The Osimo BBCode parser is written in PHP and supports all the most common BBCode tags and also supports nesting.  It uses zero regular expressions too, so it is super fast (average execution time of about half a millisecond).  Because of the way it is written, the parser will work on any site that needs BBCode parsing since all you need to do to use it is $content = bb2html($bbstring);

If you would like to see the code for it, you can view it (and get it for your own use) here.  If you find any bugs with it, please post them here on the community forums.

You can visit the forums here: http://getosimo.com/forums

Once you’ve registered, you can visit your Profile page and edit your profile!

Osimo Admin Panel Super-Alpha from Osimo on Vimeo.

The part I have been working the hardest on is the forum management page.  It has gone through several radically different iterations as I keep trying out and testing new ideas.  One of the main goals of Osimo when I started the project was to make it easy to administer, and I plan to stick to that goal.  In order to provide a rich user experience, I’m making the user interface as straight-forward as possible.  To organize your various forums, all you need to do is click and drag them into position.  Want a new forum or even a whole new category?  Just a click or two and its done, all using javascript and ajax so you don’t even have to reload the page.

Once the default theme for Osimo is finished, the admin panel will then get its visual overhaul.  Since the admin panel is anything but pretty right now, I don’t really have much to show you unfortunately.  Check back soon though because the default theme should be completed any day now!  Once its ready, I will be opening up Osimo to a select few for alpha testing, the details of which I will go over later.

thread.php

if($osimo->arePosts($posts))
{
        <div id="post-refresh"><img src="<?php echo THEMEPATH; ?>images/arrow_refresh.png" alt="refresh" /> <a href="javascript:refreshPosts(<?php echo $threadID; ?>)">Refresh Posts</a>
        <?php
                if($osimo->userIsModerator())
                {
                        if($osimo->isThreadSticky($threadID)){ echo " <span style=\"color: #f2f2f2;\">|</span> <a href=\"#\" onclick=\"stickyThread($threadID, false)\">Unsticky Thread</a>"; }
                        else{ echo " <span style=\"color: #f2f2f2;\">|</span> <a href=\"#\" onclick=\"stickyThread($threadID,true)\">Sticky Thread</a>"; }
                }
                $pages = $osimo->getPagination('table=post',"thread=$threadID");
                echo "<div id=\"page_nav\"><p>Page: ";
                for($i=0;$i<$pages;$i++)
                {
                        echo "<a href=\"javascript:loadPostPage($threadID,".($i+1).")\">".($i+1).'</a> ';
                }
                echo "</p></div>";
        ?>
        </div>
        <?php
        echo "<div id=\"osimo_posts\" class=\"post-container\">";
        foreach($posts as $post)
        {
                include(THEMEPATH.'singlepost.php');
        }
        echo "</div>";
}

singlepost.php

<div class="forum-post">
        <div class="post-info">
                <p><a href="profile.php?id=<?php echo $post['poster_id'];?>"><?php echo $post['poster_username']; ?></a></p>
                <p><small><? echo adodb_date('n/j/Y g:ia',$post['post_time']); ?></small></p>
                <p class="edit-post-link"><?php echo $osimo->getEditPostLink($post['id'],'Edit Post'); ?></p>
        </div>
        <div class="post-content">
                <p><?php echo $post['body']; ?></p>
        </div>
</div>

The short story:

Osimo is a free, open-source, easy to use and theme forum system based on bringing some of the more advanced “web 2.0″ tricks to developers in standard ways that are easy to integrate into a theme.

The slightly longer story:

Basically, the inspiration for Osimo came from trying to work with phpBB3.  I became so frustrated trying to do the most simple things, such as add something to a page template or modify some CSS, that I said to myself, “forget it, I’m going to make my own forum system instead of trying to hack this stuff to pieces.”

Because of my frustration, I immediately set the goal that Osimo would be EASY to theme and administer.  If you have used Wordpress before, you may find Osimo’s theming system similar in style and easy to get used to.  There are many pre-defined functions for you that should take care of all the dirty work you need, such as fetching forum data and user data.  Data is returned in an easy-to-parse format while maintaining efficiency.  During the development of Osimo, its documentation has been written simultaneously so that developers will have a good understanding of how Osimo works and a valuable resource on their hands for further development, whether it be the creation of themes or modification of Osimo itself.

Currently the Osimo team consists of 4 developers, each working dilligently to get the first release out the door.  While we do not have a completed admin area or default theme yet, we have some concept art as to what we are shooting for (and will be accomplished).  Here is a piece of concept art by 07Designs depecting what the admin area is going to look like: