Hobby & Craft Forums

Well erm, as it says, bit bored and I decided as I'm not keen on this template, I'd take a look around and see what else there was out there and possibly see what inspiration I could draw from other themes to see what else was available. If I find anymore, I'll just add them onto the end of this thread...

Now this is by no way a theme I'm 100% happy with, but I do like parts of the theme and think with a bit of hacking, could be incorporated into this theme if anyone is up for it *coughs*like me* or even use the theme I have linked below and make a few subtle changes to it. I'd have to say it's not wide enough, which means hacking the CSS and images to make the theme sit wider than it currently does but anyway, here it is...

The demo is here...
http://demo.phpbb3styles.net/viewtopic. ... 8&f=2&t=6#

Hot linked this image so feel free to delete it...


What I don't like about it (a part from colours, they're easily changed to suit if need be) is the width of the template which as explained above means hacking the template CSS/images (but no biggie).

So what do I like about it, well for a start, I like the use of the buttons at the top of the banner and the images below the banner. As you'll see from the buttons at the top, if Nickie, wanted to include any additional pages on here to sort of blend with a Blog then the header section bears a remarkable similarity to the default WordPress template (except it's red/grey). Still, it'd be easy to theme them so they looked a like anyway.

So why would you want to include a Blog a long with this Forum? Well for a start, if anyone felt the need, they could write articles about their own products and Nickie could publish these articles on the backend Blog which would include links to the authors own website. Another distinct possibility is writing articles about "How to..." do stuff for the complete novices who maybe wanting to get into this stuff but haven't a clue what they are doing. Now I realise that people on here wont want to divulge "trade secrets" but lets face it, crafting is written about all over the internet so you might as well capitalise on the fact that the people who are looking to see how they do this and that will no doubt be regular Joe's and looking for a quick and easy tutorial on how to use your "Kits" and stuff. Then of course, we move onto the people who make stuff like Jewellery for instance (seeing as somebody joined on here and it got mentioned). They could write a few articles about their jewellery, about what they do and what they sell etc, etc...

So you're reading this, you're thinking why? Why waste my time writing an article which not many people will read, if any and it'll take up a load of my time anyway which I'd rather use doing more worth while things like watching Corro-Enders-Dale, or whatever they're called...

But wait, I haven't run this with Nickie, but what if she was to make the Blog "dofollow" and close commenting on it. (Close comments so the spam bots don't filter through and try and soak up the link juice and causing the search engines off from considering your articles to be a bit spammy). So you get a link to your website which is well written (as you wrote it) and projects your website in a positive light to the search engines. There is of course, the distinct possibility that the articles you write could get indexed and begin to show up in searches which means, anyone taking the time to read them could then decide to check your website out.

So what does Nickie gain from this, well "content is king" and having all your articles and content included in her blog means that the search engines will see her blog as being a bit of an authority on crafting and in turn, begin to index more content and more pages from the forum and in turn, (by no way guaranteed to happen) start to bring in more visitors to the forum.

I could go on and on for at least another 30 minutes waffling about all the benefits of all this but of course, that would probably mean nobody would read it all and secondly, I'll get moaned at if it fails to make any sort of impact on the numbers of visitors to this forum and also to your websites which are linked in your articles...

The following users have thanked webdesigner for this useful post :

Nickie

On the front (index) page you can see who posted last, but you can't see in which thread it was posted in.

Here is a hack to show the "topic" as well as the last poster...

http://www.phpbbhacks.com/download/9039

In case you think the "Blog" idea is a no go, here is an option to give users on here their very own areas to do with as they will. I've no idea how this will look as I'm too lazy to install a forum on xampp, just to test all of this out so I'll leave it upto Nickie if she wants to give this a go...

http://www.phpbbhacks.com/download/8958

This claims to build a somewhat sort of portal or something on the front end, or at the very least, gives you options on organising the data presented on the front end so it could be useful...

http://www.phpbbhacks.com/download/8450

and this one too

http://www.phpbbhacks.com/download/8693

I'm sure somebody mentioned this before, they wanted all the external links to open in a new window rather than in the same window.

Should be easy to do if the core code is hacked and a _blank is added to all external links, but if that's too much trouble, there's always this...

http://www.phpbbhacks.com/download/8466

Thanks David...you must be really really really bored lol! The blog is already in progress- just waiting for Shaun to set it up when he gets time in between everything else I've harassed the poor lad to do for us! As for changing the theme again, it's not a good idea, it's confusing everyone as it is as we've already changed it more than 3 times already. While I can see your point with the above, further down the line when the forum starts generating funds, we'll eventually switch to VBulletin which will mean even more changes for everyone to get used to so for now, it's best left as it is with some minor tweeks.

Nickie wrote:When the forum starts generating funds

So either that concludes "advertising", but advertising what exactly since you are running a forum which appears to be aimed at people who have ecommerce going concerns and as so, will buy from wholesalers. Adsense et al will pump out endless ads for top tier merchants such as those on here so would have little benefit to most using the forum.

Those who do it more for pleasure than commercial means may possibly gain benefit from the advertising but it's unlikely as they'll probably not be served with the type of advertising that will be beneficial as they will likely want to buy parts and accessories and the majority of ads served will be from top tier merchants and not from wholesalers.

So that leaves it at the mercy of people using the forum who wish to buy the end products, but they are unlikely to fond themselves here...

Obviously I could be wrong (and I usually am although being male, you wont see me admit it in person lol)

Nickie wrote:We'll eventually switch to VBulletin which will mean even more changes for everyone to get used to so for now, it's best left as it is with some minor tweeks.

Fair enough it's a couple of hundred dollars for a licence, but I've spent £200 php script for my affiliate marketing stuff (although I haven't created a site with it yet to make the money back...). So I would just bite the bullet and figure to * with it, rather than play around with phpbb, let Google et al get used to the link structure, get used to the site structure (phpbb and vbulletin will output different html) and finally, have the disruption of the forum being down for between 30minutes and a couple of hours IF it's possible to export the database at a time when nobody is online and IF it's able to be imported into vbulletin including all users, passwords, email addresses and posts. Then fine, sit on phpbb for the time being and then move onto vbulletin down the line...

My advice, if you're going to run around in a piece of crap car until you're 100 miles from home it breaks down on you for the very last time. Don't expect to have an easy time of things when you try and get home again.

What I'm getting at is, whilst you have a few users, a few posts and a few headaches, you should consider using vbulletin. The more users, the more posts, the bigger the database and the larger group of people you'll annoy when things don't migrate smoothly!

Just thought I'd check pricing:

Publishing Suite;

* Indefinite software license
* Includes Forums, Blogs, and CMS modules
* Free updates for this version
* Discounts for next version upgrades
* Free forum and ticket support
* Total value: $495

$285

Forum Licence;

* Indefinite software license
* Free updates for this version
* Discounts for next version upgrades
* Free forum support

$195

Obviously, the main gripe is, you have to pay for a new licence when it becomes vbulletin 5, vbulletin 6, etc

Just decided to check wikipedia for more information and on there, they claim that vbulletin expect to upgrade the software to version 5 (then 6) around 18-24 months after each initial release. So in theory, if you cough up the $195 (or $285 if you want the full version which I think you might as well get). You'll basically expect to have the most current software for between 18-24 months and it'll be supported for security updates for around 2-3 years with a bit of luck.

Your other option if you don't want to go to all this expense is to take my advice and get a Free Portal installed at the index of this website and then move the forum to hobbyandcraftforums.co.uk/forum (or whatever) or better still, follow this structure...

hobbyandcrafts.co.uk/index.php = Joomla + JFusion plugin (bridges phpbb and Joomla so they share the database user logins)

hobbyandcrafts.co.uk/forum (or whatever you want to call the sub-directory) = phpbb forum software goes here

hobbyandcrafts.co.uk/members = Use the Community Builder plugin (Free) to create user profiles

hobbyandcrafts.co.uk/articles (or whatever you want to call the sub-directory = articles/blogs go here

(This will cost you and cause you some headaches...)

hobbyandcrafts.co.uk/members/blogs (or whatever you want to call the sub-directory - WordPress or WordPress MU bridged through Joomla so all logins are shared between Joomla and WordPress (MU) and you have the choice of either using Community Builder or doing away with it and just using WordPress (MU) to handle the profiles part of your website.

So what do you gain using Joomla/J Fusion and Community Builder/WordPress (MU)? Well for starters, you can add a CMS around your forum (which Invison and Vbulletin have started to do) which is good for building up communities and giving people some space to do what they want to do on your website since not everyone will have access to their own profile page/blog. This may not be important now, but down the line, it could become more useful to people using your website.

Lastly

I know you wont use any of my ideas and you'll soldier on regardless but since I'm taking a break from playing poker on FB, I thought I'd spend a bit of free time buzzing around wikipedia and the forum websites to see what was what and get some idea of what I think could/should work on here. Remember, the longer you leave making minor changes, the more difficult it will be down the line and minor changes now could end up becoming major headaches down the line...

The following users have thanked webdesigner for this useful post :

Just Soaps

WOW Webdesigner, you know your stuff - it all goes over my head, but very interesting reading

Thanks for sharing

Jane

Crikey, I nearly went back to sleep then. Interesting stuff.

Your comments have been noted and taken on board.

As Nickie said, we will not be changing the theme for a while now; like it or lump it, we can't please everybody.

I will be integrating a WordPress site over the coming weeks to allow for blog postings and tutorial/article uploads - Joomla is too powerful for this requirement.

Locking thread.