Forum making tut.

So it seems most people now adays, including me, use free websites to host our forums such as Invision free, and a few more. I think its because most people don't know how to make a forum, what software you need, pretty much all the steps and tools. we can look at rmrk, and then look at most of the sites advertised here, and we laugh at how much better rmrk is. So I was wondering if someone can make a tut on:

• What tools you need
• How to make it
• How to host it yourself

What tools you need

Forum software, RMRK uses SMF ~

How to make it

Assuming you mean technical / layout stuff, knowledge on CSS, HTML and PHP. ~ Also of course knowledge / experience of server stuff for installing / working with the database etc, as well as configuring / tweaking stuff

How to host it yourself

$600 a year for RMRK =)

Thanks a lot silverline!

SMF Forums Manual:
http://docs.simplemachines.org/

If you ever decide to install your own.

trying to work around paying for the server...so Im going to use XAMPP

trying to work around paying for the server...so Im going to use XAMPP

Wrong attitude if you're serious =/.

If you're after cheap but good hosting, I have accounts with koreru and freepgs. Koreru is good but you pay monthly (I'm on the silver one, I host this on it), freepgs is kinda slower and you're not as free, but the prices are one off.

Of course, the best control comes from owning your own server but that takes bigger bucks.

There are some add-ons, sometime ago when I was looking for stuff for my previous forum I found a forum RPG thing. Although you had to pay, there was a version for free and its a great add-on.

http://infernotechnologies.net/

EDIT:
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Your forum system must be one of the following:

    * Invision Power Board 2.1.x
    * Invision Power Board 2.2.x
    * vBulletin 3.0.x (Note the RPG was frozen at v2.4 for this version)
    * vBulletin 3.5.x
    * vBulletin 3.6.x
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~Winged