Welcome to the new CogNovo internet forum!
"Simple Machines® Forum" (acronym: SMF) is a widely open-source software project which received numerous awards in the past. It is available in 46 languages using UTF-8 and non-UTF-8 encoding. SMF is written in PHP and uses MySQL for database management. It is developed using established industry standards and is appreciated for its high security standards by the community.
For more infos see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Machines_Forum
"
Generally speaking, a simple machine is a mechanical device that changes the direction or magnitude of a force. In general, they can be defined as the simplest mechanisms that use mechanical advantage (also called leverage) to multiply force."
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_machineBasic HTML is enabled for posts... You can visit the following URLs for an online manual and FAQs:
See also:
Goold, A., Augar, N., & Goodman, A. (2008). Using Social Software to Support the Teaching of IT Professional Practice. In World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2008.
SMF FeaturesSMF 2.0.x is a very versatile forum software. It has many features, including the following:
General
Uses PHP, and a database system: MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQLite.
Comprehensive template system.
Advanced permission and user management.
Supports multiple languages at once.
Open and well-documented source code.
Tracking of new and old unread topics, not just from your last visit.
Designed for optimal performance and scalability.
Multi-media output: XHTML, XML, RSS, WAP.
Multi-language support from a large community.
Package manager that automatically installs or uninstalls mods (also known as packages).
Search:
Search the entire forum, a category/board or within a topic.
Search within your personal messages.
Security
All actions seamlessly require a session based authorization code.
Administrative actions require the user's password (and do not rely solely on cookies).
Major actions are time and IP locked, preventing 'hammering'.
The number of login attempts from a certain IP can be limited and time locked.
Forum Settings
Ability to display page creation time and query count per page.
Put a board into maintenance mode, allowing only administrators to log in.
Word censoring, either full word or partial.
Ability to break up long words.
Boards and Categories
Group boards into collapsible categories.
Set categories as non-collapsible.
Reorder boards within categories, or reorder categories.
Create child boards under other boards (sub boards).
Assign moderators to boards.
Allow certain membergroups to access a board, including guests only.
Configure permissions for each membergroup on the board level.
Ability to indicate new posts to child boards but nothing new in parent.
Member Registration
Require registration before forum entrance.
Require a user to agree to terms before they register.
Disable member registration completely (allowing only administrators, or moderators with the necessary permissions, to register people).
Require email authentication by sending an authentication link.
Require an administrator, or moderator(s) with the necessary permissions, to approve registration.
Register new members from the admin center.
Member Navigation and Authentication
Password reminder option, by email with confirmation (doesn't automatically reset your password).
Both cookie and session based authentication (works without cookies).
Cookies can be set local to a path, global to all subdomains, or normally.
Adjustable expiration time for authentication cookies.
Member Tracking and Tracing
Sortable and searchable public memberlist (accessible by a permission).
Powerful sortable and searchable admin memberlist.
Show all (error) messages and IPs made by a member (track user).
Show all (error) messages from an IP address or range (track IP).
See who's doing what (accessible by permission).
Statistics
Several board statistics (accessible by permission).
Tracking of member's online time in seconds.
Tracking of topics, messages, new members, and hits per day.
Individual member statistics accessible from their profile.
News and Announcements
Send a Newsletter from the admin center, or post any topic as an Announcement.
Member option to disable receiving announcements (and Admin override of this option).
Email or private message your members by membergroup.
Show a news fader.
Communication
Ability to choose sendmail or SMTP (with or without authentication).
Ability to send a topic to a friend.
Ability to view a "printer friendly" version of topics.
Membergroups
Create membergroups to group members on permissions, access rights, and/or appearance.
Assign several membergroups to a single member, with one membergroup as the primary group.
Define membergroups that are auto-assigned based on the amount of posts a user has.
Determine the maximum number of personal messages a membergroup is allowed to have by group.
Assign badge or star to a membergroup - by primary group.
Determine which membergroups are allowed to access a board.
Banning
Ban members based on their username, email address, IP address or hostname.
Support of wildcards for email address, IP address, and hostname.
Include a ban reason (viewable for the banned user).
Include a ban note (only viewable by the administrators).
Choose between full ban, 'no post' ban, or registration ban.
Include an expiration time for bans.
External integration
Integrate parts of the forum software into an existing website using SSI or PHP.
Recent topics or posts.
Recent news posts in a board.
Recent polls.
Export forum data using XML/RSS
Latest members.
News.
Recent posts.
Wireless access
Support for WAP, WAP2 and I-mode protocols.
Browse through boards/topics/messages with reduced page size.
Ability to login and logout.
Ability to see new topics/boards with new replies.
Ability to jump to first unread reply.
Ability to post new messages.
Theming and Templating
Ability to allow or disallow your users to select their own theme.
Ability to reset all of your members to a certain theme.
Ability to install a new theme via your administration center.
Admin can add smileys and smiley sets.
Members can choose which smiley set they wish to use (or none).
SSI can have and show layers and the like from the template system.
Posting Features
Spell Check.
Quick Reply
Members can disable it or collapse it.
Can be used with "Quote".
Also contains "Spell Check".
Vast number of Bulletin Board Codes to use (including rtl, acronym, and others).
Optional editing grace period before a post is shown as modified.
Insert Quote feature on posting screen to quickly quote previous replies.
Polls
Can be added or removed to existing topics.
Ability to set expiration date.
Ability to hide results till expiration of poll.
Ability to hide results until after people have voted.
Ability to determine how many votes a user may cast.
Polls can have up to 256 options.
Attachments
Allowed on a per member group or board basis.
The filename is hashed to increase the security (so you can upload .php files).
Optional restriction on what filetypes may be uploaded.
Ability to restrict such that only registered members can view them (disables hotlinking, mostly).
Images can be embedded into posts.
Calendar Support
Shows Birthdays, Events and Holidays.
Display calendar information on board index.
Link an existing topic to the calendar.
Allow only certain members/groups to post events.
Event poster can edit event.
Events can span multiple days.
Moderation Tools
Ability to lock and unlock a topic.
Topics which are locked by an administrator can not unlocked by anyone else.
Ability to allow members to use moderation on just topics they posted.
Report to moderator link.
Delete or modify posts.
Ability to merge/split topics.
Move or delete topics.
Sticky or unsticky topics.
Recycle bin/board for all deleted topics and posts.
Moderation log which shows moderation activity and dissallows the removal of log entries until they are at least 24-hours old.
AJAX editing:
Edit a post without page reloads.
Double click to edit topic subjects on message index.
User Profiles and User Options
Ability to hide your email address from the public.
Select favorite theme among the activated forum themes.
Select smiley set from the ones available.
Email notification
New topics per board.
Single topics.
Private messages.
Login with 'invisible' mode.
Options to hide other members' avatars and signatures.
Ability to download and resize uploaded avatars.
Personal text, avatar, signature, and all the niceties of forums can be used and are kept up to date in all your posts.
User Resources
Icons for topics you've posted to.
Show new replies to your posts.
Collapsible 'Additional Options' on post screen.
Ability to view most recent messages.
List all topics that have new replies since your last visit.
See who is browsing the same boards or topics as you.
Topics that span multiple pages have the page numbers listed as well as an "all" link.
Other features
Several forum statistics.
List of users online.
The menu bar.
News.
Search.
Login/logout.
Today's events/birthdays/holidays.
