Software support forum software?
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We've been using InstantForum [^]software for the past few years and it's alright as a basic forum package however we're thinking of upgrading to something better. I've been using StackOverflow.com off an on and am very impressed with it's ability to suggest other similar posts when you're typing in your question. This type of functionality would be ideal for us as people often ask a lot of redundant questions without searching the forum first. Unfortunately StackOverflow doesn't sell their forum software. Does anyone know of similar software that is targeted at specifically being able to provide answers for people in such a way to avoid redundant postings and get people the solution faster?
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
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We've been using InstantForum [^]software for the past few years and it's alright as a basic forum package however we're thinking of upgrading to something better. I've been using StackOverflow.com off an on and am very impressed with it's ability to suggest other similar posts when you're typing in your question. This type of functionality would be ideal for us as people often ask a lot of redundant questions without searching the forum first. Unfortunately StackOverflow doesn't sell their forum software. Does anyone know of similar software that is targeted at specifically being able to provide answers for people in such a way to avoid redundant postings and get people the solution faster?
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
vBulletin has a "similar threads" feature.
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vBulletin has a "similar threads" feature.
ARGGHHGHGHGHGHGH! What the hell is wrong with those people? I checked out the site, it looks cool, not ONE single mention of system requirements. Does it only run on Apache or Linux? Can it run on IIS? Bloody hell, I even looked through the faq, searched the manual for requirements and system requirements and got nothing, read the installation and setup - nothing. When did System Requirements drop off the list of critical info you need to provide for software? Anyway, it looks cool, I'll check into it more later, thanks for the suggestion.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
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ARGGHHGHGHGHGHGH! What the hell is wrong with those people? I checked out the site, it looks cool, not ONE single mention of system requirements. Does it only run on Apache or Linux? Can it run on IIS? Bloody hell, I even looked through the faq, searched the manual for requirements and system requirements and got nothing, read the installation and setup - nothing. When did System Requirements drop off the list of critical info you need to provide for software? Anyway, it looks cool, I'll check into it more later, thanks for the suggestion.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
http://www.vbulletin.com/features.php[^] look at the left sidebar. Minimum PHP 4.3.3 MySQL 4.0.16 Recommended PHP 5.2.5 or later APC or similar PHP cache MySQL 5.0.51 or later Operating Systems » Solaris » Linux » BSD » Windows™ » Mac
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http://www.vbulletin.com/features.php[^] look at the left sidebar. Minimum PHP 4.3.3 MySQL 4.0.16 Recommended PHP 5.2.5 or later APC or similar PHP cache MySQL 5.0.51 or later Operating Systems » Solaris » Linux » BSD » Windows™ » Mac
:doh: System requirements are a *feature* now and not to be discussed in the setup and installation docs, should have guessed, thanks. The dreaded MySQL eh? That's a shame, I hate those guys and everything they stand for after they treated us like lepers when we asked for the price for commercial use licensing which drove us into the arms of FireBird. Oh well, needs must I guess. Thank you.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
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:doh: System requirements are a *feature* now and not to be discussed in the setup and installation docs, should have guessed, thanks. The dreaded MySQL eh? That's a shame, I hate those guys and everything they stand for after they treated us like lepers when we asked for the price for commercial use licensing which drove us into the arms of FireBird. Oh well, needs must I guess. Thank you.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
John C wrote:
System requirements are a *feature* now and not to be discussed in the setup and installation docs, should have guessed, thanks.
i googled "vbulletin system requirements".
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:doh: System requirements are a *feature* now and not to be discussed in the setup and installation docs, should have guessed, thanks. The dreaded MySQL eh? That's a shame, I hate those guys and everything they stand for after they treated us like lepers when we asked for the price for commercial use licensing which drove us into the arms of FireBird. Oh well, needs must I guess. Thank you.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
Just out of interest, why did you need a commercial licence for MySql?
print "http://www.codeproject.com".toURL().text Ain't that Groovy?
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Just out of interest, why did you need a commercial licence for MySql?
print "http://www.codeproject.com".toURL().text Ain't that Groovy?
We have a commercial app and when we rewrote it for .net from MFC we wrote a database independant layer and wanted to offer a free / open source SQL server alternative to MSSQL server. From what I read at the time you could not use even the .net drivers for MySQL in a commercial app without paying for a commercial app license. I approached them for a clarification and costs and was treated like evil scum for daring to want to use the product in a commercial app even though they themselves published the info on who to contact for just that purpose.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
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John C wrote:
System requirements are a *feature* now and not to be discussed in the setup and installation docs, should have guessed, thanks.
i googled "vbulletin system requirements".
Ahh! :) Silly me, I thought it would be in their installation guide. Cheers! (We might actually use it, it has an importer for our current system, it's in the hands of the support Goddess now :) )
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
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We have a commercial app and when we rewrote it for .net from MFC we wrote a database independant layer and wanted to offer a free / open source SQL server alternative to MSSQL server. From what I read at the time you could not use even the .net drivers for MySQL in a commercial app without paying for a commercial app license. I approached them for a clarification and costs and was treated like evil scum for daring to want to use the product in a commercial app even though they themselves published the info on who to contact for just that purpose.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
Well a sh1tty experience is a sh1tty experience and I don't blame you for not wanting to touch MySql after it. But I think you were offered a line of premium Columbian BS by whoever dealt with you. For example, say I came to you "John C inc." and said I liked the look of your "John C Ultra App" application, what databases do you support? And you said SQL Server, Oracle, DB2 and MySql, I don't think the GPL could apply to your application. I chose the database (although you may have provided the expertise to install it), so I couldn't possibly say "Ok, I picked MySql - now I want your software for free and it's source code". And no court in the land would allow it. Assuming your application isn't a derivative work (as in it doesn't co-opt bits of GPL code in its core), merely using the services provided by a database installed by me, using database connectors provided by me can't possibly open up your application to the GPL.
print "http://www.codeproject.com".toURL().text Ain't that Groovy?
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Well a sh1tty experience is a sh1tty experience and I don't blame you for not wanting to touch MySql after it. But I think you were offered a line of premium Columbian BS by whoever dealt with you. For example, say I came to you "John C inc." and said I liked the look of your "John C Ultra App" application, what databases do you support? And you said SQL Server, Oracle, DB2 and MySql, I don't think the GPL could apply to your application. I chose the database (although you may have provided the expertise to install it), so I couldn't possibly say "Ok, I picked MySql - now I want your software for free and it's source code". And no court in the land would allow it. Assuming your application isn't a derivative work (as in it doesn't co-opt bits of GPL code in its core), merely using the services provided by a database installed by me, using database connectors provided by me can't possibly open up your application to the GPL.
print "http://www.codeproject.com".toURL().text Ain't that Groovy?
martin_hughes wrote:
using database connectors provided by me can't possibly open up your application to the GPL.
No, I don't think it would and that wasn't the issue at the time, they just had a rule that using it from a commercial app using the ado.net driver constituted commercial use and I wanted to clarify that and the costs if that was the case to which they replied (and I'm paraphrasing here) "get the hence corporate scum sucking closed source evil leper and darken our inbox no more".
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
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Ahh! :) Silly me, I thought it would be in their installation guide. Cheers! (We might actually use it, it has an importer for our current system, it's in the hands of the support Goddess now :) )
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
i must admit it's odd that they don't support more DBs than just MySQL. but, i've been using vBull for a while and in my experience, it's a pretty solid product. they're very quick with any security patches that come up, and there are a lot of add-ons and customizations out there. it does what we need it to do pretty well. http://www.smalleranimals.com/vforum/index.php[^]
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We've been using InstantForum [^]software for the past few years and it's alright as a basic forum package however we're thinking of upgrading to something better. I've been using StackOverflow.com off an on and am very impressed with it's ability to suggest other similar posts when you're typing in your question. This type of functionality would be ideal for us as people often ask a lot of redundant questions without searching the forum first. Unfortunately StackOverflow doesn't sell their forum software. Does anyone know of similar software that is targeted at specifically being able to provide answers for people in such a way to avoid redundant postings and get people the solution faster?
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
I'm not sure if this is the sort of "forum" you're after. Probably not... But http://uservoice.com/[^] is pretty nice.
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i must admit it's odd that they don't support more DBs than just MySQL. but, i've been using vBull for a while and in my experience, it's a pretty solid product. they're very quick with any security patches that come up, and there are a lot of add-ons and customizations out there. it does what we need it to do pretty well. http://www.smalleranimals.com/vforum/index.php[^]
From what I've seen with PHP, it lacks generic database functions. Sure, you can write your code to target MySQL, PostgreSQL, MSSQL, etc., but they do not share a common function base. As a result, to support a variety of databases, you would need to do one of the following: 1) Rewrite all of the database code per supported database and maintain the separate versions or 2) Roll your own database abstraction layer to make a common function base. At least PHP will work with just about any web server on any platform, which is far more than I can say for ASP.NET.
I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...
I usually have an answer though.
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From what I've seen with PHP, it lacks generic database functions. Sure, you can write your code to target MySQL, PostgreSQL, MSSQL, etc., but they do not share a common function base. As a result, to support a variety of databases, you would need to do one of the following: 1) Rewrite all of the database code per supported database and maintain the separate versions or 2) Roll your own database abstraction layer to make a common function base. At least PHP will work with just about any web server on any platform, which is far more than I can say for ASP.NET.
I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...
I usually have an answer though.
a little Googling shows that there are DB abstraction layer packages for PHP (MDB2, for example[^]), but i can only guess as to why vBull doesn't use one of them (maybe it predates them? maybe, like me, the vBull people didn't know about them)
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We've been using InstantForum [^]software for the past few years and it's alright as a basic forum package however we're thinking of upgrading to something better. I've been using StackOverflow.com off an on and am very impressed with it's ability to suggest other similar posts when you're typing in your question. This type of functionality would be ideal for us as people often ask a lot of redundant questions without searching the forum first. Unfortunately StackOverflow doesn't sell their forum software. Does anyone know of similar software that is targeted at specifically being able to provide answers for people in such a way to avoid redundant postings and get people the solution faster?
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
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a little Googling shows that there are DB abstraction layer packages for PHP (MDB2, for example[^]), but i can only guess as to why vBull doesn't use one of them (maybe it predates them? maybe, like me, the vBull people didn't know about them)
To quote a famous adage: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The vBulletin software most likely predates the first official release of MDB2. The software was already built with the MySQL functions. Most people that operate forums don't really care what database it runs on as long as they don't have to maintain a separate support contract for it.
I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...
I usually have an answer though.
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You can check the open source Stack Overflow-like site in Django[^]
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.(John 3:16) :badger: