table contains the topic name, text, maker, time made and id. The post table contains the post text, maker, time made, post id and topic id.

So I thought every thing would be so much easier if the post table would contain the topic text as a normal post and the topic table would only contain the title, maker, time and topic id.
I downloaded phpbb and ib (Ready forum applections), looked at the code and saw that they use the same db structor I have just thought of.

Now to the point, I can't figure how to do this. After the topic is sent I insert the data (title, maker and time made) to the topic table and it get an id. The message itself is sent to post table but it doesn't have a topic id (Or anything else to link it to the other data in the topic table) becuase it was just created. My question is, how does this work? How do I insert the topic id that was just created into the post table togther with the acctuall message?

Excuse my poor english :bemused:

drawmack

[man]mysql_insert_id[/man]

Although this is a pretty inefficient db design for a form, that's why phpbb is only recommended for small to moderate sites. Some more normalization and forthough could do a much better db design.

commandonz

Why bother building your own forum system, you're just re-inventing the wheel. Just use http://phpbb.com and save yourself the hastle.

LordShryku

Had phpBB had that thought when they went to make their forum, it wouldn't exist. That whole "reinventing the wheel" argument stifles inovation.

commandonz

Originally posted by LordShryku
Had phpBB had that thought when they went to make their forum, it wouldn't exist. That whole "reinventing the wheel" argument stifles inovation.

Sure, but unless there's a need to have features that another product doesn't support, spending man-weeks of time (at least) on developing a new product doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

It was just a suggestion anyway, in case apzer0 didn't know there were free alternatives around.

LordShryku

Who's to say his isn't different? He already stated that he downloaded phpBB and Invision, but obviously wanted to keep making his own.

commandonz

Originally posted by LordShryku
Who's to say his isn't different? He already stated that he downloaded phpBB and Invision, but obviously wanted to keep making his own.

Didn't notice that. Like I said I was just pointing them out, if he wants to write his own good luck to him! I considered it myself once before I just went with phpBB.

drawmack

I wrote my own bb so I can easily, fully integrate it into client's sites. You should see how impressed someone is when their message board doesn't look different then the rest of their site.

commandonz

vBulletin is another commercial one, of course. You can customise skins for any of these bbs to match whatever site you want. Take a look at my site for example.

It's just a thought, I don't like to reinvent the wheel where possible.

drawmack

Originally posted by commandonz
vBulletin is another commercial one, of course. You can customise skins for any of these bbs to match whatever site you want. Take a look at my site for example.

It's just a thought, I don't like to reinvent the wheel where possible.

You'll note that I said easily. It was one of the design decisions that I made with my board that a complete reskin wouldn't take me more then 2 hours. Last time I did a complete reskin on a comm board it took me about 3 days.

commandonz

Sounds cool 🙂 Reskinning phpbb does take a bit of work alright, it's presentation layer's pretty tightly integrated with the logic layer.

apzer0

First of all thanks you really helped me.
Seconde, i'm building my own forum because I want complete control of it and just for the making it self. I have a few original ideas too so thats another reason.