SMF forum modifications

May 6th, 2008

I like to create and administer websites. I’m forever starting new projects, giving projects away, and finding something to tinker with. My most recent (not quite ready for the public) is a Simple Machines Forum installation. While I prefer vBulletin, SMF has some wonderful qualities and is a good piece of software and I am enjoying working with it.

The first thing I did after installing the software was look at themes. I don’t like the default theme of any forum software that I have seen. Maybe the elegant beauty of the Ubuntu Forums has spoiled me. I went on a search. There are a lot of decent and free themes available for SMF, but none was exactly what I was looking for. I did find one I liked pretty well, though, so I downloaded and installed it and began customizing the theme to suit my needs.

After the theme was set up and working, I realized there are several functions that SMF does not have out of the gate, functions that I wanted. I began to search for MODS, bits of code to add in to give me the functions I wanted. I added mods for pretty urls, creating a sitemap for Google, customizing the permissions beyond what is allowed in the standard setup, adding custom fields to member profile pages, and allowing members to choose or upload an avatar at registration.

I also found some nice mods that required some hacking to fix…for example, there is a mod to add drop down boxes for font and font size to the text entry area for posts, but the boxes were mislabeled. Most of the fixes are easy if you are able to dig through and read the PHP or html, but it takes time.

What I would like to find is a mod for spam control (the Akismet mod for SMF does not work with my custom theme, even after hours of hacking at it and also appears to be unsupported/unmaintained).

Anyway, this is kind of a followup to the “why does the Ubuntu Forums website use vBulletin instead of a free forum software?” questions we receive from time to time. vBulletin is easier, has more features by default, more complete control over how it operates, better customization options that add in and operate correctly with less work, and is well worth what little is paid for the annual license. We get complete access to the source code and can (and do) modify it at will when we want to, but almost never do we find ourselves forced to do so to make something work.

Entry Filed under: General