Implementing a forum - HELP!

5 replies
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Hey there elites,

Im new to the forums and heard you guys were good. Just have a question regarding implementing forums to a website.

Currently my dad owns his own domain and has his own run website. I told him it would be a great idea to introduce a forums for his community to talk about the product, events , customer service etc.

Sadly, our Web server noobs would be charging him 200 bucks for the forum itself, (which isnt too bad) but an addtional $150/hr for 2-4 hours to (what i believe) is copy pasta code into the back end of the website.

Now my question to you is, is it possible for myself to purchase this forum template and insert the code myself? How would i go about doing this?

Recently the web server masters gave me the FTP to the website. Not sure if that works.

Thanks for any help in advance,

- Chris
#forum #implementing
  • Profile picture of the author Karen Blundell
    You do need to have some knowledge of PHP, HTML, and CSS in order to make changes to forum themes etc. It really depends on how comfortable you are at playing with code.

    Please pm me because I can do the same thing for you and your father for significantly less then what they are charging and I've been doing webmaster/WordPress/community sites since 1997. I can also coach you.
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    • Profile picture of the author Tulloch
      I do know some knowledge in html, css, php as of now (just finished my first year in college for computer programming) however i am not the greatest. Is it possible to be implemented this way? I know they would have to attach it to their server, but with just a FTP of the website and some code knowledge, could i do it myself? I will pm you as well thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lloyd Buchinski
    You can install a forum from scratch in about 10 minutes with the script installer of most control panels. Installatron in the DirectAdmin control panel works best in my experience. Fantastico in cPanel will get the basic job done quickly.

    Just pick out the forum you want and start the install. Nothing to do but follow the prompts. I use Simple Machines Forums. They have an extremely good support forum, at SMF 1.x Support If I ask a question there before turning in for the night, there will be a few answers by morning.

    I do have a list of tweaks that I go through to get it to my preferences. That part takes about an hour and a half. I like to delete the smf logo. They don't mind, as long as you keep the copyright notice. I like to stop it from saying 'this post was last edited on' etc. I usually change the navigation so the home button goes to the front page of the site, instead of the forum, and add a forum button that goes to the forum home. etc, etc.

    Different people will have different tastes for those. You can find most of them in the admin section by just poking around a bit.

    You can also upload the forum yourself if your host does not have a script installer. There is a bit more involved in that, but not much.

    SMF is an extremely good forum software and it is completely free. Some of their forums have over 3 million posts. Phpbb is also free, and a lot of people rate it better than smf.

    You don't need a forum template or code.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tulloch
    Thanks Lloyd,

    I went ahead with your advice, but our web host likes to be challenging, not letting me access to script installers and such. They prefer that they do it themselves for a hefty fee. ( About 600-900$ to install a forum) So we decided to change web hosts.

    - Tulloch
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  • Profile picture of the author wfcheapseo
    Yes. Try to get a new host. They are just killers. I am astonished why they asked $600-$900 to install a forum.

    I think hostgator will be your perfect option. But if you have more then 1k visitors a day then shared hosting will not work for you. VPS will be good option.

    Thanks
    Monzu
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