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Forums & Wordpress

by ChrisJamesG
4 replies
Mornin,

Just wondering if anyone has experience with forums?

I have a wordpress blog and I want to attach a forum to it; does anyone know of good wp plugins?

I've obviously found some but, well, I want the best :-)

Cheers,
Chris
#forums #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author deskmonkey
    Heya, Chris. What kind of forum are you planning on using and what level of integration are you looking to do? If you're looking for a simple forum that's actually built into Wordpress, then the SimplePress forum plugin for Wordpress may be just what you need. It has many of the basic functionality of most forum software, and since it's built into Wordpress, you have complete integration.

    For a separate forum software that also has an almost complete integration with Wordpress, have a look at BBpress, which is by the same creators of Wordpress. It's the same forum used in the WP support forums, in case you're wondering.

    If you're planning to use a forum software that's not listed above, then integration may be more problematic. Theme integration should be fairly simple, given some knowledge of HTML/CSS, but database integration is going to require significant PHP/MySQL wizardry.
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  • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
    I'd recommend just setting up a separate forum folder and install vBulletin, phpBB or Simple Machines Forum there. That way you'll have full forum features and not some compromise.
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    • Profile picture of the author Audrey Harvey
      Originally Posted by bgmacaw View Post

      I'd recommend just setting up a separate forum folder and install vBulletin, phpBB or Simple Machines Forum there. That way you'll have full forum features and not some compromise.
      That's what I did, I used fantastico to install wordpress on mydomain.com, then used it to install simple machines forum on mydomain.com/forum - easy to customise SMF with headers etc to match my blog. Looks great!
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    • Profile picture of the author deskmonkey
      Well, if you're looking for a full, standalone forum software, then I'll recommend MyBB -- it's very similar to vBulletin, but for the price of free. I've also heard some very good reviews of Advanced Electron Forum (AEF), though I've never tried it myself (I've used MyBB).

      If you've yet to decide on a forum software, then I also suggest checking out the forums category at OpenSourceCMS.com for demos of some of the top free forum software around.
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