Forum question

[phillsr]

Hi all,
I need help and advice. Basically, my girlfriend and i have got business idea which is solely based on a forum website. however neither of us have any knowledge on how to construct one.
Anybody have any recommendations on companys or people that would be ideal for us to work with on this project?

kind regards.

Phill.

[karinne]

Please choose a better title next time

Like MikeHopley would say, you would be daft to make your own

In the FAQ of september's issue of Creative Coding, there's one about Free forum software


Or you can buy vBulletin which has TONS of mods you can add to it.

[Marc]

I would definatly recommend vBulletin if your community is going to be large such as Webforumz.

[JacobHaug]

Yes, vBulletin and IPB are both great options. They are not free, but both have pros and cons. For example, vBulletin has thousands of pre-built mods and themes whereas IPB does not. Although, IPB is much easier to mod and theme...with programming experience though.

[simonb]

IPB is still being developed

[Daniel]

phpbb is one of the best free forum softwares but there's also vanilla, SMF, MyBB, Yaba and many more

[Therealmatt]

I haven't set a forum up in a while, but i always liked SMF myself.

as for the installation and getting one up and running, they are pretty easy to install, and don't really require any coding.
But it might take a few minutes to figure out how to set it up just the way you want it.

[alexgeek]

does phpbb have a lot of addons?

[Daniel]

phpbb2 does - phpbb3 is still in development - close to release and has a couple of mods already.

[alexgeek]

Originally Posted by Daniel

phpbb2 does - phpbb3 is still in development - close to release and has a couple of mods already.

Nice.
Not that I'd ever start a forum,
they fail becuase there's too many
unless you're webforumz of course

[Daniel]

My forums one of the leading ones in its genre now and its a fairly new one (saying that it did have a good fan base!)

[alexgeek]

Originally Posted by Daniel

My forums one of the leading ones in its genre now and its a fairly new one (saying that it did have a good fan base!)

what forums that dan?

[Daniel]

The FMFA one

[Daniel]

Back to forums.

phpBB3 is the latest release from the phpBB group - its currently in RC5 but is very close to full release.

Minimum Requirements

phpBB3 has a few requirements which must be met before you are able to install and use it.

• A webserver or web hosting account running on any major Operating System with support for PHP
• A SQL database system, one of:
  • MySQL 3.23 or above (MySQLi supported)
  • PostgreSQL 7.3+
  • SQLite 2.8.2+
  • Firebird 2.0+
  • MS SQL Server 2000 or above (directly or via ODBC)
  • Oracle
• PHP 4.3.3+ (>=4.3.3, >4.4.x, >5.x.x, >6.0-dev (compatible)) with support for the database you intend to use.
• getimagesize() function need to be enabled
• These optional presence of the following modules within PHP will provide access to additional features, but they are not required.
  • zlib Compression support
  • Remote FTP support
  • XML support
  • Imagemagick support
  • GD Support

Feature Highlights

What is improved?

Features that are already available in 2.0.x but were improved and/or enhanced for Olympus. This list only highlights the most important improvements.

Private Messages

• Send to multiple recipients
• Send to groups
• Send Blind Carbon Copies (BCC)
• Forward messages
• Friends list works as address book
• Attach files to PMs
• PM Drafts
• Conversation view
• PM folders
• PM filters
• Export Messages

Registration

• Enable/disable COPPA
• Limit registration attempts
• Set min/max username length
• Set min/max password length
• Limit username chars
• Set password complexity requirements
• Force password change
• Allow/disallow e-mail address re-usage

Search

• Search inside topics
• Select multiple forums and categories to search
• Search within topic titles only
• Search within first post of a topic only
• Set search flood interval to limit server load
• Select search backend (mysql/phpbb)

Admin Control Panel

• More flexible and accessible tab layout
• Modular system allows for easy extensions
• Allow/disallow access to different functions
• New founder status for the board creator
• Completely re-structured for better handling

Moderator Control Panel

• Manage the moderation queue
• List of warnings and reports
• Forum, topic, and post detail views

Polls

• Multiple options per user
• Allow/disallow vote change

Usergroups

• Multiple group leaders
• Set display colour for group members
• Set group rank
• Set group avatar

Profile View

• More user statistics on profile view
• Signature on profile view
• Usergroups on profile view

Permissions

• More powerful and flexible permission system
• Simple permissions through roles
• Fine-tune admin and moderator access
• Global moderators

User Management

• Advanced user editing interface
• Edit user preferences
• Edit group memberships
• Show and edit all attachments of a user
• View permissions directly

More Improvements

• Moderator and admin control panels
• Set temporary bans
• Comments for bans
• Manage group memberships in the ACP
• Search members by all attributes

================================================== =

What is new?

Features that did not exist in 2.0.x and were implemented for Olympus. This list is not complete, but only highlights the most important feature additions.

Full UTF-8 support
Attachments

• Attachments in posts and PMs
• Automatic image thumbnails
• Attach images, documents, video streams, archives
• Multiple attachments allowed
• Display attachments inline

Unlimited Subforums

• Create unlimited subforums
• Display active topics of all subforums

Custom BBCodes

• Create your own BBCodes
• Add buttons to posting screen

Custom Profile Fields

• Add new fields on user profiles
• Display them at registration
• Display them on the profile view
• Hide new profile fields
• Support different data types

User Control Panel

• Manage subscribed topics & forums
• Manage bookmarked topics
• Manage saved drafts
• Manage private messages
• Manage usergroups
• Manage friends and foes
• Manage attachments

New Moderating Tools

• Moderation queue
• Topic merging
• Topic copying
• Locking of single posts
• Topic history

Caching and performance

• Templates are cached
• Permissions are cached
• Forum config is cached
• Database queries are cached

Friends and Foes

• Add other members as friends or foes
• Posts by foes are hidden
• Friends are shown in friends list

Warnings and Reports

• Users can report topics and posts
• Moderators can warn users

More Improvements For Users

• Bookmark topics
• Subscribe to forums
• Jabber/xmpp support for notifications
• Mail or print topics
• "You got beaten at posting" notification

More Improvements For Admins

• Global announcements
• Display forum rules on forum page
• Prune inactive users
• User, moderator, admin and error logs
• Language pack editing
• User notes
• Detect search spiders

[Daniel]

To install this forum download the forum here, unzip and upload to the folder where you want the forum (root or /forums etc...) and then follow the instructions shown - its very easy to install.

If you have any problems let me know

[Daniel]

Any news on how you are getting on>

[sannbe]

Daniel,
Fantastic info on forum software. You is good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!