Making a professional forum

[300zx_9]

Hey guys i would like to ask you a question well its mainly for the owners of this forum but also the people who have some basic knowledge about what im about to ask. I want to create a forum just like this one, the same as in the layout and stuff but different in purpose and graphic layout. I searched the net for some free phpbb forums and i managed to get my self signed in with one but it is not to this high standard im afraid. I would just like to ask if this forum is payed for and was it made with PHP? and also how can i get to understand php? what are the easiest tutorials out there? and how do i convert a php script to a html script and host it? any insight will be really appreciated thank you in advance.

[99GsTurbo]

Ive done a few forums and blogs for school assignments and for me, the best place to learn PHP is php.net IMO ...... The books were pretty Ok which I found a few to be helpful but php.net is always being updated, has everything you need, and it also gives examples but if that sites to hard to understand, i would recommend this book (PHP and MySQL web development......the book ) it helped a lot of us learn it at school and them from there, u can use php.net for reference.

[300zx_9]

i already have some codes with php like a whole forum in php coding but what i cant find on the net is how to make those php files into html so i can upload them to the server. That is what i need to learn or to know how to convert these php files to html.

[99GsTurbo]

Well what u do is you have a html Page call upon the Php. Ur not converting it to HTML, u have sepreate files, 1 + file with the php and then a html page callin the php and running the actions. Also php is very flexible. U can go in and out of php/html all within one page and it knows how to process that. Take a look at this file i uploaded, its a simple guestbook, well a way to get started and what its doing is telling the form to get the commans from the php file. No matter what, u need to have webspace that host php or gives u php access or else u cant even test it since a html server cant process the php.

[Icekid84]

I'm not sure on all the details but yes this forum was redone by a paid professional. At the lower left hand corner of the forum you can find his link. About the other stuff you asked sorry cant answer lol PHP, HTML, anything website design is not my area.

MinerSkinz.com -We provide custom and free vBulletin skins

[JBS103]

Skinning is far different from creating the actual forum. Skinning is the graphical front end presented to the user when they click through all the links. If you want to learn skinning, you will need to start with (X)HTML and CSS as well as Javascript and a little PHP work for minor stuff.

However, all forums have a back-end (a server-side script, PHP is just one "language") that run all the "computations" and determine what the front-end (the skin) will actually show. In almost all cases, these professional forums will query a database that holds all the information and then funnel it through to the client-side. BUT! If you want to learn how to make forums, you need to be confident with PHP on a mastery level. Trying to do a full-out forum like this is equivalent to running a marathon before you can walk. It isn't that any one part is particularly hard (with exception to security), but the amount of planning and know-how to build something from the ground up is extensive.

You have to remember: vBulletin and Invision are both created by a team of professional developers who each do a little piece. You get a high quality and scalable product, but it can be expensive.

I recommend PHPFreaks (google them). They have a great and active forum.