Pretty much every forum worth it's salt has private message capability, but for some unknown reason this major feature seems to be left out of Active Forums.   When I bought Active Forums I assumed PM was included since there was a setting for it on the control panel.  I did not read the fine print that some kind of 3rd party module had to be purchased separately for this, nor did I realize how non-existent said module is.  Yes I know Active Social can be used to get the PM feature, but I'm not trying to build FaceBook here.  I just need the PM feature in my forum and nothing else.  Plus I've already purchased Active Forum so I'm not about to drop another two hundred bucks to get Active Social just to have the PM feature.

So looking around on this forum I see that Ventrian has a PM product that is said to integrate with AF.  That might have been a viable solution back before they went to a subscription scheme for licensing it that requires $25 every three months!  That is ludicrous pricing for such a simple module.  No way am I going that route.  I've always thought developers trying to extract an infinite cash flow stream from a very finite amount of their development time is a scam to start with, with the rare exception of very complex and continually evolving software packages that require a lot of support (which a PM module is NOT).  Needless to say I avoid reoccurring payments or royalties wherever possible, as do most developers I would imagine.

I see mention of something called Active Messaging in the forum but I can not find this module on snowcovered or anywhere else.  Is it discontinued?

What exactly is the solution here?  I see there are some other PM modules out there but none of them mention the ability to be integrated with Active Forums in the way that has become the expected standard by forum users.  I guess worst case the PM functionality will just have to be separate from the forum, but that is a pretty sorry solution for a forum that seems to be top notch in most other respects.

Kyle what's your time-frame on this project? DNN Corp is beginning to integrate active social and active forums into the core of Dotnetnuke. If you're willing to wait you'll probably be able to solve all these issues sometime in 2012.

Active Social also includes Active Forums, so perhaps you can work out something with Snowcovered and swap it out, and pay the difference? That is, if you're unable to wait until it's fully integrated into the core.

Active Social is insanely flexible, and you can use as little or as many features as you want, with practically unlimited ways to create custom views, themes, templates, etc.. to implement seamlessly within any of your social projects.

You don't have to utilize the "facebook wall" type features, and can strictly take advantage of everything else. You'll be able to easily integrate views throughout many pages of your site showing online users with custom templates, member lists where people can send each other messages and more.

Here is my encouragement to you. Considering DNN is enveloping multiple ways to promote social networking within the core framework (Namely the Active Social and Active Forums) this is going to force multiple 3rd party developers to formulate their modules to work seamlessly with AS/AF. Multiple developers are already beginning to learn the AS/AF API and developing their software in such a way to integrate easily. So it's almost like a narrow road we're all faced with unless we want to custom develop ourselves, or pay others to create custom modules..

Just my thoughts. Good luck with your projects.

- Patrick

The subscription provides access to all existing Ventrian Modules including source code. There is no subscription licensing. Once you subscribe, you get all modules and the use of them indefinitely. You just get module updates for the length of your subscription.

Kyle,
When it comes to DotNetNuke sites, I have never looked at Private Messaging as being part of a forum. If you need Private Messaging within your site then it should be something that is available in other areas of the site as well. I know that other standalone forum products include Private Messaging, but that's because they are standalone. To be perfectly honest, I've always that Private Messaging should be part of the DotNetNuke Core. While Private Messaging was introduced in DotNetNuke 5, it really isn't suitable for most needs. However, that is changing in DotNetNuke 6.2. The Core Messaging functionality is in the process of being rewritten using the UI model from Active Social. I'm sure you can't wait for 6.2 to be released. Ventrian Private Messaging is a very good product. I would suggest taking another look at Ventrian and make sure you understand their licensing model. It is not a subscription license as you described.

Thanks guys. I was really hoping to wrap this project up by the end of this month, but I can see that probably isn't going to happen even without the PM problem. My fear about switching to Active Social at this point would be the time required to switch over to it and setup whatever templates and such required to get it to look good. Would I be able to just leave my existing Active Forum in place and then install additional components of Active Social or would have I have to uninstall the whole thing and start from scratch?

With the Ventrian pricing cleared up that actually sounds like a good option now. I only see DNN 4.x listed for compatibility with the PM module though... did they stop updating that one due to the direction things are headed with the Core taking over that functionality?

I have mixed feelings about the Core including things like AF and AS. On the one hand it's nice to have all this stuff thrown in for free (although I really don't understand the economics of how companies can make money from that), but at the same time it sort of kills the market for forum software. With a real basic forum like the current core has, there was still a market for more feature rich forum software. If Active Forum becomes the core forum, then it's good enough to fit the needs of 90% of the users and thus there will no longer be a market for forum software because everyone will just use the free one. Thus you won't have the nice selection of competing forum software like you have in the PHP world. Personally I'd rather pay the money and have more choices.

Posted By kyle on 23 Jan 2012 12:23 PM
Thanks guys. I was really hoping to wrap this project up by the end of this month, but I can see that probably isn't going to happen even without the PM problem. My fear about switching to Active Social at this point would be the time required to switch over to it and setup whatever templates and such required to get it to look good. Would I be able to just leave my existing Active Forum in place and then install additional components of Active Social or would have I have to uninstall the whole thing and start from scratch?

With the Ventrian pricing cleared up that actually sounds like a good option now. I only see DNN 4.x listed for compatibility with the PM module though... did they stop updating that one due to the direction things are headed with the Core taking over that functionality?

I have mixed feelings about the Core including things like AF and AS. On the one hand it's nice to have all this stuff thrown in for free (although I really don't understand the economics of how companies can make money from that), but at the same time it sort of kills the market for forum software. With a real basic forum like the current core has, there was still a market for more feature rich forum software. If Active Forum becomes the core forum, then it's good enough to fit the needs of 90% of the users and thus there will no longer be a market for forum software because everyone will just use the free one. Thus you won't have the nice selection of competing forum software like you have in the PHP world. Personally I'd rather pay the money and have more choices.

Kyle,

Also, Active Social can be added in parts. If you only want to use the private messaging feature, you can just give users access to that, while you continue to develop/design the rest behind the scenes if necessary.