Linking a child forums to a parent forum without merging forums

[John Yeoman]

This is doubtless a basic question but... how does one link a number of 'child' forums to a single 'parent' forum without merging the child forums into the parent forum?

I have nine 'child' forums in one site. All encourage comments from my members. I want to set one forum as the parent or portal, so that folk who Register in that forum will find their names and avatars automatically recognised in all the other forums.

As it is, they laboriously Register in the portal forum then find they have to navigate a captcha box again and again whenever they post in the other eight forums. Plus their avatars are not recognised. Some members have become seriously pissed off...

(No, I don't want to have to Register them then upgrade them to Nabble Members within the Nabble structure. I've already had to jump them through enough password and email verification hurdles when they subscribed to the site itself via PayPal!)

Question: how can I link the child forums to the portal or parent forum, so that Registered people retain their identities in the child forums, while not merging the child forums with the parent forum?

[Hugo <Nabble>]

Hi Nigel, you should move those sub-forums under the parent forum in order to keep them in the same tree structure. So you should open each sub-forum and click on "Options > Structure > Change parent". You will see a section called "Set a New Parent", where you should paste the link to the new parent forum. Please let me know if you have further questions.

[John Yeoman]

Thanks, Hugo. But I don't want to merge the contents of the child forums into the parent forum. I just want to link the forums so that folk who register in the parent forum don't have re-register in the child forums. I want each forum to stand alone. Yet when I follow the instructions and click the top radio button, my only option, I get this:  

'Nabble must migrate the contents of your forum to that new location. You should understand that:
This change won't happen immediately.
  ....

All links to the moved elements will change (including links to posts and replies).
Previous links will NOT work anymore. Users should update their links if they want to visit those pages again in the future.'

In other words, the process will merge the forums into the parent and delete the child forums. This is what happened last time I tried, hence my bemusement.

Am I doing something wrong?

[Hugo <Nabble>]

Hi Nigel, that option will not merge the child into the parent. It will create a copy of your child forum under the new parent and then delete the original child. So you should use the new copy from that moment on. This is why the current link to the child will stop working (because the new copy will have a new ID in the database, etc.). So you should let your users know about this change so that they can reach the new copy and use it. Please let me know if you have more questions, comments or concerns.

[John Yeoman]

Hugo <Nabble> wrote

Hi Nigel, that option will not merge the child into the parent. It will create a copy of your child forum under the new parent and then delete the original child.

Duh, isn't that the same thing as a merge? It certainly looks like a merge, with the parent forum assuming a tree structure to accommodate the child forums below it, when I try it on test pages. And the child forums are deleted.

I have nine different forums, each dedicated to a separate topic, on separate site pages. I do not want to delete those forums or see them assembled under the parent forum. I want everything to look the same as it is right now. I would just like folk who log in to the parent forum to find they have been logged in automatically to the other forums during the same browser session. So they don't have to log in to each forum all over again, every time.

That used to be the case with the old system (before everyone's avatars went AWOL). Can it be done under the new system?

[Hugo <Nabble>]

Hi Nigel, sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

John Yeoman wrote

Duh, isn't that the same thing as a merge? It certainly looks like a merge, with the parent forum assuming a tree structure to accommodate the child forums below it, when I try it on test pages. And the child forums are deleted.

More or less. The process merges the user accounts so that users can have a single login for the whole tree structure. The child forum is still separated from the parent, although it will show the parent in the breadcrumbs trail.

John Yeoman wrote

I have nine different forums, each dedicated to a separate topic, on separate site pages. I do not want to delete those forums or see them assembled under the parent forum. I want everything to look the same as it is right now. I would just like folk who log in to the parent forum to find they have been logged in automatically to the other forums during the same browser session. So they don't have to log in to each forum all over again, every time.

I see the problem. I guess the solution is the merge mentioned above, but we would have to implement other features for you. Basically, each child forum should not show the parent forum on the breadcrumbs trail. So they would look the same as they are right now. We are working on some module ideas at this point and this will be useful for this case. Maybe we can discuss this again after some weeks, when we have the infrastructure ready for custom modules like this one.

[John Yeoman]

Thanks, Hugo. Don't fret about delay. Your response time is always awesome  I remember that, in the good old days, a Registered person needed only to log into one forum to be automatically logged into every other. That would be a nice feature to bring back.