The Phorum - markymarkn
Not really motoring related, and kinda aimed at Martyn/Steve, but....

I want to set up a forum on my website. I'm really impressed with the phorum and by the looks of their website its free. My questions are:

1. Is it free?

2. Will it run on win2k?

2. How do I install it?

Has anybody else had experience with the phorum or any other good forum software?

I'll email direct if this post is a problem, and someones willing to help!

Cheers guys,

Mark.
Re: The Phorum - Ian Aspinall
Mark,

I must admit I've never seen Phorum anywhere else but here, but these two are v. popular, and give you all sorts of nice features such as separate forums, threads listed in descending order of latest post date, user profiles, smilies, and that holy grail, an edit button!

UBB (Ultimate Bulletin Board) claims to be the market leader. Costs $199 as a one-off fee, but doesn't include upgrades when new versions come out.
Click here for more info, and here (then click on the "B-Board" link) for an example of it in action on the Ford RS Owners' Club board.

vBulletin costs $85 p.a., and does include upgrades.
More info
Example (the new CavWeb board)

HTH,
Ian.
Re: The Phorum - Phil Dando

If you want it to run on Win2k I assume you mean Win2k running somewhere as a web server providing www pages to the public. If so you need to primarily look at forums made using ASP (Active server pages) or CGI. There are others that can be setup on Win2k machines but ASP will be the easiest to and there are a number of examples written by developers that are available free. They will not be as feature rich as say UBB but will cost you nothing.

Cheers,

Phil
Re: The Phorum - markymarkn
Sorted it now.

Got it up and running.

Don't worry guys, its not a rival driving related forum - How could I ever compete with The Backroom?

Mark.
Re: The Phorum - Phil Dando
What forum are you using?

And where will it be on the Nott LAN as many pcs can't get incoming traffic through the firewall- SNS pcs for example. If you're putting it on a proper NottUni server or a staff machine you should be ok.

Cheers, Phil
Re: The Phorum - Phil Dando
With regards to forums there is one thing I don't like about the functionality of this one (perhaps I'm just using it wrong).

A thread that has regular posts and should therefore stay at the top of the list will quickly drift down the list because the forum is sorted on the date the thread was first created.

In my opinion the threads should be sorted on the most recently posted reply that way a thread that provides a discussion over a decent period of time does not get burried away on page 200. For example if I went and replied to a discussion I posted a week or two ago nobody would know unless they trawled through to page 15 (or whatever) and checked. This seems so obvious to me that I am surely not making use of a setting everyone else uses!

Thoughts......

Cheers,
Phil
Re: The Phorum - markymarkn
There is an option in the settings to make it show the most recent posted to topic appear at the top of the list. This by default is enabled. Its up to the behind the scenes backroom guys wether they want it on or not.

Perhaps we could have a trial week or something to see if it is any better?

I am hosting the forum on my home internet server. The server manages all the internet connections through the lan, and is also a FTP server, a games server (Unreal Tournament for example), and hosts the website with the forum on.

Even though on ADSL the IP changes regularly, we have a DNS servive set up that will automatically redirect the URL to current IP.

This phorum things pretty cool!

Mark
Re: The Phorum - Mark (Brazil)
Different version to this one, I think.

I'm waiting with eager anticipation for the new software.

M.
Re: The Phorum - Graham Nightingale
its an easy upgrade - the admin tools which come with this 'Phorum' software have an automatic update checker.


G
(markymarkn's bro)
Re: The Phorum - Graham Nightingale
looks like Ive spoke too soon, because it appears that the threads with the most recent replys now appear at the top of the main listing.

G