New php forums

[powerspike]

Hi all,

I have spent a bit of time trying to get the forums looking right, and structored well for the content, any suggestions or comments would be greatly welcomed.

[smacklan]

A link would help

[powerspike]

doh! http://www.php.im

[Evolution06]

Looks good to me!

One thing I would recommend is the Welcome Headers Mod. Once you add that and customize with all sorts of goodies that your site is about then guest will know more of what your site offers. Doing this will also put it above your recent post which will be easier to see and could increase registration.

Forum Descriptions are a tade long but hey! they get the job done on letting members know what to post in that forum and what not to post. I like the colors of that skin I have seen it around before. You also have VBSEO which is a great start one of the best things to have on a site (I don't have this too expensive for me at the moment)

All in All you are off to a good start not much more I can say at the moment. Hope this helps.

~Evolution

[powerspike]

Thanks for the comment Evolution, and thanks for the post as well =)

I'm just trying to make sure people post in the right locations, my forum topic is geared towards helping people learn, so want to make it as clear as possible.

And thanks it did help

P.S you avatar reminded me to upload mine

[cheat-master30]

Some comments which may not be best accepted, but I hope they help:

1. You have a good, low number of forums. I like that, as you don't seem to have like 10 million of them. But fill up those with zero posts. And Off Topic should be incredibly easy to fill with conversations.

2. Move that damn new threads thing. It's above any important, serves little real use and just annoys me.

3. Looks a bit plain in terms of add ons (skin seems generally well suited though). Might need some nice additions to compete with the other PHP forums out there, since many members expect a bit more than a plain forum nowadays. Try some of these:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/forumdisplay.php?f=228

4. Not sure what a PHP forum needs, but the vB code looks a bit plain. Maybe some reference code for an online PHP resource or something?

Of course, I'm assuming this will be well used:

http://www.php.im/misc.php?do=bbcode#php

5. Please replace the default smilies, or add to them. Looks too plain in that respect, so trying finding some which match the style of your forum, and some general computer related ones.

6. Considering you have only 17 posts and you have 13, you are posting a bit, which is good. But consider posting a bit more. Start some interesting conversations. Write guides and articles about PHP coding and such like.

Hope that helped.

[powerspike]

Originally Posted by cheat-master30

Some comments which may not be best accepted, but I hope they help:

1. You have a good, low number of forums. I like that, as you don't seem to have like 10 million of them. But fill up those with zero posts. And Off Topic should be incredibly easy to fill with conversations.

2. Move that damn new threads thing. It's above any important, serves little real use and just annoys me.

3. Looks a bit plain in terms of add ons (skin seems generally well suited though). Might need some nice additions to compete with the other PHP forums out there, since many members expect a bit more than a plain forum nowadays. Try some of these:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/forumdisplay.php?f=228

4. Not sure what a PHP forum needs, but the vB code looks a bit plain. Maybe some reference code for an online PHP resource or something?

Of course, I'm assuming this will be well used:

http://www.php.im/misc.php?do=bbcode#php

5. Please replace the default smilies, or add to them. Looks too plain in that respect, so trying finding some which match the style of your forum, and some general computer related ones.

6. Considering you have only 17 posts and you have 13, you are posting a bit, which is good. But consider posting a bit more. Start some interesting conversations. Write guides and articles about PHP coding and such like.

Hope that helped.

#1 - thanks =) and working on it, got hit by the flu this week, slowed me down a little

#2 - just removed it, been tossing over how much value (if any it added), might play around with it again when the forums get a little more busy, but will leave it out until then.

#3 - i am waiting on a few mods to be imported / updated to VB 3.7 - like the "solved" thread hack.

#4 - sorry i am not sure what you mean ?

#5 - something i didn't even consider, will look into it, thanks for the tip =)

#6 - working on it - see #1 =)

One thing I would recommend is the Welcome Headers Mod

I have them installed, but it appears the skin I am using isn't compatible with the new notice system in VB 3.7, i am not sure on how to fix that currently.


cheat-master30 and Evolution06, I would also like to thank the both of you for looking at the forums and taking the time to give me valid points to consider (and fix it).

[cheat-master30]

Okay, I'll expand on the vB code thing. For one, you could use reference code to reference PHP.net. Like using a link with this format:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/{option}.{param}.php

And then they'd use [phpref=security]general[/phpref] to link to http://www.php.net/manual/en/security.general.php for example. This might be a nice kind of reference code to have. Same with a wiki. Let's say there is a site called PHP document wiki or something. You could have this kind of code:

http://phpwiki.com/{param} to use in a vB code to make reference links to said page on a wiki about PHP. So they might have [phpwiki]array[/phpwiki] which would make a reference link to a page on arrays (this is an example, not a real site).

The other vB codes are just fun stuff like my released set here:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=150454

As for content, it's nice to see you are working on it. Because this kind of site would do well with an article section of some kind, to share tutorials. Maybe like example guides on how to secure a forum, or to code a simple guest book or something?

Oh, and if you want modes like solved, 3.7 has prefixes which can be set to do this exact job.

[powerspike]

Thanks once again Cheat-master, i have put in the prefixes, made a few changes (i worked out the notices, took a while to workout what the custom template didn't have!).
Thanks for the detailed explanation, and that will help greatly (even better then what i had planed). I am planing on putting a few php manuals on the site, so that will come in extremely handy for sure.