Trying to build a forum

EvilGeorge

I'm trying just to build a basic forum for a small site, does anyone know the location of any tutorials ?

Enygma

I seem to remember seeing one once on http://www.devshed.com

As far as I can recall they used a MySQL database for the threads. I wrote a fairly simple one before in Perl that used text files for the threads. It's not that tough, if you need a hand post here.

Brown Eyes

This is the best script I've managed to find. They mostly work as well as each other, but this looks the best

http://www.cgi-factory.com/messageboard/index.shtml

Bard

what scripting language can you author in? and is the server capable of it? ASP? PHP? Do you have access to the server box to install additional components? Are you willing to spend money on a professional solution?

EvilGeorge

I'm willing to spend nothing.
At the moment I am using an eircom homepage account, but I doubt I'll have much controll over that.

Setting up a box myself at home, presently usign it offline but when eircom get their act together It may go online - still gives me a bit of time to get some practise in.

Cheers for the advise, I'll check out those sites.

dahamsta

I'm willing to spend nothing.

Doesn't matter. Most of the *really* good forums cost a few bucks, but there's plenty of good open source and/or free products out there.

At the moment I am using an eircom homepage account, but I doubt I'll have much controll over that.

Ah, you're screwed. You can't do anything with an Eircom homepage account, they only serve static content and crappy Eircom-supplied CGI's, whereas forum software requires interactivity. You need to get a free or paid hosting account that supports Perl or PHP or another scripting language. If you're still not willing to spend anything, do a search on Google for "free hosting", and make sure anything you sign up for has scripting capabilities.

Setting up a box myself at home, presently usign it offline but when eircom get their act together It may go online - still gives me a bit of time to get some practise in.

I wouldn't hold your breath, it'll be a while yet. And it's unlikely it'll be usable anyway with the caps Eircom are proposing. Forum software is by design bandwidth-heavy and processor-heavy, it's a box killer. If you're not generating bandwidth, it's not worth your while. Forget about this solution, get a hosting account.

adam

Enygma

The best thing to do would be to write a simple guestbook and take it from there. (A thread is basically a guestbook disguised as a discussion
You just need to create a new guestbook for each thread and keep a hold of the id number (and title, author, date etc) for the thread.

You can get free hosting with scripting almost anywhere. Definetely your best bet.

EvilGeorge

On the link that Brown Eyes gave it mentions Hypermart.net as a freehosting site which will support cgi, so for a forum section I could just set one up there and link to it.
(not sure if it supports pearl though, have to do a bit more research on them).

As regards the guest book, sounds like a bit too much hassle.

Anyone know what type of size limit these things generate ?
Hosting sites dont usually give you much, so I'm wondering how far I could let it archive back to.

Gordon

http://www.ikonboard.com/newindex.iB/
Although I tried that on my Eircom account and ran into difficulties. You need to have a path to perl or something like that lad. Check it out it is a lovely free message board (if it works!)

mmk?

DadaKopf

Yeah, I'd go for Ikonboard. It's the simplest to set up and very easy to change colours etc. once you know a little HTML and CSS.

What you do need in order to set it up firstly, a cgi enabled account, a cgi-bin folder and the server's path to perl (if you're getting hosting, it should be in the FAQ of the company's website).

I managed to set it up and I know nothing about all this stuff.

www.ikonboard.com.

Alternatively, if you're more skilled at this stuff, YaBB (Yet Another Bulletin Board) is really, really good. Perhaps even better than UBB.