Phorum Review - General Features & Requirements

Fri March 20, 2009 10:24 |
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Web Site: http://www.phorum.org
Download here: Download Phorum
Community Forum: Support
Released under: BSD License.
Current version: 5.2.10 (January 25, 2009).
Price: Free.

From Phorum web site:

Phorum is a little different from the other web based message boards out there. It was designed to meet different needs of different web sites while not sacrificing performance or features.

High Performance

In an upcoming interview, Jay Pipes of MySQL.com says "The forums (http://forums.mysql.com) have grown substantially over the last year, and Phorum, the PHP software running the MySQL Forums, has kept pace with this growth admirably."

Flexibility

To satisfy the web master that needs every bell and whistle, or those that want to make their web site unique, the Phorum team created a very flexible hook & module system. These hooks allow a webmaster to create modules for using external authentication, altering message data before its stored, adding custom information about users or messages.

Phorum gives the web designers the power to rearrange the data in any shape, form or fashion. The templates are in pure HTML with simple to understand text commands embedded in them. You can use the provided templates as a starting point or start from scratch. The power is in your hands.

Community

Phorum has some of the most passionate users and developers. First time users are often surprised at how quickly they get a quality response in our chat room or support forums.

Many of the most common modules like avatars, spam prevention and more have already been written by Phorum's developers or its knowledgble community of users.

Review Updates

  • March 20, 2009: This review has been updated using Phorum version 5.2.10.

Server & Clients Requirements

Server Requirements
Operating Systems
Systems supporting this software.
  • Linux
  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows XP
  • Solaris
  • FreeBSD
  • OpenBSD
  • NetBSD
  • Windows Server 2008
  • Mac OS
Web Server Details
Web servers host the forum software.
  • Apache 1.3
  • Apache 2.0/2.2
  • Microsoft IIS
  • Lighttpd
  • Nginx
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 Javascript
Localization Details
Languages supported by Phorum.
Yes Yes.
  • Portuguese
  • French
  • Greek
  • Italian
  • Finnish
  • Danish
  • German
  • Swedish
  • Czech
  • Slovak
  • Dutch
  • Lithuanian
  • Russian
  • English
  • Traditional Chinese
  • Catalan
  • Spanish
  • Turkish
  • Polish
  • Estonian
  • Ukrainian
  • Norwegian
  • Hungarian
  • Slovene

More details on Translation Complete List

Phorum is a typically LAMP software, which needs the Linux / MySQL / Apache / PHP technologies to work easily and without any problem.

PHP 4 is not really tested by the Phorum team, but should work without any problems.

Forum Threads & Posts

Forum Threads
Forum Style
General appearance of the topics.
Flat/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
  • Sub Sections
Sticky Threads
Sticky threads stay at top of a section or a forum.
Yes Yes
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.
  • Plain Text
  • Preview Button
 Emoticons Details Yes Yes
Post Editing Format Details
Markup Language (HTML, Wiki, BBCode,...).
  • Plain
  • HTML
  • BBCode
 Attachments Details
Attach files (screenshot, archive,...) with a post.
Yes Yes
Post Quoting
Quoting a post helps readers understand who answers who.
Yes Yes Syntax Highlighting
Posted Source Code is formatted using colors.
Yes Yes
Post Rating
Users can rate the quality of other users posts.
Plugin Plugin

Key Features & Additional Tools

Key Features
Bundled Softwares
Softwares that are also available with the forum.
No. Users List Details
List of all user accounts, to helps users searching their friends.
Plugin Plugin
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.
Yes Yes
Calendar Details Plugin Plugin Remote Control Details
Remote control from external softwares or websites.
No.
Poll Creation Details Plugin Plugin Friendly URLs
URLs are as short and simple as possible (for better copy/paste and share).
Plugin Plugin
RSS/Atom Syndication Details
New posts and threads available using aggregators Syndicate
RSS 2.0

The user groups are really interesting, because each users can ask to join the group he wants, and groups then will accept or not their requests. This is really useful is you want to have a forum with several communities, totally independent when they want to recruit new members.

The RSS integration is well implemented, and you can stay informed about creation and modification on the forum you are interested (but not on a specifical thread however).

The quick answer form in the bottom of each thread is useful for active members.

 
 
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