Not signed in (Sign In)
    •  
      CommentAuthoradnan278
    • CommentTimeFeb 27th 2007
     permalink

    Hey Guys.
    Im helping someone get a site off the ground at the mo - its an airsofting site. Basically, he wants video, pic galleries and a chatroom and he's willing to pay for them.

    http://www.addonchat.com/ CHAT ROOM £80
    http://www.vbulletin.com/ FORUM £80
    http://www.webgallerywizard.com http://www.webgallerywizard.com GALLERY £20
    http://www.flvplay.com/FLVPlay/purchase/default.html Video Gallery $39ish.

    Basically I think its stupid for him to be paying that (apart from the VBulletin forum which is necessary).
    Does anyone know of free alternatives or any similar programs which they know which can do the job just as well for any of the above?

    Thanks in advance,
    Adnan

    •  
      CommentAuthorEric
    • CommentTimeFeb 27th 2007
     permalink

    Vanilla - forum

    Coppermine - gallery - also does video

    Chat room - google this, there's a TON

  1.  permalink

    PHPBB is a forum possibility although there are better alternatives.

    •  
      CommentAuthorTravis
    • CommentTimeFeb 27th 2007
     permalink

    Here's a free alternative to the FLVplay for videos:

    http://flowplayer.sourceforge.net/index.html

    •  
      CommentAuthorTravis
    • CommentTimeFeb 27th 2007
     permalink

    Lussumo, creator of Vanilla, have a free image gallery that's pretty cool:

    http://thefilebrowser.com/

    •  
      CommentAuthorEric
    • CommentTimeFeb 27th 2007
     permalink
    Posted By: JimiHendrix

    PHPBB is a forum possibility although there are better alternatives.

    too buggy, too prone to attack

    •  
      CommentAuthoradnan278
    • CommentTimeFeb 28th 2007
     permalink

    Thanks guys.

    Yeah I will never use PHPBB ever again! Spam control is hard and vulnerability is a real issue and one that involves too much hard work. Its a shame because the software itself isn't too bad and could compete with VBulletin.

    Vanilla is a possibility but I don't know how to integrate it with the blog (ie. with the same header and sidebar like you guys have here). Presumably you use PHP. Could someone whisper me the email address of the guy that coded YGG (eric / travis?)

    I'll take a look at the Chatroom on Google and the suggestions you gave me so thanks for that. Any others for me to look at would be appreciated.

    •  
      CommentAuthorEric
    • CommentTimeFeb 28th 2007
     permalink

    The guy that did YGG seems to be a bit overloaded right now but you can sure give him a shout. Look in the YGG footer, you'll see his name - Brandon.

    You need to be pretty fly with CSS to get it integrated right, I wish I could help ya there, but I can't.

    •  
      CommentAuthorTravis
    • CommentTimeFeb 28th 2007
     permalink

    It is a ton of work integrating Vanilla's theme with the rest of your site.

    There are quite a few other free Forums that supposedly integrate nicely with Wordpress.

    •  
      CommentAuthoradnan278
    • CommentTimeFeb 28th 2007
     permalink

    Dang it - well I think the dude's gonna go with VBulletin anyway - and it does have some nice features and extras, it would have been nice to have it though - hell I want it on Blogtrepreneur!

    UPDATE: have looked around wordpress codex and lussumo and seems like it is a complex job involving extensive CSS know-how. pity really. ill try and get onto Brandon and see if he can give me some instructions.

    •  
      CommentAuthorTravis
    • CommentTimeFeb 28th 2007
     permalink

    It's not a cheap or quick job to integrate Vanilla with Wordpress, let alone match the style.

    vBulletin and phpBB seem to be the easiest way for you to go.

    •  
      CommentAuthorrosshill
    • CommentTimeMar 1st 2007 edited
     permalink
    Posted By: adnan278

    Thanks guys.

    Yeah I will never use PHPBB ever again! Spam control is hard and vulnerability is a real issue and one that involves too much hard work.

    We used to have spam trouble on a site that I created for customers, but after installing the Akismet plugin (hacked for phpbb), along with a words blacklist and a human captcha (asking a written question) there hasn't been any spammers since :)

    In future I'd go with Vanilla though, it's much nicer.

    •  
      CommentAuthoradnan278
    • CommentTimeMar 1st 2007
     permalink

    Sent an email to Brandon and he gave me a link to a site that does explain how to use Wordpress themes in Vanilla.

    I'll try this out.

Add your comments
    Username Password
  • Format comments as