Quote from: Sarah Dreams on October 20, 2008, 03:09:47 AM
Quote from: Leiandra on October 15, 2008, 11:30:14 AM
Are you planning on making it mainly a forum? If so, SMF is probably the best software available to run forums on. It's certainly the most customisable, in my opinion. Although free hosting sites are pains when it comes to being able to run SMF, mainly because of their reluctance to allow you to upload the .htaccess files that come with the installation files for the forum software. And without them, it's kinda difficult to install themes and mods onto it.
I don't know whether freewebs allow .htaccess (or allow you to create a MySql database for that matter) but if they do, it might be worth thinking about getting SMF 1.1.6 and installing that. Because you can then go get TinyPortal and make it far more interactive with a ton of great features. (TinyPortal can also act as your homepage and be integrated with the forums). 
Just don't get 2.0 beta because TP isn't compatible with it.
Oh, Leiandra, such sexy talk, I think I'm in love! 
Seriously, what do you do for a living? I have a small software company (very small - just me and a contractor or two).
Love, Sarah.
Um... *blushes* I work in the NHS. All the web and forum stuff is more of a hobby I indulge in occasionally. More of an interest than a career. I like seeing how things, and people, work.
Although I prefer working with the creative side more than the coding side. Lol, I set up an SMF forum once for no other reason than to see how the software worked from an admin/technical standpoint, and to see how good I could make it look (subjectively, obviously). I love the themes and playing around with the CSS.
Haha, intensely dull, I know... but what can I say?
Also, Carolyn, if you want to go down the route of designing your own place from scratch, and if you don't want to use SMF/TP then a good alternative is to use a CMS type homepage, something like Joomla (free to download and set up since it's open source... I think). That looks
very professional if it's set up right.
There used to be a bridge between that and SMF but simple machines have disowned it and stopped running it... however, I'm pretty sure there are some around.
