Needs access to specify a wiki link to forum:topic:message

I don't understang what do you exatly want. All message, topic and forum ids are uniqe within that type so you don't have to specifiy ie. in which forum and topic message you are referencig is.

so the first message from forum 1, topic 1 has a different message ID than the first message from forum 1 topic 2?

Also, trac's search isn't finding things inside the forum .. any ideas?

Yes, all messages, topics and forums are each in one DB table so they have uniqe ids.

Text is searched in topics subject and body and in messages body. Forum names and descriptions are not searched.

Ok, so based on the screenshot, how would I link to one of the messages?

If you mean attached screenshot on DiscussionPlugin wiki page it is very old (from athomas's plugin concept) and it is not relevant now. I can't delete it. Anyway there are tree macros [forum:<forum_id> <description>], [topic:<topic_id> <description>] and [message:<message_id> <description>] which creates link to apropriate forum, topic or message with <description> text as a link text content. If you don't specify macro's description link with forum, topic, message id as a content is created. All is (I hope clearly) described on DiscussionPlugin wiki page.

Yes, they discribe the syntax of the linking, but my question is how do I get the forum_id, topic_id, or message_id ??

Perhaps these things need to be displayed in the forums?

From displayed page URL or ie. "Reply" links URL :-). Ie. http://localhost/discussion/5/3/1 means forum_id 5, topic_id 3 and message_id 1. I'll append id displaying in next changeset for you :-).

Since all is clear now and forums, topics and messages IDs are now displayed I'm closing this ticket.