ITCN dot Forum 2004

The ITCN Asp.Net Forum 2004 is a free, open source website Forum
and Discussion Board programmed in the new Microsoft dot Net 1.1
Framework with Visual Basic. It is supported and developed by the
programmers of ITCN, a New Jersey based web design and
application programming firm. 


By Barry Wise, bwise@itcn.com

Demo Forum and Support Forum: http://forum.itcn.com/


HOW TO UPGRADE
Just run the SQL script update.sql for your version and copy the
rest of the files over your old versions, EXCEPT FOR THE
WEB.CONFIG FILE!!  Before you copy it make a note of your
Database username and password because you will have to
re-edit these in the new Web.Config file.



HOW TO INSTALL ASP.NET FORUM 2004

First, unzip all the files into the root directory of your web server.

All assemblies (the DLL files) should be in the /bin/ directory off the
root of your web server, and the source code for these binaries will
be in the /src/ directories located in the root directory and in the
/admin/src/ directory (these are the source files for the administrative
tools).

Next, run the install.sql file for SQL 2000.  If you want to use MS
Access, the database is already included. Set up appropriate
username/password permissions for access to the tables.

Use the appropriate web.config file for either Access or SQL, rename it
to web.config, and change the username and password to reflect your
security settings.

Restrict permissions to the /admin/ directory so casual users can't
wander in to get administrative rights to delete/edit your discussions!


Basically, that's it.  The src is pre-compiled and should be ready to run.


MODIFYING THE LOOK AND FEEL

The look and feel of both the client and the admin side are controlled
by template files in the /includes/ directories and style sheets in each
directory.

/client.css: Client side style sheet

/includes/clientHeader.inc.asp: Client side HTML Header (the top
portion of the HTML template)

/includes/clientFooter.inc.asp: Client side HTML Footer (the bottom
portion of the HTML template)

/admin/admin.css: Admin side style sheet.

/admin/includes/header.inc.asp: Admin side HTML Header (the top portion
of the HTML template)

/admin/includes/footer.inc.asp: Admin side HTML Footer (the bottom portion
of the HTML template)


MODIFYING THE SOURCE CODE

The source files are written in Visual Basic for the dot Net framework.  They
were not written using Visual Studio, but line by line in a text editor.
There are 2 source code directories:


/src/ Contains the source code-behind files for the Client side.
/admin/src/ Contains the source code-behind files for the Admin side.


In each directory is a file called "compile_all.bat" which you can run to
re-compile all the source files in one shot.  It will create DLLs out of
them and place them in the /bin/ directory of the site.