Hey ^_^

So I've been working on this web app for a couple of years and I'm looking for some extra feedback before I launch it. It's an open-source web forum called esoTalk. Kinda takes a different approach to vBulletin and the others - this screencast (2 mins) probably explains it better that I can write.

Anyway, if you're interested in this kinda thing (or if you're bored) then have a play around with it and please let me know if you can find any bugs that have slipped through. It should work in Firefox 3, Safari 3, IE7, and IE6. And maybe Opera 9, though I haven't checked that recently.

Source code is available here if you're able to check that out or install it on your own server (PHP4/5, MySQL5).

And yeah, the purpose of this post is to find beta testers, not to deviously solicit downloads (or whatever) of an unfinished product. ;P

I didn't download it, but I signed up and poked around. Some initial thoughts:

Suggestions/Needs Improvement

• I really wanted a breadcrumb feature.
• The alternating profile pictures makes things harder to read because it prevents the eye from moving down the page in a straight line. This adds tension. You may want to take a look at some eye tracking studies for further information.
• The colors tended to clash with the rest of the design.
• I'm sure this might come later, but private messaging, more robust profiles, and being able to look at other profiles would be a nice feature. I also missed having subforums/categories.
• The text editor might benefit from either a live preview (without clicking a button) or a WYSIWYG editor.
• I briefly caught sight of an error message when clicking on the back button. It didn't last quite long enough for me to read the whole thing, but it looked like it started out with an expletive. You may want to check your error messages and remove anything like that if you really want large-scale adoption.
• The tags on the front page didn't work with JavaScript disabled and you may want to check other areas of the software as well. Progressively enhancing links would probably be the way to go there.
• The pagination links still appear as links even if there aren't enough posts to have more than one page.

What I liked

• Other than the colors and the position of the avatars, I really liked the design. It was clean, uncluttered, and simple.
• All of the AJAX seemed to work without a hitch. Great job on that.
• The scrollbar is a very unique idea and you pulled it off very well. I especially like the post information displayed on the scrollbar itself and the unread indicator. Very innovative.
• The tags are also implemented well and should be very helpful, especially to power users.
• The live validation on the registration form worked and the registration itself was seamless and easy. The email also showed up quickly and I liked how I was taken directly to edit my profile upon confirmation.

Hopefully this type of feedback is what you were looking for. Overall, well done. I know it's beta and there are a few things left to work out, but it left me with a good impression. You've managed to bring some fresh ideas to forum software, which wasn't easy job. I hope it works out for you.

When installing this, I get to input My SQL information and a loin id and get this error:

Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /homepages/43/d228305551/htdocs/testsite/install/install.controller.php on line 60

Interesting.

The only thing that really bugged me (aside from my local MySQL failing) is the syntax for formatting words, BB code is pretty much the "unwritten standard". The wikipedia code is good, but not everyone knows it or will want to learn a new "language" for one forum.

Otherwise its nice, just follow what the others have said.

Originally Posted by BrandonK1989

When installing this, I get to input My SQL information and a loin id and get this error:

Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /homepages/43/d228305551/htdocs/testsite/install/install.controller.php on line 60

I have installed other php forums onto my servers as well as used the MySQL setting on them and they worked fine.

Is this a file error or would it be on my end.

Originally Posted by BrandonK1989

I have installed other php forums onto my servers as well as used the MySQL setting on them and they worked fine.

Is this a file error or would it be on my end.

PHP is a server side language so any errors existing in php (or mysql by extension) are server side as well.

My guess, going only from the error message, is that the script is trying to instantiate an object, probably some form of database object, and it is failing for some reason leaving the variable that object is assigned to null. Hence the call to a member function of a non-object (php talk for a null pointer exception). Check your db info.

The db setting when installing are correct, I get this error right after clicking next.

Originally Posted by BrandonK1989

When installing this, I get to input My SQL information and a loin id and get this error:

Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /homepages/43/d228305551/htdocs/testsite/install/install.controller.php on line 60

Weird... line 60 is this:

PHP Code:

$this->step("install"); 


What version of PHP are you using? Are you certain all the files uploaded to your server correctly? I'm not quite sure what the problem could be; $this is always an object, unless outside of an object scope, in which case a different error message (about incorrect usage of $this) is triggered - I think.

Originally Posted by Decaf

The only thing that really bugged me (aside from my local MySQL failing) is the syntax for formatting words, BB code is pretty much the "unwritten standard". The wikipedia code is good, but not everyone knows it or will want to learn a new "language" for one forum.

What happened with your local MySQL failing? Is it a problem with esoTalk?
As for BBCode - we'll see how it goes.

Originally Posted by Toby44

Weird... line 60 is this:

PHP Code:

$this->step("install"); 


What version of PHP are you using? Are you certain all the files uploaded to your server correctly? I'm not quite sure what the problem could be; $this is always an object, unless outside of an object scope, in which case a different error message (about incorrect usage of $this) is triggered - I think.


What happened with your local MySQL failing? Is it a problem with esoTalk?
As for BBCode - we'll see how it goes.

No, Its an issue with my server that I was trying to use the wrong account to write the posts. I got it working, but you may want to invest in some error codes to see if your able to write to the tables, maybe on an/future admin panel screen.

Toby, the only thing I did was download the files off of your site, unzip and upload to my servers.

After that created a MySQL and waited for it to become available and started install.

When I first start the install I get this message:

Warning!

The following errors were found with your esoTalk setup. You can continue the esoTalk install without resolving them, but some esoTalk functionality may be limited.

• PHP's register_globals setting is enabled.
  While esoTalk can run with this setting on, it is recommended that it be turned off to increase security and to prevent esoTalk from having problems.

Which I do not know how to turn that off.

The next step is inputting MySQL information, then when I click next I get this:

Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /homepages/43/d228305551/htdocs/testsite/install/install.controller.php on line 60

And thats as far as it will let me go.

Hey, just posting back to say we've integrated some new features, fixed some bugs, and released alpha 3. Here's a brief list of changes.

- Fixed some RSS bugs, couple of Opera/IE6/IE7 rendering issues, some issues with the installer, plugin system bugs, and a couple of other minor things.
- Updated the emoticon set, added a version update notifier, made some changes to "currently online", added a user preference to control avatar positioning (left, right, or alternating), made the AJAX auto-refresh thing more efficient, and some other small stuff.

Thanks for the feedback and testing so far! It's been a great help.

A complete list of changes is available here, and alpha 3 is available here.

Also, we've looked more into the fatal error you're experiencing, and it's definitely because register_globals is on. See if you can turn it off using the solution posted here. It'll be fixed in alpha 4!