Support Forum

I am new in this forum. Two days ago I did not know about Simple press, but I am planning re launching my old site from scratch (new Data Base and Wordpress installation). I was looking for a robust Forum software totally customizable (it should be 100% seamless integrated) of Today I wanted to share my \"first impressions\".

I am not a “professional web designer, all I have done was “learned by doing”. I have gather lot of experience with Wordpress but not with BBpress programming. I am very experienced forum administrator (I moderated eBay’s forums in Spain during two year = millions of visitors/month, over 20K new answer/day and over 7K users connected at the same time during Christmas sales season).

Here my comments:

1. It is difficult to decide to take the risk with Simple-press because the examples in this page are a kind of old fashion, “too Web 1.0”. Pretty or ugly depends on the personal taste, but bringing a Web 1.0 to the Web 2.0 look and feel means lot of work of customization in CSS and Photoshop which would be scary for the web developer. I am making this forum for myself, but for a client might be not an easy decision.
2. The installation is quite intuitive. I did it from A to Z without problem. I am very Happy with it. Congratulations
3. Documentation is not enough. It assumes “facts” but it needs to be an step by step Stupid proof guide. For example: there are 30 files to download. In which order, in which directory do I need to upload all, before or after…? Remember Stupid Proof = user friendly.
4. As result I have got a site under http://www.severus.es/forum/  but following the structure of my site it should be ...forum.severus.es/ . Is there possibility of changing it?
5. For me is very important the visual integration. After 4 hours editing I am very satisfied with the results but…
6. …t would be great to preserve the same structure of Wordpress by separating PHP from CSS files. Customize directly in a PHP is less effective. Even the simple fact of looking for the element to edit is easier in CSS since the Notepad shows exactly the same line number shown in Firebug. In the PHP the numbers are not the same. If you have to look for the element “.spLabelBordered” in the line 1093 of the default.php you won’t find it there. If you have mentioned that element more than once.
7. In the same line of PHP+CSS structure: I want now to move certain elements, add others… Where do I find the index.php where I could move and work with
   elements?
8. From the backend: The software is super friendly. I created a couple of dummy forums, groups. I need to install plugins and localize into Spanish, but after understanding the structure seems to be quite easy. I need to deep more into the software.
9. From the frontend side, it gives a very good impression. Users find their way very easy.

The site is under construction but you could see it under:

• http://severus.es
• the forum is in: http://severus.es/forum/

The site is closed to outside views so you will need:

• User: simplepress
• Password: simple-123!!

About the site:

• Multisite Wordpress 3.3
• Subdirectory structure like: blog1.severus.es, blog2.severus.es, etc
• Simple-press version V

The site intends to promote sales of Web solutions (Web sites and online shops). The forum should be the place where clients discuss about their sites or ask for help and advice when they need.
Sorry for such a long post as a first post. Please understand my critics as a constructive way to improve the software.