Anyone have any experience with both wwwthreads and UBB -- especially on DH servers? I've used UBB, and it worked well for me...

This forum seems faster, though. I see that the URL for this page contains "newpost.pl", so they're using the Perl version instead of the PHP. Any particular reason, Mr. Jeff, Forum Admin, sir? Would the PHP version work on my DH server(s)?

Input from all is welcome!

Thanks...

...Bob

I host a UBB on DH if it's any use to you to see.. it works perfectly. Shrug.

http://www.voidhawk.net/cgi-ubb/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro

Thanks for the link...

Looks pretty good...

ardco wrote:

>No experience with either of those, but some with YaBB (free), on
>different servers. Here's a couple examples:
>
> http://antipolygraph.org/cgi-bin/forums/YaBB.pl
> http://yabb.xnull.com/community/

Interesting stuff on the antipolygraph site. I started to fall down a rabbit hole there. <g>

Anyway, these YaBB folks look ambitious. If they follow the same path as UBB, they'll develop a full-featured free system, get people hooked, then start selling more advanced versions.

But the wwwThreads site has quite a feature list...

The feature sets are bewildering... Now if I could just find a comparison chart for all three, maybe I can get rid of this darned headache. <g>

Thanks again...

...Bob

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This forum seems faster, though. I see that the URL for this page contains "newpost.pl", so they're using the Perl version instead of the PHP. Any particular reason, Mr. Jeff, Forum Admin, sir? Would the PHP version work on my DH server(s)?
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Mainly because I had worked with the Perl version of wwwthreads long ago, and knew I was pretty familiar with it. I had considered using the PHP version due to speed concerns, but for whatever reason I did the Perl version instead.

Also, the Perl version has been in the works for some time, whereas the PHP version is a pretty recent development. I felt a bit safer with it, but there's no reason I can think of that the PHP version wouldn't work with our servers.

As for UBB vs. wwwthreads, that's what it came down to when I was looking for forum software. In the end it came down to price - for commercial entities such as DreamHost, UBB costs $2000 and it's not really the greatest forum software in my opinion (and I use it a lot). While I think more people are familiar with it, I've used wwwthreads off and on for a long time and trust the developer to make continuous updates (he really is very quick to resolve problems I've found).

- Jeff @ DreamHost
- DH Discussion Forum Admin

BTW - remember that you get both the Perl and PHP versions when you get wwwthreads.

- Jeff @ DreamHost
- DH Discussion Forum Admin

Thanks for the info, Jeff...

With that and the feature list I see at the wwwthreads site, I'm starting to lean that direction.

...Bob

Before I forget...

Another option - a free PHP script - is Phorum.

http://phorum.org/

It was 3rd on my list of choices, and might be fine if you're in a pinch.

It's also worth noting that both Phorum and wwwthreads require MySQL to work, whereas UBB does not. Since we charge more for plans that include MySQL access, you should factor that into things as well (although in your particular case, I recall that you needed Strictly Business for some of its other features).

Like just about anything, it all depends on how ambitious your needs are, what you're comfortable with, and what you are able to afford.

- Jeff @ DreamHost
- DH Discussion Forum Admin

A couple of other options are Ikonboard (free and seems quite good, though I've heard it can be unstable on high-traffic boards), and UltraBoard (not free, but relatively cheap, especially compared to UBB. I installed Ikonboard a while ago on my Wild Ideas site, though I haven't linked it in to make it live yet, but due to the stability concerns I've heard I'm replacing it with UltraBoard.

BTW, another issue when deciding between PHP/MySQL and Perl scripts is the fact that even the higher level plans only include ONE MySQL database, and most PHP scripts I've seen assume that they have an entire database to themselves, name their tables stupidly generic things like "data" and "admin", and don't tell you before installation exactly what tables they're going to create, so you have no way of knowing, if you have one script installed already, whether a second one is going to use some of the same table names, which I assume would result in overwriting your existing table and breaking the first script.

I love PHP and MySQL. If it were entirely up to me, my first choice for any script would be a PHP/MySQL solution. But unless I want to either (a) live very dangerously or (b) pay an extra $6.95 a month for every script beyond the first that I want to install, I have to stick with only one PHP script and do everything else with Perl.

Right now I'm in a major bind because I did the new Spider Spinnings knowledge base on my Spider Silk site using a PHP script with the charming name of FAQ-U, but now that I've been moved to DH2 and have PHP4, I can now install PHProjekt, a do-everything project management system I've been drooling over for ages -- and of course, it doesn't tell you what tables it will create so I have no way of knowing whether installing it will break FAQ-U and destroy my little kbase!

PHProjekt is a one-of-a-kind script, there is absolutely nothing remotely like it in any language. There are other FAQ/knowledge base scripts that are done in Perl and don't need MySQL, but most of them either suck feature-wise, or are impossible to install unless you're a UNIX god/dess (all right, only Faq-o-Matic falls into that latter category, but it's also the only Perl FAQ script I've seen that looks any good).

So do I (a) take the plunge and install PHProjekt and pray it doesn't kill FAQ-U, (b) keep searching for a Perl script that does what FAQ-U does, even though there may not be one, (c) pay the extra bucks for a second database -- and a third, fourth, etc. as I find more PHP scripts I can't resist -- or (d) pout and whine until Dreamhost agree to either allow more than one database on the higher-up plans, or give me the script they used for the DH FAQ?

Sorry, I've wandered off topic from discussion boards...

Lynna

Business: http://www.spidersilk.net
Personal: http://www.wildideas.net

Hey, Lynna...

Would it be practical to do a test install of FAQ-U on another account, just so you can check out the table names and stuff?

...Bob

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Would it be practical to do a test install of FAQ-U on another account, just so you can check out the table names and stuff?
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That, or download it, unpack it, and run this from a shell:

grep "CREATE" *

...in the same directory as all the files? That should show any 'create' SQL statements, and show you what the naming conventions are.

Also, you can make dumps of all SQL data as well (which I'd recommend for anyone with important data anyhow).


- Jeff @ DreamHost
- DH Discussion Forum Admin

Did you ever get phprojekt working by the way?