Website Toolbox Review
Last Version | Hosted. (April 25, 2009). | Released under | GPL License. |
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Company | Website Toolbox, Inc. | ||
Price | Free Version, $0 - Enterprise Version 1 year / $59.95. |
Last Version | Hosted. (April 25, 2009). | Released under | GPL License. |
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Resources |
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Company | Website Toolbox, Inc. | ||
Price | Free Version, $0 - Enterprise Version 1 year / $59.95. |
As its name describes it, Website Toolbox is not just a forum software, but an entire set of tools helping you increasing the interactivity of your website with your guests and, more particularly in the domain of communication. You can find many tools serving this purpose in the panel providing by Website Toolbox:
Website Toolbox tries to care as much as possible about their customers' satisfaction, providing a fast support in three different channels: phone, chat, and email.
In order to use Website Toolbox, you need first to choose how it will be available: either under the websitetoolbox.com domain or as a subdomain of your domain name (i.e. forums.yourcompany.com). This is really convenient, because, while the first choice allows you to quickly setup your forum, the second allows you to organize your website conveniently (useful for SEO), hiding the fact you use Website Toolbox.
Note that this methodology is valid whatever utilities and services you need from Website Toolbox. By the way, we reviewed only the forum part, so it's time to discover it in details.
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, CSS. | |||||||
Localization
Languages supported by Website Toolbox.
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No.
No.
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The hosted architecture does not force us to know and consider the technologies used behind the scene. This is an advantage for beginners.
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 | Yes | Sticky Threads | Yes |
Related Threads | - | Detect Duplicate Threads | No |
Announcements | Yes |
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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Yes | ||
Image Attachment
How Images can be Attached and Displayed in Message Posts.
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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 | Yes | Syntax Highlighting | No |
Message Rating
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No | Message Quoting | Yes |
Additional Forum Features | |
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Poll Creation | Yes |
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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Yes |
Online Users List
Connected User List (Often Found in the Forum Footer).
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Yes |
Members List
Search and Consult the List of Members.
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Yes |
Technical Features | |
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Bundled Software
Additional Software Available with the Forum.
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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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No |
Template Engine
It is easier to theme a forum using a known template engine (more docs & examples,...).
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No. |
The Chat Room feature is a really good idea to increase traffic of your website.
Member Options & Features | |
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Bookmark Threads
User Profiles Keep a List of Followed Posts and Topics.
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Yes |
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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Yes |
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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Yes |
Ranks
Tags and Labels Identifying the Members, based on specific criteria (Total Posts Count, Credits, Moderation Level...)
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Yes |
Moderation & Threads Management | ||
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Moderation |
Pre-Moderation
In pre-moderation, every post needs to be validated by a moderator before being published.
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.
Reactive Moderation
By reporting any problems, members are reactive against moderation problems.
Moderators' main objective is to regularly check user reports, without having to follow each threads.
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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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Yes | |
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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Yes |
User Banishment | Yes |
Database Management | |
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Backup Database
Backup forum datas that you could store somewhere else.
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Yes |
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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Yes |
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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Yes |
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 Website Toolbox.
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Yes. |
Website Toolbox customer support team makes the migration for you, for free! This is quite amazing when you compare it to the difficulty and the time it could take in order to export/import data from a forum software to another one.
Security & Spam Protection | ||
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CAPTCHA
Captcha protects your forum against spam bots.
e.g.,
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Yes
Complexity:
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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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Yes | |
User Blacklist
Prevent specific user accounts to register (based on email address, name,...) and disable potentially harmful members.
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Yes | |
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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Yes |
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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Yes. | ||
Custom BBCodes | No | Smiley Packs | Yes |
Custom Thread Icons |
No |
Additional User Profile Fields
Ask more about your members with custom fields.
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Yes |
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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No. |
CMS / Blog Bridges
Integration with existing Web publishing tools.
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No. |
User Accounts Integration
Do users be able to log in with their corporate, Google, Facebook,... accounts?
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No. |
Content Aggregation
Forum allows to integrate news and content from other website,
using an aggregation protocol (RSS, RDF, Atom,...).
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No. |
Website Toolbox provides a forum software that is really easy to integrate to your website. A wizard helps beginners creating a simple HTML image or text link to incorporate to your existing website.
Norms & Accessibility | |
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HTML / XHTML Markup
See W3C HTML Definition.
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XHTML 1.0 Transitional.
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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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Conformance to A level.
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UTF-8 Support
Default encoding used to support all locales and countries.
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Yes |
Conformance to W3C Norms
Does Website Toolbox correctly follow (X)HTML and CSS norms?
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Yes. |
The table layout is harder to template and is not really recommended in terms of semantic but the code is compliant with W3C norms.
Key points and major differences that make Website Toolbox unique:
As usual in an hosted forum software service, the software is really simple to install, configure and administrate. This is particularly true for the Message Board that Website Toolbox provides, which is a really good solution for website managers who want to centralize at the same place all tools and services regarding communications (forum, statistics, polls, guestbook,...)
The administration panel of the forum is part of the global Website Toolbox administration tool, grouping all services at the same place, which is really convenient when you use several tools Website Toolbox provides. However, as usual with hosted forum, everything totally depends on an external provider, and you need to clearly make the pros and cons of this solution (the classical fight between hardware/software problem vs control of data).
In any case, the Website Toolbox is a perfect solution for people who need a fast and efficient solution for their external tools, and more particularly about their forum.
Comments (6)
I have already confronted my
I have already confronted my forum provider about there pathetic service. They had promised me they would match my forum to my site without fail and then they had no clue how to do it. The fact was they do no programming whatsoever. I called out there representatives on the phone about bait and buy tactics and they had nothing to provide other then they can't do anything about it. The fact is also, when they first attempted to do it they completly misplaced all the items with no attempts to correct there mistakes. The forum page was so horribly distorted from any original form that it actually made me look incompitent as a developer. I also displayed this to the forum reps that they where making my website look like crap. This is why we have this bland and black white forum. I have no confidence in websitetoolbox at all. I do not reccomend website toolbox to anyone. Phbb is far better, in all area's...
Website Toolbox
Website Toolbox representatives will always strive to help in any way we can. We can make your forum layout match your website layout for free on a separate test forum. We can apply it to your forum once you approve it so that your forum always looks as professional as possible.
You have full control over your forum's design through the My Account area so you can always keep your forum looking perfect.
I apologize if you feel that you didn't receive the level of service that you expected. Please do let us know and we will be glad to make sure your forum looks exactly the way you want it or we will provide a full refund.
I had heard that Website
I had heard that Website Toolbox was a good platform for forum hosting, but the comment by TheKingofDemons above has me second guessing this. Maybe I need to explore other options.
We provide a free one week
We provide a free one week trial, so I would really encourage you to give us a try. Phone, chat, and email support is available 17 hours per day to help you every step of the way. We have thousands of clients worldwide that use our forum platform and find it powerful, easy to use, and customizable. Moreover, we have been ranked as the #1 forum hosting provider by StarReviews.
Give us a try:
http://www.websitetoolbox.com/forum-hosting/index.html
Hi Cyystal, That was a great
Hi Cyystal, That was a great review and I wish you the best of the luck on your new forum !!
After speaking with the owner
After speaking with the owner of WEBSITE TOOLBOX, he was very friendly and accommodating and helped me solve the problem i was having !!