Simple Machines 1.1 Review - Forum Features & Requirements

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Web Site Simple Machines 1.1 Website
Download Simple Machines 1.1
Current version 1.1.1 (December 01, 2009).
Released under Custom License.
Price Free.
August 17, 2010: Simple Machines 1.1 is outdated and a new version has been reviewed.
Consult the Simple Machines 2 Review »

From Simple Machines web site:

Simple Machines Forum - SMF in short - is a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes.

Its powerful custom made template engine puts you in full control of the lay-out of your forum and with our unique SSI - or Server Side Includes - function you can let your forum and your website interact with each other. SMF is written in the popular language PHP and uses a MySQL database.

It is designed to provide you with all the features you need while having an absolute minimal impact on the resources of the server. SMF is the next generation of forum software, and best of all it is and will always remain completely free!

Please note that Simple Machines Forum was also known as YaBB SE which was initially a PHP port of YaBB Forum (originally in Perl).

Review Updates

Recommended Average Size of a Community

This chart represents the recommendation of an average community size hosted with Simple Machines 1.1.

Simple Machines 1.1
Community Size Average

Server & Clients Requirements

Server Requirements
Server Technology
The technology on which this forum software is based on.
PHP
Operating Systems
Systems supporting this software.
LinuxWindows Server 2003
Windows XPSolaris
FreeBSDOpenBSD
NetBSDWindows Server 2008
Mac OS
Web Servers
Web servers host the forum software.
  • Apache 1.3
  • Apache 2.0/2.2
  • Microsoft IIS
  • Lighttpd
  • Nginx
Languages
Development language.
  • PHP 4
  • PHP 5
Databases
Systems that store forum datas.
  • MySQL
Browsers & Clients Requirements
Compatible Browsers
List of compatible browsers.
Mozilla FirefoxInternet Explorer
Google ChromeOpera
Apple SafariKonqueror
Mozilla SeaMonkey
Required Plugins/Technologies
What the user needs exactly to use this forum correctly.
Javascript.
Languages supported by Simple Machines 1.1.
Yes Yes.
Supported Languages:
Albanian Albanian Arabic Arabic
Bangali Bangali Bulgarian Bulgarian
Catalan Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Traditional) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Croatian
Czech Czech Danish Danish
Dutch Dutch English (American) English (American)
English (British) English (British) Finnish Finnish
French French Galician Galician
German German Greek Greek
Hebrew Hebrew Hindi Hindi
Hungarian Hungarian Indonesian Indonesian
Italian Italian Japanese Japanese
Kurdish Kurdish Macedonian Macedonian
Norwegian Norwegian Persian Persian
Polish Polish Portuguese Portuguese
Portuguese (Brazilian) Portuguese (Brazilian) Romanian Romanian
Russian Russian Serbian Serbian
Slovak Slovak Spanish Spanish
Swedish Swedish Thai Thai
Turkish Turkish Ukrainian Ukrainian
Urdu Urdu Uzbek Uzbek
Vietnamese Vietnamese

The full list is available at SMF Language Packs page.

This software is a classical PHP/MySQL Bulletin Board.

It will be installed easily in most dedicated servers and website hosting solutions, Linux distributions and even EasyPHP installation.

Forum Threads & Posts

Forum Threads
Forum Style
General appearance of the topics.
Flat
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
Topic Tags
Could topics be organized by tags?
- -
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.
No No
Related Threads
List additional topics that may be related to the current one.
- -
Detect Duplicate Threads
Duplicate Threads are detected before creation.
No No
Hidden Topics
Some topics are only accessible to a limited list of users.
Yes Yes
Posts
Message Editing Form
Details about the manner to post messages.
  • Formatting Buttons
  • Preview Button
Emoticons Yes Yes
Attachments
Attach files (screenshot, archive,...) with a post.
Yes Yes Syntax Highlighting
Posted Source Code is formatted using colors.
Plugin Plugin
Image Attachment
How images can be attached and displayed in message posts.
No.
Post Editing Format
Markup Language (HTML, Wiki, BBCode,...).
  • HTML
  • BBCode
Post by Email
Post to a topic directly from your email box.
No No
Message Rating
Users can rate the quality of other users posts.
Yes Yes Message Quoting
Quoting a post helps readers understand who answers who.
Yes Yes
Announcements
Administrators can post announcements that are displayed everywhere in the forum. It is even more powerful than a pinned topic.
- -

Note that several plugins exist to plug Social Networks into Simple Machines:

More information on SMF Social Modifications page.

Key Features & Additional Tools

Key Features
Bundled Softwares
Softwares that are also available with the forum.
  • Portal
Users List
List of all user accounts, to helps users searching their friends.
Yes Yes
Private Messages
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
Communicate in the forum like in other IM (Yahoo Messenger, Live Messenger, Google Talk,...)
No No RSS/Atom Syndication
New posts and threads available using aggregators Syndicate
RSS 2.0
Calendar Yes Yes Remote Control
Remote control from external softwares or websites.
No.
Poll Creation Yes Yes Friendly URLs
URLs are explicit and contains information about the topic (title, message,...). This is highly recommended for SEO purposes.
Yes Yes

Plugins in the Simple Machines syntax are called packages or mods. You can view an interesting list of them here :
Mods List.

Themes are also available in the official website, even if it's not the only way to get additional themes :
Themes List.

You can find in Simple Machines all classical bulletin boards features, like poll creation, user profile, etc...

The security and access rules are quite powerful because administrators can easily group users to prevent them accessing private forum places.

About bundled software, please note that a portal management could be added with the SimplePortal modification. You should consult the SimplePortal website if you are interesting in such feature for your forum.

 
 
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