I just did a search before requesting a preview button and came up with the answer that Groupee doesn't support that option. I have been curious about this for a while now... why are you paying for forum support when you could just install phpBB for free?

Once phpBB3 comes out of beta (I'm running 3.0RC5 on a community site right now) and issues a stable release it should be far more powerful a tool than what's available with groupee. The administration and moderation tools are fantastic, and there will be a lot of add-on modifications popping up once the new version is released.

Plus there would be a preview button.

I'm sure you have your reasons for the current set up, just wanted to throw that out there. I've always found the BnA forums a little on the clunky side. Nothing that would keep me away from the site mind you, just annoying compared to experiences elsewhere on the intertubes.

Hi,

There are a few reasons we use it and it would be a pretty big pain to switch.

I'm curious now though - what site are you using it on? I'd love to check it out.

I have the latest version installed at http://www.halcyonclimbing.com
At this point the site has been stripped down to just the forums. There are more sub-forums available only to registered users with X number of posts. This forum is a completely unmodified install because I'm waiting for a final release before customizing the theme.

Rockclimbing.com used to be based on phpBB:
http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi
They were recently bought and have gone corporate but I think phpBB is still driving the forums despite the heavy customization and integration into the rest of the site. Shame on them for not giving credit to the phpBB team anymore if that's the case.

If you're really curious just create an account at http://www.phpbb.com/community/ and poke around that way. As you can see by this:

quote:

Most users ever online was 8680 on Mon Mar 19, 2007 1:28 am

The software can handle large communities as well.



Of course I completely realize that BnA had reasons for going with Groupee. Looking into it a little bit I imagine that one of the big reasons is probably that the actual forums are hosted on their systems and thus they bear the brunt of the server load.

I think BnA has a pretty unique thing going here considering how well everyone gets along in a user base this big so I'm going to keep coming back. I'm just a big ol' geek who spends too much time on the internet. I use a lot of sites that have amazing functionality and where I see some areas progressing it highlights those that are being left behind.

Keep up the good work and hopefully no one is taking this as criticism!