Ninja Post Review
Last Version | 1.0 (November 11th, 2010). | Released under | Custom License. |
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Resources |
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Price | Starting from $50/ 6 Months to $250 / 6 Months. |
Last Version | 1.0 (November 11th, 2010). | Released under | Custom License. |
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Resources |
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Price | Starting from $50/ 6 Months to $250 / 6 Months. |
Ninja Post is a very recent project, started in the beginning of 2010, and could be considered as mature even if it is still young. Its architecture based on the cloud (the new marketing name for hosted forum software) and its deep links with modern tools and services (Google Accounts, Facebook & Twitter) are choices made by its main author because this is what most forum softwares lack according to him. And this is quite true, as, most of the times, Facebook and Twitter are just plugged to the forum and the community, but are not centralizing and defining the key features of the software.
Ninja Post could be sum up with the following quote from its author:
Let's see what is behind this good intention!
Browser & Client Requirements | ||||||||
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Compatible Browsers
List of Compatible Browsers.
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Required Plugins/Technologies
Additional or Basic Requirements from Client Side.
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HTML, Javascript, AJAX, CSS. | |||||||
Localization
Languages supported by Ninja Post.
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No.
No.
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To setup your Free Trial, you simply need an available "forum" subdomain, that you could configure to point to Ninja Post servers, a Google Account, and that's it, your forum software is ready!
This is indeed very common, because by default, your forum software is already located at the right URL, and the content is not hot loaded from Javascript.
Compatibility with Smartphones | |
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Compatible SmartPhones
Compatible Cellphone Brands and Manufacturers.
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No. |
Application Distribution / Type
How it is distributed / App Store Availability
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No. |
Forum Threads / Topics | |||
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Forum Style | Flat | Forum Organization |
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Thread Icons | No | Topic Tags | No |
Hot Topics | - | Unread Topics | Yes |
Hidden Topics | No | Sticky Threads | No |
Related Threads | No | Detect Duplicate Threads | No |
Announcements | No |
Posting Messages / Answers | |||
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Message Editing Form
How to Post Messages.
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Post Editing Format
Supported Markup Language (HTML, Wiki, BBCode,...).
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Spell Checker
Checks typos on posts and topics.
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No | ||
Image Attachment
How Images can be Attached and Displayed in Message Posts.
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No. | ||
Embedded Videos
Videos and Media Websites Supported in Message Posts.
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No. |
Posting Features | |||
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Quick Reply Box | Yes | Smileys | Yes |
Attachments | No | Syntax Highlighting | No |
Message Rating
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Yes | Message Quoting | Yes |
Threads and posting are essential features of Ninja Post, and a specific attention has been set to let them be as effective as possible. According to Mike Wilt, new posts come like tweets in your Twitter account: you do not need to refresh manually the page to detect changes, the forum does this for you.
This is particularly useful when your answering on a very active topics, where new posts arrive at a very fast rate. Traditional forum softwares do not use this feature due to a risk of heavy loading, but remember that Ninja Post is not hosted on your servers, so you have all the benefits without the risks!
This is why Ninja Post could also be considered as a mix between chats and forum: advantages of the both worlds are finally reunified.
About ordering and organizing the forum, Ninja Post uses the new way of sorting data: let the computer does this for you. Dynamic and popular discussions will go first, where useless or redundant conversations are put at the end.
Additional Forum Features | |
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Poll Creation | No |
Private Messages
Users Can Communicate using an Internal Messaging System.
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Yes |
Instant Messaging
Discuss with Visitors and Members in a Chat Window.
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Yes |
Calendar
Topic, Member Birthdays, Events are available from the perspective of a calendar.
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No |
Online Users List
Connected User List (Often Found in the Forum Footer).
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No |
Members List
Search and Consult the List of Members.
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No |
Technical Features | |
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Bundled Software
Additional Software Available with the Forum.
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No. |
RSS/Atom Syndication
Posts and Threads Exported to Feeds Aggregators
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No. |
Friendly URLs
URLs are clear and contain information about the topic (title, message,...).
Highly recommended for SEO purposes.
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Yes |
Post by Email
Post Directly From your Email Box.
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No |
Remote Control
Remote Control from External Software/Websites.
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No. |
Cache System
Cache pages to optimize bandwidth and load times.
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Yes |
Template Engine
It is easier to theme a forum using a known template engine (more docs & examples,...).
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No. |
Polls and Calendar lovers will be disappointed: you won't find them in Ninja Post. Clearly, we really don't care about calendar, but polls are often a good way to start a discussion, and we must admit we miss it a little bit
Member Options & Features | |
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Bookmark Threads
User Profiles Keep a List of Followed Posts and Topics.
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No |
Email Notifications
Receive Emails When New Messages are Posted in Followed Threads.
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Yes |
Export private messages
Private Messages can be Downloaded by Users.
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No |
Payment Subscriptions
Paying Membership Subscription.
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No |
User Profiles | |
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User Profile
User Information and Settings.
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Yes |
Avatars
Pictures of Members, Useful to Easily Identify their Posts.
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Yes |
Signature
Signatures Added at the Bottom of Each Message.
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No |
Ranks
Tags and Labels Identifying the Members, based on specific criteria (Total Posts Count, Credits, Moderation Level...)
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No |
As Ninja Post aim is to be very simple, some features were sacrificed for this purpose. You will not find either user signatures or calendars.
Moderation & Threads Management | ||
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Moderation |
Post-Moderation
The moderation is done afterwards, if an administrator notices a problem or if a member reports something wrong. Each message is therefore directly published.
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Moderator per section | Yes | |
Global Moderator | Yes | |
Move Threads
Move Threads from Topics
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Yes | |
Shadow Topics
When a thread is moved, the previous position is kept in order to inform users of this modification.
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- | |
Close/Lock Threads
Close/Lock Problematic Threads
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Yes |
Users Management | |
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User Groups
Organize and define groups of users, and apply different actions and settings on them.
Common Groups: Guests, Members, Moderators, Administrators,... |
Yes |
User Registration |
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Limit Features For New Users
Features are limited if a user has created a small number of posts.
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No |
Guest Posting | Yes |
Multiple Administrators | Yes |
Send Warnings to Users
Inform users by email or PM that they infringe the board rules, and could be excluded for such behavior.
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No |
Forum/Section Restricted Access
ACL could be use to determine if a user or a group of users can access (in read only, post message) to some sections
and topics.
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No |
User Banishment | No |
Administration Panel is really easy to use and to understand, as we expected.
Database Management | |
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Backup Database
Backup forum datas that you could store somewhere else.
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No |
Prune Database
Remove old and unused datas from your forum.
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No |
Restore Database
Restore a backup of your database if the previous install crashed.
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No |
Administration Tools | |||
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Statistics
Statistics about posts count, users, traffic...
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Yes |
Error/Notice Log Viewer
Forum Logs could be consulted.
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No |
Tasks Scheduler
Maintenance tasks are regularly launched and could be scheduled.
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No |
Mass Mailing
Send an email (newsletters, advertisements, information,...) to all users.
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No |
Installation & Upgrading | |
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Installation Method
How this forum software could be installed.
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Installation Wizard |
Upgrading Method
How this forum software could be upgraded.
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Upgrade Wizard |
Updates Notifications
The Admin Panel informs you when a new version is released.
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No |
Forum Migration
Convert an existing forum to Ninja Post.
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No. |
Database and Additional Tools are not something you have to take into account: everything is managed in the cloud, so stay cool and profit of the remote services.
Security & Spam Protection | ||
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CAPTCHA
Captcha protects your forum against spam bots.
e.g.,
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No
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Abnormal Behavior Detection
Detect users or request strange behaviors, and try to process proactive actions.
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No | |
Words Filtering
Offensing Words are automatically replaced.
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No | |
User Blacklist
Prevent specific user accounts to register (based on email address, name,...) and disable potentially harmful members.
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No | |
IP Blocking
Prevent access to spam robots and other scripts that could attempt
DDOS or Brute Force attacks on your forum.
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No |
Security is mainly transferred to Google with the usage of Google Accounts. That's a really good thing because the everyday usage of the forum is not polluted with annoying CAPTCHA and security questions.
Customization | |||
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Plugins
Add new features to your forum installation.
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No.
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Themes
Modify the style of your forum easily.
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No. | ||
Custom BBCodes | No | Smiley Packs | No |
Custom Thread Icons |
No |
Additional User Profile Fields
Ask more about your members with custom fields.
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No |
Integration with Applications, Social Networks, Intranet... | |
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Social Networks
Users can share information from their social network account...
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CMS / Blog Bridges
Integration with existing Web publishing tools.
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User Accounts Integration
Do users be able to log in with their corporate, Google, Facebook,... accounts?
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Content Aggregation
Forum allows to integrate news and content from other website,
using an aggregation protocol (RSS, RDF, Atom,...).
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No. |
Google Accounts, Twitter and Facebook are available and are very well integrated per default, which is just perfect for a modern "socialized" community.
The "Black Belt" subscription allows your forum to be SSO with your existing website, and therefore, you can delegate to main Ninja Post developer the task to make your website to communicate with the forum.
It's possible to theme your forum by defining additional CSS rules, defining top menu entries, main logo and so on. Everything is supported through the administration panel, which is perfect when you need to modify something quickly AND remotely.
Norms & Accessibility | |
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HTML / XHTML Markup
See W3C HTML Definition.
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HTML 4.01.
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Click to see if it respects HTML norms.
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CSS Stylesheets
See W3C CSS Definition.
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CSS 2. ![]()
Click to see if it respects CSS norms.
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Accessibility (WAI)
Web Accessibility ensures that the forum is usable by people of all abilities and disabilities.
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No accessibility. |
UTF-8 Support
Default encoding used to support all locales and countries.
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Yes |
Conformance to W3C Norms
Does Ninja Post correctly follow (X)HTML and CSS norms?
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Yes. |
Key points and major differences that make Ninja Post unique:
Ninja Post impressed us a lot. This project is young and very dynamic, simple and attractive. Finally, it seems that a new generation of forum software is necessary to make this world from 2000 to evolve to today's practices.
Obviously, some choices made by the main developer could annoy people used with classic forum software (who said "user signatures"? , but these missing features are clearly not the spirit of forum, so you can survive without them with ease.