Problem with Forum as group work around

I have been playing around with the platform and i have come to realize that there is a problem with using a group as a forum. Although I get my much needed threading, I lose the layout of the forum. This is a huge problem for me, as that is how I would define the topics.

So I am stuck.

I can't lose the threading due to the long lengths of our discussions (some over 300 comments long in a 2 day period), but I also need the topics and the tracking (newest, my, etc).

Is there a way to work around this?

Thanks for any help!
updated by @perrie: 05/01/15 12:36:33PM

Having the 'forum tabs' for newest, my posts etc. on a group discussion page is doable but would require some custom template work. Not too difficult to do if you've worked with Jamroom templates before and know a little bit of html. I know that maybe doesn't help you Perrie but mentioning it in case any other ex-Ningsters who have done template work have the same issue and may be able to help.

The other thing to consider, that may not have been mentioned here before but is something I've noticed after months of working with Ning archives, is that archived comments on any one Ning item are limited to the latest 200, so if you do have 300+ comments in a group discussion on Ning, you are only going to see 200 of them on Jamroom. It may be that you can ask Ning to lift this capping?
Another thing I've noticed in the archive related to this is that although comments may be threaded on Ning, when archived, they are 'flattened' so that any child comments are archived sequentially after their parent comment, and this is how they are imported into Jamroom. Their is no information in the archive that can allow them to be automatically re-threaded. Sorry, but its yet another anomoly of the Ning archiver that we have no control over!! So the upshot of this is that if choosing to import Ning global discussions to a group and not the forum just to get threaded discussions, they will only start to be threaded as new comments are added.

Just mentioning this now in case it affects your decision about this.


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

Hi Paul,

My issue isn't the archive but going forward. My site is our forum, since what we do is discuss news and politics. So having a way of dividing up the topics, and being able to keep up with the discussions that you have participated in is a biggie for us.

So I think that I am going to have to do custom template work is my only choice, if that provides for topics, forum tabs and threading. I have to say that my knowledge of html is pretty limited, so that leaves me in a really bad place.

I'm at a loss here. Now what?
updated by @perrie: 03/30/15 06:03:51PM