I'd like to use this form

[Jeanne]

I think that the Light & Shadow web site could make use of this forum and would like to know if it costs money or if it is something you made yourself or if it's publicly used. I think it's one of the best forums (interface and features) I have ever seen and would love to use it myself.

[Kiriel]

I love this forum software too, which is why I used it :)

The program is called vBulletin and you can read more about it at http://www.vbulletin.com/

It's commercial software- costs somewhere between $100-200, don't remember the exact amount, and requires PHP and MySQL support on your server. There is also a free lite version, but I haven't used it, so I'm not sure how many feature it's missing. I think it was a very worthwhile investment for the WoD forum, and I'm not sure if L&S would want to spend that kind of money, but good luck!

FYI, if you want a free forum that has most of these features, I hear EZBoard has got most of it. I think they're at http://www.ezboard.com/

[Tas Furrfoot]

This is so much like the UBB software I've used/installed on a Unix based system that I thought at first that's what it was.... very very much like it. I don't know the pros and cons of the two products. The UBB is easy to install and maintain and much the same customizability and features I see here. I haven't seen newer versions since about 2 years ago for it so I don't know if it's better and has th vB codes... but does do the smilies and others.

It's quite nice, Kiri. That alone I think brings in all your visitors and keeps them coming back.

http://www.infopop.com/

It also costs money but can be run with just CGI support which would allow for running it in quite a few environments.

HWC Tas [:)]

[Kiriel]

I'm glad you like it Tas. Regarding UBB, yes, it is very similar in certain respects. However there are a few major differences at least that I know of.

First of all, I've used UBB, albeit a few years back, and I don't know if they've fixed this recently, but their code was simply awful. I did some modification of various pieces of the code for use at a company I used to work for, and I ended up having to rewrite large pieces of it because it was so bad. This isn't that big of a problem if you don't plan on making any modifications, but it's a huge issue if you do. I have made a few minor changes to the WoD forum (the main one being having forum sections sorted by last post) and I wouldn't have wanted to make those changes in UBB, at least as it was 2 years ago.

Second, at last check UBB was all based on flat files and Perl CGI. Although this makes it very portable, it's also fairly slow compared to a PHP/MySQL system like vBulletin. Perhaps they've changed this, but every UBB forum I've been to has always seemed ungodly slow. Today the AVS Forum I visit switched from UBB to vBulletin and I think this may one of the reasons.

Of course I'm spoiled because I run the WoD site on my home Linux server off our DSL, so I can pretty much do whatever I want to the machine. Depending on the environment you're in you have to deal with whatever limitations are placed on it. UBB is very popular and it has a lot of nice features too, but you should know what the potential issues are as well.

[Tas Furrfoot]

I knew they had sections of bad code - I've fixed portions myself for a few things - that was 2/3 years ago. I don't know what they've fixed. I couldn't keep up with all the updates... that probably should have clued me in. =) For the small group I set it up for it works(ed?) well.

I would run the Tan BBS myself if I had DSL and a static address, but the best I can get is ADSL and can't get a static address and since I've just switched from @home to ADSL, am not sure yet how stable the connect is... so far it's 1000% better than my @home was... Tas doesn't suffer any more fainting spells. :cool:

Anyhow, kudu's - We're all impressed with this board Kiri!

[Konoko]

58 members have joined this forum!
That is just great!

We've had a huge increase in forum members lately...
That's good to see. I think it says much about the quality of the forum software itself as well as the definite intelligence and quality of all the posts and posters.

I love keeping track of clan and puddleby stuff through this forum. It's so much nicer and easier than the newsgroup. The newsgroup stuff always seems to end up being about cynical people insulting each other.

Too bad this forum doesn't have any DT posts from HGM, AnnGM, etc...


Konoko