First of all, I'm not really sure where this should go, so I post it here.

Okay, this maybe more for the mods and admins and whathaveyous.

My Highschool Alumni Association planned on building some kind of forum for inter-alumni communication.

Naturally, I point out HydrogenAudio.org as the way to build one

And naturally enough, they then assign me the task of building one

Question is: Where should I start?

I also noticed some other sites using IPB, but they seems... different. No 'news' page, direct-jump-to-forum dropdown list, etc.

So I will *very*much* appreciate all pointers to making a good-looking forum like HydrogenAudio's.

Thanks, all!

what you need is:
1. web server running with php and mysql
2. invision board installed and configured, seems that new versions include portal as well, admins will know more about that.
(and quite some time)

for a smaller comunity i would probably go with phpbb board with some portal like:
http://smartor.is-root.com/
phpbb is real easy to install and setup, really a matter of few minutes.

i also like
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/
(that is commercial board)

But I really want it like HA... you know:
- News page like when you go to www.hydrogenaudio.org
- Drop down list on top right to quickly jump to your favorite forum(s)
- And... and... and... more!

Is Invision, out-of-the-box, capable of doing these?

I vaguely remembered that HA is using a 'heavily patched' IPB... what are the patches? For what purposes?

1. that is why 'portal' is there (i think it is)
2. know some html? and maybe some php?
3.
4. dunno (why dont you try?) - you can setup test enviroment on any pc, even running win.
http://www.wampserver.com/en/
5. patches are additions or modifications of all kinds, also called mods or plugins or xyz sometimes. Admins could tell you more.

I strongly recommend against using IPB. It's buggy, it's expensive, it's insecure, it's a mess. Using it was a mistake and we probably shouldn't have done it, but I guess we're stuck with it. The new versions seem to not fix any bugs but instead degrade features that used to be working well, and add crap.

I am sure there are better, free alternatives available now. Since you mentioned alumni association, my school's board is at www.inwe.be, and they use SMF, which I believe is also used for Monkey Audio's forum.

You can get a loads of extensions to IPB, the notable ones which we are/were using are portals. The portal we used to have didn't work any more when upgrading from IPB 2.0.x to 2.1.x, so I ended up writing a new, custom one based on some existing code, and more or less succeeded in getting it look almost exactly the same.

Further patches we have is for example the free-email-can-only-post-after-5-days, filters to hopefully make registering abuse accounts harder, the dropdown combobox on the top right, the way the foobar2000 forum is integrated, and prolly other small things I forgot about.

Most of these were coded in PHP+MySQL by Dibrom, me and kode54.

The main problem is that when we need to upgrade IPB, we can't just use IPB's updates, because we aren't running their exact code. So this is a fairly painful, manual process. There is also shit like IPB not being compatible with new MySQL versions. Really, IPB is bad bad bad. Don't use it.

Alrighty then.

What forum software then you recommend?

And don't worry, if I need to code, I'll code. As long as not C/C++ code.

Well, you will likely have the same problems when you change to different skins or updating if you modified SMF.

SMF is a nice board, but I don't know how the portal pages are like or anything about the administration.
From the user side it's nice, even unmodified, including a lot of nice skins.

Would phpBB be a good alternative? You can get a look at how it's set up by viewing the burnatonce forums.

I did not try vBulletin, but as far as I know they use some sort of plugin system instead of PHP code "hacks" or modifications. I hope something like this will find its way in IPB, too. As for the bugs, yeah, last version have been pretty buggy and I really don't like the idea that IPS allows member-to-member help only when you have a support license (mine has just expired, I didn't renew it since I contacted the technical support twice during the one-year subscription duration, and my posting / viewing abilities from IPSBeyond have been removed - I can only download upgrades since I have the perpetual license). As for IPB not supporting current MySQL versions, I think this was fixed already (mine works fine on 5.0.x).

drupal.org

if you want a solid board with fast and excellent support give vbulletin a try. I tried them all...UBB, IBP, phpBB, but nothing comes even close to vbulletin. Especially the new 3.6 is mind blowing. They sill support the older versions as well, just in case you want fewer features. There is also a portal etc. available. Updating and installing hacks is easy as pie

vBulletin is pretty expensive, though. With IPB, if you purchase a yearly license, you can still use the version you purchased after that year (or the version you last downloaded in your subscription period). As for the perpetual license, future upgrades are free.

vB on the other hand requires you to update the license if you want to continue using the software and the owned license only gives you the right to download upgrades for one year, after which you have to pay 30 USD if I recall correctly.

drupal does seem pretty cool, i wonder how good are built in forums?

I like PunBB forum - very fast and lightweight (for a price - not loaded with many features)
As far as I am concerned, usage/setup wise, it's only a forum...however the look of its homesite suggests that it also can work as a simple mix of forums and portal...

I also like MyTopix.

I don't think vBulletin is more expensive.

An owned license costs $160 whereas IPB charges you $185. Yes, you get free updates for IPB but no support after a year (not even from the members). With vBulletin you get free updates + professional support for a year and after that you can still use the forums to get support from the members.

If you want professional support, both companies charge you $30 for one year. Usually people don't update their boards all the time, unless there are major releases. In that case you pay $30 for vbulletin and get a year of professional support extra. I usually renew my license every 1.5 to 2 years. So, I'd say that after 3 years you are on par price wise. After that, vbulletin gets a little more expensive, but that assumes that you never have any questions / need assistance with IPB, which I doubt...

I visited http://www.irfanview-online.com/ and they seem to use "Orion" from http://www.cback.de/

I don't understand German... can someone tell me if he/she thinks this is good?

Thanks all.

www.punbb.org

or

www.simplemachines.org


No work, just forums.

Okay, for the time being I'm dabbling in Simple Machines... seems nice. One thing for sure, it's easy to administer.

The drawback is that it has no portal... must download Tiny Portal separately... haven't done that yet, still testing Simple Machines...

Anyone can comment on Simple Machines + Tiny Portal?

This is especially for the admin of HA...

Can you tell me how much space HA's forum (i.e. excl. Wiki) takes on the server?