EulerMB Message Board Software

Description: EulerMB is the message board software that powers the Math Message Board at Math2.org (MMB).

Features

Math notation: LaTeX and MMB-specific typesetting.
Search engine (SWISH-E)
Image upload
Java diagramming applet
Spell checking (aspell)
Flexible views: explore by action/thread and by subject area. To be extended in Meset.
Custom tags (e.g. cross-reference with \thread{...})
Subscribe to discussion threads for e-mail notifications.
Philosophy of not requiring user registration or logons.
Clean URLs: e.g. http://<mydomain>/mmb/thread/123
Security features: logging, abuse detection, user roles
Templating system (Template Toolkit)
Entirely based on and runs on open source software.

Technical Details

Perl - The core software is written in Perl, the most powerful programming language in the world!
MySQL - Data is stored in the MySQL database, not the most powerful database but certainly a solid one.
Apache - Software runs under Apache via CGI or (preferrably) FastCGI.
FastCGI - Speeds up the interface between EulerMB and Apache. An alternative to mod_perl - that is more portable and independent from the web server.
Template Toolkit - Templating system for customizing the HTLM and separating it from the logic code.
Autoconf - Build and configure system. Once the initials are set up, new instances of EulerMB can be quick to install and configure in an automated manner. Note: this can be helpful for debugging on test instances.

EulerMB has been used largely on Linux but could be ported to other platforms with little effort. The reliance on Apache is due to use of .htaccess files, particularly mod_rewrite and mod_mime to achieve cleaner URLs, and small effort would be needed to eliminate this dependency.

Comparison to other messageboard software

EulerMB can takes a moderate effort to get a complete system set up because there are a lot of third-party components to install, although many of them are optional.
EulerMB has a small userbase compared to other message board software, so the build/configure scripts have not been fool-proofed.
EulerMB provides a number of unique features (see above).

For these reasons, EulerMB is intended for a targeted audience. Users with general requirements should look elsewhere.

Subprojects

Meset - The Message Set Message Board (prototype). The future design of EulerMB.
EulerMB::Content - Parses, validates, and formats (as HTML) EulerMB Text

Related Projects

SQL-Interpolate - Perl modules that simplify the interpolation of variables into SQL statements. Used by Meset::MessageBoard.
M@TH en Ligne - math message board and software developed by the University of Liege, Belgium, under the direction of Pierre. There is some collaboration between Math2.org and this group.

History

EulerMB has been under development since 1998 for use specifically by the MMB. See MMB thread # 24978.

Authors

Developed by David Manura with lots of help over the years from the users of MMB.

Development

Discussions on software development primarily occur in the Development subject area of MMB.