Help: Getting started (PHP, Joomla, PhpBB, etc.)

[edson]

Hi!

I'm a computer developer (I work mainly with C++ and Python), and I'm starting a new community website, but I do not have too much free time to work on it. Although I'm not a webdesigner/webdeveloper, I programmed a little in PHP3 many years ago, and I know HTML well and a little of JS, but I am new to many of the new things that people are using nowadays... and I'm not so skilled at Apache things, etc... so, I would like to know:

What is the best and fastest way to get started to build a community website with:

- A main blog with articles written by me, and probably user comments (Joomla?)
- A wiki (MediaWiki?)
- A forum (PhpBB?)
- Later, some extra things, such as polls, etc...

By "getting started" I mean:
- To learn the tools (need book indications, tutorials, websites, etc.; I'm a self-taught person)
- To setup them:
* Is using Fantastico straightforward?
* Do I need to configure too many things? Do I need to develop some things in PHP? To debug them?

I appreciate any help ;)

Thanks a lot!
Edson

[shadmego]

Greetings, and welcome to the Hostmonster User Community!

My brother is actually getting started on learning C++ this week. He "took his first steps into Geek-dom" when he wrote his first program ... converting Celsius into Fahrenheit.

Anyway, I believe, from what you have stated, that Joomla! will be your best bet. You can use Joomla for your blogs and articles, though there are several third-party blogging systems designed to work with Joomla! as well. There is also a program called Community Builder that is expressly meant to build community sites.

Forums, wikis and other features can be installed into Joomla!, as well as several different commenting systems.

Joomla! is huge, robust, and has the ability to grow with you as much as you want to grow. It is also backed by a community that is perhaps the second best at receiving help, *next to this one of course!* ;).

Anyway, I can give you more information, and you can check out my installation of Joomla! from my signature. I also have a demo site headed by Joomla! that is smaller than the main one at demos.4christministry.org. It helps provide yet another use of Joomla!.

~regards

[4Duecer]

I downloaded fastastico as advised, so that I could add a chat room/message-board. It downloaded and is in my files in the FilesManager. It loks really nice setting there, but I can't figure out how to activate it, make it usable, get it to my site.
I may be old, but not dead!:o

[shadmego]

I downloaded fastastico as advised, so that I could add a chat room/message-board. It downloaded and is in my files in the FilesManager. It loks really nice setting there, but I can't figure out how to activate it, make it usable, get it to my site.
I may be old, but not dead!:o

Greetings.

1. You don't really download anything from or for fantastico so your statement "I downloaded fanstastico" confuses me greatly. What fantastico does is perform an auto install of a certain set of scripts into your web account so you don't have to go through the process of setting up scripts manually.
2. If you mean you installed a certain chat room/message-board script into your web account FROM fantastico, and you did not receive any errors, you should be able to open your browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox) and navigate to your domain name, or website, and see what you just installed.

In other words, after going through the steps on installing a script via Fantastico, what you installed is ALREADY available at your "site" and active. What is left for you to do is configure the script how you want it to run. Without knowing what script you installed, I can't help you any further.

~regards, and welcome to the community!