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naudefj edited this page May 14, 2023 · 10 revisions

Welcome to the FUDforum wiki!

FUDforum (Fast Uncompromising Discussion Forum) is a free and open source web discussion forum released under the GPL (version 2) license that is written in PHP and can be used on virtually any operating system. FUDforum combines an extensive feature set while maintaining the ability to generate forum web pages extremely fast. The forum includes i18n and templating support allowing for a complete customization of its output as well as a very capable group based permission system. FUDforum can also act as a Mailing List Manager, USENET newsreader and even an XML Feed Aggregator. This will allow you to build an instant community and consolidate all your messages into a single system.

One of the most significant FUDforum features is the ease of use, which begins right with the installation process where a user is guided through a 5 step install wizard. The entire installation process, even for novice users, may literally take less then a minute from the point of installation to the point a user has a working web forum. Unlike installation of similar software, the user does not need to deal with multiple files, all of the forum's data is stored in a single file, the install script. The installation script itself is written in PHP so no additional software is required to complete the installation.

The upgrade process is even easier. After downloading the upgrade script, the user is only required to run the script via their browser, the upgrade script will take care of the rest.

Core Features

Here are some of the core features offered by FUDforum:

  • i18n support, with a number of languages distributed with the forum.
  • Full template support with a FAST template compiler.
  • Powerful groups management system, which allows fine grained control over forum's resources.
  • Private Messaging system, with post tracking & buddy lists
  • Built in spell checker (using the enchant library)
  • Ability to use BBcode, HTML or Plain Text inside posts, configurable by the admin
  • Administrator definable ranks for the users bases on number of posts as well as assign an unlimited number of custom tags to individual users
  • Three (3) types of user avatars
  • Ignore list, allows forum members to ignore posts made by other users.
  • Threaded View (by default standard flat view is used)
  • Customizable Find and Replace system, which fully supports both perl regexp (preg) and even str_replace for extremely fast simple replaces
  • NNTP & Mailing List integration, allowing FUDforum to be used to archive newsgroups & mailing lists, as well as allow forum members to post messages to newsgroups and mailing lists via the forum.

Standard Features

FUDforum also supports all the standard features you may come to expect from a modern forum.

  • Posting/Replying and editing of topics and messages.
  • Sticky/Announcement messages which stay on top of the forum until they reach their expire date.
  • Custom Avatars upload with administrator approval and automatic scaling (if ImageMagick's mogrify utility is installed).
  • Emoticon (smilies) Support, with an easy to use admin control panel, which allows the admin to add/remove and edit smilies.
  • Post notification system, which can send notifications via Email & ICQ.
  • Unlimited number of forum moderators.
  • Hidden, Private, Moderated and Password protected forums.
  • Moderation queue, in moderated forums all unapproved messages can be viewed by the moderator and approved or deleted on the spot.
  • Email confirmation of registered users (can't post until the email address is confirmed).
  • Specialized HTML like BBcode that allows styling of messages, the advantage of BBcode over HTML is that BBcode will never break layout.
  • Banning of users by their username and/or IP or IP Mask, Email address filter or Login name filter (full regexp support).
  • Multiple file uploads per post (configurable by the administrator for each forum).
  • File extension control, allowing/disallowing certain file extensions.
  • Fully customizable header & footer which can support PHP code.
  • Language filter (full regexp), which allows the admin to replace certain offensive words.
  • Full support for Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
  • Automatic lost password retrieval.
  • Search Engine.
  • MD5 passwords (128 Bit encryption).
  • Thread locking by Administrators & Moderators.
  • Easy to use installation PHP or Shell script.
  • Unread Posts Tracking, you can automatically see which posts you have not yet read.
  • Extensive message filtering, by date, read/unread, forum, thread, reply status.
  • Message reporting, allows visitors to report inappropriate messages to the Administrator.
  • Robust MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL or SQLite back-end, with a virtually unlimited number of messages (up to 2^32 messages).
  • Cookie based tracking system backed by Sessions in the event the user cannot use cookies.
  • Polls if allowed, users can create one or more polls on their messages.
  • Forum & Thread subscription system with an easy to use control panel. Allows users to subscribe & unsubscribe from forums & threads.
  • I-SPY system, if enabled it allows forum members to see what the other users on the forum are doing.
Many other smaller features are available, however they are too numerous to list here. It is the goal of FUDforum to provide a complete and robust forum package that can satisfy all of your needs.
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