General


  • Uses PHP and MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQLite.
  • Newly developed template system making it easier for custom edits.
  • Advanced permission and user management.
  • Supports multiple languages at once.
  • Open and well-documented source code.
  • Tracking of new and old unread topics, not just from your last visit.
  • Designed for optimal performance and scalability.
  • Better SEO(Search Engine Optimization for search engines.
  • Log where search engines crawl your forum.
  • Multi-media output. (XHTML, XML, RSS, WAP)
  • Multi-language support from a large community.
  • Package manager that automatically installs or uninstalls mods (also known as hacks.)
  • Ability to install mods to custom themes within a few mouse clicks.
  • File based caching for a performance increase on all forums regardless of whether an accelerator is installed.
  • Search
    • Search the entire forum, a category/board or within a topic.
    • Search within your personal messages.

Security


  • All actions seamlessly require a session based authorization code.
  • Administrative actions require the user's password (and do not rely solely on cookies.)
  • Major actions are time and IP locked, preventing 'hammering'.
  • The number of login attempts from a certain IP can be limited and time locked.
  • All new powerful CAPTCHA system.
  • New Anti-Spam system allowing you to create questions to appear upon registration to help avoid bots.

Forum Settings


  • Ability to display page creation time and query count per page.
  • Put a board into maintenance mode, allowing only admins to login.
  • Word censoring, either full word or partial.
  • Ability to break up long words.

Boards and Categories


  • Group boards into collapsible categories.
  • Set categories as non-collapsible.
  • Reorder boards within categories, or reorder categories.
  • Create child boards under other boards. (sub boards)
  • Assign moderators to boards.
  • Allow certain membergroups to access a board, including guests only.
  • Configure permissions for each membergroup on the board level.
  • Ability to indicate new posts to child boards but nothing new in parent.

Member Registration


  • Require registration before forum entrance.
  • Require a user to agree to terms before they register.
  • Disable member registration completely (allowing only moderators to register people).
  • Require email authentication by sending an authentication link.
  • Require a moderator to approve registration.
  • Register new members from the admin center.
  • Add custom registration fields and decide whether they are required or not.

Member Navigation and Authentication


  • Several security checks during navigation.
  • Password reminder option, by email with confirmation. (doesn't automatically reset your password.)
  • Both cookie and session based authentication (works without cookies.)
  • Cookies can be set local to a path, global to all subdomains, or normally.
  • Adjustable expiration time for authentication cookies.
  • Members allowed to login using OpenID.
  • Easy to edit dropdown menus to get you where you want to be faster.

Member Tracking and Tracing


  • Sortable and searchable public memberlist (accessible by a permission.)
  • Powerful sortable and searchable admin memberlist.
  • Show all (error) messages and IPs made by a member. (track user)
  • Show all (error) messages from an IP address or range. (track IP)
  • See who's doing what (accessible by permission.)

Statistics


  • Several board statistics (accessible by permission.)
  • Tracking of member's online time in seconds.
  • Tracking of topics, messages, new members, and hits per day.
  • Individual member statistics accessible from their profile.

News and Announcements


  • Ability to create announcement boards (members receive a notification of topics automatically.)
  • Member option to disable receiving announcements.
  • Email or private message your members by membergroup.
  • Show a news ticker or news fader.
  • Mail queuing system to slow down the sending of emails to improve performance on small and large forums.
  • Email users wishing them Happy Birthday with several different templates.

Communication


  • Ability to choose sendmail or SMTP (with or without authentication.)
  • Ability to send a topic to a friend.
  • Ability to view a "printer friendly" version of topics.

Membergroups


  • Create membergroups to group members on permissions, access rights, and/or appearance.
  • Assign several membergroups to a single member, with one membergroup as the primary group.
  • Define membergroups that are auto-assigned based on the amount of posts a user has.
  • Determine the maximum number of personal messages a membergroup is allowed to have by group.
  • Assign graphical symbol(s) to a membergroup - by primary group.
  • Determine which membergroups are allowed to access a board.

Banning


  • Ban members based on their username, email address, IP address or hostname.
  • Support of wildcards for email address, IP address, and hostname.
  • Include a ban reason (viewable for the banned user).
  • Include a ban note (only viewable by the admins).
  • Choose between full ban, 'no post' ban, or registration ban.
  • Include an expiration time for bans.

External integration


  • Integrate parts of forum software into existing website using SSI or PHP
    • Recent topics or posts.
    • Recent news posts in a board.
    • Recent polls.
    • Several forum statistics.
    • List of users online.
    • The menu bar.
    • News.
    • Search.
    • Login/logout.
    • Today's events/birthdays/holidays.
  • Export forum data using XML/RSS
    • Latest members.
    • News.
    • Recent posts.

Wireless access


  • Support for WAP, WAP2 and I-mode protocols.
  • Browse through boards/topics/messages with reduced page size.
  • Ability to login and logout (not with WAP 1.)
  • Ability to see new topics/boards with new replies.
  • Ability to jump to first unread reply.
  • Ability to post new messages (not with WAP 1.)
  • Allows forum to easily detect the use of a mobile phone's browser.

Theming and Templating


  • Ability to allow or disallow your users to select their own theme.
  • Ability to reset all of your members to a certain theme.
  • Ability to install a new theme via your administration center.
  • Default templates are XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS 2.0 compliant.
  • Admin can add smileys and smiley sets.
  • Members can choose which smiley set they wish to use (or none.)
  • Themes can be installed by way of the "latest and greatest themes" panel.
  • SSI can have and show layers and the like from the template system.

Posting Features


  • Spell Check.
  • Quick Reply
    • Members can disable it or collapse it.
    • Can be used with "Quote".
    • Also contains "Spell Check".
  • Vast number of "bulletin board codes" to use (including rtl, acronym, and others.)
  • Enable the use of WYSIWYG(What You See Is What You Get).
  • Optional editing grace period before a post is shown as modified.
  • 'Insert Quote' feature on posting screen to quickly quote previous replies.

Polls


  • Can be added or removed to existing topics.
  • Ability to set expiration date.
  • Ability to hide results till expiration of poll.
  • Ability to hide results until after people have voted.
  • Ability to determine how many votes a user may cast.
  • Polls can have up to 256 options.

Attachments


  • Allowed on a per member group or board basis.
  • The filename can be encrypted to increase the security (so you can upload .php files, etc.)
  • Optional restriction on what filetypes may be uploaded.
  • Ability to restrict such that only registered members can view them (disables hotlinking, mostly.)
  • Images can be embedded into posts.

Calendar Support


  • Appealing to the eyes calendar look.
  • Shows Birthdays, Events and Holidays.
  • Display calendar information on board index.
  • Link an existing topic to the calendar.
  • Allow only certain members/groups post events.
  • Event poster can edit event.
  • Events can span multiple days.

Moderation Tools


  • Ability to lock and unlock a topic.
    • Topics which are locked by an administrator can not be unlocked by anyone else.
  • Ability to allow members to use moderation on just topics they posted.
  • "Report to moderator" link.
  • Delete or modify posts.
  • Ability to Merge/Split topics.
  • Move or delete topics.
  • Sticky or unsticky topics.
  • Quick moderation to quickly go through topics and post by checking them with checkmarks.
  • Recycle bin/board for all deleted topics and posts.
  • Moderation log which shows moderation activity and disallows log removal outside of 1 day.
  • AJAX editing:
    • Edit a post without page reloads.
    • Double click to edit topic subjects on message index.
  • Powerful moderation center to allow moderators, and other forum staff to quickly go through reported topics and topics pending approval.
  • Warning system to allow moderators and forum staff to put a user on a watch list, have all their posts require approval and to not allow them to post at all.

User Profiles and User Options


  • Ability to hide your email address from the public.
  • User subscriptions allows users to subscribe to anything for free or to pay.
  • Select their favorite theme among the activated forum themes.
  • Select their smiley set from the ones available.
  • Email notification
    • New topics per board.
    • Single topics.
    • Private messages.
  • Login with 'invisible' mode.
  • Options to hide other members' avatars and signatures.
  • Ability to download and resize uploaded avatars.
  • Personal text, avatar, signature, and all the niceties of forums can be used and are kept up to date in all your posts.
  • Ability to fill in custom profile fields set by the Administrator.

User Resources


  • Icons for topics you've posted to.
  • Show new replies to your posts.
  • Collapsible 'Additional Options' on post screen.
  • Ability to view most recent messages.
  • List all topics that have new replies since your last visit.
  • See who is browsing the same boards or topics as you.
  • Topics that span multiple pages have the page numbers listed as well as an "all" link.

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