How in the hell do you build a forum?

If you want one for a very small number of posters, you can use a server-side script such as ASP or PHP to read and write from text files. You can even make a flash interface for it.

 

However, that won't be very secure, plus it will be slow with limited functionality. What you really need is a database-driven forum like this one, again using a server-side language.

 

If you haven't written server-side scripts before - or if you don't want a forum with special custom features - you can download a free ready made forum from http://www.phpbb.com or a similar provider. However, I wouldn't recommend using their code as an example of how to write your own forum as it's very complex due to the 'templates' feature they provide.

 

If you want more help let me know

We use a PHP script called vBulletin. The messages and accounts are stored in a MySQL database. If you're interested in building a forum from a pre-made template like our site is, vBulletin is just about the best package you can get. Programming your own is really comlicated... and if you don't know where to start, you probably don't know enough PHP to get anywhere, I sure don't.

PHP is fairly simple once you get the concepts nailed.

 

Last time I checked vBulletin (two weeks ago) they appeared to have discontinued their free package