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The Usable Forum Software

Features

What is UseBB 1?

UseBB 1 is an Open Source forum package developed in PHP 4 and using the popular MySQL database back-end to store data. Unlike other popular forum systems, UseBB does not strive to have as many features as possible, but to be one of the easiest and most usable forum packages, limiting the basic feature set to only the essential. UseBB is pure forum software.

UseBB is an ideal solution for small to medium-sized websites which require an easy to use forum package without the bloat, that produces standards compliant output, is secure and easily configurable.

Special Characteristics

  • Free, as in freeware
    UseBB can be obtained completely free without having to pay any fees for support, future and development versions, etc.
  • Free, as in freedom
    UseBB is developed as Open Source software, anyone can help develop it and write additional features, templates, etc.

Additional Info

Feature list

The features published in this list are only the main features. UseBB contains many smaller but useful features which are not listed on this page.

Categories and Forums

  • Board can be divided into an unlimited number of categories and forums
  • Per-forum configuration options and permissions

Posting

  • Level-based permissions for posting, moderating, ...
  • An unlimited or maximum number of replies can be set per forum
  • Supports the use of BBCode and smilies in posts
  • Full HTML posting possibilities (by default admin only)
  • Posting flood protection

Member Features

  • Unlimited number of members possible
  • Each member has his/her own personal profile page
  • Many profile fields available
  • Separate displayed name
  • Supports off-site avatars

Moderation Features

  • Moderators can be set per forum
  • Can move/close/reopen/delete topics
  • Can edit/delete posts
  • Can post/edit/delete/... sticky topics
  • Supports the staff hierarchy (moderators cannot edit administrator's posts)

Administration Interface

  • Set various configuration options
  • Create/edit/delete categories and forums
  • Prune forums (topics) and members
  • Send mass emails
  • Set up bad word censors
  • Edit/delete members
  • Ban by member name, e-mail address or IP address
  • ACP modules provide easy extension of the ACP
  • and much, much more...

Access Control

  • Four levels: guests, members, moderators and administrators
  • Level based access to individual forums
  • Level based access to active topics, member/staff/online list, search engine, etc.
  • Disable guest access to entire forum, member profiles and/or contact information
  • E-mail or admin based user activation
  • Disable user registrations

Security Features

  • Protect your forum from human and bot attacks with UseBB's unique set of protection features:
  • Random math or custom anti-spam questions for unregistered post or registration attempts
  • Automatic DNSBL powered banning of IP addresses used for malicious activities
  • DNS based e-mail address verification, by looking for MX records on the domain
  • Registration logging, logs detailed user info in a log file upon registering
  • Hide never activated accounts from the member list, statistics, etc.

Various Features

  • Full-text cross-forum search engine with sorting
  • Topic subscriptions via e-mail and on-line overview
  • Active topics listing, including (admin defined) forum filter
  • Global (active topics), forum and topic RSS 2.0 feeds
  • Search engine friendly .html URL's
  • Single forum modus for boards with only 1 forum
  • Built-in frequently asked questions

Coding & Technical

  • Separated HTML templates from PHP code
  • Default template uses standards compliant XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS
  • Supports application/xhtml+xml content-type for XHTML aware browsers
  • Supports user interface translations (English and Dutch available by default)
  • Support for most ISO and other character sets (no Unicode)
  • Supports Gzip output compression
  • Implementation of Google's rel="nofollow" for BBCode
  • Support for HTTP only cookies
  • Developed with PHP's E_ALL error reporting level
  • Limited size on server (± 1 MB)

So, what does UseBB 1 not have?

The following features were deliberately not implemented in the light UseBB 1.0 forum solution. However, some of these features are planned for UseBB 2.

  • Attachments
  • Polls
  • Private messages
  • Subforums
  • User groups

Should you require any of these features, we suggest looking at other free forum packages available.

Happy with what you see? Now, you can go on downloading your free UseBB copy!

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