This is a general question, and I do not know what forum it should be posted in. If you are a mod, and it is in the wrong forum, feel free to move it.

Hey guys,

I am lost like a rabbit in a snake cage. The snake is my website, and it is eating me for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I want a "special" program for my site. I don't know exactly what it is called in the programming world, so I am going to explain it. I also provide an example at the end of my explanation.

It is a program that allows users (without having to log in) to submit a "question" to my website. The question then needs to be transfered into an area (a database, maybe?) where only me, and my "team" can see it. This area is where a select few people can log-in and answer the questions submited by users. The Answers are then resubmitted on the public site (with the Q and the Answer) for everyone to see. Then the Question and Answer is automatically thrown in a pre-decided category in an archive.

Here is an example of the Q & A function I am looking for. It is on a computer gaming website. http://team3d.net/index.php?s=ask3d

In this specific site you have to log in, but in my site I do not want a required log-in.

Thanks for your time! I would really appreciate any comments or suggestions.

P.S. - My site is not related to computer gaming at all, this was just a good example I found.

- idunno

Your probably looking at a database and backing by either php or asp...you will need to code a site to submit questions and these will be stored in a database consisting of most likely an id field, question field and answer field (defaulted as null, not answered or whatever you want to indicate that there is no answer).

The users that log in will have access to the database and list out each question and be able to fill in the answer field in the database.

Now when showing questions, simply find all entries in the table of this database that do not have your default key for the answer field, and display these.

If you need a little more detail on this I can give you some guidance using mysql and php, but I do not know asp or other databases yet.

Like Nahele said you will need to use a script i would use php if it was me as i think its the best

what you would need to do is a form on a page were the user would fill it in then when they are done the would click a button and that could take them to a thank you page

when you take them to the thank you page the page can collect the info from the form and add it to the right tables in the mysql database

then you could have a folder with a page in that has been password pertected so you and serton other can only see it the page could collect info out of the tables in the database and have a little section for you to fill the answere in then basicly thats it you would click a button and it would do it the other way round for the user to see the return answere on another page

http://eclectic-designs.com/cascadianfaq.php

Now, I haven't used this since version 3.2, but (from my experience with 3.2) it does what you want, Users submit questions, admins can add new and answer pending questions, and add to the knowledgebase.

Nahele, madkad,
Thank you for the replies! That is what I figured I would need. A database, a log in page for my members, and a php script to do all the work.

I should have mentioned that I am new to PHP, and scripting all together, so the easier the better! I did a few searches and I didn't find the script I was looking for. I figured I would need to somehow merge multiple scripts. Do you guys have any recommendations on which ones? Also, Nahele, I would love some guidance with PHP and mysql. I have godaddy.com as my host, and I am having some trouble getting a form mail to work through mysql and PHP.


Techwench,
Thanks for the link! I will look into cascadianfaq. It looks great. Especially the search feature and the automated categorizing. I wonder if I will be able to change the layout, and add some features through other scripts. For example, I will need it to list the name and show a "picture" of the person who aswered the question.

Thanks again guys! I appreciate all the help.

Also, here is another example I found on a herbal love site. http://www.herballove.com/experts/

Godaddy is pretty horrible and supply zero support for anything script related (they practically hung up on me when I said the word script). If you're stuck with them though, make sure you're running on a linux server...if not they at least allow you to switch over (they say they allow php on windows servers but nothing worked for me till I switched; I can tell you how if you need to).

Now other than some basic html and hopefully some css you'll need to learn a little php and mysql. It'll probably be easier to write your own scripts than try to find one and modify it for what you need (and a lot more self-satisfying). Luckily, you're in the right place.

I would love to give you a little more details for what you'll need, but this post may get mighty long...so private message me your email and I'll send you some info to get you started.

Absolutely any half decent forum software should do this.

You just need to allow non-member posting but with all new posts set to pre-mod. The moderators can then login and see all posts, approve or delete, answer them and move them to the appropriate place.

Snitz (asp), PHPBB, Invision, vBulletin (this forum) can all do exactly the above.

Sounds great! Thanks for the continual replies.

I am glad to see you have faith in my ability to learn coding . Nahele, I surely don't mind PMing you, but if you want to type long posts here, then go ahead. Maybe someone in the future will run into the same problem I have and can be helped through our conversations.

Chrishirst,
A forum software can do this? http://www.herballove.com/experts/ If so that would be great! I have never seen a forum with this capability before. In fact, it doesn't look like a forum at all. But I am open for anything.

Forum software has the backend code and database functions you need. How you present the information at the frontend is up to you, there it's simply a matter of having a page formatted as you require, pulling the information from the db and presenting it to the user.
Blog software is the same, the backend code behind every Wordpress powered blog is identical, how it's presented to the user can be changed.

Well I am still a bit unfamiliar with forums and message boards so chrishirst's way will probably be a bit easier...If you're still interested in writing your own scripts though I'm happy to send you some more information as well as some scripts that should help you along what you need to know or can be modified slightly to be used. I'm currently working on a project that I havd basically finished the login and also includes a small messaging system.

The tricky part though is an oraganized and visually appealing way of presenting the information (where as blog and forum software will have this built in).

Chrishirst,

I like the idea of simplicity. Do you have a link, or maybe a tutorail on changing all of the functions of a forum?