I have decided to go with either phpbb2 or punBB due to both of them offering template editing and phpbb3 doesn't but I am having a hard time figuring out which one is better and which on I should use. Which one do you guys like better and why? I value all of your opinions

Here's my opinion.

Thanks foe our opinion!

I like phppbb2 better

punBB

dion wrote:Here's my opinion.

That opinion is best if you are good javascript. If not, go for punBB

I'm punbb

none of them.Forumotion is the worst host ever.
Vbulletin

From a professional point of view I would choose vBulletin, but If it was someting very low budget I would use PunBB OR MyBB. My forum is going to be vBulletin, My girlfriend is getting me a licence soon

BTW, I hate forumotion

I agree with you guys that forumotion isn't as good as the real phpbb or especially vbulletin, but I need to learn more about foruming before I move up Also, I would've needed a partner to set up a real phpbb board or something and I don't have that. So, in that case, I'll be sticking to forumotion for a few more years, until I'm comfortable

In my opinion, FM is not bad at all.
If you host vB or phpBB on your server, you have to take care of the files, FTP, database etc while on FM, you are free from this You have to install mods for many small configurations and settings that you could do just in a click on FM (eg. reputation/point system mod).

I recommend FM for beginners as well as advanced users. There are lots of things and features that you will not get on vB or other software so easily. You'll have to install mods and it can produce bugs and errors.

Also, on FM, you don't have to pay for anything. Neither hosting nor the software

I don't understand why so many people like vB they themes are so ugly.

For Forumotion I would choose phpBB3 or punBB

For a payed hoste phpbb is the best.

FM + PUNBB For Ever ;D

I don't understand why so many people like vB they themes are so ugly.

VB wasn't designed to look pretty, it was designed for business-oriented communities.

I actually love VB for its looks, to be honest. Its simple, but also complex and professional. Yes, I'm definitely a sucker for an eye-popping, graphically enhanced website with cool features that happen on the click of a mouse, but in all honesty, I'm more concerned with how well the site functions, not how it looks. When looking at software I ask the most important question (to me anyway): What can I do with it?

There are lots of things and features that you will not get on vB or other software so easily. You'll have to install mods and it can produce bugs and errors.

There are bugs and errors that plague FM's "mods" right now...

ankillien wrote:In my opinion, FM is not bad at all.
If you host vB or phpBB on your server, you have to take care of the files, FTP, database etc while on FM, you are free from this You have to install mods for many small configurations and settings that you could do just in a click on FM (eg. reputation/point system mod).

I recommend FM for beginners as well as advanced users. There are lots of things and features that you will not get on vB or other software so easily. You'll have to install mods and it can produce bugs and errors.

Also, on FM, you don't have to pay for anything. Neither hosting nor the software

Well,vbulletin has better security

I think hosted forum like forumotion is great for a beginner to get experience to run a forum.
The bad part is that the user can't backup the database.

Green CoW wrote:I think hosted forum like forumotion is great for a beginner to get experience to run a forum.
The bad part is that the user can't backup the database.

I totally agree with you am I am a total beginner

ankillien wrote:

dion wrote:Here's my opinion.

That opinion is best if you are good javascript. If not, go for punBB

Then we disagree.

Almost everyone I've seen using templates has no understanding of what they're doing. They are NOT going to modify their templates on their own. They want "CODE" that they can insert to make their board look pretty and/or do something cool. That is no different than giving people javascript "CODE" that they can insert to make their board look pretty and/or do something cool.

Actually it is different. It's easier for a person to insert workable javascript "CODE" in a phpBB3 or IPB2/Invision board than it is to insert workable template "CODE" in a phpBB2 or PunBB board. Why? Because the DOM ("markup" if you will) and CSS on phpBB2 and PunBB boards is so bad that it takes a lot of template/CSS work to get things to look right. IPB2/Invision and phpBB3 have good DOM/CSS, so the amount of work is greatly reduced.

And for someone with knowledge of HTML/CSS/JS, you will need to add scripts in templates to make them do the "really cool" stuff. As you have done here (using some "CODE" I provided, I might add). Again, NO DIFFERENT!

You know, I said all this in the post in the link above. But I didn't say this:

I shudder to think what people will do when/if forumotion upgrades the ACP from phpBB2 to something from this millennium. At that point, I suspect people will be given the choice of an upgraded ACP and templates (with I suspect phpBB3 support), or keep their old templates and be forever locked into the old ACP and whatever features are in their templates. Well, not forever...I suspect forumotion would delete the old ACP/templates after a period of time. This is the biggest reason why I will not use the current templates...they're phpBB2-based and must be discarded if forumotion ever wants to upgrade the ACP.

dion wrote:I shudder to think what people will do when/if forumotion upgrades the ACP from phpBB2 to something from this millennium. At that point, I suspect people will be given the choice of an upgraded ACP and templates (with I suspect phpBB3 support), or keep their old templates and be forever locked into the old ACP and whatever features are in their templates. Well, not forever...I suspect forumotion would delete the old ACP/templates after a period of time. This is the biggest reason why I will not use the current templates...they're phpBB2-based and must be discarded if forumotion ever wants to upgrade the ACP.

And it will all happen on December 21, 2012 when the Mayan calendar finally comes to an end and the earth is transformed in a cataclysmic, apocalyptic array of events starting with Kim Jong Il launching his dreaded warheads and Michael Jackson returning from the dead.

I'm not saying its not going to happen, but if I were to put a date on it, it would have to be that one because of the havoc it would it cause.

Maki wrote:I don't understand why so many people like vB they themes are so ugly.

For Forumotion I would choose phpBB3 or punBB

You're the only person I've ever encountered who prefers PunBB themes to vBulletin themes.

Even with templates, PunBB has the ugliest themes on forumotion. I give a lot of credit to Jalokim for coming up with a decent-looking and innovative PunBB homepage, though I wish he had taken it a step further and abandoned his "multi-theme" format for something with a richer feature set. The rest of his work on that theme wasn't as good, but he didn't have the coding skills necessary to achieve what he wanted.

And based on the number of clones and near-clones of his original work, it lends even more credence to my statement that most people don't have the knowledge to modify templates on their own. All they want is "CODE" that they can insert to make their boards look pretty and/or have cool features.

I would have thought by now, someone would have changed Jalokim's index_box and index_body templates to put the topics/post/lastpost info under the forum icons and get rid of the (worthless) column on the right. Or to use the "organic tabs CODE" to put the categories on tabs. Or even something simple like putting the forum descriptions on a tooltip that people would see when they hovered over a forum.

Oh well...

@Dion : Sounds awesome... I might disagree on whether FM users shouldn't just copy and paste... Only since it relates to a future project of mine.


@Agent24 : PunBB !

Kryptonian wrote:I might disagree on whether FM users shouldn't just copy and paste... Only since it relates to a future project of mine.

Why am I not surprised that a future project of yours involves cutting and pasting of code?

dion wrote:

Kryptonian wrote:I might disagree on whether FM users shouldn't just copy and paste... Only since it relates to a future project of mine.

Why am I not surprised that a future project of yours involves cutting and pasting of code?

*spits out drink*

Ha!

@Dion : Cough... What? If you'd like detail on how my project revolves in the idea of cutting and pasting, please feel free to send me a PM. The idea may be of interest.

ONTOPIC: PunBB... It has much cleaner templates (IMO) than PHPBB2's.


EDIT: @Dion To be clear, when you wrote that people want to copy and paste, it only triggered my recent thoughts on how installing (custom) forum modifications, could be easier.

Gangstar15 wrote:FM + PUNBB For Ever ;D

Punbb!