Shed some light on setting up a professional forum?

Chet Zar

Hey guys,

Just looking for some advice/instruction on setting up a forum to be hosted on a website. I am looking for full functionality and the ability to 'own' the data as in self-hosting I believe it's called, and looks like I would be going with phpBB or vBulletin.

Now, my plan is to have a web development company set up a template site for me where I would add content via their CMS (i.e. I would have no access to the source code of the site). I want to link to my forum from this site as their forum solution is very basic and not suitable.

So in other words I want to create a forum but it looks like you need server space/web hosting naturally enough. So how does that work for my situation? I previously purchased Linux shared web hosting (Linux Starter 5) so do have that, but that wouldn't work if my site is hosted on the company's server. Or could it - can I just have the company host my site and then use the web hosting I've purchased to host the forum? phpBB requires the following at the link below but it doesn't mean anything to me right now - can anyone shed some light on this?

http://www.phpbb.com/support/documents.php?mode=install&version=3#require

p

Just buy the hosting, with the web dev companies advice and get them to set it all up.

ocallagh

Yeah you can host the forum on a different server and link the two. You could either have a separate domain name for the forum (which would be the easiest to setup) or with a little work could setup a subdomain eg: forum.yoursite.com

That link in your post just desribes the minimum requirements to install phpBB, I'm sure your hosting package meets them all but just to be sure you could open a support ticket with them and ask (just link them to that page).

samhail

vbulletin is a very good application (boards.ie is running off vbulletin) its professional and very customisable... to the point that you would need someone who knows their way around all the backend stuff to customise it.

Their latest version (4.0) has an integrated CMS (Content Management System) so a template can be easily created for your front page and have it easily updatable for users/admins.
Thing is that it does cost - starting at €135.

Chet Zar

samhail wrote: »

vbulletin is a very good application (boards.ie is running off vbulletin) its professional and very customisable... to the point that you would need someone who knows their way around all the backend stuff to customise it.

Their latest version (4.0) has an integrated CMS (Content Management System) so a template can be easily created for your front page and have it easily updatable for users/admins.
Thing is that it does cost - starting at €135.

I've heard that about the integrated CMS - but what does that actually mean? I am looking to set up a template site where I can upload articles and images via a CMS, and have the forum either hosted on the site or linked from the site. So a site with a set of pages and subpages and then a link to a forum.

Would the latest version of vBulletin allow me to do this easily or is it just limited to one single front page for the forum? Presume I could add multiple pages but how would that work? As you can guess I'm a complete beginner here


Edit - yeah I saw that boards.ie is vBulletin - nice! I actually really like the look of vBulletin, signed up to a demo forum last night and played around with it for a bit - seems real easy to manage the basic forum functions and all round user-friendly.

samhail

If you are going to get a design company to design a template/logo/banner etc then tell them you are interested in vbulletin to see if they can even do that for you.

You can add multiple sections to your front page, and create articles to publish.
This system can support thousands of users, all with different permission all throughout the site. you can set up so specific users can create/etc articles, etc.

Chet Zar

samhail wrote: »

If you are going to get a design company to design a template/logo/banner etc then tell them you are interested in vbulletin to see if they can even do that for you.

You can add multiple sections to your front page, and create articles to publish.
This system can support thousands of users, all with different permission all throughout the site. you can set up so specific users can create/etc articles, etc.

Cool. So this is what the vBulletin site would look like? http://design247.net/preview/simpleblack/cms.png

Wondering now what is the difference between purchasing vBulletin 4 and having a company like Omniserve.ie set up the site for me and then being able to add articles through their CMS. I would imagine that going the vBulletin route would involve more work in adding articles - or is this fairly straightforward through their user panel etc?

The web dev company - Omniserve - charge around €500 for this - a static template site with the ability to add up to 50 pages for that price, whereas vBulletin looks to cost only around €250.

samhail

Thats a nice site alright that they customised.

i have no idea about Omniserve.ie - they look like they can make a web site alright.
they can charge twice as much as buying vbulletin on its own because they do all the work for you.
vbulletin.com seems to be down right now - i cant remember if they have any demo's that you can log into.

setting up pages on it are easy enough once you get used to it.


you could... go for a free forum/cms setup, like phpBB and with its cms mod. its not as "professional-looking" as VB imo.

The design work that you need to get done would be well worth €500

Chet Zar

Back with my noob hat on.

As I've been mentioning I plan to set up a site along with a forum and I want them to be interlinked naturally. The only problem is that I am planning to run with a template site and the only way to 'attach' the forum is to link to it externally (i.e. the forum will be hosted on another server).

Let's say I set up phpBB using web hosting from a separate hosting company (in my case Irishdomains.com). Will it be possible to host the forum under a 'mydomain.com/forum' or 'forum.mydomain.com' format? I called my hosting company and they said it would but I'm not certain that they got exactly what I meant.

To sum up - the one thing I am trying to avoid is having a forum that has a URL that bears no relation to my actual site URL.

Thanks for your help.

samhail

It would be alot easier to host the forums and the website off the same server - do you have to have them on different servers ?

Is Irishdomains.com your website ? or is it a company you are/intend to host with.
Im not very impressed with that site with the 1min ive spent with it. firstly it feels like its hosted in australia with the access speeds, then there is a javascript error with their find your domain... and Irishdomains.com isnt setup to be viewable - you need to goto www.Irishdomains.com
... and wow i just checked out their prices...

Back to your question - if it were me i would try to host them on the same server. any server that can host php boards can host html pages.

you can easily setup a subdomain from your domain to redirect to another site - your hosting company should know how to do that.
and just make sure the template you use for your forums matches the rest of your site to make the change seemless.

Chet Zar

samhail wrote: »

It would be alot easier to host the forums and the website off the same server - do you have to have them on different servers ?

Is Irishdomains.com your website ? or is it a company you are/intend to host with.
Im not very impressed with that site with the 1min ive spent with it. firstly it feels like its hosted in australia with the access speeds, then there is a javascript error with their find your domain... and Irishdomains.com isnt setup to be viewable - you need to goto www.Irishdomains.com
... and wow i just checked out their prices...

Back to your question - if it were me i would try to host them on the same server. any server that can host php boards can host html pages.

you can easily setup a subdomain from your domain to redirect to another site - your hosting company should know how to do that.
and just make sure the template you use for your forums matches the rest of your site to make the change seemless.

Well here's the deal. I'm looking to set up an informational website. The website will have two main elements

- a set of articles housed under different tabs, and
-a professional discussion forum (vBulletin or phpBB)

Now, to set up the site I would have to pay in excess of 1500-2k, and given I haven't proved the concept yet or seen how much traffic/visitors I'm going to get, I want to limit spending so I can test out the site and see how people take to it. So I'm planning on going with a template site, the likes of which are offered by companies like websitedublin.com and omniserve.ie. I contacted omniserve and they advised they can set up a basic template site, but cannot host a forum from within the site (their own forum is very basic and not suitable).

So what I've been suggested is to have the company set up the template site and then have the forum set up using my web hosting account from www.irishdomains.com (I also noticed you need the www!). Then, I can link to this forum from the 'forum' tab on my website. This is a reasonable solution for now - however - what I'm concerned about is that the URL of the forum will be different from the URL of the website, meaning there won't be a seamless link between the two.

To be clear, let's say my site is set up by omniserve and is called 'www.galwaytown.com'. Then, my forum is set up using hosting from www.irishdomains.com. What I would absolutely need is for the forum to be hosted on the URL www.galwaytown.com/forum or forum.galwaytown.com.

Otherwise, my branding for my site doesn't work as the forum will be a big part of it and if it has a different domain name then where is the connection between the two.

Getting bogged down and confused in this big time so I'm appreciating your replies. Am wondering if it would be worth going the whole hog and shelling out 1500eur+ to have a bespoke site set up but it likely makes better sense to test the waters first with the template version.

samhail

just something to think about about your last comment there.

If you spend 50 euro to get your domain to "test the waters" and noone likes it and wont use it, if you put 1500 into the project they will have already gotten their first impressions of the site which will be hard to change.
... something to think about.

Im with digiweb for my web hosting and they have a web site builder type application where they give you tons (over 100) layout types, with atelast 4 color schemes for each of them.
then after that it gives you the options to customise it to your hearts content. add modules, pages, articles etc.

It doesnt appear to have a set of forums, so a different "thing to do" would be to download phpBB and install and set it up. then another "thing to do" again would be to customise the template on phpBB to match your website (which is a bit of work in itself).

check out http://www.somethingyouareinterestedin.eu which is a template site that i threw together in about 3min there (obviously no work gone into it atall )

bigjohnny80

No not worth the 1500 quid. Still haven't a clue why you won't put it all on the same server \hosting account

samhail

the company that they are looking to create the template site doesnt offer setting up the forums so they will need to get a different company to do it

bigjohnny80

samhail wrote: »

the company that they are looking to create the template site doesnt offer setting up the forums so they will need to get a different company to do it

Ah I see, thanks.

Set up a redirect so and should be fine.

.htaccess file will do the job

Chet Zar

bigjohnny80 wrote: »

Ah I see, thanks.

Set up a redirect so and should be fine.

K, so do you mean the company who sets up my site can set up a redirect whereby clicking 'Forum' on the site they have created would redirect to forum.mysitename.com (the forum being hosted by the separate company)??

If that is a simple thing to do I'm happy - matching the site look and feel to the forum feel is another matter.

ocallagh

I'm no expert on this but if you want to keep everything under the one domain name a simple redirect won't work. You need to do something like this:

Whoever manages the DNS entries for the domain name need to make a few changes so that when someone enters forum.yoursite.com these requests are sent to the IP address of the new forum server.

Then on the forum server you need to setup a new virtual host to accept these requests.

Here is a link describing how to do it but all you need to do is get in touch with whoever manages your domain (probably that company you talk about) and ask them to do it. You will need the IP of your new server. Then just get in touch with the hosting company of your new server and tell them the situation and they should setup the necessary virtual host for you.

http://www.thirdsquare.com/how-to-host-a-subdomain-on-another-server-or-hosting-company-213

The_B_Man

I'm with a useless web host and even they have free subdomains. For example, if i wanted to setup forum.mysite.com, thats included in the package! I'm surprised you're having som much trouble with this.

I would've thought any decent host would also include this!

By the way, heres 2 example sites to help you choose between phpBB3 and vBullettin.
phpBB3 + Portal
vBulletin latest version with CMS

With both, you can change colours etc so bear that in mind.

What you really need to do is have you website installed on www.yoursite.com and install the forum software from there. It will automatically install in a subdirectory of your choice, eg /forum/.

you can even use a global header file/menu bar with link to the forum and back to the main site on every page, so it will appear seamless. For example, http://www.phpbb.com. Notice the "Community" button that takes you to the forum, and the other buttons bring you back.


To be honest, I reckon you should jsut use the hosting you have, throw up a basic HTML site. Install forum software in a subdirectory and play around with it for a week. After the week, you'll have a much better idea of what direction to take.

Its easy to set everything up, the hard part is making it look good! At a later stage you can then hire someone to spruce it up!

Chet Zar

One more question - what kind of hosting package would I be looking at to set up a vBulletin forum? Server space etc?

aidan_walsh

Please read the sticky at the head of the forum regarding hosting recommendations and provider specific discussion.