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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Amithony on November 29, 2008, 06:44:42 AM

Title: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: Amithony on November 29, 2008, 06:44:42 AM
this one will be interesting.
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: InTheSand on November 29, 2008, 06:57:50 AM
AWeb of course!!! :-)

 - Ali
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: Amithony on November 29, 2008, 06:59:46 AM
As in to create them :)
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: InTheSand on November 29, 2008, 07:06:26 AM
Ah!!! Well... Anything free and MySQL/PHP-based (or free and .NET/MSDE/MSSQL-based) should fit the bill!

 - Ali

EDIT: I've used SMF in the past - very easy to set up and 100% free...
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: Amithony on November 29, 2008, 07:16:56 AM
Quote

InTheSand wrote:
Ah!!! Well... Anything free and MySQL/PHP-based (or free and .NET/MSDE/MSSQL-based) should fit the bill!

 - Ali

EDIT: I've used SMF in the past - very easy to set up and 100% free...


Excuse my ignorance, but what is SMF?
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: Manu on November 29, 2008, 07:17:45 AM
You might not be looking for this but
I've been playing around with www.webs.com myself.
It seems to be free, and you can have all kinds
of stuff there. Forums, Photo albums, members etc.
Any good ? I really don't know, it's new to me.

Not for you if you plan to host it yourself, and
I guess you also need a very capable browser to
be able to edit the contents.
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: Amithony on November 29, 2008, 07:25:28 AM
I'll check out Webs. I was thinking more for work purposes. Tricky one i reckon.
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: InTheSand on November 29, 2008, 09:44:03 PM
Quote

Amithony wrote:
...what is SMF?


SMF is the Simple Machines Forum (http://www.simplemachines.org/) software.

It's pretty much just forums only (though there's a decent number of third-party mods for enhanced functionality) but it does what it says on the tin with a minimal amount of hassle.

I'd certainly have no issues with using this in a work environment. It's easy enough to customise the look-n-feel/themes too.

 - Ali
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: Amithony on November 29, 2008, 09:47:22 PM
That looks awesome! I'll give it a burl. I was thinking of learning PHP specifically to do it, but theres no point in reinventing the wheel.
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: Argo on November 30, 2008, 12:35:47 AM
I'm fond of phpWebsite.
http://phpwebsite.appstate.edu

Quote
phpWebSite provides a complete web site content management system. Web-based administration allows for easy maintenance of interactive, community-driven web sites.    phpWebSite's growing number of modules allow for easy site customization without the need for unwanted or unused features. Client output from phpWebSite is valid XHTML 1.0 and meets the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative requirements.    Founded and hosted by the Web Technology Group at Appalachian State University, phpWebSite is developed by the phpWebSite Development Team, a network of developers from around the world. phpWebSite is free, open source software and is licensed under the GNU GPL and GNU LGPL.
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: Amithony on November 30, 2008, 12:58:43 AM
I may be looking to give this one a go also. Does it has to be hosted on their PCs though?
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: Argo on November 30, 2008, 02:57:15 AM
Nope, you can host it anywhere, as long as the host offer PHP 5. Which they all should by now.
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: Amithony on November 30, 2008, 02:59:03 AM
Beautiful, I'll have to see how it travels. I wanted to start centralising support in a user friendly collaborative manner without all the fluff.
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: Amithony on November 30, 2008, 03:14:34 AM
http://e107.org/news.php seems like another candidate.
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: persia on November 30, 2008, 03:20:00 AM
bbPHP isn't bad, or if you want a whole content management system Drupal is quite nice...
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: Amithony on November 30, 2008, 03:20:55 AM
Love the bug btw :)
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: InTheSand on November 30, 2008, 03:30:26 AM
Quote

persia wrote:
...if you want a whole content management system Drupal is quite nice...


Ditto for Joomla (http://www.joomla.org/) (which I found easier than Drupal to just get something basic up and running - just my preference though, haven't really looked at the current releases of either for 6-12 months).

 - Ali
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: Amithony on November 30, 2008, 03:35:51 AM
Wow! That looks fantastic. I think this is more like what im after. And its opensource?
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: weirdami on November 30, 2008, 03:52:34 AM
@InTheSand

Are there any sort of security issues with SMF? That's one thing I worry about with the self-hosted stuff because I don't want to have to be a security expert just to have something online.
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: Amithony on November 30, 2008, 04:07:57 AM
My use is for something like an intranet. Other than MS sharepoint, which sux.
Title: Re: Best software to use for Forums, such as Amiga.org, any platform.
Post by: InTheSand on November 30, 2008, 08:42:49 AM
Quote

weirdami wrote:
Are there any sort of security issues with SMF?


Can't say I found any... I've only ever used it on one public-facing site, but access to its forums is by invitation only. This was 2+ years ago and the site is still up and running (and not hacked as far as I'm aware!!)

@Amithony:
Both Joomla and Drupal are open source.

Another good basic combination for a public-facing site (with content modified by a single administrator) is to use CMSimple (http://www.cmsimple.com/) for the content (e.g. read-only to the public) with SMF providing the forums.

With pretty much any of these, my preferred route is something along these lines: grab old junk hardware with >=512Mb RAM, install Ubuntu, install Apache/MySQL/PHP, install any other pre-requisites, then install the forum/content management software. It really is zero-cost computing!

And... on the subject of useful OSS stuff, if you've got a proprietary and/or unmaintainable training system in your company, Moodle (http://moodle.org/) is definitely worth a look...

 - Ali