IceBB Review - General Features & Requirements

Tue February 16, 2010 19:26 |
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Web Site: http://www.icebb.net
Download here: Download IceBB
Community Forum: Support
Released under: GPL License.
Current version: 1.0-rc10 (February 2, 2010).
Price: Free.

From IceBB website:

IceBB is a powerful, fast, free, and open-source forum solution powered by the free PHP and MySQL. IceBB scales well, no matter how many users or posts, due to its clean and efficient code. It is also fully customizable, with full skin and language support, plus a powerful admin control center.

IceBB also comes with a great community, willing to help you with any problems you encounter, in English, Spanish,or French.

Some of IceBB's features include:

  • RSS feeds
  • Favorite topics and forums
  • Optional calendar
  • Optional portal
  • Private messages
  • Search
  • Unlimited subforums
  • Redirect forums
  • Powerful admin control center
  • Inline moderation
  • Multi-quote
  • Full localization support (language system, full Unicode support)
  • Full feature list

Review Updates

  • strong class='notice'>February 16, 2010: Update the review with IceBB 1.0rc10

Server & Clients Requirements

Server Requirements
Operating Systems
Systems supporting this software.
  • Linux
  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows XP
Web Server Details
Web servers host the forum software.
  • Apache 1.3
  • Apache 2.0/2.2
  • Microsoft IIS
Languages Details
Development language.
  • PHP 4
  • PHP 5
Databases Details
Systems that store forum datas.
  • MySQL
Browsers & Clients Requirements
Compatible Browsers Details
List of compatible browsers.
  • Mozilla Firefox 3
  • Mozilla Firefox 2
  • Mozilla Firefox 1
  • Opera
  • Safari
  • Konqueror
  • Internet Explorer 7
  • Internet Explorer 6
  • Chrome
  • Mozilla SeaMonkey
Required Plugins/Technologies Details
What the user needs exactly to use this forum correctly.
  • HTML and AJAX
Localization Details
Languages supported by IceBB.
Yes Yes.
  • English
  • Danish
  • French
  • Italian
  • Turkish
  • German
  • Spanish
  • Russian

IceBB is another classical LAMP alternative to PhpBB. The goal of the IceBB, according to its authors, was to create a free alternative to expensive Invision Power Board and vBulletin forum software.

Forum Threads & Posts

Forum Threads
Forum Style
General appearance of the topics.
Threaded
Social Networks
Users can share information from their social network account...
No.
Thread Icons
An icon that identifies the type of a topic.
Yes Yes
Forum Organization
Organize your forum with categories, sections,...
  • Forum Categories
  • URL Redirection Forum
  • Sub Sections
Sticky Threads
Sticky threads stay at top of a section or a forum.
No No
Spell Checking
Posts and topics are spelled checked with a dictionary.
Unknown Unknown
Detect Duplicate Threads
Duplicate Threads are detected before creation.
No No
Shadow Topics
Some topics are only accessible to a limited list of users.
No No
Posts
Post Editing Form Details
Details about the manner to post messages.
  • Formatting Buttons
  • Preview Button
 Emoticons Details Yes Yes
Post Editing Format Details
Markup Language (HTML, Wiki, BBCode,...).
  • HTML
  • BBCode
 Attachments Details
Attach files (screenshot, archive,...) with a post.
No No
Post Quoting
Quoting a post helps readers understand who answers who.
Yes Yes Syntax Highlighting
Posted Source Code is formatted using colors.
No No
Post Rating
Users can rate the quality of other users posts.
No No

Key Features & Additional Tools

Key Features
Bundled Softwares
Softwares that are also available with the forum.
  • Portal
 Users List Details
List of all user accounts, to helps users searching their friends.
Yes Yes
Private Messages Details
Users can communicate using an internal messaging system.
Yes Yes Online Users List
List of actually connected users, in the forum home page, a dedicated topic,...
Yes Yes
Instant Messaging Details
Communicate in the forum like in other IM (Yahoo Messenger, Live Messenger, Google Talk,...)
No No Quick Reply Box
Write a post directly from the topic page.
No No
Calendar Details Yes Yes Remote Control Details
Remote control from external softwares or websites.
No.
Poll Creation Details Yes Yes Friendly URLs
URLs are as short and simple as possible (for better copy/paste and share).
No No
RSS/Atom Syndication Details
New posts and threads available using aggregators Syndicate
RSS 2.0

IceBB will fulfill stickler administrators and moderators with its impressive list of controls of members. This is particularly useful for huge community management.

Please note that the portal is not enabled by default.

 
 
General Features &
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