Open Source Forum Software
| Forum Software (Bulletin Boards) |
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 Click For a Bigger Picture. An Internet forum, or message board, is a bulletin board system in the form of a discussion site. From a technological stand point, forums or boards are web applications managing user-generated content. Forums allow anonymous visitors to view the contents and consist of a group of contributors who've registered into the system, becoming known as members. The members submit topics for discussion (known as threads) and communicate with each other using publicly visible messages (referred to as posts) or private messaging. Forum software can be broadly divided between those which allow visitors to post anonymously, and those which attribute posts to a registered username. For username-based software, visitors register using a username and a password, and possibly an email address for validation purposes. In these types of forums, the members are often able to customise both how their posts display to others (for example avatars, user profiles and signatures) and how the board appears to them (such as different themes). Username-based software may provide for anonymity by allowing visitors to post without registration. A forum administrator typically has the ability to edit, delete, move or otherwise modify any thread on the forum. These moderator privileges are often able to be delegated to other forum members. The ways in which the moderation system works depends on the board software - for example, they can be directly appointed by the board administrator or chosen by an automated process combined with meta-moderation (moderation of the moderators). The board software may also allow the administrator to create word filters, automated scripts which strip undesirable text from users' messages. Many other moderation systems exist and the board administrator is free to choose rules for their own forums. People participating in an internet forum will usually build bonds with each other and interest groups will easily form around a topic's discussion, subjects dealt within or around sections in the forum. The term community refers to the segment of the online community participating in the activities of the web site they reside in. It is also used to refer to the group interested in the topic on the internet, rather than just the site. phpBBMillions of people use phpBB on a daily basis, making it the most widely used Open Source bulletin board system in the world. Whether you want to stay in touch with a small group of friends or are looking to set up a large multi-category board for a corporate website, phpBB has the features you need built in. Newer users will appreciate phpBB's extensive administration panel, which allows the customization of even the most intricate features without having to edit code directly, while advanced users will value the ease with which phpBB can be integrated into existing systems. The user created modifications makes changing and adding features as simple as pasting code into the appropriate files, while the styles database contains hundreds of style and image packages to customise your board. The detailed documentation and video tutorials available on their website will help you get phpBB running on your server in minutes. If you have any questions, members of the community will be happy to assist you with anything from configuring the software to modifying the code for your individual needs. No other bulletin board software offers a greater complement of features, while maintaining efficiency and ease of use. Best of all, phpBB is completely free. Development Status: Production/Stable. PunBBPunBB is a fast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board. Its primary goals are to be faster, smaller and less graphically intensive as compared to other discussion boards. PunBB has fewer features than many other discussion boards, but is generally faster and outputs smaller, semantically correct XHTML-compliant pages. PunBB is simple and fast, there is a rich community that develop different modifications (mods) to PunBB with which you can extend the functionality of PunBB. There is also a rich language support and you can change the look and feel with skins/themes (called styles by PunBB). Development Status: Production/Stable. Simple Machines Forum (SMF)Simple Machines Forum - SMF in short - is a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes. Its powerful custom made template engine puts you in full control of the lay-out of your message board and with our unique SSI - or Server Side Includes - function you can let your forum and your website interact with each other. SMF is designed to provide you with all the features you need from a bulletin board while having an absolute minimal impact on the resources of the server. SMF is the next generation of forum software - and best of all it is and will always remain completely free! You can change the look of your SMF-forum with skins/themes and add functions with modifications and hacks. SMF support many languages with language packs that can be downloaded from their web site. Development Status: Production/Stable. VanillaVanilla is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the web. Anyone who has web-space that meets the requirements can download and use Vanilla for free! A Rich User Experience - In Vanilla you can quickly and easily see which discussions you haven't read, and how many new comments are in each discussion. You can run advanced searches through discussion topics, comments, and users. You can change the way Vanilla operates using per-user preferences. Finally, you have a very customizable account profile where you can provide pictures of yourself and add as much information about yourself as you like. Slick Administration Capabilities - Vanilla has built-in spam control, an autonomous user & role management system, and affords administrators a great deal of flexibility and ease-of-use. As an administrator you can completely change the layout, style, language, and all application settings through an intuitive and easy to navigate settings tab. Adding and organizing roles, categories, languages, and add-ons is a breeze. Simple or advanced searches that yield useful results are invaluable in day-to-day administration. Extend the functionality of your forum with limitless Add-ons - Vanilla is all about add-ons. We've spent many, many months developing a new system whereby developers can create add-ons for Vanilla that allow you to do just about anything with your forum. Want to turn your Vanilla into a bug tracking system? Want to tag discussions instead of categorizing them? Maybe you just want a fancy highlighting effect when new messages are posted. Your imagination is the limit. Development Status: Production/Stable. YaBBYaBB is a leading free forum software package that rivals any professional message board out there. It provides a real-time chat and support system for your visitors. While chat programs allow people to talk directly, you have to be on at the same time as others. With forum software like YaBB, you can talk any time, and everyone can join in the conversation! Build a community and get visitors to come back for interesting discussions, fun chit chat, or needed support without having to spend thousands of dollars. YaBB is a free open source message board and instant messaging system written in Perl. YaBB doesn't use a third-party database management system, but instead its own flat file storage system. Modifications can be used to add new features to the forum. YaBB is written in Perl but since it is very good forum software we decided to support YaBB and give you the opportunity to use YaBB. YaBB has many interesting features and can also be modified with addons/hacks as well it has a lot of skins/themes. Development Status: Production/Stable. |
