Topic with chapters

malbersado

I search some solución to vive capability to the users to open a topic with chapters, like a book. Anyone know how to make this?

Bleistivt

You can structure posts by using headings #, ##, ###...

The Mystery of the Missing Functionality

Chapter One

...

Chapter Two

...

malbersado

I want a solution like fanfiction. At this page you can see topics with chapters like this:

https://fanfiction.net/s/11233453/1/Don-t-Look-Back

You can select in a combo the chapter.

Bleistivt

I don't know a plugin that can do this. It could be developed, but you may be looking for a different software. Vanilla is built for discussion rather than for publishing.

R_J

The site you've linked to allows comments per chapter. If I had to do something similar for Vanilla, I would solve it with a custom plugin like that:

1) create a special category for "books"
2) change db: add BookDiscussions table with BookID|ChapterNumber|DiscussionID and field BookID to Discussion
3) tell my users they have to create one discussion per chapter
4) change "New Discussion" to "New Book|New Chapter" (and let user choose from existing books)
4) create a custom /discussions/books method that only shows the min(Chapter) of each discussion with the same BookID
5) create a /discussion/book/BookID/DiscussionID that shows all other discussions with the same BookID in a dropdown
6) don't care that the chapters might appear at other places as normal discussions (the most important point here )

Your users will ask for "Hey, I've got a book with 198 chapters, do you really ask me to upload them one by one?!" or "I do not want that anyone es able to read chapter one until I've published all chapters!" and then you should think about requiring them to use a predefined format, parse the discussion body and let your plugin create the needed discussions automatically.

That's not a beginners plugin but I do not see any really showstoppers for someone who is willing to get used to writing plugins.

But you should keep in mind the point 6) of my list above: it might always look a little strange to find chapters anywhere. In order to separate them from other content, you would have an awful lot of work.

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By the way: you can also use tagging plugin in order to allow your users to somehow "bundle" discussions and tell them to always use the tag "Book" and maybe "BookTitle=TheBookTitle". And then you can create a module (panel widget) which only shows up if a discussion has the tag "book" and there is more than one discussion with the same title. That module should show all other discussions, oldest first. You can use the tagging plugin for the grouping aspect in your problem and use the taggingmodule as a blueprint for your custom module which solves the UI aspect. That would be a quick solution.

vrijvlinder

I would Create a Book Category with genres as SubCategories and disallow comments on the discussion containing the Book and allow the author to edit his Book indefinitely . Or for a limited time.

Then people can start discussions about the book and not in the book.