Webforum Help

[tiggs]

Hello
I am trying to get a web forum (not caving related) off the ground, anyone got any ideas about how to go about this? Please!

Is it better to set it to allow guests to be able to view what other people have put but not post a reply? or do i restrict it to members only?

Any ideas would be gratefully received cheers!

 

[SamT]

Bubba's yer man - he runs this one and a couple of others - Try sending him a Private message. As far as I'm aware its just a case of downloading this software
- phpBB2 Plus 1.52 and Stylesdatabase based on phpBB -
try clicking the links at the bottom of the page.

Then I assume after you've done all the setting up, its just a matter of hosting it somewhere. Good luck.

 

[Mrs Trellis]

You can get one out of the box from Excoboard for free
Just google excoboard.

To see the rugby one I created google excoboard Igloo2

You get multi-forums, private messaging, Private Image galleries, avatars. The good bit is that you can get links to your Private images so you can post 'em on other boards. Here's an example from my gallery on the Igloo:-

If you know anyone with html then it's relatively easy to put your own graphics on your board - as we have done. You can also put links to other sites - again we have links to most rugby sites on the Igloo.

For more info drop me a line on newigloo2@yahoo.co.uk

 

[bubba]

Hello
I am trying to get a web forum (not caving related) off the ground, anyone got any ideas about how to go about this? Please!

Is it better to set it to allow guests to be able to view what other people have put but not post a reply? or do i restrict it to members only?

Any ideas would be gratefully received cheers!

Tiggs, here's the skinny on what you'll need for a board like this one.

- There are several brands of free forum software about. I always use either vanilla phpBB, or something like this board which is based on phpBB ( phpBB2.de ) but is more of a "portal" type thing.

- The advantage of using phpBB is that they are the big-hitter in open source forum software. They have a vast number of users and security holes are released very promptly. Another advantage of the huge community is that loads of people release modifications and themes (look and feel / colour schemes ) so it's very easy to customise your board with little effort.

- One thing that is worth noting about phpBB is that a much more advanced version is going to be released in a few months time, so I'd bear that in mind before spending hours customizing your new board.

Ok, so that's the software I'd recommend - now you need a webhost that can support the software.

- You need a host that has PHP and MySQL installed. PHP is the server-side language that does all the processing and generates the html pages that you see, and MySQL is an open-source (ie free) database system.

Once you've got that set up all you do is download the phpBB zip file from their website, unzip it and upload the contents to your new server.

The actual install is very easy and is done via a browser.

Hope that helps but feel free to ask for further advice and I'll do my best to answer...