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Many sites neither need nor want a complex forum, but want instead an easy way for users to communicate. This simplistic, bare-bones Joomla! 1.5 native forum component is the "simplest forum" possible while still providing useful functionality. Simplest Forum allows role-based viewing, posting and management and provides three views: a list of all forums, a list of topics, and a list of all posts for a specific forum. Forum, topic, and post list display are completely CSS based for maximum customization. Thanks to a handful of helpful folks, Simplest Forum's front end has been translated into several languages as well (see contributions and thanks on our download page).

The Simplest Forum core is kept very simple and very basic so that it is easily installed and used with little effort. The forum is, however, powered by a flexible plugin system which enables standard Joomla! plugins to extend its functionality considerably. Simplest Forum has a number of existing extensions available for it including CAPTCHA support via Simple CAPTCHA, a basic (but very customizable) "Latest Posts" module, a Joomla! search plugin, a BBCode plugin, a notification plugin and an attachment / upload plugin.

The Simplest Forum *does not* include profiles, statistics, or private messaging. You can be the first to write a plugin offering one or more of those functionalities, or you may be better off using one of the more advanced components such as Fireboard, Agora, etc.

Enjoy and feel free to contact us with questions and comments!

NOTE: This version requires MySQL 5.0 or greater, and PHP5 or greater. The CAPTCHA plugin also requires that GD is installed.

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Reviews (36)
Review
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Very simple but not really not stylish
byaszhenwu on June 15, 2009
Yes, it is very easy to install and you get your language automatically. But if you have a beautiful web site, why would you get a so hugly component ? No, if this forum was just a little stylised, it could be the better one.
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Simplest Forum is the Best Forum
bybross26 on April 30, 2009
After playing around with several of the other extensions and eventually phpbb for 2 days, I stumbled upon this extension about 30 minutes ago. It was installed and configured within 5 minutes. It took another 5 minutes to edit the css to match my site.

Kunena, Agora and the others were far too visually styled and complex to be useful. I next tried phpbb and had trouble authenticating users.
Owner's reply

Thanks for trying it out!

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Greate Add-On. One feature I need is missing, though
bystanberka on April 7, 2009
I'm a new Joomla user. I need a simple but functional website for users of an app I'm developing. Installed Joomla only to realize, that the forum isn't part of the core. Installed Kunena. A bit heavy, but installed OK (although users don't synch automatically, and installing CB module is a bit too much: I don't need it). But then, I have found that the link to create a new thread is not there... unless you go to view a post. Oh no! That's not good. For a big component like Kunena?! Then, I have found the Simplest Forum. Installation is simple. I like it.
But, I have found that one thing that I need is missing... or may be I haven't found it. There is no notification sent to the moderator, when there is a post awaiting to be accepted. Is there a function like this? I could try to implement it myself, but you know, there are other things I want to do, too.
In any case, bravo for the authors!!!
Owner's reply

Thanks for taking the time to submit a review!

The functionality you are looking for is actually in a plugin called plg_notification which can also be downloaded at the Simplest Forum site. It provides settings to subscribe to new posts, or just new topic notifications. It also provides your users the ability to subscribe to topics.

Thanks again!

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My review...
bykajantek on March 4, 2009
I was very happy at first and really disappointed when i realized that this extension was just food for spammers... hoping for a better new release...
Owner's reply

It sounds like you did not install the optional CAPTCHA plugin. Without the CAPTCHA plugin the forum is prone to exploitation by spammers, as is every other form interface that does not have some sort of human validation measure. If you were using the CAPTCHA plugin, please use our forums to help us identify any vulnerabilities. No other users have reported this issue.

Thank you.

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Easy Forum
bylizardslane on February 14, 2009
I am a novice Joomla user and this extension is very easy to install and use. I like it, but wish Fireboard would come back.
Owner's reply

Thanks for the review. Simplest Forum is definitely too simple for some and Fireboard had its strengths. You may want to try out the Kunena forum and see if it's enough like Fireboard.

Cheers.

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Modification problem
byinou on January 31, 2009
This is good tool however I found some problems here:
+ when a post has been approved by admin and the owner of that post goes back to edit it then the post will disappear to the admin (reason: I look at the database, the parentId changed to the thread id)
+ after edit a post, the order of the thread and the respond messed up.
If the edit function can be fixed, this tool will be awesome for the simplestforum
Owner's reply

Thanks for taking the time to post a review and point out a few of the shortcomings. The reason that the posts disappear after being edited again by the user is that they go back for moderation again (to prevent abuse). It may not be the best design decision, but it's intentional. The second issue is resolved in 1.4.2 now.

Thanks again for taking the time to review the Simplest Forum!

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Simplest Forum - Just what I needed
bykaren.m.gilchrist on January 2, 2009
This is exactly what I needed to create a straightforward user-driven forum. Really helpful installation information. Integrates well with the rest of the backend administration.
Owner's reply

Thanks! I'm glad you've found it useful!

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Very good
bytrombonechamp on December 21, 2008
This is a great extension for 1.5 sites. It is the only one I found that integrates well with strangely colored templates. It also "just works", which is nice. I didn't like the fact that there was that view that popped up all the time that showed all of the posts and responses made in a single forum at on the same screen, so I went in and changed some of this GPL code to get rid of it.

Bravo!
Owner's reply

Thank you very much for the nice feedback!

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Nice one!
byJoomgeek1 on December 8, 2008
If you are a Joomla beginner and you want a simple forum, this product is great as it does what it says on the tin!. I have installed it on a local server and have tried using the extension with the captcha feature and the latest posts module and they all work great. Thank you!!
Owner's reply

Thank you!

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No pagination is a key feature miss
bythorab on November 17, 2008
As much as I like "Simplest Forum", with its clean style and easy to use features - actually a forum type I was searching for a long time - as much I was disappointed about the fact the forum has no pagination. (I was trying the cirrent stable version and the new beta 1.4.0)
Even in a small forum I was trying to run, discussion can go on for a while on a topic. Seeing those threads growing and growing but no pagination to structure it, was not a good thing. I like the idea of a simple forum and was delighted by the "easy to install", but can't continue to use it due to this key feature miss. I still hope the developers will add this feature request to the next version and can only drop an "average" rating for now. Nevertheless, thank you for your great work and for providing this forum to the community.
Owner's reply

Thanks for the feedback. There have been several feature requests on our forum to add pagination. I will try to kick this in to the next release.

Disappointed
byEclectic on November 15, 2008
We are a non-profit neutral organization who can not (by policy) endorse outside suppliers or in this case developer. While I understand that development costs need to be recouperated, I do NOT agree with the self-endorsement being embedded without prior knowledge. So having gone through all the steps to install, I was disappointed to see a large logo at the bottom of every screen (list, etc..). Had there been a warning I would not have downloaded. There are other more effective and user-friendly methods of advertisement.
Owner's reply

Thanks for the feedback. I think the confusion is that the demo is still running 1.3.0 which didn't include the link at the bottom. I will update the demo to use the latest version which does include the link so that it is not misleading.

Since I have released this component as GPL, you are absolutely welcome to remove the links from your installation or change any other aspect of the forum. Simply delete the one line of HTML that is responsible for the link and you are set to go.

I am definitely not a product marketing guru, so if you have other ideas on more effective means of advertising the component, please let me know.

Cheers.

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Simple, clean, works great
byluvdata on September 23, 2008
Nothing to it, it works great and took almost no effort. The topics integrate nicely into the rest of the site, and it is user-friendly for anyone posting.
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Simple and to the point
byrichardcwgate on September 20, 2008
Its been said before but this does exactly what it's supposed to and no more. Just what's needed!
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GREAT, simple and easy to use component!
byseniorliving on September 20, 2008
Thank you for a simplistic forum component. Downloading and installation are a snap. This is an easy way to create forums on my website without the headache of downloading other more complex modules. I was able to install this component and create a forum on my website in less than 15 minutes. That's awesome! Thank you again.
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Just what the doctor ordered
bytarey on September 15, 2008
When I read that this was a simple mod it through me when it came time to configure it. I thought I was reading features that didn't apply to me, so I turned to the Ambitionality forums for answers. I got great support, quickly. Turns out they're not features, but basic functionality. I needed a user friendly environment for opening up dialog with people who are intimidated by website environments and SimpleForums offers me the perfect solution. A lot of us are used to tons of features and can be comfortable with them, but there are still a lot of peeps that get overwhelmed easily... this is the perfect forum solution for them. Such excitement.
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Simple and working excellent
bydisciplee on September 4, 2008
Just works and works good. You can even attach files if you ask the author for it. Very simple and very useful.
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Exactly what I was looking for!!
bydnccllc on August 21, 2008
What a refreshing and simple forum!

I downloaded, installed and configured the Simplest Forum and the bundled extensions in less than five minutes and everything, including the CAPTCHA, worked perfectly without any hitches. This is exactly the type of forum I was looking for, especially since it's so easily customized with CSS.

Thanks and keep up the good work!
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on the right track
byyamada on August 18, 2008
tried this on a demo site.
looks good and could be popular,but im missing a few things.
there's no edit function.
there's no sub cat creation.
with guest writing on,captcha didnt show.
also weird is,that when creating a menu link it shows a captcha as being a choice which makes no sense.
you can leave out all the general crap we see on most forums,but some standard stuff should be included.
nice work...do continue.
Owner's reply

Thanks for the feedback. A donor to the project recently funded an edit functionality that I will be integrating into the main build soon. There seems to be a lot of confusion over the CAPTCHA support since both the Plugin must be enabled and the CAPTCHA support within the forum must be enabled - I will try to make those directions more clear in the future releases.

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Im using this component for a backbone
byjiggliemon on August 10, 2008
Not alot of components are stripped enough to where you can customize them easily. This component is perfect for customization. It's built in the MVC structure, and has a lot of the basic functionality going for it.

So I've decided to start with this component and to build onto it to create my perfect Forum solution.

Thank you.
Owner's reply

Thanks! If you don't mind, I would like to keep tabs on your project to see if there are any features that I might like to gleam into the Simplest Forum - if that would be alright. :) Please keep me posted on your progress. Thanks again for the feedback.

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The name says it all...
bynickn5 on August 3, 2008
Well I tried this a few weeks ago and thought it was great, but lacking an overall topic view, which led to very cluttered pages full of all posts in each forum.
Anyway - I made a simple request that this feature could be implemented and I would use it on my site, and within a day or two it was done, with a helpful response from the author on his forum. And it's easy to modify things too, in php or css.
I highly recommend use of this little component - it has no smilies, avatars, pm facility, bbcode, etc., which is great. And there's no annoying bridge needed for user accounts, as it's integrated right into Joomla.
Top marks to Cullen the author.
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