How to create a discussion forum on my web site?

The snitz forums are easy, free and work very well.

http://forum.snitz.com/

Yes you can use ASP with html to built a Strong message Board. Take a look on the following link.it will give you a basic overview.

http://www.troutflap.clara.net/Attack/Monkeypages/messageboard.htm

Hi mmongeon,

I would like to learn how to create a forum by writing the codes, not just using someone else product. Thanks anyway.

Hi adilkhan,

Your example is similar to my guestbook ASP page. It allows user to post message, view and reply to the site. As you know, Access only allow 255 chars per field. That means I need to have a text file as my database. Therefore, user will be able to write a long essay in the forum. I would like to create some basic functions which most forums suppose to have. For example, 1st page of the forum should be the listing of all subject of individual post. When user click on the subject, the program should bring the user to the page which display the content of the post. There should be a "Reply" button at the button of the page. Any replies should be go directly to this post. I dont know how to do this. Plz help. Thanks.

Hi adilkhan,

I just realized that set the field type to Memo would allow unlimitied number of chars entered in the field. That's great! I need to test it out. Thanks.

yes I was about to Post about the memo field in access.
basicly thats the Trick behing message boards.

Suppose you have two fields in access

1. Question ID
2. Follow Up

now when some1 posts a question they should insert a uniqe Id number into Database for example 223.
Now lets say someone wants to reply for this question. For this YOu need to stick the same Question ID(223) into the follow Up field.

so SQL statment would be something like this

Select * from table where followUP=223 AND questionID=223

this will pull out the question #223 and also follow ups for 223.

hopt it makes more sense.

www.webwizguide.com

Has a good forum that I use on my site, with some modifications.  I learned quite a bit from his programming techniques.

Good Luck!

Ok, I basically have set up the forum on my site. Now I stuck. Plz help. I want user be able to click on the subject link in order to go to the full content of this particular post. I dont know how to do that. The forum lists all the messages by "subject", "PostBy", "PostTime". I didn't make it show the content of each message because the body is too long. Therefore, user should be able to the subject line and the program should bring the body page up. How can I make that subject line as a link?

For example:

The subject is: How can I be a programmer?

when user click on "How can I be a programmer?". The other page should be loaded and shows the complete content of that particular post. Can someone help? Thanks in advance.

Thats pretty simple to do.

Lets say in Database you have the subject and body field and a unique ID for that question. then you need to make a new page and pass the ID of that question to that new page. example

<a href="show_body.asp?id=<%=rs("id")%>">How Can I be a Programmer</a>

now on the show_body.asp page you need to grab the value of id variable like this

id = request("id")

then write your Sql statement

select * from table_name where id_num=id

this will select that record set which contains the Id of your Clicked question. Then You can print out the body field on the new Page.

if it sounds confusing to you Let me know.

Hi adikhan,

I know what u saying but the way I list all the subjects of the post is different from you described above. Here is part of code for display all the subjects by using a loop.
===================================
strSQL = "SELECT Subject, UserName, PostTime FROM Thread"
objRS.Open strSQL,objConnection,3,3
         
Response.Write "Post List" & _
"<TABLE BORDER=1 cellpadding=2 cellspacing=2>" & _
"<TR>" & _
"<TH>Subject</TH>" & _
"<TH>Post By</TH>" & _
"<TH>Post Date</TH>" & _
"</TR>"

for i=1 to objRS.RecordCount
     Response.Write("<TR>")
     for j=0 to objRS.Fields.count-1
          Response.Write("<TD>" & objRS(j).Value & "</TD>")
     next
     Response.Write("</TR>")
     objRS.MoveNext
next
Response.Write("</Table>")
==================================================
As you can see objRS(j) is the recordset to display all the subjects in the table. objRS(j) displays all the records by showing "subject", "PostBy", "PostTime". I used SQL statement such as "Select subject,Postby,PostTime From TableName. How can you make it the only subject clickable? I know it's not going to work if I do this:
<a href="show_body.asp?id=<%=rs("id")%>">objRS(j)</a>

Discusman , Are you trying to get all the fields out of your database then Try using the 'While loop' and get rid of for and nested FOR loops.Example
<%
while not rs.eof
%>
<a href="show.asp?id=<%=rs("id")%>">Subject</a>

<%
rs.movenext
wend
%>

by using the while LOOP you dont need to use a variable to keep track of records you can actualy define which record you want to select. For example if 'ID' is the field in Access and 'rs' is the instance name of your recordset object then you just say rs("id") or same for rs("subject") for the subject field.

Ok, here is what I want to do.
I have those fields in my database. "ThreadID", "Subject", "Body", "PostTime", "PostBy".
I want to display all the records in that database by showing "Subject", "PostTime" and "PostBy" on my form.
The subject should be clickable, so user will be able to view the content under that particular subject after they clicked on the subject.

By the way, what's that wend mean in ur example code? Thanks.

here is the sample Code to pull everything out of your table

' assume conn is a connection object
' assume rs is the recordset object


sql = "Select * from table_name"

rs.open sql,conn


<table>
<tr>
<td>Id</td>
<td>Subject</td>
<td>Time</td>
</tr>
<% while not rs.eof %>
' this while means if rs is not equall to end of file
<tr>
<td><%=rs("ThreadID")%></td>
' <%=%> is same is response.write
<td><a href="show.asp?tid=<%=rs("ThreadID")%>"><%=rs("subject")%></td>
<td><%=rs("PostTime")%></td>
</tr>
<%
rs.movenext
' as we defined a while loop it will move to the next record

wend

' wend means END the While Loop
%>
</table>



now on the show the asp page.

grab the value of Clicked subject

which_Subject = request("tid")

'tid was the name of queryString Variable on first page.

so on show.asp page use the following sql

sql = select * from table_name where id="&which_subject

once you select that record simply pull out the values by doing the same process.

Ok, I will test it when I get home tonight. Thanks.

By the way, I have a question regarding the reply button. When user wants to reply particular post on the form. Is it going to be a new record inserted to the table or just adding more text into that post which the user reply to?

For example, when user wants to reply post #2 in the table. The reply text will be added into post #2 or is it going to be a new record inserted to the table?

Reply Could be inserted into a new record(ROW) BUT you do need to track it. for example ID for question # 2 is lets say '2', then for the reply field you need to have ParentID number(which is 2) as well. So you can select all the replies by writing a simplw SQL query.

select * from table where id = 2

this will pull out all the replies and the question as well.

Ok, so you mean all the reply text will be added in post #2. Then how would you display each reply separately within a table?

Remember the While LOOP?.  use the same While loop to pull everything out of database that has instance of that question ID. Make your Table and display the Main question on the very top level Table Cell then create another recordset(rs) instance and write the sql statment to pull everything out and use the while loop on the replies.

by the way for only 20 ponits its to much help i am providing you.

Yeah, I know. But I am really new in ASP and I am not rich either. I appreciate your big help. I'm doing the web site for fun, it's not required by my employer or for commercial use. That's why I only put 20 points on it. Thanks again for your help and I won't ask anymore questions if you think 20 points isn't enough for ur time n effort.

umm... I just had an internet connection problem. I need to try the ASP tonight. But let me give u the points right now. Thanks.

Hey adilkhan,

As you noticed I posted this question twice. If you can post something in my other post. You will have that other 20 points. Otherwise, it would just wasted.