在PHP中开始使用树视图/论坛

I am developing a tree view forum with PHP, MVC, and AJAX. My database has two tables, as follows:

thread

• id_thread
• name
• creator
• date
• description
• parent_id

answer

• id_answer
• answer
• message
• user
• date

I am trying to develop a forum with n threads, that I would like to visually present in a tree view. I am confused on how to get started with creating this tree view.

My approach is in the first level of threads is just autoincrement, then when the user click a thread, the parent_id of the next thread is the parent_id of the fist level, and so on. Is there a better way to structure my data?

Any advice would be helpful, as I am a beginner trying to get started. Thank you for your time.

I've found the best way to display this client-side this is with the YUI TreeView.

Basically, you can pass it data in a variety of different formats (JSON is usually used) and it will generate this interactive tree in a div for you.

You can then add listeners for specific events, such as clicks and what not.

Here is an example: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/treeview/default_tree.html