ASPPlayground.NET

ASPPlayground.NET is based on the ASP.NET 2.0 framework and the ASP.NET AJAX framework.

This version supports .NET framework 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5.

The forum can be used in all the places a regular PHP forum has been used, without any limitations.

Features:

• Integrated Spell Checker.
• New Skin & Theme feature allows user to change the entire user interface using the ASP.NET's Skin & Theme feature.
• AJAX enabled user action to improve user experience. Fewer full page reloads.
• Reward point system & Mark as answer - user can assign certain points to a question to reward the best answer. Different user groups get different reward points.
• Community moderation - users can now flag messages as inapproriate and automatically remove them without moderator intervention. Auto-ban offender for a set period of time.
• Integrated Captcha to protect the system from spam attacks.
• Forum Filter - users can now decide which forums to see on the user interface.
• Daily & Weekly Digest for forum and topic subscription.
• Totally improved Search Engine- producing more relevant and updated results.
• Pinned message priority levels - moderators can now pin a message and assign priority.
• Splitting / Joining threads - providing a means to join related topics into one or split an off-topic message into a new thread.
• DHTML popup instead of regular popup window which does not trigger popup blockers.
• Totally revamped Photo Gallery interface w/ AJAX to improve usability.
• DHTML menu to make UI less cluttered.
• Moderator Permissions - grant different permission for different moderators.
• Custom PGDCode allows admins to define PGDCode in the admin control panel without having to touch the code.
• User Group Membership Expiration - Allows you to define length of group membership.
• Additional Group Based settings and permissions.
• Forum Management with Inheritance - making forum management a lot easier. Define setting and permission only once and sub forums automatically inherits parent's settings.
• Seamless integration with the ASP.NET Default SQL Membership Provider. No coding required.
• Uses Forms Authentication - easier integration with external membership system (other than the Default SQL Membership Provider).
• Custom Stats with auto update.
• Database based error logger - detect intrusion and captures the offender's IP.
• Asynchronous emailing - prevent CPU threads from blocking the web server request.
• Software carefully designed to support the Medium Trust environment and the new IIS 7 Integrated Pipeline mode.

What is new in this release:

• Security-wise, admins can now turn on the new SPAM preventive measure for "links in message" and PM spam. Both of these are big headaches to deal with as they appear to be normal forum activity but are very time consuming for the admins and moderators to handle. I used to have to scan my support forum for these issues manually and regularly which had been very counter productive.
• In addition, Admins can now optionally turn off Captcha in the admin CP in case this SPAM preventive measure becomes too time consuming for your users. Captcha is still highly recommended but you now have the option and can make the decision for your community.
• Usability-wise, we have a new Gallery interface that gives the users options to show / hide thumbnails so that even on smaller monitors, your users can still enjoy larger sized photo. We also managed to change the form interface so that mobile users are now able to log in and view the forum content (linkbutton issue with WM 6 resolved).
• There are also other major new features in this version, e.g. the ability to set up Thread Template for a forum (e.g. Product Review Criteria you wish every new thread to have) as well as being able to filter topics by Topic Type admin defined for each forum. With this new filtering capabilities in place, you no longer have to scan the list to find related messages.
• Last but not the least, with the additional support for CDN (Content Delivery Network to serve large JS files for the AJAX framework - FREE to use), your users can enjoy even faster page load time than with any of our previous version. Server-side dlls are now also free of Reflection (slow) code which translates to better page rendering speed (less server load).