The leading bulletin board/forum/blog software for the new Internet.
Nah, just kidding, it's a pretty innocent package that's hardly going to hit the headlines, ever. Still, it represents over 3 years of work for two skilled and very dedicated developers. And it's software to be proud of. Hopefully, it will make your lives a bit less unbearable.
First, ensure that your server meets the requirements (PHP 5.3, MySQL 5.0.3, etc.)
Go to the github.com/Wedge/wedge repository.
If you're already there, then hello!
Click the 'Download ZIP' button.
Unzip the file, and upload the resulting folder to your FTP account.
Point your browser to http://mywebsite.com/my_wedge_folder/index.php
and follow the instructions.
- If it works, then great.
- If it doesn't, then skip to any fork that works best for you. SMF has an official board that lists them all.
- If you're getting an Error 500 or something similar at install time, try the last version of Wedge before the new installer was introduced. Click the 'Download ZIP' button on that page, and follow the instructions in the README.
- Check out the
Wedge/importerrepo at GitHub. It allows you to import a forum installed on the same server (and MySQL server.) - Supported source forums include SMF 1.1, SMF 2.0 and a few others that are totally untested. Well, basically, only SMF 2.0 import is tested and supported for now.
- Importing Aeva Media items and Custom folder attachments isn't supported for now.
https://github.com/Wedge/importer/
It's like Facebook, but not for dummies.
Or, for a longer definition: Wedge is basically a Community Management System where you post messages on boards, and others can reply to them. It's revolutionary. It's the future. Building your own forum requires some technical skills. If you don't have any, you can still learn from scratch. I did. If you don't feel up to the task, you can use a hosted forum (can't help you here), or if you already have some hosting space somewhere, a forum system that will take you by the hand. Commercial software is okay, but usually doesn't have enough to justify its price tag. Free (as in beer) forums are legion, with one of the most popular being SMF (Simple Machines Forum). Once you got used to these, you start asking for more. This is where Wedge comes in.
If you think SMF is pretty good but not ambitious enough for its own sake, then you'll want to try out its forks. Wedge was the first (started in 2010), and one of a couple of realistic solutions to use. It basically takes everything that we thought sucked in SMF, and rewrites it how it should have been from the start.
Of course, your opinion may differ. There's this little thing called 'you can't know without trying', so here it is, in all its installable glory. You can run Wedge side to side with another forum system, and determine which one suits you best.
What are you waiting for? Friends to talk with? Well, can't help you here.
Read contributors.txt
No one can be told you what Wedge really is. You have to read the website for yourself. Plus, it saves me the hassle. And I'm lazy. See? I can't even come up with my own quotes.
- http://wedge.org
- http://wedge.org/blog/ (development blog, spectacularly failing at being noob-friendly.)
- http://wedge.org/pub/faq/ (mostly outdated, but we're working on it.)
- http://wedge.org/pub/feats/ (a list of features introduced in the first few years.)
Read license.txt, and if you don't get all of the legalese, it just means:
- Currently, Wedge is free of charge, but it's not free to redistribute. As such, it's not 'free and open source' software, but it's definitely open source.
- You can't redistribute the package by yourself. If you ever find yourself in the need to do so, drop me a PM at wedge.org (user name is Nao, it's easy, the guy's everywhere.)
- And other details that most people shouldn't have to bother with. Still, be respectful. Thanks.
There's also license_smf.txt, which basically states that Wedge is based on SMF. Otherwise, it would have taken 10 years to develop it, not 3. And I do have a life, thank you. Oh, who am I kidding.
-- René-Gilles Deberdt (Nao), from Paris, France. (The city of lights, rude people and Scarletts. I'm one of those three.)