ok, i’m exaggerating. but if you believed what the title said, i got your attention.

i play an online game called world of warcraft, or WoW for short. it’s very addictive, if you love it.

but i’m not going to talk about the game here. i’m talking about the website i built for my guild.

the main purpose of the website is for guild members to communicate. hence a forum is required. a forum by itself is boring. it needs a nice front page.

the solution? simple machines forum (smf) with tiny portal (tp) as the front page. strictly speaking, tp is not a product by itself. it’s a mod (or addon) for smf.

installation

here are briefly the steps (for detail instruction refer to documents at relevant websites):

• setup mysql database for this website.
• download smf and tp. registration is required to download tp.
• install smf - upload downloaded smf to server and untar / unzip to website directory. access the site via browser to install. follow instruction.
• install tp - login smf as admin. go to admin > packages to browse and upload tp. apply mod and follow instruction.
• now a basic website is ready. setup forum and tp and select themes etc.

so it took more than 3 minutes. maybe just an afternoon. keep in mind that i’ve already had prior experiences with smf.

wow theme

most of the time was spent on looking for the perfect theme. imo, the best WoW related theme (there aren’t many out there) for smf is this. for smf + tp version, download here.

of course it’ll take even longer if you wish to customize your own site.

so if you want a simple community website, nothing too fancy, smf + tp is the perfect solution. anything fancier, you may need anther cms product.