DCForum Readme File

Version 6 Release 2.23
© 1997-2002, DCScripts
Release Date 2-22-2002

You may use this software only as described in DCSCRIPTS DCFORUM END-USER LICENSE. Please take a moment and read this end-user license agreement. If you do not agree to the terms of the license outlined in license.txt, do not install or use the software.

Getting Started...

Thank you for choosing DCForum!

DCForum is a complete web conferencing software for building and managing an online discussion community. Since 1997, countless webmasters from all over the world have chosen DCForum over its competitors. Whether you are managing your company's online support program or simply providing an interactive environment for internet users of common interest, you'll find the proven technology you need in DCForum.

DCForum is developed to meet the following design goals:

1. Easy Installation - A typical DCForum installation requires editing only one setup file. It requires only a minimal knowledge in uploading files, creating directories, and changing permissions (FTP client).
2. Minimum Server Requirements - Because DCForum utilizes text-delimited datafiles and internal modules, the sole server requirement is that you can run Perl CGI programs on your server. See DCForum Server Requirements for details.
3. Clean and Intuitive User Interface - The interface is the most important aspect of a good forum software. It is imperative to keep it clean, intuitive, and user-friendly.
4. Easily Customizable Interface - The overall layout of the forum must be easily customizable in order to expedite the integration process of the forum to the rest of your site. You can accomplish this by modifying a single template file.
5. Fully Threaded Style of Discussion - While we do offer optional linear discussion style, we strongly believe that the fully threaded discussion format is the ideal style for a web conferencing software. Unlike the linear messaging style boards, DCForum allows one-to-one interaction among forum users and reduces the difficulty of subscribing to a particular thread among thousands of posts.

DCForum supports a wide variety of web servers running on both UNIX (LINUX, SOLARIS, FREEBSD, etc) and Windows server platforms. The only requirement for running DCForum is that your web server supports Perl CGI applications. With proven software backed by our devoted support staff, you can now begin focusing on building your community.

Thank you again for choosing DCForum.

David S. Choi
President
DCScripts.com

Acknowledgements

First, the DCForum team would like to thank all of our customers for their continued support. Without their support, we could not continue to improve and update our software product.

We would like to thank all our regular users at our support forum for their countless suggestions and comments. DCForum is what it is today because they took their time to help us improve our product.

Special thanks to:

• Megazone for providing his hacks and ideas which we incorporated in 6.2.
• Michael Clackler for providing his improved version of admin_view_stat which we added to the 6.2 release
• delicia for providing his hacks
• To all DCF users who participate daily at the support forum ...too many to mention here. Please visit our support forum and you'll know who they are.

Thank you all.

David
Sept 1, 2001

DCForum Features and Overview

If you are upgrading from 6.1x, please see new_62.html for the list of new features and improvement in 6.2. Otherwise, please take a look at overview.html for the list of features and highlights.

Installation

Following is a list of installation documents.  Please choose a document that meets your installation needs:

• New Installation
  • Non-Windows Server
  • Windows Server
• Upgrade Installation
  • Upgrading from DCForum Version 6.2, 6.21, 6.22
  • Upgrading from DCForum Version 6.0x or 6.1x
  • Upgrading from DCForum Version 5.x (DCForum 2000)
  • Upgrading from DCForum 97, 98, 99, DCFLite 2.0, 3.0

We also offer new and upgrade installation service.  The service charge for a new installation is $45 while upgrade installation prices vary depending on which version of DCForum you are currently running. Please email us at support@dcscripts.com for more information.

After you install DCForum, please read the Administrator User's Guide for post-installation instructions to complete your forum setup.

Need Help?

The best place to look for DCForum help is our support forums. Please check it out at

http://www.dcscripts.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi

You can also email our support at support@dcscripts.com for any questions regarding DCForum.