RebTalk Forum

The RebTalk forum is a micro-bbs system written in Rebol 3.0 -- its first 'Reblet application.

Table of Contents Purpose Features Warning Set-up an account Quick Start Versions

Purpose

RebTalk serves dual purposes:

1. To force us to create an actual reblet in 3.0. Now that 3.0 is actually used for something, it helps motivate the team toward finalizing and improving various components.
2. To provide a simple, Rebol-based topic/threaded communication system. This is the "drink our own wine" approach.

We are not trying to duplicate all the features of various other forum systems, but rather create an agile design that we can rapidly improve upon to meet our own needs.

Features

RebTalk uses a simple three-layer communication design:

• Topics are used as top level categories that contain one or more threads.
• Threads are titled message areas that contain one or more messages.
• Messages contain the content as posted by users.

Yes, it's a basic system, but it will get things started for us.

Can new features be added? Yes, but we should make a list and prioritize them. A lot of features of standard BBS systems may be cool or fun, but not really that functional... at least not for the purpose of communicating with developers.

Warning

In order to use RebTalk, you will need a direct Internet connection. Proxy connections are not currently supported.

To check your connection run rt-check.r (a script in RebTalk directory).

Note that RebTalk currently uses the dumb terminal HTTP thin-client model. It does not hold messages locally.

Set-up an account

After you've determined that you can access HTTP, you can set-up an account:

1. Run RebTalk.r
2. Click the Login button
3. Enter a username and password
4. Click the Create button
5. Click on Announcements/New Users and click Reply to say hi.

If you see an alert, then there was an error, such as use of an existing user-name.

Otherwise, you're registered!

Quick Start

It's easy to use:

• Run rebtalk.r to view topics and threads.
• Click a topic to see its threads.
• Click a thread to read its messages.
• You do not need to login to read messages.

Your account will let you post replies and also create new threads in existing topics. However, you cannot create new topics.

Versions

0.0.1: First client prototype (30-Nov-2008) 8.1 KB in size, and first server, 4.6 KB. Written by Carl Sassenrath.

0.0.2: Fixes small GUI problems in lists -Carl 18:36, 1 December 2008 (EST)