Discussion Forum Setup for Newbie

[peleltu]

Hi, I am very very new to web site creation. I want to set up a very similar site to this one, different subject matter of course. Similar in the way that the forum is just one of the many areas on the site.

I have been reviewing some of the "canned" discussion forum software like Invision Power and my question is this.....Does Invision allow me to create not only the forum side of the site but also the other non-forum area as well? ie breakings news, faq, etc.

If it does not, then I have a bunch of questions....like do I need to worry about it being compatible with my web design language that I will be using for the rest of the site? How do I know if it will seamlessly drop in?

I plan on obtaining a domain name and web hosting serves from somebody. I do not plan on using proboards or similar because I want a very clean and nice domain name(I want to avoid the www.xxxxxx.proboard40.com address).

Do I make sense? Again, I am learning.....can anyone recommend a book, the only one I could find that was about discussion forum creation will not release for a month or two.
Thanks
Pele

[dangergeek]

Hi peleltu

There is loads more info on the net than you would find in a book about creating forums. It's free as well.

I'd keep well away from Invision. It looks very limited and you also have to have their adverts on your site. Plus they give you a URL that looks crap s6.invisionfree.com/yourboard/

There are loads of better 'canned' packages out there. They should all seamlessly be easy to set up and get going. I like phpbb (it's free) for example but some people have had problems with spam.

Decide on a forum software package that suits you and then make sure the web hosting company you want to use supports the type of scripting the forum is based on.

[peleltu]

Thanks for reply and input.

One followup....you mention that if I go Invision then I will get a crazy URL, are you that is the case? I am purchasing the code and can implement it on any URL with any host, is what I thought.......I discovered them partly because I noticed that www.blueovalnews.com uses it for their forum portion of their web site (it is in very very very small print at the bottom of the forum page). They do not seem to have a funny URL, how do you think they are doing it?

Do you know of any "canned" packages that are set up with a naviagation pane on the left that is always there so that the user can easily jump from one forum (or sub forum)to another? I hope that makes sense. For example, if the forum was about cooking with the main forums as American, Asian and Italian. Each of those have subforum as main dishes and desserts. This type of navigation would occur on the left pane kinka like Windows Explorer, i.e. expanding and collapasing and etc.

Thanks for reading all that.
Peleltu

[dangergeek]

Ah, my bad.

Did a google on invision and found this as the top answer. Free but rubbish.
http://invisionfree.com/


The link found in that very very very very small text in the bottom was for this
http://www.invisionpower.com

Seems a very proffesional and decent bit of forum software. Thats all it is though, just a forum. You can skin it and have the deisign looking however you want but there does not seem to be the ability to set up a special FAQ or breaking new section. Plus there is no mention on the site of the ability to have a menu on the left. It costs as well which always bugs me but if you are going to pay for a forum you might as well use the same software as this forum. vBulletin.

You can always email them to ask these questions. It would be worth checking the forum demo to see how it properly works.

You can have your own web address.
It will be very easy to set up.
It's written in PHP so make sure when you buy your hosting that they use PHP & MySQL

Try having a look at Drupal or Joomla. These are useful content management sytems that have forums you can bolt on.

[unitedcraig]

What people have reccommended to me are vBulletin and invasionboard