3 replies to this topic

[zeroradius]

Well this has nothing to do with design but sense we don't have a general web development board this is the best place i could find to put this.

I am working on a site right now and one thing i want it to have is a forum on it. I need to have complete control over the forum so that I can add custom components and so that when a user logs into my site they are automatically logged into the forum, etc. I have two options I can install forum software or i could build my own forum in php from scratch. I have built them from scratch before without to much trouble. The only thing is that I did not use OOP the last few times i built a forum so i can't just make an instance of it and forums generally take a week or two to build (i have to engineer the whole thing over so it may take even longer depending on my available time).

Here are the options i have for installing one:

phpBB
Simple Machines Forum
bbPress
MyBB
Advanced Electron Forum
PunBB


I have never used any of these before. So should i take extra time to build one myself, or install one of the above softwares? If install witch one? (remember, I must have complete control over everything on the forum, that includes the DB, cookies, sessions, etc.)

[Roger]

I've tried phpBB and SMF (Simple Machines Forum) before. They were both okay and have good community. Now that I'm using vBulletin 4, I do see why there are many people using it. In terms of ease of use, vB is much better in my experience.

Whether you build it or not depends on your goal. Do you enjoy writing a BB or do you want to run a BB (ie. grow it, admin it, etc.). If you build it, it will be a great exercise, but probably more trouble than it's worth if you're not expecting too much traffic. And if you're expecting a lot of traffic, wouldn't it make more sense to go with a popular forum software?

[Alexander]

Hi,

I would recommend SMF or phpBB as those are what I have experience with, they both can be modified easily as they are very modular.

Feel free to try them out and see if their structure is to your liking -- or you can then build your own!

[zeroradius]

While I was at work I relised that building my own may actually be the faster of the two choices. Most of the classes that will be used in the forum will have to be built anyway for the guestbooks and the profiles section (forgot about those when i posted this earlier). The forum is a small section of the site not the main attraction so i wan't it to blend seamlessly with the site. It may be best to just go ahead and build it from scratch that way i don't have the learning curve of trying to figure out one of the pre-mades. Thanks for the advice you too.