Forums

[ginger]

Seems like everyone has a forum but me.

My webhost provides phpbb.  Is that a good one to use?  I see this one is SMF (which is the same thing that Jeremy just set up).

[bargainbloodhound]

phpbb.

phpbb has a long history of endless security holes.  hackers love it...(as witnessed by the hacking of  FAS when it was running the very security hole ridden version 2.08).

SMF is free but very secure--as secure as VBulletin which also has had some security problems (although it hasn't had nearly as many as Jim from Otwa told his "contributors").  Blujay is also using SMF on their forums..although looking at their board they need to upgrade to the latest version to fix a few security problems  :,

If you do use phpbb make sure to use the latest version.  The one your web host provides probably isn't the latest. and could put your entire site at risk

[Jen]

I've started putting my forums on sites separate and distinct from the site with the ecommerce store.

Like, http://www.sitename.com would have the forums, so the store would be at http://www.site-name.com

I figure that way if the forums are hacked, the store won't go down - and since I back up the forums database, recovery shouldn't be all that hard.

Do I have a hole in the logic, or does that sound like a reasonable security precaution?

[ginger]

The one your web host provides probably isn't the latest.

I just checked.  No, it's not.  In fact, the forum that they use isn't even the latest version. :o

BBH, is this forum set on a table (to allow for the banners and adwords) or does the forum software give you an easy way to add that stuff?

[bargainbloodhound]

"BBH, is this forum set on a table (to allow for the banners and adwords)"

No.  We're actually using the exact same default template Jeremy's new board is using, but we've modified the code of the default template itself rather adding a new template ("skin").  The template's are written entirely in PHP.

You can get ready-made free additional templates (like Jeremy is planning on doing) so you don't have to learn PHP, but there is one problem with doing that (which he might not be aware of):  when you use SMF's built-in updater to automatically add security fixes or new mods/upgrades to the program, it only applies the updates to the  default template so you will still need to go in and manually add the updated (PHP) code to your new templates/skins.

Inserting a block of HTML (for banners,logos, adwords, text, etc). into a PHP template is actually easy (see below):

phpcode template

?>  <--1. insert one of those at the beginning of where you want your HTML

HTML  <--2. insert your HTML

  <--3. insert one of those at the end of the HTML you're adding

phpcode template

[ginger]

So I can be a PHP moron and maybe figure this out?   I know absolutely nothing about php :

[Jen]

http://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp

W3 Schools also has great tutorials on many of the different aspects of website development, design.

[ginger]

Thanks for the link Jen.

[jezebel]

My webhost provides phpbb.  Is that a good one to use?

Phorum, Vbulletin, and UBB Threads are good. Pforum is free.

[bargainbloodhound]

[quote author=jezebel link=topic=61.msg417#msg417 date=1123379237]

My webhost provides phpbb.  Is that a good one to use?

Phorum, Vbulletin, and UBB Threads are good. Pforum is free.
[/quote]

The first board we ever bought was UBB in '98.  We replaced that board with this WebCrossing board the next year.  Web crossing is nice...but uh...looking back I can't believe we paid that much for a friggin message board (actually we bought 2 of them  : :blinkie: ).