# Forum design using ASP.net... please help



## techno tublai (Feb 7, 2008)

I am writing this on behalf of one of my friends who is a B.Tech student. He wants to design a discussion forum using ASP.NET using C# and running SQL server 2005. After visiting a number of forums, he came to a conclusion that people are using a common code for designing the forum styles, as the design and layouts are basically same. Only the colour schemes and contents seem to be different. Can anyone point me out to a tutorial site or something so that he can replicate the designs, if that is permitted. As for example, he finds that the style of the digit forum to be impressive but have decided on a black-blue colour scheme. But there is restrictions that he cannot use any previously coded forum hosting site. Is there any one who can spare some time to help him out?


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## victor_rambo (Feb 7, 2008)

Ok, so he is basically looking to edit the themes, color combinations, etc. It depends from one to another forum software. I use MyBB which has a very good facility to do that in the admin CP.


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## RCuber (Feb 7, 2008)

Most of the forums which you see here and there either use MyBB PHPBB or vbulletine , these are coded in PHP or other languages. for ASP.NET projects you require .NET specific forums, many are available and quite a few are opensource.

I Understand that you friend must code everything from scratch. that will be a uphill task. It may take anywhere from 3 to 6 months depending on your friends skills.

just knowing asp.net is not enough . he has to write loads of SQL queries, stored procedures as well as triggeres.

if time is short then he has to use opensource projects as the starting point else it will be very difficult for you friend to release a stable application.

check with these two opensource forums for .NET
*www.yetanotherforum.net/
*www.dmgforums.com/


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## techno tublai (Feb 8, 2008)

Thanks to you all for the reply. @ Charan, yes my friend cannot use any precoded software and must start from scratch. Hope the open source projects help him. And yes, he does have a limited time, about a month maybe. Any mor replies would surely help. Also is there any way too see the source code for precoded forums in ASP.NET? I am a self confessed software noob and hope my question does not sound foolish.........


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## RCuber (Feb 8, 2008)

techno tublai said:


> Thanks to you all for the reply. @ Charan, yes my friend cannot use any precoded software and must start from scratch. Hope the open source projects help him. And yes, he does have a limited time, about a month maybe. Any mor replies would surely help. Also is there any way too see the source code for precoded forums in ASP.NET? I am a self confessed software noob and hope my question does not sound foolish.........


No it is not possible to see the sourcecode of the asp.net forum cause it will be compiled into a DLL. in web applications(which use dynamic pages) you wont be able to see the source code. May be you will be able to see only javascripts but not .net codes. 

I would recomend your freind to look into both the opensource project which I mentioned in my last post.


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## ssg (Mar 10, 2008)

techno tublai said:


> I am writing this on behalf of one of my friends who is a B.Tech student. He wants to design a discussion forum using ASP.NET using C# and running SQL server 2005. After visiting a number of forums, he came to a conclusion that people are using a common code for designing the forum styles, as the design and layouts are basically same. Only the colour schemes and contents seem to be different. Can anyone point me out to a tutorial site or something so that he can replicate the designs, if that is permitted. As for example, he finds that the style of the digit forum to be impressive but have decided on a black-blue colour scheme. But there is restrictions that he cannot use any previously coded forum hosting site. Is there any one who can spare some time to help him out?



Hi, 
perhaps i might be of some service.

As i see it, your friend:
> has to do the coding from scratch [C#/asp.net]
> has to do the UI designing [html/css/javascript/photoshop]
> has about 1 month to do it

You see, there are two ways he can go on about it:  

> he can develop a forum engine like phpBB, vBulletin, SMF; but use asp.net instead of php. [BIG job!!!]
> he can develop a forum site which can be used as it is, or also distributed, but it won't have so many customization features as the above forum engines provide. [relatively small job!]

I think he should take the second approach...1 month is too less time to build an app like phpBB.

There are quite a few free/trial forum applications available on the net.  He can check out the following sites for samples:
*forums.asp.net
*www.codeproject.com/
www.411asp.net
aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com

Here are some that are available....DMG forums, ForumInAsp.Net 2.0, Jitbit AspNetForum, etc.

All of these come with source code.....virtually any sample forum you download will come with source code.  However, as Charan said, you cannot view the source code of just any forum which you see in your browser.

I would also highly recommend the book "ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming" by Marco Bellisano [wrox press] to your friend.  The book is a terrific resource for building practical, real world apps in ASP.NET, and one of the projects featured in the book is a Forum Site.  The thing is quite well done, with decent features implemented completely from scratch....This should be the starting point for your friend in his project.  Then he can download the sample forums mentioned above, and view the src code and accordingly enhance his project.

Best of luck.


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