Wedge

Same as for a stock smf.

Oké, thanks.

Than i stay at RC5 till Wedge is available.

Stef.

Your question is confusing, though. I don't think SMF can share user tables across two different forums, which is why I said 'stock' SMF. Any SMF forums, though, can be hosted on one database if you use different table prefixes. Same for Wedge -- our default prefix is 'wedge', but you can change it to anything you like.

Oh, and as a reminder, Wedge will import your SMF data, so you can run it next to a SMF install until you decide which you like best.

I wonder how badly abused SMF's tableset had to be to make it work in the first place, seeing how the data is not set up to do this in the first place, on account of the fact that uploaded avatars are in the attachments table (and you can't share that because it'll fuck up attachments across the forums) and that post counts are stored in the members table itself, which means you're talking about a single post-count between the shared forums..

Is it only possible to do it with SMF? I mean is there a mod for that...?

It's been discussed a few times how to do it, several different approaches suggested, each of them susceptible to the things I've outlined. Not to mention groups, permissions and plenty more besides.

There was a mod I saw a bit back that created multiple virtual forums under a single container install, but that's not quite the same thing, of course.

In order to really achieve it successfully, you'd need to have proper segregation of user data from other data, none of this pushing it into the members table: you'd have groups in their own table, you'd have post count and other forum dependent (as opposed to member dependent) data in another table too, so that it could be retrieved through joins rather than bulking out the members table - and segregating it means you can share parts of it in isolation rather than sharing lots and filtering out what you don't need.

The main issue is the communication between permissions, avatars and attachments the last time I'd check the post...

But, wouldn't be complicated to share a database in other softwares too? (Except they are made for that, like a CMS or something).

If you design the DB so it's in pieces rather than mashed together, it should be possible.

I do not use attachments and then it works.
Of course its better to design the DB in pieces.
A lot of people want to use more forums and that the members only have to log-in once etc.

I wouldn't go as far as to say it's "a lot of people". A vocal minority at best, trying to use a system seriously not designed for their needs.

We will be altering the DB and we will try to keep this in mind but inevitably it is not something we need to implement ourselves, it is not something I particularly want to implement in the core, but we will try to be mindful of it. More than that I will not offer at this time, it's hard enough with everything that we are doing without doing this as well.

Maybe Wedge MU? :P

With blogs, I get the idea behind having proper multi-user support. For a forum, especially one that can handle a vast number of boards and provide them as blogs, not so much.

Ya...I'd say you are better off splitting up the forums (e.g. Adjusting the theme only to display Set X on Site X, Set Y on Site Y, and so on) if the goal is MU.

No... I'm not vastly interested in developing or supporting MU myself, hence the 'evil glare' comment. But by adapting the design somewhat from SMF's database structure, MU becomes far less of the evil nightmare it is to implement in SMF.

The reason it's such a butt-ache is that the members table contains partial avatar information (the rest is in the attachments table, which you can't really share), and membergroup associations (inlined into the row, so all your multi-forums need to share membergroups by design).