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Hi all-

I am new to Mac Forum and need some general direction on where to go with my question(s). I developed my own website using iWeb and have since started writing everything in html. I want to create a discussion board on my site but am very unfamiliar with php/cgi and really need some help getting started.

1. How do I create a board where people can post comments? I do not want to use a 3rd party template for this.

Any and all help, feedback and direction will be very much appreciated.

-wk
 

vansmith

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That's a lot of work for someone just starting out with PHP. You'll need to learn how to use databases and sessions amongst others. While you develop that (which could take a while), might I ask why you don't want to use a third party solution?
 
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Hey there-

thanks for responding. Well, I guess you have already begun to answer my question by saying its a "lot of work." I was wanting to see what kind of task i would be taking on by trying to create my own forum, and how difficult that would be. Basically I want to have a clean and custom developed message board without having all of the 3rd party garble. I feel like requiring people to login to a "discus" or "intensedebate" steers people away a lot of times because they don't want to give out email and subscribe to some unknown 3rd party.

The main thing I am wanting to discover is what are the first steps I should be taking to make this happen, and if I am going to need some schooling or private consultation to make this happen.

thanks.
 

Raz0rEdge

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First of all, not having some simple registration (at least an e-mail address for verification) means that your open forum will be bombarded by spam and make it utterly useless. Just ask the Mods here how many spammers/posts they deal with on a forum that requires registration.

Second, when you install an established forum software like vBulletin (the one running here are Mac Forums) or bbPress, you are actually running that software on your server, so it's not a 3rd party that's hosting your forum. Thus, the registration is for your forum, running on your server with your database. The 3rd party forum vendors don't get that information.

Third, all of these forum software allow for a great amount of customization and integration to make it look just like you want. Additionally, I've used Wordpress and bbPress in the past to deploy a blog & forum solution for people and that works great because the two software integrate nicely with each other and allow for a single sign on for both services.

Fourth, the adage "don't re-invent the wheel" comes to mind when you set to do/write something that's already been well written. The folks behind vBulletin, bbPress and other forum software have spent a considerable amount of time to make the software do the things it does and it would take you just as long , if not longer to do it on your own.

Last, majority of the forums on the web are run on just a handful of forum software, so that makes the user interface fairly easy for newcomers to know and use since they've probably used it someplace else. If you make a completely new UI, then users will have to learn to properly use your forum and if they are dedicated enough to the forum, they might do that, otherwise they'll just move on..
 
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Well, first you'll need to learn PHP and become comfortable with it. You can take classes for this or you can go out and buy various books on the topic. You will also need to learn how to interact with a database (one of the most common when using php is MySQL) - many books that cover PHP bring you through the basics of database manipulation (it won't make you a master at SQL, but it will get you started).

Now once you have all of that done you'll need to start learning advanced error checking, security handling (preventing improper code from getting executed on your site or your database that could expose things you don't want exposed), etc.

I really think you're going after an overly large target. If you were to go an look at the code involved on quality message board packages you'd see that there is a LOT of work for which you could probably better spend your time working on other aspects of your site in terms of incorporating PHP and making your site more dynamic (which is an easier target then building your own message board from scratch). You don't have to use a third party site to use forum software on your website (as a matter of fact, many hosting companies have forum installs available for their clients which you can access through your control panel). In terms of authentication, I don't think that really throws many people off these days. Most are used to needing to have an account at a given site to be able to interact with the forums of the given web site.

If you just want to be able to accept peoples comments (like how they are handled on a blog) as opposed to a full blown message board, there are many pre made PHP scripts out there that will do that for you; even some of the books you can get to learn PHP have some samples that can be modified to work as a "leave your comments below" type of script.

EDIT: Raz0rEdge managed to post before I got my reply up - Raz0r adds a valid point that I completely forgot to make about being inundated by spam postings if you have no way to validate (login, email, etc.) people
 
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Ok, I think you have all answered my question and it appears evident that "taking on" php is not really a feasible task at this point.

Moving forward, does anyone have a recommendation to a site / discussion board that is clean and simple and know the relative software? I use Godaddy for my hosting, is there an easy way to set up login / discussion through Godaddy?

Thanks for all the input.
 

vansmith

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I'm fairly certain that GoDaddy has "one click" installs for a variety of forums in the hosting panel. Give them a try and see if one fits your needs.
 
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So I went into Godaddy and decided to download Phorum 5.2.18
I set the directory in my root folder, then went into Godaddy and setup a database, but now I am having trouble configuring the database. When I try to go to the admin install url i get a message saying:

"The database connection failed. Please check your database configuration in include/db/config.php. If the configuration is okay, check if the database server is running."

Trying to troubleshoot here and I fear again I am treading in deep water. Any help or advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 

Raz0rEdge

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Did you use the one-click installer (Fantastico) to install Phorum or did you do that manually? If the latter, then once you have your database setup, you need to enter that information into the configuration script. If the former, then the installer should have done all that work for you..
 

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