OpenForum – new ASP.NET MVC based forum

There is new project in CodePlex called OpenForum. With source code you get also some samples you can run on your machine. OpenForum is pretty new and simple. There are no advanced forum features and currently it is suitable for smaller forums. You can change the look of OpenForum and write your own user repositories. Let’s see how OpenForum looks like.

As a first thing there is nice sample forum. It uses default ASP.NET MVC web application template. There is separate menu choice “Forum” on template. When you click there you can see forum postings.

OpenForum: Posts list opens when you click on Forums tab.
Click on image to enlarge.

When you click on posting title then thread view of posting and its replays will be show.

OpenForum: Thread view – post and replies.
Click on image to enlarge. 

And here is the example of writing new forum post. There is limited WYSIWYG editor and I think it works for most forums where image uploads and more complex post formatting is not needed.

OpenForum: Writing new post.
Click on image to enlarge. 

Setting forum up was pretty easy task to do. By default it uses same users database that ASP.NET offers so you have all features for users management available. Visitors can log in or register as users through site user interface.

I think OpenForum, like it is currently, works fine for smaller companies and support forums where only basic forum functionalities are needed. Of course, before putting it up for public use expects you to heavy security testing because current version is still beta.