Discussion forum software

[harrythehound]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this message, so sorry if I've got it wrong.

I want to run a discussion forum on my web site and was wondering whether anyone can recommend a company/software?

Unfortunately my ISP won't let me use PHP so it will probably need to be hosted.

Thanks for any help.

Amanda

[matauri]

Until recently I would have recommended phpbb forums, as I have a few of those in use.. but... I have been working with Invision Board lately, and I think its great! You can pretty well build them however you want. User interface is very easy to use. I also find Invision a fair bit faster too. You can see an example of Invision Board HERE .

You'll find there are a lot of hosts out there that support php/mysql. The ones that arent are slightly archaic IMO, as so many sites are using php now.

[JayDrake]

Originally Posted by matauri

You'll find there are a lot of hosts out there that support php/mysql. The ones that arent are slightly archaic IMO, as so many sites are using php now.

I don't know that I'd find hosts that don't support php and/or mysql archaic, but certainly hosts which do not support one or more of the major server side programming environments whether it be php, jsp or asp and some form of database such as mysql, postgresql, mssql or such.

Most hosting companies stick with a fairly generic server installation and what they have available depends largely on the OS they use. In the case of most linux or bsd servers you most commonly see php with mysql or postgresql, most windows servers will have asp (.net) and either access (that's just silly!) mssql or in some cases mysql. Sun unix servers will likely be geared toward jsp and oracle.

Depending on the hosting company they may offer only one platform or several. Very few even bother to offer entirely static packages any longer as dynamic packages (those that use a database and server side programming) are common enough that they can offer low cost dynamic packages.

[harrythehound]

Thanks Matauri, I've had a look at Invision and it looks like just what I need.

[matauri]

Glad to have helped. Yeah, Invision is a pretty sweet discussion board.

Become a member of their forums for any probs you may have.

[onelife]

Many thanks for the advice.

For a while I was thinking of setting up a forum, but had little knowledge of such things and found the hole thing a little daunting.

My hosting package included a few forums to install:
phpbb2
invision board
yabbse

I had banked on using phpbb2 but when you mention how easy invision board was to use - well that sold it to me and in 20mins or less the forum was up and running and accepting posts!

True I haven't opted to remove the IPB logos as yet, Not sure if removing them would affect the user experience that much. Is there any links to nice skins etc?

[matauri]

Here is a pretty good site for Skins & many other addons for Invision Board.

http://skins.ibplanet.com/

[ronniethedodger]

The big difference between IPB and phpBB is the price. One is free and the other is not.

Any feature that you can find in IPB, can be found in phpBB. phpBB is just the starting point ... a basic package that can be added to very easily with a whole slew of mods and add-ons. They even have a module called EZY-Mod which will do the mods automatically.

There are portal solutions for phpBB. Two portal mods can be found at the phpBB main site. In fact the main phpBB site is a portal of sorts, and it is a good example of what you can accomplish with it. If you do not want to go thru the trouble of fiddling with the code, there is a complete phpBB Portal package called Minerva which is also available for free at http://www.flexion.org

phpBB has a true templating system and anyone with basic Html experience can create their own themes (skins). In fact there are probably more of these in the phpBB world than IPB's.

As for speed ... any of the packages can be improved upon. If you want to see fast ... this is fast. Just like IPB, phpBB supports GZIP compression also. Plus it has page caching to reduce Server load.

Installation ease ... no difference. Support ... tons of it on the main site plus there are a number of phpBB author sites (it is a community of them) with even more support. One in particular would be Craven de Kere's http://www.Able2Know.com site ... he is the one with the SEO mod that is very popular.

Now the big news. phpBB version 2.1.x is available for testing (not for live production!!!). This the development version for 2.2.x and they are currently at the half-way mark. phpBB 2.2.x is going to rock, and blow away the previous version of 2.0.x and any other Forum software out there (hands down and a fact)

If you want to test drive phpBB (including the Admin side of things) visit OpenSourceCMS phpBB 2.08a Demo. OpenSourceCMS also has some other forum software to try out also -- openBB, Phorum, W-Agora, and XMB (I am not familular with these though).

Some phpBB Related site of value are:

phpBB Hacks - Largest collection of mods for phpBB.

Niels Mod Site - This is the number one phpBB mod author site. He is responsible for the EZmod module that will be incorporated (to some extent) into the new release of phpBB. This site is very busy with over 12,000 ACTIVE users (the site is set to delete your account after 30 days of inactivity).

Smartor Site - Smartor is behind a lot of the Portal solutions for phpBB ... plus some other foo-foo stuff too.

phpBB.de - The European extension of the main phpBB site. Don't worry ... it is in English. (good example of the Language support they have for phpBB). This is also another example of the Minerva Portal solution applied to it.

Styles Demo Board - Name says it all.

Another Style Demo Board

Jasidog Themes - This guy is PhotoShop on steroids ... a little too rich for me, but just another example of what the phpBB community is capable of (He does IPB skins also Matauri ;-)

phpBB 2.2 Development FAQ - 2.2 Feature List [ updated 25 May ] - phpBB 2.2 M-2 completion ... and M-3

Finally, if you cannot find it there ... I will be more than happy to help out. I have a Test Site (before going to live production) that you can get some extra help. It is a closed site, so let me know if you are coming.

[oldmaid]

For a while I was thinking of setting up a forum, but had little knowledge of such things and found the hole thing a little daunting.


I use proboards..it is easy to set up, gives you options and it's free
http://www.proboards.com/index.html
This is my board, by the way it could use a few posts..haha. http://usmwf.proboards3.com/
Good luck

Old Maid

[ronniethedodger]

Old Maid - unfortunately ProBoards is an ad-supported service which runs on their servers. It is not software that you can install on your own website.

[harrythehound]

Ronniethedodger, you've done a good job of selling phpBB but, as I mentioned in my first post, I'm not allowed to use PHP, so is it an option to get phpBB hosted on the companies own servers? Or do you HAVE to install it on your own site?

Thanks,
Amanda

[ronniethedodger]

Originally Posted by harrythehound

Ronniethedodger, you've done a good job of selling phpBB but, as I mentioned in my first post, I'm not allowed to use PHP, so is it an option to get phpBB hosted on the companies own servers? Or do you HAVE to install it on your own site?

You can install phpBB and IPB on any server with PHP/MySQL running on it. phpBB does not have to use a MySQL database though, it has a data abstraction layer that will interface with PostgreSQL 7.x, Microsoft SQL Server 7/2000, and Microsoft Access (via ODBC) also.

You could create another site to host just the forum software if you wish -- and just cross link the two sites. Or move the existing site to a Host that supports PHP/MySQL and add the forum to it there. It is not hard to find a host that supports it now-a-days ... quite common.

Does your present site support Perl ??? If so, another forum software called YABB is available for that type of configuration. It is dirt slow from what I have heard.

Requirements for YABB:

• Perl 5 (or higher) installed on the server your web account is on
  CGI.pm v2.4+ and Socket.pm modules installed on the server your web account is on
  At least 1 MB of diskspace on your webspace account; over 3 MB recommended
  Sendmail (for Linux/Unix) or SMTP (for Windows/NT or Linux/Unix); optional, but recommended

YABB Forum can be found at http://www.yabbforum.com/

You will notice that this does not require a database. It is all handled via writing to a plain file and I am not sure how well they handle that (or efficiently even).


Then there is also Old Maids suggestion for PowerBoard (above). But they use ads to support the hosting of your forum.

[oldmaid]

Old Maid - unfortunately ProBoards is an ad-supported service which runs on their servers. It is not software that you can install on your own website.

This is true but it is a quick and easy way to get it accomplished and it uses their space not yours.

Have you ever heard of plone? I have loaded it and really haven’t had time to take a good look at it.

Does your present site support Perl ??? If so, another forum software called YABB is available for that type of configuration. It is dirt slow from what I have heard.

From a technical stand point; how slow is dirt? Hahha.

Old maid

[ronniethedodger]

Originally Posted by oldmaid

From a technical stand point; how slow is dirt? Hahha.

Technically? Hmmm...probably slower than dust bunnies, but slightly quicker than sand. Unless you throw a lot of water on it ... then it can be deceptively quick and run quite rapidly downhill. ;0)

Have you ever heard of plone? I have loaded it and really haven’t had time to take a good look at it.

Plone? Nope ... not yet anyway. I will check it out and get back to you.

[ronniethedodger]

Plone appears to be a Content Management System. It requires Zope CMF to be installed. I cannot seem to find out too much more than that about it, the sites are in the process of being moved from one to the other (since 2001). It could be that Zope CMF comes with the installer package, I would think so -- they both seem to be connected to each other.

It looks to be like a nice app though. It publishes static Html pages. Plone pages are compliant with US Section 508, and the W3C's AA rating for accessibility, in addition to using best-practice web standards like XHTML and CSS.

From a visitor standpoint, it looked easy to navigate (and spider friendly). Plus lots of features. But from an adminstrative view, I don't know ... I could not find a demo for that part, so your guess is as good as mine.

It is written in Python (not PHP), so if you want to do any modifications to it ... a good grasp of that language would be needed.

[oldmaid]

Well it has a local host So you do have a load but it seems that everything is done from the host. It seems to have a good security system also. Like I said I haven’t really had a chance to go over it yet. But it was free and seems to be a good asset that is if I can understand it…haha.
Old maid

[splinter]

Sorry :$

I can't help it...

There's a cool little forum software being developed by a certain member of this forum. It's currently very incomplete.

The wonder of sceneBB














BAD SPLINTER! BAD SPLINTER! Stop this!

[eightfifteen]

Just thought you folks would like to know that Pair networks (Pair.com) is now offering phpBB software as part of it's hosting package of Advanced or higher.

They have also started to offer Blosxom and Geeklog Blog software for any of their hosting packages.

Just thought you folks would like to know.

[hyeager]

Can anyone recommend discussion forum software for a Windows host and SQL Server database?

[ronniethedodger]

Originally Posted by hyeager

Can anyone recommend discussion forum software for a Windows host and SQL Server database?

Does the server have php installed? If so, phpBB will run with SQL Server database (as well as a few others too).