Online foras

17th November, 2005

I've looked everywhere for a decent forum application for a website. I've installed 10+ different solutions locally on my machine for testing. None of them do what I really want. Here's what I want:

• PHP/MySQL based, open source so I can tinker with it.


• Preferably object oriented. It really helps in terms of readability and extendability. It's also much easier to maintain and test for bugs, atomically. I know PHP4 has bad OO support, but this has all changed with PHP5 - which webhotels seriously need to upgrade to. It's not like it's in beta anymore.


• Separation of logic and layout. Most do this already trough some templating system, but an otherwise fine and simple forum, punBB mixes code and html really bad. Not good for my eyes.


• Using PEAR is also good.


• Code readability. I won't use it if I don't understand what is going on. I need to integrate it with my own code. Another reason why going OO is the way.

If foras like that exists, I haven't been able to locate them. phpBB works well, but it drags along an incredibly messy code with tons of exceptions and legacy code everywhere. Please guide me in the right direction. Otherwise I'll just end up writing my own some day.

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