DESCRIPTION: Discussion forum is simply a place where people can ask questions, answer the questions, and share information and queries. The proposed online discussion forum, developed using ASP.NET and C#.NET, provides a platform for sharing ideas and information on different topics and help users get relevant info/solution for problems related to technology, education, science, programming, etc. In the given link, you’ll find three different projects – all titled “Discussion Forum“. All these are developed using ASP.NET. You can download the source code and project abstract of these projects from the link below. Here, I’ve simply introduced projects 1 and 2 with a brief explanation of their features and working. There are many web forums on the internet that are available for free and premium service. Most of these are developed using PHP and HTML languages, so here we have presented web-based discussion forum applications developed using ASP.NET. All the forums work like the typical discussion forums you see on the web. They allow users to add threads or queries, reply to existing threads, and search for threads using keywords. Some common tasks such as user registration, password recovery and profile change are the salient features of project 2. Project 1 has admin features and user features. The admin form or module allows admins to view options at the back-end, change application settings, and add options to the forum. They can perform other tasks such as add categories and sub-categories, delete reported data and threads, change password, update profile, view user profiles, view posts and comments on the forum, etc. Compared to the admin module, the features provided to the users are limited. They can simply register, add new thread, reply to existing threads, view existing threads, update their profile details, view other user’s profiles, etc. After installing the project, admin can add features to the forum by logging in from the back end. They can then perform the tasks briefed above. The project is very flexible as admin can easily change settings and edit code of the forum according to the requirements that suit the forum. In case of users, they are required to register into the system by filling up an application. They can then view posts and start creating threads. Admins will monitor the threads and comments created by users and either accept or reject them. ABOUT PROJECT 2: The Technologies used in discussion forum (2) include:

• ASP.NET 2.0
• C# language
• Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition
• SQL Server 2005 Express Edition

HOW TO RUN THIS PROJECT?

• Download the project from the link aforementioned. Go to “Discussion Forum 2” and unzip the file “discussion forum” into any directory in your system. For example: if you extract the files to e:\, then it will create a directory e:\. The files there contain all the information, content, data, images and database required for this project.
• Then, open Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition or Visual Studio.NET 2005.
• Open the application from the directory into which you previously extracted the project files.
• Go to Solution Explorer and make login.aspx the startup page.
• Run the project from Visual Web Developer Express Edition
• Then, you should see the login.aspx page!