Forum software

[nyc2phx]

I've done a little searching online but I can't find the basic information I am looking for. I'm just learning web design and a friend wants to put up a site that includes user forums. I've found a number of different kinds of software (which all seem Mac compatible--please tell me if any of these are NOT Mac compatible--phpBB, vBulletin, Vanilla, SMF). But it sounds like most of them require mySQL or some kind of database. I know nothing about databases. Are there any standalone pieces of software that will allow me to build forums without knowing how to design a database. Can someone tell me what is the easiest piece of forum software to learn for the Mac? And what the server requirements are? Is there any forum software that is going to let me learn on the fly and let me put up online user forums in a relatively short period of time? Am I going to need PHP? MySQL?

Help! Thanks in advance for your responses and suggestions.
Scott

 

[MontyDog]

Scott,

There are two kinds of forum software: free and paid-for. You pretty much get what you pay for - most of the free offerings aren't very secure so eventually you'll be hacked, which is why it's wise to use good forum s/w (which costs money to keep it up to date against attacks and exploits, hence best not being free).

Of the paid-for forums software alternatives my favourite and therefore recommendation is the same as is used for MacRumours: vBulletin - very good, pretty easy to use considering the power and flexibility, and quite secure compared to most others.

By the way, MySQL is the database basis of many fora - and that is free and excellent - so whatever forum s/w you use, MySQL will be a good database choice.

PHP is the other compenent usually used: it too is free and excellent.

So, what do you need? A host that supports PHP and MySQL, Apache is the best for most users, especially *nix-based severs. Forum software such as vBulletin. That's it!

You don't need to know how to program PHP nor necesarily how to construct SQL queries although both skills will help.

Good luck!