I'm not a developer, but NodeBB is a Node.js application, and Node.js is JavaScript.
So, no, NodeBB does not target "only premium customers who can afford a costly host."
Btw, you can get Cloud hosting that's cheaper than most shared hosting plans. For $5/month, you can get a Cloud server that comes with 512 MB of RAM and a 20 GB SSD storage. If you are really intersted, you can get one at DigitalOcean.
I see that Edge has a Restart NodeBB button. 'Be nice to also have an Update Plugins or Update NodeBB button on ACP. I guess implementing the latter takes care of the former.
I think we need to start with making the installation process pull a specific stable version, preferably the very latest stable version, during the installation process. So if NodeBB 0.3.2 is the latest stable version and I'm doing a new installation, I should be git-pulling that version during installation, not the Edge version. Once that's done, users should be discourage from running Edge on a production system.
Then we can ask plugin authors to specify what version of NodeBB their plugin is compatible with. That will help clean things up a little bit.
To get things started, here's my feature request for NodeBB 0.4.1:
A WAF (Web Application Firewall) or WAF-like feature that will give NodeBB some protection against brute-force attacks on user accounts.
If you run a server and monitor it, I'm sure you already know the number of attempts are made to forcefully log into the system using an existing user account. Now imagine the number of accounts on a platform like a NodeBB-powered forum and you can imagine the number of brute-force attacks on the system. And if you also consider that most of those user accounts will have very weak passwords, it gets even worse.
That's where a WAF with login monitor comes in. It can have other security features, but the basic ones are shown in this screenshot taken from a similar WP plugin.
Great job, guys. Just update mine and it looks good.
Just one suggestion/request: On the home page, I think it's better to show the title of the latest topic than showing all that test from the latest post. Showing the topic title offers better context than what we are showing now. Also, could we make the number of lines shown configurable?
Thank you for a great job.
Bad idea. Users will just be getting security warning about an untrusted or invalid site certificate that will scare them away.
It'd be great if the admin can restrict who can upload images based on their reputation.
And with that comes a question. Is it possible for the admin to assign a reputation manually at this time?
I've observed that there is an empty logs directory in the root of a NodeBB installation. What log files are supposed to be in that directory?
And I can also see an error.log and an events.log file. Wouldn't it be better to move both files to the empty logs directory?
Mark post as best answer has not been implemented yet. There has been several requests for it, though.
My take on these control panels is you don't need them. You are better off managing your server from the command line than installing a control panel that you'll only use once in a while. Creating a DB, for example, takes just 3 simple commands.
If you create it as a plugin, you can be sure that others will use it. Restricting posting to authenticated users is a sure way of reducing spam postings
Look at the source code of the page (right-click on the page and select View Page Source). You will see something like this:
<li><p>Brackets</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>14 Bluefish Editor</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Kompozer</p>
</li>
<li><p>VLC Media Player</p>
</li>
<li><p>Maxthon Browser</p>
</li>
Notice that you messed up the listing after item 13. Edit the post and you will see that you used a different list marker after 13.
If you want an ordered list, just put any number before each item and Markdown will take care of the rest. If you want a bulleted list, use a + (plus), - (minus) or ***** (asterisk) sign.
I was surprised to learn that registered users are allowed to post before they have verified or confirmed their email. To cut down on spurious postings, I think it'd be better to give site admin the option to allow/disallow posting before an email has been verified.
The only feature close to that in the ACP is on the Post tab of the General Settings page which ways that Allow guests to post without logging in. I think there should be one that says something like Allow registered users to post without confirming email
I'm starting this thread to use as a placeholder for plugin ideas and suggestions. If you have an idea for a plugin, but you don't have the coding skills or time to make it happen, post it here.
Maybe some other person with the time and skills wil take it up.
To start, here's one:
This is already an option in the Categories section of the ACP under "# of Recent Replies Displayed"
That's the number of recent replies. I'm talking about the number of lines shown per recent replies. It would help to make the height of the category boxes uniform, especially when we start showing the topic titles instead of what we are showing now.
Has anybody considered using SweetCaptcha. It is said to work on the iPhone and Android, but I'm not sure how you drag-and-dop on a touch device.
It has a Node.js SDK.
Here's are a couple of suggestion:
Before a plugin is installed, have the script check that the plugin is compatible with the running instance of NodeBB. If not, abort the installation.
If ./nodebb upgrade is run, first check that the installed plugins will be compatible with the new version. If not, abort the upgrade.
@BDHarrington7
Love the idea of a single plugin for embedding videos. Much better than having to install several plugins.
Maybe somebody can extend it to make it possible to embed any type of video, even plain Flash.
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