Host unlimited blogs, websites for $4.95 only with this web host
Register domain names for less than a dollar here

SMF Hosting

SMF is the abbreviated form of Simple Machines Forum which is a freeware Internet forum script. SMF is developed by the Simple Machines development team. This Simple Machines Forum is a free, professional grade software package which allows users to set up their online community without any hassles or delay. SMF is written in PHP language and uses a MySQL database backend.

The genesis of the SMF can be traced back to a perl powered message board called YaBB. The YaBBSE originated when there was a growing demand for the php coded version of YaBB. Then on September 29th, 2003, the first beta of SMF was released to charter members, SMF 1.0 Beta 1 and on March 10, 2004, SMF made its public debut with the first public SMF release which was made accessible to everyone. There are many people involved behind the development of SMF coming from diverse backgrounds and a part of many teams including a design team, modification team, development team, documentation team, support team, and a language team.
The users wield complete control over the layout of their message boards primarily because of its powerful custom made template engine. The SSI (Server Side Includes) function gives the flexibility of controlled interactions between the website and the forum. It offers all the useful features of an advanced bulletin board while minimizing the impact on server resources.

Below is a brief outline of its key features:

• General

1. It utilizes PHP, MySQL and a comprehensive template system.
2. An advanced permission and user management system is available.
3. It supports multiple languages and offers open and well documented source code.
4. Ability to trace and track new as well old/unread topics and is designed to offer reliable and optimum performance and scalability.
5. Multi-media output. (XHTML, XML, RSS, WAP).
6. Offers multi-language support from a large and diverse community.
7. The Package Manager automatically installs or uninstalls mods (Aka hacks).
8. Offers flexibility to search the entire forum, category or board or within a particular topic or within personal messages.

• Security

1. All actions consistently require a session based authorization code and the administration access or action requires the user’s password.
2. All major actions are IP locked and time locked which prevents “hammering”.
3. Login attempts from a certain IP are limited and time locked.

• Forum Settings

1. Ability to display page creation, time and query count per page and to break up long words.
2. Ability to transfer a board into maintenance mode which is only accessible by the admin.
3. Word censoring, either full word or partial.

• Boards and Categories

1. Ability to set categories as non-collapsible, group boards into collapsible categories and reorder boards within categories, or reorder categories.
2. Create child boards into sub boards.
3. Ability to assign moderators to specific boards as well as allow certain member groups to access a board, including guests only.
4. Configure permissions for each member group on the board level and indicate new posts to child boards.

• Membership Registration

1. Registration is required before forum entry and the users need to agree to terms and conditions as well for successfully registration.
2. Option of disabling member registration completely (allowing only moderators to register people).
3. Require email authentication by sending an authentication link and a moderator to approve of registrations.
4. Ability to register new members from the admin center.

• Member Navigation and Authentication

1. An array of security checks during navigation and a password reminder option, by email with confirmation.
2. Both cookie and session based authentication (works without cookies).
3. Cookies can be set local to a path, global to all sub domains, or normally, and an adjustable expiration time for authentication cookies.

• Member Tracking and Tracing

1. A searchable member list and an admin member list which is accessible by permission.
2. Show all (error) messages and IPs made by a member. (track user) and show all (error) messages from an IP address or range. (track IP).
3. View who s doing what, again accessible by permission only.

• Statistics

1. Tracking of member’s online time in seconds as well as several board statistics.
2. Tracking of topics, messages, new members, and hits per day.
3. Individual member statistics accessible from their profile.

• News and Announcements

1. Ability to create announcement boards (members receive a notification of topics automatically).
2. Members have an option to disable receiving notifications or announcements.
3. Email or private message your members by member group and display a news ticker or news fader.

• Communication

1. Ability to choose send mail or SMTP (with or without authentication), to send a topic to a friend and to view a “printer friendly” version of topics.

• Member Groups

1. Create member groups to group members on permissions, access rights, and/or appearance and define member groups that are auto-assigned based on the amount of posts a user has.
2. Ability to assign several member groups to a single member, with one member group as the primary group.
3. Assign graphical symbol(s) to a member group and determine or filter which member groups are allowed to access a board.

• Banning

1. Ability to ban members based on their username, email address, IP address or host name.
2. Support of wildcards for email address, IP address, and hostname.
3. Include a ban reason and/or a ban note viewable by user or admin.
4. Chose between full ban, ‘no post’ ban, or registration ban and determine an expiration time for bans.

• External Integration

1. Ability to integrate parts of forum software into existing website using SSI or PHP which could include recent topics/posts, new posts, polls, forum stats, list of users online, menu bar, news, search options, login/logout as well as today’s events/birthdays/holidays etc.
2. Ability to export forum data using XML/RSS like latest members, news and recent posts.

• Wireless Access

1. Support for WAP, WAP2 and I-mode protocols and browse through boards/topics/messages with reduced page size.
2. Ability to login/logout, see new topics/boards with new replies, jump to first unread reply and post new messages.

• Theming and Templating

1. Ability to allow or disallow your users to select their own theme, reset all of your members to a certain theme, install a new theme via your administration center.
2. Default templates are XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS 2.0 compliant.
3. SSI can have and show layers and the like from the template system.
4. Admin can add smileys and/or smiley sets and members can opt for specific smileys.
5. Themes can be installed by way of the “latest and greatest themes” panel.

• Posting Features

1. Posting features include spell check, quick reply (can be used with “quote” and members can either disable or collapse it), ‘Insert Quote’ feature on posting screen to quickly quote previous replies, editing period is optional before a post is shown as modified.

• Polls

1. Polls can be added or removed to existing topics.
2. Ability to set an expiration date, hide results till expiration of polls or until people have voted, determine how many votes a user may cast and many other options.

• Attachments

1. The filename can be encrypted to increase the security (so you can upload .php files, etc.) and an optional restriction on what file types may be uploaded.
2. Ability to embed images into posts.

• Calendar Support

1. Display calendar information on board index, display events, birthdays, and holidays. Ability to link an existing topic to the calendar.
2. Allow only certain members/groups to post events and the events can last up to several days.

• Moderation Tools

1. Ability to lock and unlock a topic, allow members to use moderation on topics that they have posted.
2. A “report to moderator link” available and the ability to delete and modify posts.
3. Ability to merge or split topics, move or delete topics.
4. Recycle bin/board for all deleted topics and posts and the moderation log shows moderation activity and disallows log removal outside of 1 day.
5. AJAX editing includes editing a post without page reloads and edit topic subjects on message index.

• User Profiles and Options

1. Ability to hide email address from the public and log in with ‘invisible’ mode.
2. Email notifications include new topics per board, single topics and Private messages.
3. Ability to select favorite theme among the activated forum themes.
4. Options to hide other members’ avatars and signatures.
5. Personal text, avatar, signature and other fancy stuff can be used and are kept up to date in all your posts.

• User Resources

1. Show new replies to posts.
2. Collapsible ‘Additional Options’ on post screen, ability to view most recent messages, view users who are browsing the same topics and/or boards that you are.

For installation of SMF, Webinstall is the ideal and recommended way to download it. Webinstall is a script that allows you to obtain a SMF package easily and without having to deal with large, compressed files. The process involves downloading the webinstall script, upload the file, point your browser to the script, follow the easy directions, and then sit back and enjoy SMF 1.1.3.

This web hosting blog is proudly hosted with reliable Hostgator webhosting for only one cents through this hostgator coupon. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to this web hosting RSS feed