It's been a while since the last release, and we've been busy adding features and fixing bugs to make JForum even better than it already is. While the next version is not quite ready for release, it is stable enough to distribute it more widely and let everyone test it. No additional features are planned before the release, and we know of no bugs, so it should be quite safe to install. A servlet container that supports Servlet API 3.1 is now required, for example Tomcat 8. Some of the features are:

The Trash Can lets you designate one forum as trash can - meaning topics that get deleted are moved to it, rather than actually getting deleted from the database. If the forum is set up to be accessible by admins only, that way you keep deleted topics for future reference without them being publicly visible (which comes in handy on moderated forums frequently)

Banners can be shown on assorted pages, up to 3 at the top and up to 3 at the bottom, either as plain text or with HTML, including links. That could be used for announcements, or ads.

More love for the mobile view

Eight new smilies, some of them animated, like ROFL

Numerous bug fixes

A full list of new features is at https://sourceforge.net/p/jforum2/wiki2/NewFeatures270/, upgrade instructions are at https://sourceforge.net/p/jforum2/wiki2/UpgradingFrom25and26to270/ and you can download it from https://sourceforge.net/projects/jforum2/files/.

Once the release is final, an upgrade from this beta to the final version should be quite painless, so you can use this version without having to fear another upgrade later on. All feedback is welcome.

This post is more of a note to myself than a question, but if anyone has suggestions on how to make the process smoother, I'm all ears.

1) Temporarily remove the net.jforum.summary.SummaryTest.java file. The test never finishes, although that may be more of a Quartz issue than an issue with the test itself.

2) Add the jforum-custom.conf file from your installation to src/main/config - it contains the DB configurations needed to run the tests.

3) Temporarily remove src/main/config/database/postgresql/postgresql.properties (or the corresponding file for whatever DB you're using for the tests). The file is loaded after the jforum-custom.properties, and thus overrides it.

An alternative to steps 2 and 3 would be to edit src/main/config/database/postgresql/postgresql.properties so it contains the values appropriate to your DB.

4) Then perform a clean build when running the tests.

5) Afterwards, undo the above changes before creating the actual build.

Yes, that trunk directory is the source code used to put together public releases. We try to keep it stable and functional whenever possible. If the source of the HEAD doesn't even build, we would consider that a serious bug. Not sure what issue you are seeing, but I just tried the following, and it produced a war file just fine:

svn checkout svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/jforum2/code/trunk jforum2-code

cd jforum2-code

mvn -DskipTests=true package

Tests need to be skipped because they require database setup.

Make sure to switch the Maven repo from HTTP to HTTPS in your .m2/settings.xml file. That's been required by Maven since December, but has nothing to do with JForum2.

Yes, you'll have to wait until we get around to uploading the 2.7.0 beta. There's only so much time unpaid volunteers can put into a project, I'm afraid (Please visit my home page at https://www.ulfdittmer.com if you want to support me via Amazon or Paypal )

I have checked in a fix for the build problem, though, so you should be able to create your own war file from the latest sources.

I've checked in a fix for this bug. The problem is in the Java code, so there's no easily applicable fix for existing JForum versions. You can either build your own war file from the source code, or wait a few days for me to upload a stable beta version of JForum 2.7; it needs just a little bit more work, but is otherwise ready to go.

I see what's going on, there's a bug specifically affecting private messages in HSQLDB. I'll fix that in the next few days.

Ah, I missed that about HSQLDB. I meant jforum.log, but the actual SQL is useful, too, because it shows that everything is inserted into the DB correctly.

This site uses JForum 2.6.0, it could be that there was a bug introduced between 2.6.0 and 2.6.2. I'll check it with HSQLDB, and post here what I find.

That's odd. I just sent myself a message here on this site, and it was listed as expected.

Does it work for you on this site?

Are there any messages in the jforum.log file?

Which DB are you using?

Thanks for the heads-up. I'm not sure why those repositories (or jfrog) are listed there. I'll look into whether they can just be deleted, or if any compensatory setup is required.

Indeed, JForum does not interact with AD or LDAP like that. I understand the users already exist in JForum. After you have created the groups, you could add the user-to-group associations directly via

INSERT INTO jforum_user_groups ( user_id, group_id ) VALUES ( ?, ? )

where you'd replace the question marks with the userID and groupID, respectively.

You would find the relevant IDs via

select group_id, group_name from jforum_groups;



select user_id, username from jforum_users;

XAOS-Eric wrote:I have a backorder placed for jforum.net, I have also reached out to the owner of it.

I consider swooping in and trying to get hold of the domain that has been associated with this project for more than a decade an unfriendly move. That's not the way to build momentum for your project.

Intriguing proposal. Personally, I'm more interested in features than in the underlying technology, so a project that aims to rebuild everything from scratch with a new tech stack would appeal to me only if it was the basis for a major leap in functionality. Do you have any thoughts on that?

we should move the code to GitHub or GitLab, there appears to be a JForum organization on GitHub already. The reason behind this is because git is easier to work with and both have an issue tracker that we can make use of.

git would be nice, but so far it hasn't been important enough for anyone on the team to tackle. SF has an issue tracker as well, by the way (which is being used). The JForum 2 and 3 stuff on Github is obsolete; it's there merely for historical interest.

perhaps we should move the forums to the jforum.net domain? That could be a good idea, and we could also setup some type of extensions site: ex community.jforum.net and extensions.jforum.net

We do not have control of the jforum.net domain at this point. That might happen in the future, though.

Overall I have to say this is a major undertaking - so I'm curious who the "we" is you're talking about. Is it mainly you wanting to get involved, or are there other folks?

Thanks for reporting that. I'm not sure how that comes about, but it will likely not impact the user. And the next version of JForum will likely have a newer version of the syntax highlighter that does not have the particular feature that is causing this issue.

A ClassNotFoundException without mention of what class can not be found is singularly unhelpful. Or maybe it's trying to load a class named "" for some reason. But it doesn't say what it's trying to do at that point -except that it's trying to load JForum-, so there isn't much to go by on.

I see. I'm not familiar with Weblogic, but it seems the stack trace is rather unhelpful because now it doesn't even mention which class is missing. But since it mentions "Truncated. see log file for complete stacktrace" - is there any other log file where there might be more information?