Add a Guestbook or forums

[paul_r]

I've been asked a few times about how to include a Guestbook or Forums in a site.

There are 2 parts to this ...

Create the Guestbook/Forum
Connect to it from your siteFortunately both are pretty easy.

Create/Install: You can find, download and install applications like these from the web if you like but by far the easiest way is to use the Installatron package we've installed in the main control panel of your site.
In there you'll find an Advanced Guestbook and phpBB (one of the most common forums packages). A few clicks will install either of these. Once installed there's still some time and effort required to get to get to grips with the administration of these. It isn't difficult, but forums in particular have a lot of features and options to get used to. I can provide links for phpBB help if needed.

Connect to your site: two main ways - just add a text or image link wherever you like in your site to the location of the forum/guestbook, or integrate it into your site.

Many people just have their forums open in a new window from a link. Integrating it into your site probably looks best for most people, though there are a few issues to get your head round. If you use the sitebuilder the way to do this is to use the iFrame widget - I covered the use of iFrames in another topic in this section of the forums >>HERE<< (http://www.visport.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=16)

I've done this in our demo sitebuilder site at www.supportingyoursport.com (http://www.supportingyoursport.com) - if you go to 'Forums' on the top navigation bar you'll see I've used an iFrame on that page. In that case I've integrated the Vi Sport forums (thatyou're reading now) into the iFrame, i.e. an external link, but you can use exactly the same method to integrate forums installed on your own site.

You'll also see one of the issue that have to be managed that I mentioned above - the double-scrollers. That can be overcome with playing around with the iFrame settings and the forum dimensions. Fiddle around and you should work it out.

[paul_r]

Some useful links if you're using a phpbb forum ...

User guide (http://www.phpbb.com/support/guide/): You'll need this to guide you through the admin side of the forums in particular - Section 3.

Customising the appearance (http://www.phpbb.com/styles/): you could spend the rest of your waking life (and a sizable part of your sleeping life) tweaking and customising a phpbb. It's not that there's anything wrong with the default style, and many people just stick with that. It's certainly a lot easier to update to later versions if you don't customise. If you do want to blend it into your site colours etc. hopefully you can save a lot of time by finding and downloading a theme or style that's already close to what you want.

There are quite a few styles available to preview and download for free on the phpbb site on the link above.
Loads of other free styles on the web too :goog:

[paul_r]

I've added a number of video tutorials to the help pages. These are in a new Demo Centre and include tutorials for phpBB (users and admins sections).

You'll find them >>HERE (http://webhelp.visport.co.uk/democentre/)<<

[kilrootrec]

hi Paul,
I am probably being really dumb here but I cant find the link to create a guestbook in my sitebuilder. Could you point me in the right direction?
Thanks

[paul_r]

A guestbook or forum need to be created outside the sitebuilder, then you'd create a link or (more professional) integrate it into the site using the sitebuilder iFrame tool - there's a link to instructions for that in my first post in this thread.

To install a forum the easiest way by far is to use the Installatron tool in the main website control panel (i.e. not the sitebuilder panel). You'll find the link in the bottom group of tools in that control panel and it's just a few clicks to install it from there.

There was originally a Guestbook available to install from there too but I've removed it now for two reasons. a) the guestbook was open to hacking, b) generally guestbooks aren't used a lot after the first few days of 'Hello, nice site' messages. A forum has a lot more potential use and you can easily devote one section of that to Guestbook messages. A forum has a lot more to it which also means there is more to get to grips with, but I've now added video tutorials for forums too. There's a link to those in the 3rd post in this thread.