• Registered: 2004-03-19
  • Posts: 1

Topic: threaded?

Hi, everybody.  I'm a long-time user of WebBBS, and I must admit that I am quite reluctantly looking for an alternative.  Why reluctant?  Because I've been using it for years and I have quite a forum following who love it.  Why am I changing it?  Because my new host is saying it's just too resource-intensive.

Thus, here I am, looking at what is being touted as one of the least resource-intensive, yet full-featured forum software available. :)

One thing, however, is almost essential to my users that I don't think is part of PunBB, and that is the ability to view posts in threads.  I realize this is an old debate, and there are people who like one over another.  I personally prefer threaded messages because they allow you to see the flow of a conversation, and you can follow whichever branch you're interested in.  The 2000+ regular users of my forums would agree with me.

So...in short, is there a plan to include a threaded view in PunBB?  Please say there is, because I'm really liking what I see so far, and I'd hate to have to look elsewhere. :)

  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2001-11-02
  • Posts: 9,167

Re: threaded?

I hate to let you down, but no. It would be quite a large addition to the current code base and I have yet to see an effective implementation of it. If you do it "by the book" and assign each post a parent post, the strain on the database (or PHP if you do the sorting in code) is huge when you want to display deep threads. There are other implementations, but they are all very "hackish".

If threaded view is a requirement for you, I'm sorry to say you will have to go with a different board. I believe vBulletin 3 has support for threaded view, but then again, vBulletin is hardly the leanest product on the market :D

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Rickard's Website

3 Reply by Paul

  • Paul
  • Senior Member
  • Offline
  • From: Wales, UK.
  • Registered: 2003-08-13
  • Posts: 3,089

Re: threaded?

vBulletin may not be the leanest product but it is using mysql. I think the problem with WebBBs is that it is flatfile which I understand means it is very server intensive. I think Phorum is threaded and that uses mysql.