My Forums

Hi, I recently developed my own simple, yet very useful forum in my website, http://www.scoutprovidence.com

I'd like some constructive criticism on the boards. Here's a list of features:

Easy Navigation

Frames allow users to easily jump from one thread and/or forum to another without having to click around the whole site to get there.

Members and Guests

Guests are able to post without registering, but registering will allow them access to some additional forums, such as "general discussion" and "Members Lounge". They also have additional customized options such as timezone settings, getting rid of the tips, specifying how many thread links you want to see at a time, and personalizing yourself for the forum.

Sticky and locked posts

Moderators and administrators have the power to stick a post to the top of the forum, or to make a thread read-only.

Tags

Users are unable to use HTML, but may use a very simple version of the board code you see at most boards. You are only able to italicize, bolden, underline, or use "[ quote ]" in your text.

Search

You can search in the archives for a specific keyword.

The forums are here: http://forums.scoutprovidence.com

I'd love to hear some comments about this forum. Also, if you'd like me to custom-develop a forum for any of you, please let me know.

moved...

The idea of forums almost being collapsible lists is an interesting one, and works nicely.

Different, but nice

ps - what do you think of a small forum I'm writing? http://www.davidtattersall.me.uk/pb2)

Might want to force a wrap on LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG posts...

---John Holmes...

You have a cross site scripting vulnerability (XSS) when you display the messages when I choose to reply, also. Check the "Just a Test" thread in the "Forum Issues" forum...

[EDIT]oh... and frames suck. I should be able to post a link directly to an interesting thread by grabbing the URL in the address bar.

[EDIT2]actually there are XSS problems all over the place (like registration). Hopefully this isn't an important production forum yet. http://us2.php.net/htmlentities

---John Holmes...

Ah, yes... I thought I fixed all of those problems, since I tried hard to keep HTML from parsing at all, but I think what happened is early on, I accidentally wrote to an earlier file to update it, and it snowballed from there... I'll make sure all of that is fixed, thanks.

[EDIT] As for the frames, I could add an option to make the threads open in new windows, or I could have the URL on the top of every thread ready to copy.

There's no reason to have frames at all.

I'll admit, I got that idea from a forum I frequent. Most of the navigation design was inspired by that forum.

The forum you have is not bad at all.

Nice looking, I'll give you that. I'd be careful with the name "Powerboard" though, since there is already an Invision Powerboard forum...

You've also got some XSS problems and I seem to have posted a message in a board with no ID...

---John Holmes...

In my experience, frames help me jump from thread to thread with ease, without losing my place. Again, I can, hopefully easily, make an option to disable frames for those who do not want them.

Okay, I tweaked the code around to have frames as an option. Guests and new members will have frames disabled, but members may set their options to enable them.

One problem I have, though, is that if you want to go from having frames to not having frames, I want the script to refresh the entire window. Instead it can only redirect the user to the same frame, which kind of makes the thing messed up. If the user refreshed by clicking the button, he or she will see it correctly.

I'd like to send a header that will refresh the whole window, and since the options page is in the right frame when frames are enabled, I seem to only be able to have it redirect the user on that frame, and not the whole window.

I hope I explained that problem clearly. :P

Thanks for taking the time to look

I don't know about that posting a message in board 0, don't know how you did it apart from physically going to a board then erasing some of the address and pressing refresh.

I'm not sure about the name - Invision Power Board seems sufficiently different than PowerBoard 2?