Another Forums thread

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Originally Posted by rock

BK, I thought you were already sold on the IPB stuff. Can't decide? Maybe you'll end up running the same forum in 4 different versions ? :D

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lol... Maybe just two - one with Invision Power Board 1.3 (the last free version, I believe) and one with PHPBB 2.x

It would seem that IPB has better security and guest controls, at least with the free services I've been looking at.

With PHPBB it seems like I will have to set permissions on a topic by topic basis, I can't just say "You have to be a member to post" and have that apply to every forum topic. I think I have to do it one at a time, which is kind of annoying.

With IPB, I believe you can set it so after 5 minutes, a post cannot be edited, which I kind of like in terms of the level of control it gives the admin. But for the life of me, I can't seem to find an easy way to prevent polls from being created. Wacky, repetitive, drill-down type of admin controls.

PHPBB seems easier to deal with. Like adjusting forum order - it is SOOOO much easier in PHPBB, as is making new forums and categories. But in some other areas, PHPBB feels n00bish and over-simple.

I'd like to learn how to prevent animated GIF's for Avatars and smilies and stuff too, just so I could learn how. I think IPB has some anti-flash stuff, but in a lot of areas, the IPB screens feel very techie and the descriptions lack understandable details.

And what is with the fact that you can't do context sensitive help like you can in other Windows programs? I wanna be able to hit F1 and have the relevant help screen pop up and describe exactly what is up on the admin panel page I'm looking at. Is that too much to ask?

I'll just keep on tinkering, I guess.

I don't know if you'll be able to prevent animated gifs from being used. Afterall, to the file server and html, they're just files with a .gif extension. When rendered in the browser, they're animated. That seems hard to detect (and a little strict unless there's something specific you're looking to avoid).

I guess I could disallow GIF extensions in IPB, but that does seem kinda lame. It would probably be easier to just bug users to change their Avatar if it was flashing red and green or something. :D

I'm more interested in learning how to control things rather than actually being a control freak in practice. I'm not even sure I'll even try to get folks to come by and visit the forums. Right now I'm just wanting to learn how to do things and familiarize myself with what is involved.

I'm not sure I ever, ever want to mess with the HTML templates. Oh man, that stuff looks complicated. :eek:

Yeah, I know when we get to setting up our forums (the CEO just got my recommendations last night) that I'll have to figure out how to get our website's CSS stuff into vBulletin to look consistent. I'm kind of dreading this -- give me Java or Fortran anyday over this web stuff!

Best of luck with it. I no longer have the drive to do that kinda stuff that I used to. I'm more into the point and click of the admin stuff instead of the hardcore skin customizing via CSS/DHTML/XML type stuff.

Give me the classic 3.x HTML standard and Note Pad and I'm good to go. :p

I'm just curious, how's it turning out?

We're still getting things set up. This is going remarkably quickly compared to the rate of other projects. The IT group has purchased vBulleting and are working with the hosting providers to get it installed. Once it's up, it'll be turned over to me as the main admin to start configuration. I expect that to happen some time this week.

Maybe I am out of the loop, but is Verio still good for hosting?