Forum software....

[lil_Blue_Ford]

So I've been building my own website lately for my business and I think I would like to add a web forum to it. Nothing really crazy, just a place for question and answer sort of thing, helpful information an the like. Depending on how it goes I may split it away from my business sometime in the future.

But I have no idea what would be best to use. I'd rather not spend a lot of money on software at this point. Actually free would be best right now.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

BTW, I am a contractor, so it will be construction oriented. My Site

 

[Jspafford]

You can host your own forum... I do, it is completely free. It is called phpBB software.

If you want to check it out, my link is www.jspafford.com/forum

I am hosting this website on my server at the house. Most website places, (Godaddy, etc) have it where you just click and it will install it for you, you just choose the categories and things.

I had to hard code mine with php since I am hosting it myself.

If you need any help, hit me up.

EDIT: Also, I am in the site building myself, I built my own, jspafford.com, and also am designing a website for a small non profit club. If you need help, I will try my best.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

You can host your own forum... I do, it is completely free. It is called phpBB software.

If you want to check it out, my link is www.jspafford.com/forum

I am hosting this website on my server at the house. Most website places, (Godaddy, etc) have it where you just click and it will install it for you, you just choose the categories and things.

I had to hard code mine with php since I am hosting it myself.

If you need any help, hit me up.

EDIT: Also, I am in the site building myself, I built my own, jspafford.com, and also am designing a website for a small non profit club. If you need help, I will try my best.

Thanks for the info! I bought my domain through Godaddy, but I have my site hosted elsewhere. It's been a bit challenging because I had no idea how to work on the back side of things to get stuff on the server and all. Thankfully I managed to stumble through setting up Dreamweaver 8 so that I just have to click the "put" button and the pages an stuff get automatically put on the server where they belong.

I just have no idea how to handle doing a forum, lol. The guy I have my site hosted through has been helpful at answering questions for me, but I hate to keep calling every time I have a question on how to do something with my site. So far I think I've got most of the basics figured out, I'll have to learn how to get the forum on and working and I want to learn how to do a form for on the contact page among other things. At some point I'd really like to learn how to do the fancy stuff like imbeding shockwave and stuff, but I can wait on that, lol.

 

[Psychopete]

I'll have to learn how to get the forum on and working and I want to learn how to do a form for on the contact page among other things.

Going to have to learn a little server side programming. There are a few ways to go about doing that, but basically you'll have to write a PHP script to handle the data being POSTed from the form and to do something with it (or embed the code in the contact form page). Whether it's sending you an email with all of the info; or just storing in (guessing mysql?) the database for later review. You'll also want to set up a captcha on the form so that you don't get spammed to death.

Pete

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Going to have to learn a little server side programming. There are a few ways to go about doing that, but basically you'll have to write a PHP script to handle the data being POSTed from the form and to do something with it (or embed the code in the contact form page). Whether it's sending you an email with all of the info; or just storing in (guessing mysql?) the database for later review. You'll also want to set up a captcha on the form so that you don't get spammed to death.

Pete

My intention for the form was to have it sent to me as email unless something else would be better. I figured email would work best because it will end up on my desktop right away. I have a book for Dreamweaver and I have access to their help files, but trying to read what they tell you to do is like trying to read some dead language without the help of a translator... I'm just lost.

As far as a captcha goes, I was intending on using ReCaptcha. I already have my email address listed on there hidden by one of those.

 

[smokey]

The host you use do they have cpanel installed? this is the page you can go to and add different scripts like the forum or a contact page etc.
What host are you using? knowing the host we will know what options are available to you.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Yes, they have cPanel X (or something like that). I confess I don't know beans about the server side of things. Just kinda stumbling around in the dark so far with a couple matches to light when I bang into something hard enough to hurt, lol. They've got a whole ton of things that you can use that I have no idea what most of them are.

Someone from another site recommended this host, IIRC it's abcwebhosting.net

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Ok... so I admit... it was right in front of my face....

I have YaBB, phpBB, and phpBB3 all already on the server for my use.... not sure which one would be best... suggestions?

 

[smokey]

phpBB3 is the best imho.
yabb is easier to setup

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

phpBB3 is the best imho.
yabb is easier to setup

Hmm... guess I'll have to look into things

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Ok, so after doing a lot of reading and poking around in my Cpanel....

My choices are:

SMF

phpBB3



Of course, they both claim to be the best there is. I have no idea which would be better suited for me. I'm leaning towards SMF because they claim to have the best interface with a website, but I dunno.


I've never gotten to work on the admin side of a SMF forum, but I have got to be on the admin side of a phpBB2 forum and was not all that impressed with it, I found it complicated to do some tasks such as cleaning spam accounts and such. Seemed like very little control over what's going on. Not sure if a phpBB3 would be much different or not. Neither forum's website seems all that detailed.