iWeb Forum?

[pthickett]

Guys,

I am very new to making websites, and my first attempt was using iWeb, so I know no different! But basically I am wondering how easy it would be to set up a forum, obviously at no financial cost to myself. How can I do this? I know iWeb is not set up to do it directly so I guess if its possible I will need some sort of third party software. But is it worth it or is it a big hassle? Also I am running iWeb on my MacBook, so its not like I have a massive load of hdd space free and stuff like that, I am not sure whether that will have an impact on it.

Some advice will be great, even if its just to steer clear!

Kind regards

Pete Thickett

 

[Vinnie_vw]

I would definitely stay clear. The closest you can get, as far as I know, is setting up a blog in iWeb and I'm not sure how well it handles comments.

Many forums are based on pre-installed packages, which are often open source and free to use. Basically, you have to have access to a server and you can upload it to there as well as make it look and act how you wish.

vBulleting, the code this forum is built on is $160 or $85 for a year (https://www.vbulletin.com/); a free one is phpBB (http://www.phpbb.com/).

General advice though. A forum needs a community or else its dead. Best to start small and build up a group of regular folks around a certain topic, which you could do with a blog (in iWeb, blogger, wordpress, or otherwise). When you have a sufficient amount of readers. Say a couple of hundred/day, you can see if a forum is needed. Other than that it's not even worth the hassle, in my opinion.