Best Forum Program

What is the best forum program to use. On my forum i use Vbulletin but I see alot of Invision something. Are there any other good ones. Also, which one will let me controll the most things. Thanks ------------------------ Once again this shouldn't be in the Programming Forum. This topic simply discusses the features of Bulletin Board Softwares. It should go to Computer Talk.

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*Smirks
(Here we go)

Well in my opinion there is no better forum system than SMF, made by the same guys that made YaBBSE, it is just as powerful as vBulletin, as feature rich as IPB and then its as free as phpBB. It has an auto mod installer along with an auto theme installer. It can be used for large or big forums, it has proper support for things like child boards. It also has the world class new feature. It can be found at www.simplemachines.org

I would class it as better than vBulletin, IPB and phpBB.

Its that good (REALLY)

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Definitely SMF.
Trekkie101 is right!

I feel that SMF is better that phpBB right out of the box. I would say that SMF is nearly as good as Invision Power Board (used for this forum).

The only down side to SMF is that it is farely new so there aren't nearly as many Mods (Modification and Add On script) as phpBB but new Mods are availible every week.

Remember, that because SMF is newer, it already incorporates many of the features that phpBB requires Mods for. So fewer Mods are required for SMF to get the same functionality as phpBB.

Of course most forum scripts have their own support forum which comes in handy when you have a question.

I think that the best forum script is actually Invision Power Board but it is not free and kind of expensive.

SMF also has a Mambo Open Source (Content Management System a.k.a. web portal) bridge. This way, you can use Mambo as your News, Links, FAQ, etc.. website with SMF embedded in the site. Very Cool.

Happy Posting,
vujsa

 

 

 

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MyTopix from Jaia Interactive. It's currently in beta, but it's got lotsa features, but without the bloat like IPB, and it's free. Oh, and it also ahs a Mambo bridge.

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I have a couple of questions about SMF. First of all, I'm thinking about adding it to my site for forums, though not until I get the upgraded package of course.

About how much free space should I have on the site though? I know it will take about 5 mb just to install the board, but how much extra space is recommended? This is going to be a small forum, by the way.

Also - are there any alternative skins for it?

SMF looks great from the "readme" and from what I've heard of it...but I can't wait to actually set it up and get it running on my site

Cheers ,
ignition

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    Well, as to the first question, how much space is recommended, it realy depends on how big the forum gets. If you don't allow uploads of avatars and restrict attachment quotas, you should have plenty of space with the Full Hosting Package. Most of the data is neatly tucked away in the MySQL Database. So once the forum is installed, you won't have too much more data until your forum grows.
If the forum gets big enough to outgrow the free hosting, you'll probably be if a position to pay for hosting. (advertising, fees, donations, etc...)

    The second question, any alternative skins, yes a couple of options are availible. I believe there are only two official templates availible but I have a feeling more are just around the corner. There are a few CSS's availible for the existing templates. It is possible to modify the template yourself or create a new one.

Hope this helps,
vujsa

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Thanks

I haven't installed it yet, and I'm not going to until I get the full package but I'll be sure to disable attachments (no point having them enabled...so many free hosts out there ) but allow avatar uploads. You CAN set a max filesize on avatars, right? (like 10 kb or something)

I doubt the forum's going to get very big, I'm estimating around 50 members maybe.

As for skins, I wish there were a lot of custom ones but the 2 included don't look that bad from the thumbnails included in the download. Hey...maybe I could make my own skin! Never tried making a forum skin, I suppose SFM would be a good place to start

Cheers!
ignition

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You can limit the dimisions of the avatar which would limit the file size indirectly. You can control The entire form very easily with SMF via the control panel.

I haven't had a chance to really dig into the templates yet, but any template can be customized.

I don't know how much room you have left, but you might try to install SMF just to play with it. Maybe in different directory. It'll give you a better idea of what to expect when you try to setup a working forum.

vujsa

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Heh, that's the thing, I DON'T have enough room right now

I've used up almost 17 mb of the 20, and I don't even haev any files above 600 kb on my site.

I'll apply for an upgrade soon though

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Yeah your real close, ive got all the skins installed and got avatars for all my members, my database is around a meg and I have like 3500+ posts, it works out nicely, SMF doesnt take more than 3MB itself and if its a small forum, avatars wont take up more than 1MB if you set it to make them all the same size and it will make them PNG's also the 150MB is plenty to run a good forum and SMF fits nicely.

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